Transcript: Episode #198: Wes Kingsley
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Host 1:42
If this is your first time listening to our podcast welcome, our programming brings a diversity of voices connected to me and Mark to share their perspectives, thoughts and reflections about what has been happening there since the military coup in 2021. All of our guests share one thing in common, a deep personal stake in the ongoing crisis. And it is an honor for us to be able to bring their voices into your earbuds. But however difficult it may be to hear some of their stories, we hope that you will come away with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of what is happening there.
Wes Kingsley 3:35
I got to Korea after joining the US Army at the age of 18. I received training and was assigned to have ended up at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but then was I was there for about a year and then I was assigned to Korea. And I went there on a troop ship, the USS Patrick and I pulled the KP duty all the way over to we went to Sasebo, Japan and then on to two. I think you're Inchon one of the two but I was I spent about 16 months in Korea I would at that time was a 13 month tour. But it was extended because of military coup Park Chung Hee overthrew the government at that time. So US personnel were extended. And I ended up for an extra three months. And but I enjoyed the tour in Korea and I was sent there as a communicator, but ended up as a military policeman for most of the time. And during during my time as a military policeman, I worked with the Koreans, they lived with us. In our barracks, the Korean augmentation to the US Army kept ahimsa. And through one of them, who I worked with on the main gate of the compound, checking people as they entered an exit accident. We, we found a young girl who was outside the gate, selling pencils. And I thought that was kind of strange. So I asked the kids to go out and check on her and see what it was all about. And later, it led to us kind of adopting the kid she was an orphan, and was trying to make money. And I'm not sure how she got to chin, John. But there she was. And long story short, we ended up adopting the kid and found a Korean family in the village of June, John, that agreed that she could stay there, we rented a room. And we paid for it, of course, and paid money for food. And we got her enrolled in the local school, which took a lot of effort. And we got involved with some church people, some young people from the church there, and a Christian church, and she was allowed after a lot of hassle to, to join one of the schools there. And so we took care of her I collected money from from my fellow troops, and the Koreans donated their time and translation services and everything. And so we took care of that girl for the most of a good part of my time, to John. And I left at the end of my tour after being extended. And they tracked me down in the replacement company that I was assigned to waiting to board a ship to go back to the US. And lo and behold, I ended up on the same ship, the USS Patrick and I ended up calling JPL all the way back to the States. And we got to Oakland Army terminal. And that was in July of 1962. And I was released a couple of months early. I was actually my three years it was up in August. But we arrived back there in July. So they allowed me to leave the military at that point. And I went back to my home in Plymouth, Massachusetts. But going back to my time at that placement company getting ready to leave, I was tracked down at that time. And they call me to the orderly room and told me they had something for me. And I was kind of amazed that that would happen. But they gave me a scroll that was rolled up inside of a like a like a tube with a cap. And when I enrolled it, it was in both English on one side and Korean on the right beside the English language. The English language was not perfect, but it was it was it told me a story they were giving me an award for helping this little Korean girl. The the Korean troops the pit team says that I worked with apparently reported up their chain. And somebody it was from the revolution, revolutionary government of South Korea. It was part of Chinese government that I don't think had really been established yet. And I still have the scroll of course. But that kind of finished off my tour in Korea on a very high note for me. And I was quite thrilled to get that and I still have and I got back to the Oakland Army terminal and was released as I mentioned a couple of months early from the army and made my way back to Plymouth, Massachusetts, where I grew up and went to school and so on. So I I stayed around Plymouth at the time I joined the army I went in on what they call the buddy program. So there were three of my good friends from high school when we all went in to the army together. And so they were all back in Plymouth and we were able to meet up again a couple of them went to Germany. One of them stayed at Fort Bragg and was on the pistol team there. And the rest of us were kind of at a loose end after getting out of the military. So I didn't. I had a brother that worked in Washington, DC, and he was working for the agency in the communications office. So he sent me an application to join, to apply for employment with the agency since my background was actually in camo. So I submitted the application and then got word that I was to come to Washington for an interview. And I went, I packed up and went to Washington and stayed with my brother and went into Langley, and met with the recruiter who, of course, asked me a bunch of questions and was he was not happy to learn that the Morse code that I knew and could copy was one of the requirements. But I didn't have the capability or I wasn't trained in how to type the Morse code as I heard it. So I, I took a test with a pencil and paper for the Morse code and finally talk to him into giving you the couple of months and letting me teach myself how to copy the Morse code with a typewriter. So I borrowed a typewriter and I borrowed a shortwave radio and I was back in Plymouth. And I spent the evenings teaching myself, first of all, I got a book and taught myself how to type touch type. And then I started typing coders, I heard that I listened to ham radio operators and the like, and got so that I could, could take it. And when I felt confident enough, I contacted the agency recruiter again and asked him if I could be retested. And he agreed and if I went to DC again, and I passed the qualifications at that point. So I went, I went back home, because actually, it took about a year for them to get my clematis. And then in the army, I had a secret clearance. But of course, for the for the agency they did, they made it top secret. So that took a year of background investigations and everything. And finally in April of 1963, came back to Washington, and was processed in as a staff employee. And sent for it was a an abbreviated course, for communications officers for the agency. And I went through that abbreviated course, I think it was like a three month period. At that time, it was shortly after the Bay of Pigs. And the US government found that they didn't. They weren't satisfied with the communications that were coming out of Latin America at that time, they felt that they needed to beef up that capability. So they had a hiring portion. And I guess that's why I was hired. But I didn't end up going to Latin America, I ended up in Eritrea. And that was in 1960 6464. I went to Asmara. And that's how I started my career with the agency.
Host 14:09
Great, great. Thanks for that background and sharing how you got into do the work that eventually brought you to Burma. Can you tell us a bit about your first assignment and what you were doing there?
