Saigon (82 page)

Joseph Sherman turned up the collar of his overcoat against the chill December wind blowing along the Avenue de Général Leclerc in Gif-sur-Yvette and stamped his feet to warm them. With thirty other journalists and photographers of many different nationalities, he was awaiting the arrival of Henry Kissinger, and as he stood there, shoulders hunched against the cold, he reflected that the setting for the final confrontation between the United States and its Vietnamese enemies was as surprising and bizarre as everything else had been during the baffling war that had spanned an entire decade. The whitewashed artist’s cottage with its orange-tiled roof and green shutters, outside which the journalists had gathered, was an anonymous little dwelling standing behind stucco walls on the edge of the sleepy suburban town fifteen miles from the center of Paris; its address was io8 Avenue de Général Leclerc and it had first been chosen as a venue for peace talks late in 1969 when Dr. Kissinger and Hanoi’s chief negotiator, Le Duc Tho, began holding secret meetings away from the public gaze focused on the formal peace negotiations taking place in the grandiose French government conference chamber on the Avenue Kleber. Originally owned by a left-wing French artist, Fernand Leger, the cottage had been bequeathed on his death to the French Communist Party which Ho Chi Minh had helped to found in the 192os. Most prominent Vietnamese Communists of the older generation had cut their revolutionary teeth in Paris in the ‘twenties and ‘thirties and bonds of friendship developed then with French Communists still held in the 197os; so the party had willingly loaned the painter’s cottage to Hanoi as a diplomatic hideaway, and during the closing months of 1972, it had become the most frequently used of three North Vietnamese houses in and around Paris. 

From conversations with acquaintances in the State Department, Joseph knew that framed cubist abstracts by Fernand Léger still hung on the walls of the long main room where a rectangular green baize table had been set up, and the American delegation always found little bottles of French mineral water and glasses set out in front of their half-dozen chairs whenever they arrived. In the days when the venue was still secret, Kissinger had often stepped across the threshold breathless after a 100 m.p.h. dash through suburban Paris to throw off pursuing reporters, but since its location was now known, he had become accustomed to arriving more grandly in a white rented Mercedes, flanked by French police motorcycle outriders. 

At that same green baize table on October 8, Kissinger had listened with barely suppressed excitement as Le Duc Tho abruptly reversed four long years of stubborn intransigence and told him that his government was ready at last to agree to a cessation of hostilities. Hanoi would release its American prisoners, he had said, in return for an undertaking that President Nixon would withdraw all remaining U.S. troops and allow South Vietnam to work out its own political future. This amounted to a virtual acceptance of earlier American proposals, and the absence of the habitual Communist demand for the National Liberation Front to be admitted into a coalition government in Saigon had electrified the Americans present. They realized that the North Vietnamese had their eyes fixed firmly on the date for the American presidential election, then one month away, and obviously expected to be able to pressure President Nixon into settling quickly so as to gain maximum advantage at the polls — but otherwise the sincerity of the Hanoi delegates seemed beyond doubt. 

Two nerve-wracking months, however, had passed since that day. President Nixon had been reelected, but President Thieu had refused to give his approval to the deal, and when the negotiations resumed in mid-November, according to Joseph’s informants, the Americans had found that the Communists had returned inexplicably to their old stubborn uncooperative ways. The American delegation had tried to persuade the Communists to meet some of President Thieu’s objections but had made no headway at all, and Joseph was told that there had been no alternative but to break off the talks. Since the resumption on December 4, the new session had dragged on for ten days, and in their contacts with the journalists since then, the baffled American negotiators had admitted that they were becoming increasingly frustrated by the rude and sometimes contemptuous time-wasting tactics of the Communists. 

The journalists had erected their own scaffold in the street opposite the cottage so that they could see over the wall into the garden around it, and occasionally in breaks between the talks they had caught glimpses of Kissinger or Le Duc Tho strolling and chatting with aides beneath the bare trees. Atmospheric pictures had been taken of them with telephoto lenses, but the windows of the cottage had always remained draped with frilled net curtains which successfully concealed those inside from the journalists’ gaze covering the talks in this way was a frustrating assignment, but because hopes for a settlement were high, Joseph, like the others, had stuck doggedly to the task for the past ten days. 

