It is March 1967.
I am in Saigon. I am hot and tired. I have a vicious fungus on both hands. The war is everywhere including just outside the hotel, but the adrenalin rush is so great that it tends to overcome fear. Sometimes.
The memory comes back to me in the wake of the 50th anniversary of the April 29, 1973, signing of the Paris peace agreement, which led to the U.S. troop withdrawal and the return of the American POWs. However, the war did not really end until 1975.
Anyway, I am waiting two hours for the call from the city editor of the Boston Herald. There were no cellphones back then, or computers or email. The notice to standby came by cable. It had to be important. I wrote about it later.
The call comes in. I am expecting rave reviews for my stories. Instead, Roger Dejarlis, the city editor, and Bill Stewart, managing editor, tell me I have to catch up with Massachusetts Sen Edward W. Brooke (1967-1979) and deliver a message from Hal Clancy. Clancy (“Prince Hal”) is the powerful Boston Herald publisher and president of WHDH-TV (then Channel 5) and WHDH radio.
Brooke, after touring war-ravaged Vietnam, had left for Cambodia and Laos in a far-fetched effort to go to Hanoi and meet with Ho Chi Minh and end the war or to at least get his picture taken.
“Are you crazy? I can’t do that. Jesus, there’s a war going on. People are getting killed. I can hold the phone out the window and you can hear the artillery.”
“We know it’s tough. But you can do it.”
We go back and forth. I am livid, but I finally agree to do it, or at least try. It had to be important if Hal Clancy wanted it done. Forget the war.
“What’s the message?”
“Don’t get mad and don’t laugh. But he wants you to tell Brooke to keep June 16th open.”
“What for?”
“His daughter is graduating from Worcester Assumption, and he wants Brooke to speak at the graduation.”
“Are you crazy? In the middle of a war, he wants me to catch up with Brooke and deliver this stupid (expletive) message?”
“You can do it.”
I thought of quitting. But I loved being a newspaper reporter, and I loved journalism even though journalism sometimes did not love me back.
There was an Air Viet Nam plane that left Saigon for Bangkok, Thailand, every day with a stop at Phnom Penh, Cambodia. If Brooke could not get to Hanoi, as I figured he wouldn’t, he just might board this plane at Phnom Penh, or I could catch up with him in Bangkok. If I failed to deliver Clancy’s message, I could return to Saigon or just kill myself.
First, I had to get on the plane without a reservation or a ticket. Saigon airport was a madhouse filled with U.S. fighter/bomber jets and helicopters taking off and landing amidst the incoming of huge military aircraft carrying troops and supplies.
Shamelessly I told Wong, an airline employee who had helped me upon my arrival in Saigon that I had a message from President Lyndon Johnson for Brooke. He stamped me out a ticket and squeezed me on the overcrowded plane. I slipped him $25.
So, the plane takes off and lands at Phnom Penh. It sits there for an hour or so.
Then there is a commotion, and somebody is boarding up in first class. It’s Brooke. My hunch was right. He failed to get to Hanoi.
He sees me and he’s shocked. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m here to deliver a message?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t get mad and don’t laugh, but Hal Clancy wants you to keep June 16 open.”
“He what? They called you from Boston to catch up with me and deliver that message? In the middle of a war?”
“Yeah. He wants you to keep June 16 open so you can speak at Worcester Assumption where his daughter is graduating.:
“That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, I know, crazy in Vietnam. What’s even crazier is that I did it. I caught up with you in the middle of a war and delivered the stupid message. So, how crazy am I?”
On June 16 Brooke spoke at Worcester Assumption.
Mission accomplished.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