Wes Kingsley 14:22
Yeah, my first assignment was in Asmara. I was working, shift work there. On a US Army base, that's where we worked. I lived out in the town. And we worked like eight hour shifts. It was a very, very good group of people. And we were providing a relay service for a lot of the embassies in on the continent. And a lot of them were Sydney CW capabilities only. And some others were radio teletype, which used an in ciphered system of one time tape. But the the Morse code system was using one time pads. So we copied Morse code sometimes for eight and eight hours stretch. And, of course, you could receive the code and type it into your mail. And then you'd have to take it back into a crypto room and break it back. But it was a very tedious, slow process. And, and eventually, all of most of these CW circuits were phased out and became one time tape. And then one time take became an electronic in cipher system. So it was much faster and more efficient. And you could share a lot more information. But I spent about two years on that assignment. And I was asked at that time, shortly after I arrived there, but for actually the first year, since I was a recent recently discharged from the army. And also I was one of the first single people assigned to this facility in Asmara. The Sudanese at that time, were having one of their uprising where the southern Sudanese were being killed in the streets by the northern Sudanese. So the communicator there, the chief of the communication section, had a family. And they were worried about the family, the kids and everything else, because it was kind of a dangerous situation, as I say, they were, they were, there was a lot of violence. And so as a single person, they asked me if I would agree to go and provide support, because that married person was going to wait. So I agreed to go and, and I did. And I remember times walking in the evenings, to the embassy, from the house where I was staying, and there will be buildings burning on both sides of the streets. And I got got into the communication center. And we we had to lock ourselves in the vault and have everything ready for an emergency destruction and case the embassy got overwhelmed. And there was one other guy there that I worked, I actually I worked for him at that time. And we spent for the three or four days locked up in that vault, just because it was too dangerous to leave. And an interesting part of that was there was another team in town. I'm not sure what they were doing. But they were in a car when they coming to the embassy. And they ran into a group of rioters. And one of the rioters picked up a brick or a stone or some I think it was a brick and threw it and actually went right through the windshield of the car and hit one of the occupants right in the forehead. And so that created the problem of getting him out of the country to medical attention. But they did. And he survived. Well, that was 1965. In 1993. When I retired, I went through a program preparing people for retirement. And we had various classes. And one day and one of the classes on the break. I saw a guy that had this big scar in the middle of his forehead. And so I ended up going up to him and asked him if he was in Khartoum in 1965 or so 64 Actually, and sure enough, it was the same person. And we had had quite a chat, but I was glad to see him and then he was able to continue. But so I stayed there in Khartoum. And then finally I it was a message that came in for me and asking me if I would be agreeable to go to leave Khartoum and they had an urgent requirement for some Ready to go to the Belgian Congo. The Belgian Congo at that time was undergoing an insurrection. They were trying to overthrow the government and they had formed a group and they were raising all kinds of problems for the central government of the, of the Congo. And I was asked to go there because of the situation that it was one of the first hostage situations for the US government. Stanleyville had been taken over by these rebels, they call symbols. And they captured the Consulate General, and the communications people and a couple of other US citizens, employees of the Department of State and they were holding them hostage. So it as I say, it was one of the first situations and so they wanted this was after. Well, let me back up a minute. They have this hostage situation going on. And the agency wanted to send a team in there to try to monitor the situation in Stanleyville and the Belgian government I'm it might have been through the UN and had troops in the Belgian Congo and kitchen and kitchen, Leopoldville at that time, and they were planning a strike on Stanleyville to go in and try to free the hostages. And actually that's what happened. I think the US government provided their support for them. But paratroopers Belgian paratroopers dropped into Stanleyville and secure the town. And when the paratroopers are up, this is what I was told when the paratroopers dropped. The hostages who were in like a town square waiting to be executed. The commotion from the paratroopers caused so much of a excitement that they were able to run away from this place where they were being held. And one of them was that he was an American. I believe he was shot climbing over a wall trying to get away. But the others did get away. were secured by the Belgians and sent out of the city. The team that I was part of landed shortly after all that happened. And we spent several weeks in Stanleyville. We, we stayed in an apartment house of somebody who had been evacuated. And I set up a communications link from that site. And we were living with the mercenaries. Michael Horn, who was a South African mercenary leader in well known throughout that part of the world was employed by the government of Mikey tissue me who is the president and I guess at that time of the Dr. Congo, and he had his offices in Leopoldville. But Michael Hora had a group that was comprised of very mixed a lot of people they were Germans, South Africans, French, Belgian, and I don't think they were any American mercenaries but they were it was quite a mix. So we shared the facilities with those guys a mess halls and, and so on. And they decided that they were going to move to the northern part of the condo to a town called Bonilla do Nia, which was up near the Sudanese border. So we also we my team, there were three of us decided that. No, it was decided I didn't have any input to move to Bonilla Amman with the fifth commander. And we did that and we stayed. We stayed in Bonilla for several weeks. And also as part and parcel of this whole war. At the time, they were humans who were flying T 28 aircraft that had been modified for use as fighter planes. They had rocket pods and 50 caliber machine guns. And in Borneo, there were three of those 28. And the crew and mechanics and pilots of Cubans who are flying them. Most of the Cuban pilots were from the Bay of Pigs who had participated in that or tried to participate. And they were flying missions out of the airport in Bosnia. And on my 25th birthday, which would have been February of 1965, as a, as a birthday present, one of the pilots invited me to go up with them on it on a mission. And I did that. And there were three planes. There was a lead pilot and two other Cuban pilots. And I sat in the backseat with the lead pilot. And we went out on a strike against a column of vehicles that were I guess, calling supplies for the symbols. So we made that it was a safe, safely returned to the base. And after that, I was telling my, my co co worker there that who had who was actually the team leader, that I had gone, he was out of town at the time, taking me back to Leopoldville, for consultation. And I told him about it. And he said, Well, you know, that's a good idea. I think I'll go up, because then I can confirm some of the reporting I've been receiving, and make sure that it's, it's valid and correct. So I took him out to the airport that day. And he went up, but there were only two planes. The lead pilot was not there that particular day. He was I think, also in Leopoldville, for consultations, but the other two pilots, one Perone, and one commune were went up and, and my, my friend dick, sat behind the pilot, one Perowne. So the two planes went out, and they went out on reconnaissance. And unfortunately, they got caught up in a storm and got lost and ran out of fuel. So they were forced to crash land. And when they went down both planes kind of together, but separately, you know, ingested so miles between them, by the time they by the time the crash landed. But part of the procedure, I guess, was to put the canopy back so that it didn't jam closed, and you couldn't get out of plane so they have the canopy back. And during the crash, the wind transfer wind came and solidified fuel came back around the pilot one into the backseat and engulfed my friend, Mike, my co worker, and he got he was wearing a helmet and he had the mask down on the helmet, which probably saved his eyes. But the rest of his face got burned, his arms got burned, his hands got burned to a crisp, and the rest of his body was burned. And by the time that plane stop, one climbed out of the front of the plane and started running away from the plane because it was on fire. And my friend wrote a book about this whole thing. And in the book, he said that I had never that I drove him out to the airport that day, because I wanted to see the planets I had never seen them before. And which wasn't true. I told him about that after the story came after what came up. But anyway, he was he was dragged away. And by that time, people started turning up around the crash site, which is not unusual Africa you can be in the middle of nowhere. And if anything happens, all of a sudden there's a group of people assembly. So these villages fortunately, were friendly. And they took the pilot one and like fine deck and got them back to their village and one of The I guess like a medicine man, I won't call him a doctor but he concocted something from the local waves and vegetation that was able to smear it over Dixon berm areas. And which dig, later found out probably saved his life because it helped prevent dehydration. But one, the pilot at that point needed to get back to civilization to be somebody that can evacuate deck. He went by checks mayor, he ran and he walked in, he went by canoe, he went by bicycle, we went by any type of transportation, he could get a hold of all the while trying to evade these symbols. But he was able to get back to one of the regional bases there were several bases around the country that have Cuban pilots in the air support. And he went with the Belgian helicopter to to this place to pick up date. Unfortunately, that helicopter had hide landing and was disabled during the land crash landing. So they had radio communications at that point, and were able to get another helicopter in, and they got debt coming up net of active to Leopoldville. But in the meantime, I was back in the morning, I was waiting to go back to the airport to pick up that evening. And dusk came the place we were staying. We could see the key 28 Since they returned to base their flight over bugs the hotel we were using some of the town area of town so we could like look up and see him coming. I kept looking but no, no planes. So I went out to the airport, airport. And, and I waited around there. And finally, we got word from the other bases that were that one had, I guess, ended up finding in that that the planes had been were missing and the first report was that they were shot down. And the so you know a day or so later the rumors were ramping that they planes to planes were shot down by the union these Air Force who had jets and then they shot down but to T T 28 said that you can that was planning a massive ground invasion of this town that I was in dunya. So that added a little pepper to the pot. And I and I ended up sending out a cable team describing what the rumors were there was no proof of anything else but I felt obligated to report it. And plus I didn't want to be there if there wasn't going to be a ground invasion. So they they sent us the military attache plane and got I got out of there and went back to vehicle and left all the equipment sterilized it and so on. Took some of the classified material with me personally carrying it I went back to Leopoldville and reported what happened