Flurries of sleet were beginning to dance in the cold wind on that afternoon of December 13 when the Kissinger entourage finally drove up the avenue and swung into the cottage garden past solid steel gates that were immediately slammed shut behind their cars. A dumpy figure in a white raincoat and heavy-rimmed spectacles, Henry Kissinger strode stern-faced to the front door of the cottage without acknowledging the appeals from the journalists on their scaffold to stop and pose for a photograph. Joseph, like all the other correspondents, was watching intently to see if the austere, white-haired figure of Le Duc Tho would appear to greet Kissinger at the door, and because his attention was fully absorbed, he didn’t notice the curtains at an upper window shift briefly. In the event, Le Duc Tho made no appearance, and a buzz of disappointed comment rose from all round the viewing platform as gloomy predictions were exchanged about the early announcement of a cease-fire. 

As he watched the journalists conversing from his place beside the window in one of the upstairs rooms, Tran Van Kim suddenly snapped his fingers at an aide standing behind him and called for a pair of binoculars. Kim wore the same kind of dark, high-necked tunic as Le Duc Tho, his manner towards the junior members of the North Vietnamese delegation was similarly distant and formal, and when his aide returned with the binoculars, he took them from him impatiently. He adjusted the lenses with care until the group of journalists on the scaffold came sharply into focus, then he stared hard at one of the faces. 

“Fetch a list of the correspondents covering the talks,” he said quietly to his aide at last without turning round. “Check particularly to see if there is an American named ‘Sherman’ among them. And hurry!” 

The aide hastened from the room and returned a few minutes later bearing a sheaf of papers. “Yes, Comrade Kim,” he said breathlessly, “there is a ‘Joseph Sherman’ among the listed Americans.” He held out a telephoto close-up of Joseph taken by one of the delegation’s intelligence operatives, and Kim eagerly took it from him. As Kim studied the picture, the aide began reading dutifully from Joseph’s dossier. 

“Professor of Asian studies at Cornell University, 1954 to 1967; senior adviser to the U.S. Joint Public Affairs Office in Saigon for three months, January to March 1968; thereafter resigned and wrote a book entitled The American Betrayal criticizing United States policy in Vietnam. 

“Yes, yes,” broke in Kim testily, “the book’s well known. But what’s he doing now?” 

The aide consulted his list again. “Because of the fame his book has brought him, Joseph Sherman, who is married to a British television journalist and lives in London, has currently been commissioned by The Times of London to write a series of special analytical articles on the peace negotiations and the war. So far two have been published.” The aide handed over two press clippings attached to another sheet of paper. “At present he’s staying at the Intercontinental Hotel at the corner of Rue de Rivoli and the Rue de Castiglione alongside the Tuileries Gardens. His room number is 4567.” 

Kim read carefully through the clippings, still standing by the window, then he sat down at a desk and pulled a blank sheet of paper towards him. With a ball-point pen that he took from a breast pocket of his tunic, he wrote in French in his own hand: “I have spotted you outside among the journalists. I will meet you at 7.30 AM. tomorrow inside the gate of the Tuileries at the foot of Rue de Castiglione. Perhaps you would be interested to hear some news of your daughter, Tuyet — and the inside story of the deceitful intrigues which Kissinger and the American negotiators are pursuing inside this house— Tran Van Kim.” 

Kim sealed the note in an envelope and handed it to the aide. “Call one of our journalists on his car radio and ask him to come to the back of the house immediately. Give him this letter to deliver to Sherman. Tell him I shall be watching from the window.” 

When the leather-jacketed French Communist reporter, who was a stranger to Joseph, handed him the envelope on the scaffold, Tran Van Kim was able to see the frown of puzzlement that crossed the American’s face. He watched him read the note but when Joseph raised his eyes to stare in surprise towards the cottage, Kim was careful to stand well back behind the net curtains so that he couldn’t be seen. From the room below, the drone of Henry Kissinger’s voice was clearly audible, speaking English with guttural German inflections; it rose and fell in blunt, irritated cadences as the National Security Adviser told an expressionless Le Duc Tho that because the North Vietnamese delegation was obviously now stalling and resorting to trickery for some ulterior motive, the United States was not prepared to continue the discussions and the negotiations were therefore suspended. 

