Graham Anderson Martin (September 22, 1912 – March 13, 1990) was an American diplomat. He was the ambassador to Thailand and as U.S. representative to SEATO from 1963 to 1967, ambassador to Italy from 1969 to 1973 and the last United States Ambassador to South Vietnam from 1973 until his evacuation during the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
Early life Martin was born and raised in the small town of Mars Hill, North Carolina, in the state's western mountains. His father was an ordained Baptist minister. He graduated from Wake Forest College in 1932. Like almost all whites from the South at the time, Martin was a Democrat in his politics. However, unlike many other Southern whites who represented the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, Martin was an avid supporter of the New Deal, which he saw as a way to improve North Carolina, which was a very backward and underdeveloped state at the time. Under the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, Martin became a protégé of W. Averell Harriman, who became his patron, which greatly aided his career. Martin began his career in the National Recovery Administration, a New Deal agency created to counter the effects of the Great Depression. During World War II, he was a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer, and he was aboard USS Missouri for the Japanese surrender in 1945.
Career Martin first worked in the diplomatic field at the U.S. embassy in Paris, France, from 1947 to 1955. The American journalist Stanley Karnow described Martin as a "fierce anti-Communist liberal" whose main duties in Paris were to counter the influence of the French Communist Party on French life. His abilities as an administrative counselor and deputy Chief of Mission gained him attention from the State Department, which rapidly advanced his career. President Eisenhower appointed Martin as the Representative of the United States to the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva, and he served in that office from 1960 to 1962.
Ambassador to Thailand Martin was appointed on 10 September 1963 and left this post on 9 September 1967.
While serving as ambassador to Thailand, Martin came to the attention of Richard Nixon, during a banquet for King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the Embassy in Bangkok. Nixon was in Thailand acting as a corporate attorney, accompanying Vice President Hubert Humphrey. When the King toasted President Lyndon Johnson, Humphrey tried to return the toast with a toast to the King. Martin interceded and gave the toast himself, explaining later to both Humphrey and Nixon that as the Ambassador, he was the President's personal representative."Diplomatic List: Order of Precedence and Date of Presentation of Credentials". Office of the Chief of Protocol, U.S. Department of State. He finished his explanation by saying "If you become President yourself someday, Mr. Vice President, you can be sure that I will guard your interests as closely as I did President Johnson's tonight".
During Ambassador Martin's tenure in Thailand, he forged close bonds with the local government and the Thai Royal family. Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara heeded the Joint Chiefs' request to escalate bombing runs over North Vietnam; and to provide close air support cover for covert missions in the highlands of South Vietnam; the secret war in Laos; and Cambodian excursions. The U.S. military needed more air bases for staging, and to launch B-52 bomber missions. Using his personal relations with Thai royals and government leaders, Martin convinced Thailand to allow more U.S. troops and materiel to be stationed at bases on Thai soil. Martin advised that if Thai commanders were "in charge", these would remain "Thai bases"...and avoid embarrassment or public support for the escalating U.S. war. The U.S. military expanded existing bases and build new ones; including Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base; and the U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield in October 1965. From 1966 to 1975, U-Tapao became the most important strategic air base for U.S. bombing and cover missions of the war.
Ambassador to Italy Martin was appointed on 30 October 1969 and left this post on 10 February 1973.
During his time as ambassador Martin was instrumental in channelling funds to various entities believed to be sympathetic to American foreign policy goals, including organisations and individuals with dubious anti-democratic and neo-fascist connotations. In 1972, he gave over $800,000 to General Vito Miceli, Italy's army intelligence chief, with the approval of the director of the National Security Council, Henry Kissinger, despite objections from the CIA Rome station chief about Miceli's ability to spend the money properly and his association with a prominent neo-fascist journalist (believed to be Pino Rauti, the founder of Ordine Nuovo). Philip Willan, in his book Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy (1991), explains that Martin – described by the Pike Committee in 1976 as a "man of unusual force" – managed to seize control of this money through willpower alone, citing an argument that he had about the funds with the Rome station chief as evidence of his uncompromising nature:
Miceli, who was arrested on charges of subversive conspiracy in 1974, subsequently became a far-right member of the Italian parliament. It is unknown to this day how he spent the money.