I was replaced in vodien by somebody else from from my home base. And that operation went on for a number of months it moved to to the to a lake I forget the name of the town but it moved out a Bright Boy Yeah, but it's still carried on with the with the mercenaries and the Cuban pilot. I was okay to go on with the with my regular duties that the relay I had some security incidents after that TDY one of the things that happened while I was there, and I saw some assassinations that I didn't realize at the time. These were prisoners, Simba prisoners that were executed and I I didn't realize it. But at the time, I think I had PTSD, because of what I witnessed. And I was having trouble keeping my mind on what I was doing. So I had a few security violations, which, which entailed sending out classified information over a classified circuit. And a few other things that happened that, because I wasn't completely focused on what I was doing. And so I was, I was put on probation because of these incidents for a one year probationary period. And I felt that you know, and so I was being, I was being punished and I, I earned it, and I admit it, I made the mistakes. And at the, toward the end of that first assignment, I got my second assignment. And that was to Hong Kong, to the consulate in Hong Kong. I was I was a single guy, and for a single guy to be assigned to Hong Kong, and in those days was was actually an award rather than a punishment. So I figured, well, I was forgiving, but also forgiven probably. And they're sending me to Hong Kong, my gosh, that's a really priced assignment. And then I after, shortly after I got to Hong Kong, I got a promotion. So I realized that kind of all was forgiven. And it was no, no everlasting repercussions. So I did my assignment in Hong Kong and I, I enjoyed it. I spent two years there, and we had a very good group of people. And at that time, Vietnam was raging. That was in 1966 or so yeah. 1966. And my brother who was in the army, he was assigned in Vietnam. He was in the war, during the war there and he was able to come to Hong Kong on r&r, so I got to visit with him, which was really great. So I spent my time in Hong Kong and loved it. And then I got to my next assignment was to Rwanda, Kigali, which was back to Africa. Get an assignment there. I was there doing the moon landing tells you how long ago it was. And it was only like seven US employees at the embassy. It was a very, very small operation, no television, no, English language radio, there was a radio transmitter site. But there wasn't much but it was enjoyable. It's quiet, peaceful and beautiful countryside and their, their periodic war where they were killing each other that Hutus and the Tutsis had already taken place. So it was calm and peaceful and, and I enjoyed it. As a kid growing up, it was what I had pictured effort to advocate to be, I could get in a Volkswagen and drive outside the town for a mile or so in the river and see hippopotamuses, crocodiles, occasionally go out and see, run across elephants, wild elephants, it was was enjoyable. And I spent, I spent the tour there. And then I got my next assignment, I volunteered to go to Vietnam. At that time, the newspapers and be away and everybody else was talking about, it's kind of like the situation we're in now where the everything that's in the press is something you can believe in something you can't. But I decided that I'd like to see for myself and so I volunteered to go there. And it was kind of a given that if you were single, you're gonna get sent there anyway, but I volunteered to go and they they accepted that. So I, I was assigned there from Kigali. So I came back to the states for periodically between assignment and went on to Saigon. And I remember approaching the airport comes in Saigon and in the aircraft looking out that window it was a commercial aircraft. I forget if it was enamored United or something. But anyway, I looked out the window. And all I could see under the on the ground were these huge. They were like they look like mushrooms. But it was from where these, I guess these basic calories had been dropped and left these huge invitations. And it was all pockmarks. It looked like a moonscape. But anyway, I landed and started my assignment there and I had been promoted again just before I got there. So the position that I was actually going there to fill, I got promoted out of it. So they assigned me to a four man session. That was during training, South Vietnamese, paramilitary Ranger organizations and so on for the Vietnamese military. And thrown into that mix. We were turning a few nice captains. And I spent my tour there doing that training, and I enjoyed that as well. And from Saigon, I was assigned to Rangoon. And again, I got promoted after Saigon. So I was running the communication section in Rangoon. And that was a two year assignment. Before that, I had, I was looking for an assignment. And after I left to Saigon and got back to the States, because I got promoted, it was another problem where that where they had originally wanted to do assigned me was no longer doable because of the great increase. So I was kind of shopping around find a try, I tried to find a next assignment. And I got interviewed for a job where it was quite interesting. And but I'm just as well, I didn't accept it, the interview person told me that the job would entail possible danger from radiation or from the Soviet military. And I didn't know what it was. But I just after coming out of Vietnam I I've had a mesh for a while. So I was working, I found out that the assignment in Rangoon was open and I was on the map and suddenly hop skip and a jump from Bangkok. And so I figured that would be better. And that would be a nice quiet place Rangoon I know. I knew that the situation there was not good in the sense of the military, government and so on. But it was a quiet place. At the time that I was assigned to Saigon the first first time I was there, the US military had been slowly drawn down. And that was what they call the vietnamisation of the war. And they were turning all of the combat roles and so on over to the Viet Vietnamese military. And Vietnam at that time, was they were having problems with a stable government. So there were protests. Daley, and it wasn't unusual to get into the embassy and have tear gas, on your clothes and everything else. And so they were there were a lot of opposition to the Vietnamese government. And mostly they were generals taking over at that time. But the people were not happy and somebody was demonstrating and there was also a religious demonstrations. There were problems with the there was a Buddhist sect that was very militant in the sense that a few times I driving into the embassy, I would have to find this a detour and then drive into a bunch of people that circle in the middle of the road. And the monks were self Amalia, Amalia, Megan, they were they were setting themselves on fire and it became, I wouldn't say common, but it was not uncommon to have these demonstrations. And of course, most of the the Presidential people were Catholics. And so I guess the count is the Buddhist sect at the time was they were not happy, and they were becoming militant. So there were, there were a lot of demonstrations. And he couldn't, you had to be very careful moving around because of these demonstrations. And the police were, they were not gentle. They've weighed in with clubs and beat people and so on. And as an example, what they were doing is that you may be driving and you're come up to a red light, and it stopped. And when it turned green, off, you went. And then all of a sudden, the police would be behind you with their assignments, and they pull you over and telling you that you just ran the red light. And it was an extortion scam, where they just looking for money. And that happened to me. And so the Vietnamese policeman, we call them white mice, asked for my driver's license. And so I handed it over to him. And he refused to give it back to me unless I gave him money. And I used to give him money. So I drove off. I went back to the embassy, and I just applied for a new driver's license and got one. But, you know, for most people, especially the civilians, when that happened, they they didn't have the leeway I have, and they had to pay pay up. So there was a lot of hard feelings between the military and police and civilians and the religious aspect thrown into it. And then you had the war itself. When I was there, to dos St. was famous for my club, send me bars and so on. I lived on the end of the street, around the corner. And many times they will have satchel charges thrown into these bars by guys on motorbikes, that would be my drive down to tow and pull up next to the front of one of these places and throw in a Satchel Charge, and they will bombing, there are several bombings of the hotel billets that the US military were put up in. So the civil society was was in a mess. And at that time, there were a lot of these types of goings on people getting killed and injured and so on. The Vietnamese ation, I thought, at the time, I kind of wondered what would happen when the US military left and I was not unhappy that they were leaving, but you know, we had so much time energy in lights wasted up to that point. And it was good. Good to see something happening where it appeared to be winding down a bit as far as our involvement. And I found out that the building that I moved in was on a Vietcong, Hitler Hitler's for, for bombing. And they, apparently, somebody, one of our agents, or something found that the Vietcong had this list of places that they wanted to tie up. And we didn't have any protection around the places where we lived. And we really, we didn't need it other than the hotels where the military were put up, and were being hit occasionally. But it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't a safe environment. It was a war zone. And they used to shoot rockets and also 122 millimeter mortars. I guess they weren't. But they know that the economy would always do it. Like two or three o'clock in the morning. So you wake up with this after this horrendous loud crashing boom. And historic was that okay? If you woke up, you're okay. It's when you don't wake up but the problem is, so it was, you know, psychological warfare as well in that respect. because they were terrorizing the population. And it was a lot of people killed because of those indiscriminate mortar shells. So everybody was on edge in the US as well, but it was never a settled situation, always something one general or another pulling out that when I got there, when I went to Vietnam, the second time, it was a, I can tell you about an incident that happened near there, that explains kind of what was going on at the time. But this, this was in 1971, I think that I left there. So the war was still going on, and kind of full pace, but with the Vietnamese running, running operations. So that that led me to Rangoon, and I got to Rangoon, and in July, and I left in July, three years later. In the meantime, wrangling was a two year assignment. And it was the first time that I have ever applied for an extension on my assignment. So I turned that into a three year. And, and I enjoyed it very much. The people were very nice, very peaceful, very friendly. And they themselves were under the military's thumb at the time. Me when I was a general who had started a military coup successfully, and took over the government. And he proceeded to run the country, right into the ground. And at one time, Pharaoh was one of the leading rice exporters in that part of the world, but under the Burmese way, the socialism and the Iraqi economy. But the I didn't feel it very much as a US citizen. We were left alone, as long as we behaved ourselves, of course, and the it was the people that had problems. They were at such such a strict military oppression, that a lot of the people and some of the younger people were not happy. And one of the I was there at the time that we thought that former Secretary General of the UN, very nice man passed away, who is an honorific minister who thought passed away, and the government didn't honor him at all. And the students demanded his return to and he his body was returned. And the military government wanted to just kind of put him in a pauper's grave and do away with them and forget the whole thing.