Tran Van Kim waved an arm vaguely towards the hosts of stone warriors, goddesses and orators last becoming visible on the columned walls of the Palais du Louvre in the growing light. “The French, Monsieur Sherman, are a classic example of a people too clever for their own good,” he said contemptuously as he walked beside Joseph through the light powdering of snow that covered the Tuileries Gardens. “I hope the same will not turn out to be true of the Americans.” He flashed a brittle smile at Joseph, then quickly turned his head away again. “The French, you see, have never been able to contain the exuberance of their own conceit. Is it surprising that the poor people of Paris, confronted daily with these overlarge, over-decorated palaces, should have risen up in anger to cut off the heads of those insufferably arrogant aristocrats who built them? The very existence of such overpowering buildings in their midst was an intolerable provocation. But then the French have always lacked a sense of proportion — that’s why they unfailingly exaggerate their own worth.” 

Joseph dug his hands deeper into his overcoat pockets but didn’t reply. The sky was still heavy with snow and the sculpted figures on the massive baroque façades of the Louvre stood out like sentinels in the suffused glow of the dawn. From the Rue de Rivoli and the quays along the Seine the noise of the early morning traffic was only a distant hum, like the buzzing of flies dying with the onset of winter. 

“See the angel with the outstretched wings and the clarion,” said Kim, pointing to a cornice silhouetted on the south wing. “That is what the French are best at — blowing their own trumpet.” He smirked at his own wit and glanced at Joseph. “You’ve seen the same ostentation on the front of the old Opera House in Saigon — and on the old palaces of the French governors. Their boastful architecture and their overbearing manner in Vietnam had the same effects on my countrymen as these palaces had on the poor people of France — they made us both revolutionaries.” The Vietnamese closed his eyes as he walked and sucked the cold air deep into his lungs. “But just the same it’s good to be back in Paris after all these years. We shouldn’t forget that it was their arrogance and their desire- to show off before a humble people that led the French colons to bring our best minds here to be educated — and that here we first studied the teachings of Marx and Lenin.” He sighed again as he walked. “But despite our differences we still had some things in common. The French and the Vietnamese are both unsentimental people.” He glanced quickly at Joseph once more. “Unlike the Americans, of course.” 

“Talking of being unsentimental, will you take the opportunity to visit your brother, Tam, while you’re here?” asked Joseph suddenly. “I’m sure you know he’s just arrived to join the Saigon delegation. I talked to him yesterday — it must be over thirty years since you last met.” Joseph watched Kim’s still deceptively youthful face, but it remained expressionless, and he didn’t reply. Although in his late fifties, there was no trace of gray in his dark hair, and his round, almost cherubic, features still bore a strong resemblance to his brother’s. “If you do want to talk to Tam, lie’s taken an apartment at number 3 Avenue Leopold II in the Sixteenth Arroridissement,” added Joseph, still watching him carefully. “He once told me that despite the differences between - you, he’d never be able to forget that you are his brother.” 

Kim turned away to gaze across the gardens, and Joseph was unable to see his face. For a while they walked in silence, then Kim shook his head dismissively. “I didn’t come to Paris [or family reasons, Monsieur Sherman. Nor, as you might imagine, did I come to discuss philosophy and history. I asked you to meet me because I wanted to tell you the real reasons behind the breakdown of the negotiations at Gif-sur-Yvette.” 

Joseph eyed him suspiciously. “Why tell me?” 

“Because you’re well known as an authoritative critic of your government — and you’re writing now for an influential Western newspaper outside America. If you tell the truth in tomorrow’s edition of The Times, perhaps the evil plans of your president will be thwarted.” 

“What ‘evil plans’ exactly are you talking about?” 

Kim took a deep breath arid turned to look at the American as they walked. “Soon no doubt your president or Dr. Kissinger will tell the world that we’re responsible for breaking off the talks — but the truth is exactly the opposite! We proposed cease-fire terms in early October that amounted to acceptance of an earlier American outline. Kissinger was delighted to agree. Only when the Thieu regime in Saigon was consulted did Kissinger and your president begin to go back on that agreement. It’s well known that Thieu would oppose any agreement at all on principle, since his dictatorship will be undermined by the slightest change. But now he’s raised no less than sixty-nine objections to our draft proposal — and your president, instead of forcing him to accept the terms already agreed with us, is asking us now to reconsider all sixty-nine points. Nixon and Kissinger seem to fear above all else a public row with their puppet Thieu.” He stopped talking, and his eyes glittered angrily. “Now we’ve just heard through Soviet intelligence sources in Washington that Nixon is preparing to send a massive fleet of bombers against our cities during the Christmas period to force us to accept these new changes — that’s the truth behind the breakdown of the talks.” 