Ambassador to South Vietnam
Martin was appointed as Ambassador to South Vietnam on 21 June 1973. Karnow wrote about Martin that: "anachronistically, he was still inspired by the crusade to save Southeast Asia" from Communism. Martin's nephew had been killed in action in South Vietnam in 1965, and Martin felt a strong sense of responsibility to ensure that his death was not in vain by winning the war. Karnow described the reasons for Martin's appointment as ambassador by because he was the ideal "fall guy" should South Vietnam collapse. Martin was one of the few U.S. diplomats who was still committed to winning the Vietnam war, and as a liberal Democrat, any failures in Saigon on his part would not reflect badly on the Republican Nixon administration. Karnow noted that the disdain and contempt he was held in Washington could be seen in the fact that neither Nixon nor his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger mentioned him even once in their respective memoirs. Though not in his memoirs, Kissinger does give accolades to Martin indirectly while relating the circumstances surrounding the U.S. evacuation from Saigon in his book Ending the Vietnam War.
Martin was a controversial U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam; he was ill-prepared to act as an ambassador in a country fighting for its survival. Martin had been injured in an automobile accident, which limited his ability to travel. During his time in Saigon, he almost never left that city to tour the rest of the country, and as a result his contacts were only with the South Vietnamese elite. Martin spoke no Vietnamese, but he was fluent in French, a language widely spoken by the South Vietnamese elite as Vietnam was a former French colony. Martin's dispatches to Washington tended to reflect his contacts with elite circles in Saigon, and he showed little interest in the masses. In common with many other American diplomats, Martin found President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu to be a "prickly" personality who was too sensitive to any slight, real or imagined. Martin also had an abrasive personality, much given to rudeness and outbursts of rage, and many found him to be unpleasant. Through Martin had difficult relations with Thiệu, he had an unbounded confidence in his regime, and his dispatches to Washington during almost all of his entire time in Saigon portrayed South Vietnam in a very optimistic light.
The Arab oil shock of October 1973-March 1974 set off a massive bout of inflation that destroyed South Vietnam's economy. In turn, the inflation caused corruption in South Vietnam to reach epic levels as corrupt officials stole more to make up for the inflationary pressure. By the summer of 1974, about 90% of the soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) were not receiving enough pay to support themselves or their families. Many diplomats at the US Embassy from the summer of 1974 onward reported their concerns that morale in the ARVN had fallen to dangerously low levels. Reflecting his tendency to put the best possible gloss on South Vietnam, Martin in his cables to Washington downplayed these concerns, stating that the ARVN would not collapse. In December 1974, the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched an offensive in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam that proved more successful than expected and on 6 January 1975 took the provincial capital of Phước Long. The PAVN commanders reported that many ARVN soldiers simply did not want to fight and surrendered after only token resistance.
On 1 March 1975 the PAVN started the Battle of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. After the battle ended in a PAVN victory on 11 March 1975, the North Vietnamese decided to launch an offensive to end the war in 1975 instead of 1976 as initially planned. The offensive was named the Ho Chi Minh campaign, a choice of name that reflected the viewpoint it would be a successful operation. By 25 March Huế, the old imperial capital of Vietnam fell to the PAVN. Thiệu was slow to order a withdraw of his divisions and by 30 March when Danang was taken by the PAVN, the ARVN's best divisions were lost. With the road to Saigon wide open, it became imperative for the PAVN to take the capital before the monsoons began in May, leading to a rapid march on Saigon. Once the monsoons began, large scale military operations would be impossible. With the PAVN advancing on Saigon, Martin continued to give optimistic reports about the ability of the ARVN to hold out, and stated that he was against an evacuation. William Colby, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at a meeting with Kissinger warned that Martin was delusional in his assessment, and advised an evacuation, advice that Kissinger rejected.
During the first four months of 1975, Martin ignored advice to reduce the number of American officials in Saigon down from 6,500 to 1,100 in order to facilitate an evacuation. Believing Saigon would not fall, Martin vetoed plans to move South Vietnamese refugees from Saigon via river freighters down the Saigon River to the port of Vũng Tàu on the South China Sea, where ships would pick them up. Martin advised Kissinger, who was now the Secretary of State, that he was against a mass evacuation from Saigon, which he feared would depress morale in the ARVN. On 3 April 1975, Martin at a meeting with Thiệu admitted that the situation had become grim with the North Vietnamese taking the Central Highlands, but promised him that the United States would send more military aid to help the ARVN hold a line along the Mekong river. In early April 1975, Martin had Alan Carter, the chief of the U.S. information bureau in Saigon, tape a video in which Carter stated that there was no danger of Saigon falling and the United States would stand by the Paris Peace Accords. Martin was sick with pneumonia in April 1975 and his body did not react well with the antibiotics he was taking, he was described as looking "like a walking corpse". By 10 April 1975, the PAVN had reached the town of Xuân Lộc, just northeast of Saigon.