But their students were having none of it. And the place that I moved out LinkedIn was right next to the University of Rangoon campus. And the University of Rangoon is where the students met to protest the military's government's handling of the situation. So I watch the military beef up they have trucks all over the place on all surrounding the whole university compound, and arm our troops and policemen and everything else. And finally, the the student gathering was attacked by the police and military. And they herded up the students and packed them in the back of the Deuce and a half's beating them beat them and they killed a lot of them. And it was never actually advertised or investigated or a true number. was never actually published by the military gave a number which was probably attempted what actually the number was. But the poor kids were manhandled, beaten, some put in jail and tortured. But that was, that was just one of the things that kind of brought the public's attention to the situation that they just boiled over. And that was a result of the repression that was that they were going through. There's so much corruption that you might enter, return to the country from a trip to Bangkok or something, the Burmese people would be held up, and they'd go through the luggage and then practically empty the whole thing out, looking for drives, and then would hold people up if they found anything. And in demand and a drive, and that was the way you got through immigration. Unless you knew somebody, if you were a part of the clique that was, you know, in the military that was in control, you were okay. But if you were an average person, a teacher, cab driver or anything else, you had to pay your way through immigration, both coming and going. And of course, they had a list also people that they wouldn't let out of the country. So in that respect, it was was not a good situation, there was a faculty attacked, terrible situation could have dragged these people. For the Americans, we were, we were okay, because we're under diplomatic cover, so to speak them. were left alone, as long as you might have your own business. There was the embassy at that time was focused a lot on the narcotics trade. In the northern part of the country, they were really using new caravans to move stuff out of the Shan states for instancing and move it across the border into the China Golden Triangle area. And there was a lot of heroin, illegal narcotics. And the military government made big shows every six months or every year of confiscating drugs and burning. And that was their big one tag or about their effort to control illegal narcotics. But it was a business and a lot of the generals were involved in making money from it. And at that time, you're about the only people that could run a business, believe it or not, and make money it were the generals, or the military in general. So I enjoyed the time I spent there, I met my future wife in Rangoon, and her family and enjoyed the people. I found that after spending time in different countries, and especially in Asia, between Vietnam, and Hong Kong. I found the Burmese people to be different in the sense that they were that you were calm. They were pleasant, they were peaceful. They were just generally nice, nice folks, and kind of like the Cambodians. When I when I was in Vietnam, the first time I had a chance to go up to Phnom Penh and to do some training there. And I stayed there for a couple of weeks. And we had some Cambodian instructor, translators, and so on. And I met some of the Cambodian people and the Cambodians have the same Buddhist religion as the Burmese. And I guess it's the religion that makes them as nice as they are. So the Cambodians reminded me a lot of the Burmese that the Vietnamese and Chinese not so much that the Chinese know the ugly American Well, that's maybe the China ugly Chinese. And the Vietnamese maybe it was because they've been in a war for most of their lives. But They weren't the same, gentle, nice people was the Burmese. So the Cambodians that speaking in Cambodia, I got back to Cambodia. In I think 2012. And at that time I got to visit to inflame tool slang was a high school, where the community really interrogated people that they picked up. If you are, if you are Cambodian, and your glasses on the streets at that time, military community route would pick you up and they'd send you to tools line, figuring if you wore glasses, you were educated. And if you were educated, you need to be re educated. So that some people with tools slang, and if they survived the interrogations there, and at the time I visited there, there was like a museum, pictures of what went on. It was it was bad. But after a tool sling, then put you on a truck and send you out to the killing fields. And I got to go visit the killing fields on that trip as well. And it was just my heart dropped. It took me a couple of months to get over this kind of a sinking feeling that I felt after seeing the killing fields and walking around there. It was, it was horrible. And so the Cambodian people suffered a lot. There, I think their religion carried them through. And the poor people even to this day that leader Hunson of Cambodia, Khmer Rouge himself. But anyway, there was a similarity in the Cambodian and the Burmese people in their gentleness and their, their overall kindness. And I think because of the religion and I found that with the Burmese people, when I lived in Rangoon, the people that worked I worked within the embassy. And the people I met outside of the embassy were, were just were great people. And that kind of another benefit of Rangoon as having been an English colony, a British colony, and they spoke English, most of the older people or the middle aged people, the younger folks under May when did not speak English, because they never received any schooling or training in the language. But the the older folks were my wife's parents, it's my wife's parents. Her mom didn't speak very much English, but her dad was. He was educated in Great Britain, he was, I think you've looked at Oxford. But anyway, my wife's dad was in champ tune, who's a well known Buddhist scholar, he was one of the first presidents of the fellowship world fellowship of Buddhists. And I got to meet him and, and tremendously and
I got interested in Buddhism through through my wife's father, and through her, and through the general association with the Buddhist people of Burma, and in Cambodia, but mostly Burma, and found it to be a very gentle, peaceful religion. And we have the golden rule and all these other things as well. Bloom is no different. It's, it lives in Windsor, Canada. I can't consider myself really a Buddhist because I don't know the language and I don't practice some of the ceremonies and the prayers and so on. But I believe in the principle of Buddhism, I believe in the rules that guide the religion and I find some peace with it. But to see it in practice, it's it's pretty amazing. There are some like the general will to believe in the home hocus pocus part of it as well, I think the current gen, that slinging the we'll call it that. It's not illegal government, it's the military coup, he's leaving that part of it. But he believes in some of the superstition, that stupid superstitious parts of the religion. It's kind of crazy. Maybe that's why they do what they do. It's it's really right now. And it's a terrible situation, it's worse than the time that I spent there 72 to 75 in that period of three years, what's generally peaceful, other than you couldn't say anything or do anything that the military government didn't approve of, or you would end up in jail. They did have the riots with and periodic gatherings of students that chanted against the government and so on. But generally, it was a better situation, although it was not a good situation, but it was better than what happened in 1988. And what is currently happening. These, the repression seemingly gets worse and worse, gets gets worse. From from my time to 88 to the current time, the current time is just unbelievable, where the military use a jet fighters on their own population, and helicopter gunships and bombing firebombing villages, schools and so it's, it's at a dire point. Now, fortunately, for me, when I lived there with these, it wasn't this bad. And I got to, to meet a lot of the Burmese people outside of the embassy and get to know them. And it was, to me a very relaxing time. And it was set up a three year period. At the end of that three years, however, my my life took a spiral. And when I left from well, before I talk about that, I'll say that toward the end of my three year assignment in rank, I was asked to go to VPN to fill in for somebody that was going on wait. So I agreed to do that. And, however, before I was able to leave during billing, I was asked to change and asked if I would go to Phnom Penh and help