Joseph reflected on Kim’s words in silence for a moment. “When did you arrive in Paris, Kim?” 

“Only yesterday.” 

Joseph’s expression grew thoughtful. “I wonder if you’re telling the truth? Couldn’t it be that you and the rest of the Politburo in Hanoi have suddenly realized too late that Le Duc Tho may have been overplaying your hand — and you want to try to use roe or someone like me to get you off the hook?” Kim shook his head vigorously but Joseph ignored him. “I’m too long in the tooth not to recognize a deliberate leak when I hear one, Kim. I know you’ve always believed you’d be able to crack the Thieu regime wide open one day if you pressed hard enough — but if you’re getting cold feet now on the idea, I’m not the one to help you. A critic of my government I may be — but I’m no Communist-stooge!” 

They walked on through the snow in silence, then a calculating expression flitted across the face of the Vietnamese. “Is it of no interest to you then, Monsieur Sherman, if Hanoi is bombed?” 

Joseph stopped suddenly in his tracks and looked hard into Kim’s face. “What the hell do you mean by that?” 

Kim gazed steadily back at him. “Your daughter, Tuyet, and her children have lived in Hanoi for the past four years — or had you forgotten?” 

Little flurries of powdery snow blew between the two men as they stared at one another; then Joseph took a quick step towards the Vietnamese. “‘Unsentimental’ is the right word for you, Kim,” he breathed, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. “You’re so damned ‘unsentimental’ that common human decency seems to mean nothing to you. Do you think I imagine you had nothing to do with what happened to my son Mark? You and the rest of the Politburo must have sifted through the names of all the U.S. pilots you ever captured to see if there wasn’t some political capital to be made out of them. You’re nothing if not thorough.” 

Joseph was shaking with anger, but the Vietnamese remained unruffled. “My comrades and I don’t have time to concern ourselves with minor details, Monsieur Sherman. We have many complicated duties to perform.” 

“I’ve got ‘complicated duties’ to. perform too,” said Joseph grimly. “And they don’t include writing disguised propaganda on behalf of the Lao Dong — even under the threat of blackmail.” He glared angrily at Kim, then turned abruptly on his heel and stalked away into the thickening snow. 

Kim watched him go for a moment, then pulled a notebook from an inside pocket and wrote in it briefly. He waited until Joseph disappeared from view before making his way slowly to the Rue de Rivoli entrance of the Tuileries once more, and there he flagged down a passing taxi. After casting wary glances along the street in both directions, he got in and read to the driver from his notebook the address in the Sixteenth Arrondissement that Joseph had given him. Because the snow was getting heavier, he didn’t spot the little radio car driven by the same black-jacketed French journalist who had delivered his message to Joseph at Gif-sur-Yvette. The car had been parked on the north side of the Rue de Rivoli alongside the Intercontinental, and the hard-faced North Vietnamese intelligence agent seated beside the Frenchman nodded once to indicate he should follow the taxi as it pulled away in the direction of the Place de Ia Concorde. 

The radio car stayed a careful hundred yards behind the taxi all along the Seine to the Pont d’Iena where both cars crossed the river again. In the Rue La Fontaine beyond the broadcasting rotunda of the Maison de Radio Télefusion Française, Kim stopped the taxi and instructed the driver to wait. ‘The intelligence agent shadowing him ordered his driver to slow down, and they watched Kim walk around the corner out of sight into Avenue Leopold II. A’s the agent’s car pulled slowly across the junction, the men inside saw Kim pressing the bell of number 3, the corner apartment, and almost immediately the door was opened by a Vietnamese whose facial resemblance to Kim was striking. The agent took a photograph with his miniature camera as Tran Van Tam seized the hand of the brother he had not seen for thirty-six years and flung his other arm around his neck. 

Before Tam drew Kim inside, the agent managed to take a second picture, and after making a note of the address, he ordered the French journalist to turn around and drive the car past again so that he could take a further picture of the whole building. 

Inside an apartment on the first floor, the two brothers who had not met since the day of the tennis championships in Saigon in 1936 stood looking at each other with tear- brimming in their eyes. “I may only stay a few minutes,” said Kim in a choked whisper. “And there must be absolutely no discussion of politics.”