Graham Martin - Vietnam

Vietnam

While serving as Ambassador to Thailand, Martin's foster son, Marine 1LT Glenn Dill Mann, was killed near Chu Lai, South Vietnam, in November 1965 while attacking enemy positions at Thach Tru with his UH-1 helicopter gunship. 1LT Mann is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Martin was appointed as Ambassador to South Vietnam on 21 June 1973.

Martin was a committed anti-Communist, but he seriously underestimated the severity of the South Vietnamese situation, to the point that in the spring of 1975, when most American officials were convinced that South Vietnam was doomed to collapse, he continued to believe that Saigon and the Mekong Delta area could be held because of the tenacity of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in the Battle of Xuan Loc under the command of General Le Minh Dao.

In fact, in the NSA history The Secret Sentry, the author says:

"In Saigon, Ambassador Graham Martin refused to believe the SIGINT (signals intelligence) reporting that detailed the massive North Vietnamese military buildup taking place all around (Saigon) ... and repeatedly refused to allow NSA's station chief, Tom Glenn, to evacuate his forty-three man staff and their twenty-two dependents from Saigon."

Because of Martin's refusal to believe the SIGINT, and his refusal to allow the evacuation of the intelligence staff from the embassy, "(t)he North Vietnamese captured the entire twenty-seven-hundred-man (South Vietnamese SIGINT) organization inact as well as their equipment." (ibid)

Martin was evacuated by helicopter from the US Embassy, Saigon on the morning of 30 April 1975 as Communist forces overran the city. The helicopter used was a USMC CH-46 Sea Knight call sign Lady Ace 09 of HMM-165 serial number 154803. It is now on display at the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum in San Diego, California.

Martin died in 1990 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.