do some training there because the situation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia was, was getting dire. And then they needed some help at the embassy, and since I had been there before, and while I was signed to Vietnam, they asked me if I would go to Phnom Penh instead of HN. So I agreed to do that. And I went to the Vietnamese embassy in Rangoon and got an entry visa for Saigon, from Vietnam, South Vietnam, and got on a plane and went back to Saigon. I got off the plane in sight. I was on my way to Cambodia to Phnom Penh, but I had to go to Saigon because there wasn't any commercial way to get into Phnom Penh at that time. I think the only aircraft operating were these DC jets that were owned by businessman that was delivering rice to the people of Phnom Penh because this town was surrounded by Khmer Rouge. And they couldn't get stuff in and out so these jets were faring rice and foodstuff at that time. So when I got to Saigon, I was there. I briefed him to the embassy and waited. While they they arranged pony forming a small consider jet Air America piloted plane arrange that to take me to Phnom Penh. So I went out to the airbase at Tom Smith and got in the aircraft and off I went, I bought it. I left I had two suitcases that I left behind. I left my passport. I didn't need it, because there wasn't any civil authority in Phnom Penh at the time. So, I went with the pilot, and we flew along the Mekong and went to Phnom Penh. And as we approached enough and the pilot asked me we're wearing headsets and pilot asked me if I was ready to go down in the height. caught me off guard that I'm ready to get on the hurry as long as we are under power under control. And then he just said no worries. So down we went. He did a nosedive, leveled out. We landed, landed at poaching Tom Phnom Penh airport. And as the plane came to home, turn the engines off in a vehicle pulled up beside us and people agitated and excited telling us to get out of the plane and get in the truck and hurry up and they gave us steel pots and flak vests. And we got in the truck and off we went along side of the runway into a bunker. The Viet the Khmer Rouge, we're shooting mortars attacking the airport, trying to hit things that stretch eight DC eight jets that we're delivering, delivering cool stuff. So we landed in the middle of a rocket attack on the airport. So that was kind of the first indicator. And I went in. After that we got in, I briefed him at the embassy and talked. And two days later, the embassy was closed. And every buddy, all the Americans evacuated. I had a choice of going to Thailand, to one of the bases where we had USA aircraft. Or I could go back to Saigon. A choice of either one. So I had to choose Saigon because I lost my luggage and I left my passport and everything in sight. So we got out to the airport. And off we went. And we made a stop between Phnom Penh and Saigon we landed. And I was sitting at a window on a window seat at this new it's a military crowded aircraft, I forget what it was. But I looked out the window. And we're in the middle of a jungle. I mean, you could see as we were landing, it's all Triple Canopy jungle and a couple of American guys came out of the side of the tree line, and came up to the plane. And I guess our pilot handed them an envelope, which I had no idea what was in it. But I was so amazed to see these guys out of the middle of nowhere, after what was going on what we just left. And the two guys got the envelope, turned around, walked back and disappeared into the bush. So I often wondered what what they were doing what they were up to traveling training insurgents. So the plane plane took off and went back to Saigon. And
I was asked when I got back to Saigon, if I would stay. And it helped out there because the NVA and Vietcong had started coming down the coast. And Saigon was getting worried about the future of the stay there. So that the guy in charge was a an old friend of mine, and he asked me if I could stay and help out, and they got permission for me to stay in Saigon for a few more weeks. At the time, I didn't know what would be a few weeks, so I did, I recovered my passport, and I submitted the passport to get a visa and extended visa to stay in Saigon. And my passport, I still have it in the hands of visa. David, I think the 19th of April 1975. And, of course, Saigon fell about a week. Not too many days after that. So it's a it's a good souvenir. So I was invited to stay there and help out and it ended up that I helped out with the emergency destruction of the communications facility at the embassy. And a funny note about that as as toward the end, we were, we had to part of our emergency destruction procedure, of course, was to anything classified, you're going to get rid of it, destroy it. So we had sodium nitrate drums, and sodium nitrate and drums were up on the embassy, you couldn't keep them inside. And so I went up to blow one of these drums with classified information paper material in Selma. And when we torched it off, there were a couple of them that we filled them up. And we let them and sodium nitrate goes off in a hurry. And it's not unexploded. It's like a controlled explosion. But it's, it's like what you see out of the back of a jet engine when a jet engine fires up. So these things were burning all the classified material, but while we were loading one of them, a helicopter landed on the roof near one of these drums, the paper kind of went flying. Luckily, it didn't get very far. And we were able to corral it all and put it back into the sodium nitrate drum, but less apart, don't put these things in your helicopter pad. But we let off a couple of them. And some of the American pilots that were flying off of the CTF 77 in the Gulf of Tonkin were flying cover, I guess over over the embassy area. And they reported back to the ships of the Seventh Fleet that the embassy hadn't been struck by some type of artillery or rocket or something else because they saw the flames from the sodium nitrate drums and thought that the place was being attacked. Luckily, the word was gotten out that it wasn't an attack, it was just a, an emergency destruction drill. A part of the other thing is think of guys that were there at that time. Remember, walking down the corridor of the communications area. We had two two rooms where one part of the embassy was destroying and then the other part of the embassy was destroying number one part was using shredders. And I think it was stripped. But anyway, the the refuse from threading was dumped out into the hallway. So you went down this hallway. It was like walking through snowdrifts and it was all the straight material. But the part that I was involved with was it wasn't like that we were organized. And people remember, we had a satellite transmitter at that time, that provided the communications back to Washington. And part of the destruction procedure was to destroy a component of that terminal. And the one guy that was doing that was painting on this piece of equipment with a sledgehammer. And people on the floor underneath the comm Center. We're getting all bent out of shape because of the this strange noise that we're hearing from above. But that destruction went off. without a hitch, everything was destroyed that we knew that we could get a hold of and there was a detailed plan that was followed to make sure nothing was overlooked. And then before that actual destruction took place. One of my colleagues and I colleague was an Electronics Technician. And I was helping him. We were asked if we would volunteer to go on a trip to Venice, more than one I was in LA airbase, many American troops. No, no of that place. It was within driving distance of Saigon. Probably an hour an hour and a half drive something like that. But they asked us if we could go there and set up a communications link for the Vietnamese commander. This was a job couple, two or three star general, commanding Vietnamese forces that were defending that airbase against the NDAA. In Vietnam. They asked us if we'd go and set up a communications like so we agreed. We said, Yeah, well, no problem. And so we got ready to get the equipment we needed and getting ready to devote it. And then they were called in and said, No, you can't go, they decided it's too dangerous. Everything is taken drum fire. And we just don't want to do it. So we said, okay, no problem. We went back to doing what we were doing helping with the getting things ready for discussion. Then, some time after that, the next day or so, get called back in and they said, Are you still willing to go go to that bar? And John, and I said, yeah, we'll go, no problem. And they laid on a helicopter, we got the equipment up to the roof of the embassy and loaded into the woods a Huey and off the pilot went to Denmark. And we didn't, we didn't notice anything out of out of the normal. We didn't notice any