A daring escape: How an American banker rescued 113 Vietnamese civilians

In early April 1975, after the final U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam, Chase Manhattan Bank senior executives asked Ralph White, a Bangkok-based junior officer, to accept a daunting mission: serving as the exit strategy for the Saigon branch’s 53 Vietnamese employees. As the subtitle of Mr. White’s recently published book promises, he succeeded. What it doesn’t give away are the overwhelming barriers he faced and the smart, often heart-stopping ways he overcame them. Recently Mr. White chatted with Monitor contributor Erin Douglass. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

The success of your mission seemed to hinge on several key behaviors, including taking responsibility. Does that ring true to you – and what were some others?

I guess so. I often hear “tenacity,” and I think that played a role. I was only 10 years out of high school and, I think, immature for my age. I was knocking around in Southeast Asia when, all of a sudden, history started happening. I was a bit awed by it. 

I think the foreign service officers who sided with me – Shep Lowman, the political officer in the U.S. Embassy [in Saigon], and Ken Moorefield, who was operating as the ambassador’s aid at the Evacuation Control Center, the two of them were absolutely vital to my success. Along with Col. [William] Madison at the Defense Attaché Office, I would say they were really the key success factors.

As far as my own qualities, there’s a term: willful. When somebody tries to keep me from doing something that I think I ought to be able to do, I get very obsessive about finding a way around them. I just kept poking away at the embassy and the Defense Attaché. The other factor was just sheer luck. Twice in the book, I mention how many places things could have gone differently, starting at the beginning when they picked me instead of the guy who they originally offered the assignment to, who very likely would’ve evacuated the four [bank] officers and considered it a job well done.

Another stand-out quality in the book is your sharp observation. Would you share the story about the dust cloud in Saigon?

I had worked in Vietnam four years earlier as a civilian with American Express, but up in the central highlands. I had visited Saigon a few times, and even though a lot of the streets were paved, there was always this deep cloud of dust hanging over the streets. When I returned four years later, and this was 18 months or so after the Paris Peace Accords had been signed and American troops had been withdrawn, that cloud of dust had gone down [to ankle level]. For me, this was the dog that didn’t bark. There was a detail here that was missing. Of course, it was the U.S. military presence. 

You developed an interesting partnership with Nga, a teenage girl working in the sex industry whose brother was connected to the North Vietnamese. What stood out about Nga?

The way we met was so tragic; I felt very sorry for her. I had a bit of history here: I would pay women who were in the sex industry to teach me the language. I did it in Thailand, I did it in Vietnam, and I’ve done it in other places. (I’ve never paid for sex.) It’s a relatively inexpensive language lesson. That was my original attraction. I started realizing she was quite bright and quite sweet behind the tougher facade.

At one point in Saigon, you get a ride with the embassy’s commercial attaché in his impressive new Lincoln Continental. Your observations about how cut off you feel riding in it are quite telling. Would you share that experience?

If you walk, you pick up a lot of detail. If you ride a bicycle, you lose a little detail. Then in a car you’re a bit more shut off, but you still have good vision, and you can roll down the windows. But when you’re in a tank of a car – armored, bulletproof glass, air-conditioned – you have no idea what’s going on out there. It’s sound-deadened; your thoughts are more inward than outward. 

I put it together later that [the Continental] maybe did have something to do with the U.S. being out of touch, certainly the ambassador being out of touch because he always traveled like that. If you have servants serve you your food and cultivate your garden and take care of your grandkids and walk your dog and do all of this stuff and then you ride around in a Continental and always stay in luxury suites, you really don’t have a feel for what’s going on. I think some ambassadors would wander in to the lowest-ranking office and say, “What’s going on today?” but that wouldn’t be [Ambassador] Martin’s style.

It’s been almost 50 years since the evacuation. Of the hundred-plus Vietnamese civilians you helped (and who helped you), whom do you still keep in touch with? 

When I finished the manuscript, it was probably early 2020, I hadn’t made any contact with any of the Vietnamese [colleagues]. I had made great efforts – and there was just nothing. 

Then I started becoming willful! I found six Vietnamese American associations in America. They each have newsletters, and they’re all hungry for content, so I sent them text saying that Ralph White, formerly with the Chase Manhattan Bank in Saigon, is looking for his former colleagues. I got a phone call from the president of the New Jersey Vietnamese American association, Tony Nguyen. And he said, “Look, Ralph, I know what you did. My father was caught in Saigon after the fall, and the Communists put him in a forced labor camp in the jungle for 10 years. That would’ve happened to all of your people ... but you saved them. What I’d like to do is invite you to our association’s Lunar New Year Tet Gala.” 

My girlfriend and I showed up; it was basically a gymnasium attached to a community center in Piscataway, New Jersey. As far as I recall, we were the only Caucasians there. A woman sat next to me and said, “What are you doing here? Are you in the right room?” And I just rolled my eyeballs at the stupidity of what I was about to say. “I’m trying to find former employees of the Chase Manhattan Bank in Saigon.” And she said, “Oh, I know somebody who worked at Chase Saigon ... my best friend!” The news went out that Ralph White had surfaced, so I was getting calls from Orlando and Houston and San Francisco ... all these people I knew. 

Any final thoughts?

Something that isn’t in the book, and [Ken Moorefield] doesn’t know yet, is that I’ve proposed him for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is for his valor as head of the Evacuation Control Center getting my 113 people out – and, I think, a couple thousand unauthorized people. He went on to become an ambassador in Africa. 

Have you visited Vietnam since the evacuation?

I am planning to go back. Later this year, I’ll pick a time between the rainy season and the hot season and see if I can go around and explore my old haunts.