Research Catalog

Title

Escape with honor : my last hours in Vietnam / Terry McNamara with Adrian Hill.

Author

McNamara, Francis Terry, 1927-

Publication

Washington : Brassey's, c1997.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Hill, Adrian, 1943-

Description

xii, 227 p. : ill., map; 24 cm.

Summary

• Francis Terry McNamara was U.S. consul general in the provincial capital of Can Tho, the man in charge of American interests in the Mekong Delta. Arriving for his third Vietnam tour in 1974, he had no idea he might become one of the Americans who would have to "turn out the lights" as South Vietnam fell. When the U.S. Embassy gave the evacuation order in April 1975, he was determined to keep some of the promises his country had made.
• With his dedicated consulate staff and Marine guards, McNamara organized a complicated and dangerous riverine evacuation of hundreds of Filipino and Vietnamese civilians, many of whom had been marked for death by the rapidly advancing communist forces. Documenting what were perhaps the last American shots fired during the Vietnam War and highly critical of the CIA's performance during the apocalyptic final hours, Escape with Honor is a thrilling testimony to American honor.

Subject

• McNamara, Francis Terry, 1927-
• 1961 - 1975
• Geschichte 1975
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975 > Personal narratives, American
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975 > Evacuation of civilians

Genre/Form

Personal narratives – American

Note

• "An ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Book"
• Includes index.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Prologue -- A rude awakening -- To witness -- The Foreign Service goes to war -- On familiar turf -- Settling in to a new domain -- The number wizard -- A welcome new broom -- Harbingers of doom -- Recipe for disaster -- The beginning of the end -- A sailor's choice -- Preparations -- The final hours -- Perfidious spooks -- Commodore Thang keeps a promise -- With any luck -- Rescue at sea -- USAID logistics to the rescue again -- "Terry and his pirates" join the navy -- Back in the world -- Epilogue -- Appendix: Statement of S.Sgt. Boyette S. Hasty, USMC.

ISBN

1574881205 (alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^97019876^

OCLC

• 36949791
• SCSB-11940298

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library