ground fire or anything like that. And we landed at Benoit again, Benoit was taking border rounds from the outlying areas at the time. And we landed and got the equipment off. And it got to this command post where this general was located. And we set up, started setting up to the transceiver that we carried, and found out that there was no antenna that we could use to make the radio work. So we knew that the we had an American consulate general, that it was abandoned at the time that people had evacuated because of the text going on. So we come into the jeep. And we drove we knew where it was because we've been all been there before. We drove to the konjam. And got in and found a ladder, got up to the roof. Put a climb to a tower. That was one end of the antenna. So if the antenna was strong that we needed, so my friend climbed up video the tower, he kept the antenna down, and I corralled it and we wound it up and off, we went back to the airbase. And we took the antenna set it up. And we tested the radio set, we had a couple of different frequencies that we used one for the daytime and one for the nighttime. But when we were able to successfully test both of those frequencies and talk with Saigon, everybody was happy. So after we went back to the helicopter and took off and went back to the roof of the embassy, and went back to work at the embassy the next day or two, the our chief called us in and said, What did you guys do? What happened? We haven't had we haven't heard a word from that communications like what what is what's going on? So we explained, we had no idea what was going on. We tested it, it worked fine. And when we left, we were completely satisfied that they had a good, solid communications. We'll come to find out. The reason that they didn't hear anything was this general decided that he didn't have enough. And he packed up his troops in he was a convoy driving back to Saigon. So he abandoned the defensive effort for the Airbitz. So that's how close the situation was getting in, in Saigon. I stayed there till the 29th. Actually, it was the evening probably of the 28th. But it was just about dusk. Because I remember there were just three of us, three of us in the helicopter that I was in. We went up to the roof. And we went through a line to make sure they had our information that we who was leaving. And so we got on the helicopter and off we went. And it was still light enough that when the helicopter helicopter took off, they have the back door down there and a gun around the back platform and where the door was. And we could see out of the back of the house. factor. And it was such a sad sight. The Embassy was just completely surrounded by people, Vietnamese people trying to get out, trying to find a way to leave. And that sticks with me to set site. before all that, the day that I left in that helicopter that morning, I got to staying in an apartment, which was within walking distance from the embassy. And I had moved a day before that, or so I moved my luggage into my friend's apartment, I lived across the street from the embassy. And so I was in the apartment that morning, and I heard some pounding on my door. And it was, it was an American guy that was in a flak jacket in a steel pot. All excited and telling me I got to hurry up and wait to get back to the embassy because everybody was leaving. To go right now. And I thought, I haven't heard anything. It was part of the what they call the warden system. So I went back to bed, I went and I swept some water, I guess I was up late at night before. And then finally it happened again. And I decided, well, I better I better get back to the embassy and see what's going on. So I walked out of the apartment and I walked the couple of blocks to the embassy. And when I got there, I the easiest way for the route that I took was to go into the back gate, the embassy. And when I got there, that place was marked all the Vietnamese trying to get into the compound. And there were marine guards on the other side of the gate, of course controlling access. So of course, I stood out in the crowd of Vietnamese people because I'm white American. And I was able to flag the marine guards and play my passport and let them see it. And of course, I pushed my way through the crowd and got through the gate onto the compound. And the in fact, my passport was the only thing I left the embassy which I had it in my pocket and it was easy to carry my luggage I never get never couldn't get back to my friend's apartment to get the luggage. And that was our last I have a funny thing is that when I was in Phnom Penh, I brought back for my wife's mother a couple of bottles of fish sauce Nampula. She before I went to Saigon, she told me that the Cambodians made the best fish sauce in Africa. So I did I got the bottles and put them in my suitcase. Well, needless to say, the Vietcong or the MDA, probably enjoyed those two bottles of fish, because I never saw my wife. But I didn't have my passport. And that's the only thing I left the embassy with in my back pocket. And I mentioned we had three people in the embassy that I left in the helicopter that I left the embassy. And it was such a sad sight. The helicopter flew, as I mentioned the crowd around the embassy, and we could see other parts of town with fires going and just complete chaos. And we got out to the ship, I was on the USS Blue Ridge, which was the command ship. And the helicopters they were using at that time were really being overworked. And they were old to begin with. So in the helicopter, we get out to the ship. And I remember sitting looking out the window and seeing the deck of the ship. Go past me, we were going down past the deck. And I was thinking oh this, this chopper is going down and we're gonna go into the drink. But luckily enough it lifted the desktop and I saw the side of the ship and then finally the landing deck appeared. And the helicopter sat down. And the pilot shut the engines off. And we got out of the helicopter and I if I remember correctly, I think they pushed it off the site because it was it was breaking down and they weren't gonna use it anymore. And that was what was happening some of those helicopters. Once they landed, they could Have you use them anymore, and they couldn't trust them anymore. So they pushed him over. And along the way, I had picked up a bag of communications equipment that we used to train people with that was classified, and some classified paperwork that I have in a laundry bag, and I slung it over my back. And so I had to report to the communications officer at the ship, I had to find him and turn that stuff over so they could lock it up. But the only things I say the only thing I had was my passport. And I had a pocket knife. And the the security of the ship searched everybody because I was offered that silver plated ak 47. If I wanted it at the embassy before I left than I take as a souvenir, and I didn't want any part of it. So of course, I didn't take it. But I did have a pocket knife, which I carry to this day, similar night. But they took away my pocket knife. And they so they were looking for anything that any type of weapon because they were so prevalent, anybody could have a 45 stuck in their belt or in the back pocket or anything. So they were being cautious. And I stayed on that ship for about seven or was seven a week or something like that, because the command ship had to be the last one to leave. And we kind of tooled around. And in the meantime, I watched C 130s Being ditched to the helicopters being the pilots jumping out. Boat People, it's so sad that it's both small boats, fishing boats, crammed with people. They couldn't even they couldn't faint. They couldn't collapse. They wouldn't collapse if they think because there's wasn't enough room that people standing on the debts. And the Blue Ridge provided water for a couple of these different ships. And another thing that happened while I was on that ship is they had to deploy Marines to one of the islands I forget the name of the island around in the South China Sea around South Vietnam that I guess, I don't know if it was North Vietnamese, or the Chinese were trying to take it over. So they dispatched a bunch of Marines to go and secure that area. But the ship stayed around there. And finally we were allowed to leave. We went to Subic Bay. And we got off at Civic Bay. And I went into Manila, which was where our embassy was located. And we were all decreased. I was able to get a few change, a change of clothes there. But I didn't have anything because I left it all. I ended up being issued some travel money and arranging transportation to Bangkok, which was my gateway back to Rangoon. So I got to Bangkok. And I was able to buy some clothing and stuff and went back to the embassy.
Host 1:33:39
Before going into just before going into your journey back to Burma. Just one question about that flight.
Wes Kingsley 1:33:46
In my case. I was part of the well let me back up for a minute. That helicopter in that famous picture was part of the evacuation plan that the embassy had established long before where they have pickup points around Saigon and around the other cities as well. Where people would gather if something went south and wait to be evacuated. So in my case, the I wasn't on the last helicopter I was on the helicopter the evening. Before the last helicopter for instance, I left around, I don't know six o'clock 6pm 630 Something like that. And the ambassador and the chief of station and two of my friends who were the communicators were the last Americans to enter the helicopter. The ambassador is always the last to leave. And he takes the American flag from the embassy with him when he leaves so that we're As the last helicopter, and that was the ambassador, the ambassador ended up on the same ship that I was on, along with Winco key, who was a well known figure at the time. But for me, I was at the embassy. And I was, I was on one of the later helicopters, I would, I can't say it's the last but it was the evening before the the ambassador left i It must have been early in the morning, because they were just wrapping things up. But he's always the last to leave anyway. So I wasn't on that helicopter. But they did a tremendous job, based on the plan that was in effect, where they could go to the certain points and take people out. Some of those pilots, some of them were Air America pilots, as well as flying those jobs, and getting their own people, their employees and so on. I'm not quite sure which building that famous picture took place on. But it was wouldn't have been a really uncommon sight, there were probably two or three more places around town that were experiencing the same, same thing but but that picture just just captured the moment it captured. The whole situation, the the desperation of people trying to leave for before the NBA and the VC arrived. It was it was a well handled and well done. exfiltration of data people, the rescue of so many people in the US military did a tremendous job. And getting the people out of Saigon or been while kept or whichever city it was, and then getting them on to the ships. It was pretty amazing. You can imagine, if you know anything about the Navy guys, they they clean up the expression of tiptop ship and so on. Well, they, they love to keep their ship tipped up speaking Spanish condition. And here are a couple always a civilian this just all over the place all over the decks and in between the decks and on the stairways and everything. That's why guys didn't know what hit him, I don't think, but they did such a tremendous job. And I, you know, you just can't thank them enough. And I compare it kind of to the recent evacuation that took place where we left behind just billions of dollars of equipment and just try didn't try to destroy it or didn't try to get it out didn't do anything, we just gave it to them. Plus, they got the military out before they worried about the civilians. So it's like night and day in my eyes, those two evacuations. One was done chronically. One was just playing chaos. And it's something you know, I close your eyes, and you can still see yourself lifting off and looking out the back and seeing those people down the spin years. So the time on the ship was what it was not a fun time to go like six or seven days on on the ship with that much to do. And one of the things that the military did is they they call they admitted they tried to get people who wanted to send out word that they were safe and sound. They would call you in and you get your name and the particulars of the address of people you want it to notify that you're you're safe and sound and I did that I had them send. I asked him to notify my parents that I was okay that I was part of the evacuation and I'm always safe and sound and so on. And found out after the fact long after I got back to the US. My parents never got to where they ended. They didn't even know I was in Vietnam. So that didn't work out too well. But that was just that was just a very small hiccup for the tremendous job that the that the US military To Go ahead, I got to talk to the chief of station from Saigon, a guy named Tom pulled over. He was on the same ship as I was. And I asked him, I said, Mr. Paul guy, do you think we'll ever be back in Saigon. He said he, he didn't see that happening for a long time. So he wasn't too optimistic. But and actually, we're not we're not back in Saigon, we never have been since then, although we may have some type of representation. Embassy deals and handling now. And so, nobody, at that time, nobody had expectations that would ever be able to get back there. I got back to Rangoon toward the end of July, and I was at that point I was processing out to for the end of my assignment there and returned back to Washington. And my onward assignment was to La Paz, Bolivia. I had a car in Rangoon, that actually, I tried to give it to my wife's father. It was a newer, newer Volkswagen station wagon that I bought before I went to Ranger. But it was very difficult for the Burmese to buy a foreign vehicle or even to have a vehicle. And that was determined that I wouldn't be able to sell it to them for $3, or whatever it was. They just couldn't make it happen. So I departed Rangoon back to Washington. And the car subsequently was packed up and shipped to Bolivia. So I got back to Washington, DC. And I, at that time, decided that my might my intended and I decided that we were going to get married. Before I met Frank, we we had a plan that she was going to leave Ranko after after I left and that she had applied for a passport and paid the fees associated with that process, which included paying back her educational. She's four, she graduated college, and they wanted that money back because she was leaving. So she paid all of these different fees, and then everything legal. And then they just refused to give her a passport or a passport. So she was dead in the water. And I was in the meantime back here in DC. And I had to make it known that I intended to marry a foreign matching. In 1963, I guess it was when I first entered the agency, I had to sign a paper saying that if I ever married a foreign national that along with that paper of intent, I would have to also submit my resignation.
And that's what happened. So I submitted the paperwork. And in the meantime, while that was going on. My wife had a plan to leave Burma on a fishing boat and be smuggled into Red Mountain or that general area and then cross into Thailand. But I got a phone call in DC from her, telling me she was already in Bangkok. And that she had to walk. She walked from rangoli to the border in Thailand and traveled with Gemma smugglers who had an established route to get through that product from into Thailand. And she never has really told me the whole story of that trip. But it was an arduous, grueling trip for her. I know. She had trouble with her feet for years after that. But she she got to Bangkok. She got into Thailand. And she had a friend who he grew up with who lived in Bangkok at the time so she was able to get to Bangkok to de France. And she stayed with a friend for a bit. And she was able to make contact with one of the Tigers loyalty Princess Pony. And then she met with Princess Princess Paul knew my wife's father, because he was a founder, one of the founders of the World Federation. And Princess Poon issued my wife a handwritten note, kind of a Get Out of Jail Free card, saying that she stopped by the police or whatever, she can show this paper signed by Princess boom, and it should help her out of any situation. And we never I don't know, whatever happened in that note. But she had that, but otherwise you didn't have any paperwork. The agency offered me a job at a grade level, two levels below the grade level, no, I'm sorry, four levels below the grade level I was at the time. And I considered that insult and injury. And I didn't take them. But at least they gave me this period that I could have a place to go to report to work and get a get a paycheck. While while I was there, my wife got to Bangkok. So I took leave, got on a plane, went to Bangkok and started looking for a way to get my wife some paperwork. One of my friends at the embassy told me, it's shortly after I arrived there. I talked with him about what I could do. And he said the best thing to do is turn her in for entering the country illegally. And I didn't want to do that. I thought, gosh, they might put her in jail. So we kept on trying to get this paperwork trail established, but came to a dead end. But my wife's Burmese friend who was a, somebody she grew up with, and knew very well. And I knew her as a result. She knew a lawyer, a Burmese guy that practice law in Rangoon that she said, might be able to help. So we want you to talk with him. And what it ended up is that we were able to bribe the ties to marry us. We went to the lawyer's office with with our friend who was the witness, three people. And the lawyer and two people from the Thai court area geographic area in Bangkok. So we sat down, he gave us a book, I'll timeline which we signed our name in the book. That was it. We were married at that point. The lawyer's office had a Thai marriage certificate, which, of course we still have, he had it translated into English. So that was that we were then men and wife. And I took that those two copies of Americans, the one in Taiwan anyway, back to the contract. In the meantime, while all this was going on, the Consulate General for Bangkok had made a visit to the embassy in Rangoon. And she was at the ambassador's house one evening. And it happened that my father in law was at that same reception. And he got to chatting with the content and explaining the situation that his daughter was in Bangkok. And was just coincidence. So by the time we got into the meet with the content, she knew our situation already. And by that time I have the paperwork, we need to turn everything over. And within a few days, they called us back and gave us this sealed manila envelope or 12 by 12, whatever. And told us that we were good to go and that we couldn't let anybody open that envelope until we got to the immigration counter in the US. So that was a big hurdle. And we were we were happy. But we then found out that we had to go to court and she because she entered the country illegally. Something that was recommended from the get go. So we did that we went to the tank court and we had again we paid another fine couple 100 bucks and the The court tried the case and then told us though, you know, you entered illegally, so doesn't that so on, you have 48 hours to leave the country png for some of the non grata. And we were thrilled, we were so happy to hear that we couldn't wait to wait. So up until two days later, within the 48 hours, we went out to the airport in Bangkok and checked in luggage and showed our tickets and so on. And we got to the immigration line to go out to the waiting area to port. During this period, I decided that I wasn't going to take that job that was offered to me at those four grades lower. I thought that was adding insult to injury. Once I got hired with state. And before they sent me overseas, I knew that they would naturalize my wife. So I took that job. And that's just what happened. I was assigned to Kingston, Jamaica. So part and parcel of that is that my wife gotten expedited naturalization. And my stepdaughter was included in that. So they both got to have diplomatic passports at the time and off, we went to Kingston. And I spent I think it was close to two years in Kingston. And that was a situation I left under a cloud, that toward the end of that assignment, because some guy wrote a book about the CIA in Africa and the My name was in the book. And that same guy came to Kingston and get the domain at a conference. And during that conference, he named all the people he thought were CIA, in the embassy in Kingston. He gave to the newspapers, also the names, the addresses, the phone numbers, that type of car, the color of color, the license plate number of all these people who he said were able to CIA, destabilization agents. In that bunch, I was included in my wife was included. So that muddy the waters there, and they had a couple of assassination attempts as a result of that. One guy that, that the chief of station for the embassy flipped down the street from me, and his last name was similar to my last name. And his house was attacked, they threw a grenade at it, and they shot up through the windows and everything of what what he is, I think he had his family secured, but they attacked his house and they hit a hit attempt on another US employee in Kingston.
So when this all happened, I was in the north coast in Montego Bay, and we were with a group playing golf from the embassy. And some we were out on the back nine somewhere and some Jamaican guy came running up and asked us if we were from the embassy, and blah, blah, blah. He said, we got word that you're supposed to go back to Kingston right now. So we got in the car, drove back and I got to my house and I walked in, it's still daylight. So I think it was late morning. And the the embassy security officer and Jamaican mechanic who worked on my car that became a friend of ours, was sitting in my front room with their guns on the coffee table, drinking scotch. I asked what's going on here. So they explained what happened. They had immediately went to my house to make sure our Sunday and make sure we were okay, since that was the date where they stayed with Sunday until I got there. So it was it was kind of a tense situation. And I remember as a result of that, I only have a few weeks left on my assignment. So I told my wife and my stepdaughter that they should just get out of there because of the situation. And so they went to my sister's house in South Florida. But I stayed. I stayed there till the end of the assignment. I wasn't gonna let them run me how to deal with this nonsense. And, in fact, I almost I came close to shooting a couple of Jamaicans that one night because of what was going on, I slept in a hallway with two solid walls between the walls on the floor. I was sleeping. And one night about 2am I heard a car pull up outside I had kind of a bond In front of my house and, and like a rail friend wouldn't rail fence. So I, I crawled into the bedroom and I picked up over the ledge and I saw these car two or three Jamaican guys standing at the railing of the fence. And I had a weapon and a handgun probably wasn't supposed to, but I did. And I said to myself, if they come over that fence, I'm gonna shoot it should happen at least. And when I put his leg up on the fence, didn't get any further than that. And they talked for a while longer, I got in the car, and they left. And I went the sweat off my brow and went back to sleep. Like, the next day I went into the embassy, and I reported, said exactly what happened. And then the embassy security officer said, Okay, thanks, Wes. For the report, I'm gonna have it checked out. And he was really busy at the time because of this whole situation. But he called me in later that day. And he said, Guess what, it's a good thing. Nothing else happened. Those guys were plainclothes policemen who were going around checking houses of Americans to make sure everything was okay. But they never told us that. It was a surprise to me. But I was glad that that was the case. So I stayed there for a few more weeks. And off I went, and I joined my wife and daughter in Florida. And then we went in, went back to Washington and the State Department in their wisdom have given me an onward assignment to Moscow. I said, What are you guys thinking? I was just named in this book. It's a CIA stabilization agent in Moscow. So I was able to talk them into changing. I didn't have any idea where it would be. But at the end, they changed it and sent us to Paris. And gosh, Paris. Wow. That's great. So off we went. And we went to Paris, and did most of the two year assignment there. The chief of station in Paris at that time, was married to a foreign national. Jim Potts, I think his name was he was an old pan that only and he called me in one day, because he knew I was trying to get back to the agency at that point. When I was in Jamaica to step back a minute, I submitted an application to or actually, that's when I heard about an application I had submitted. It's the day after my wife got her citizenship, to be reemployed at the agency. So my friend and Kingston sent me a note and said that someone someone visited in we talked about you. And he told me that if you're still interested to contact him, well, this friend was a friend of both of ours who had reached an upper level when the office in the agency. So I did, I contacted him and said, Yeah, I still want to rejoin and how can I go about it? So he told me what I had to do. This all took place while I was in Paris, and I, I followed his advice. We were at really happy in Paris, we met some good Filipino friends. So we established a good relationship with these people, friends. One of the friends, mothers ran up Filipino restaurant in Paris. And we went there, had a lot of fun, good food. Years later, and after we'd left Paris, we would have the opportunity to go to Reno and they were there at the airport waiting to greet us. But we finished the tour of Paris and that wasn't without incidents either. At that time. Black September was assassinating Americans they killed Colonel Gray who was I think he was the year at a che. He left his house one morning to go out to wait for the bus to go to the metro and they walked up behind the Chinaman they hit and killed him. So there was a bit of that going on too and they were strapping bombs on cars and stuff. So anyway, we, we relocated out from Paris and went back to Washington. And I had arranged at that time to be assigned to the Washington to this state department building. Because I was told by my friend, in order to go back to the agency, I had to get an assignment in Washington, and in white there in, in DC until I could make that change. So that's what I did. I got a job in, in in the department, and I spent about a year in that year was because the agency was then doing my investigations all over again, all my clients. So it took about a year. And then finally, I got notification that I was going to be hired. But I had to get through the polygraph process. I don't know how many times I think it was five times that they put me on the box that they were insisting one of them call me a liar, which was unusual. But they, I later found out that they were, they had like a profile for people who were intending to become moles. And one aspect of that profile was somebody who had been with the agency, and left for whatever reasons and now was trying to return was a suspect. So they put me through the wringer. And finally, I think it was, as I said, at the time, I went home, and I told my wife that if they did not pass me this time, I am not going back there. It's just, I don't care. I'm not going to do it. And luckily enough, that was the last time and I passed, I got through that process and I was rehired. And I went through some short term pain. I left there in 1975. And I went back in 1983. When I, when I went back, and in 1983, it was at the same PayScale that I left in 1975, which I didn't think was great. But I was okay with that time. I got back in and I was I was happy. So they assigned us to Liberia, West Africa.
And I, we went and we spent, we didn't spend the entire two years. About a little over halfway through there. I found out that Washington was looking for people to volunteer for Central America. At that time. There was a war going on. And you can see what's involved, heavily involved. So they were looking for people to volunteer to go Yeah. So to get to get out of the Monrovia thing. I was not happy. I was working 12 hour shifts. I just didn't care for it. So I volunteered for that Central American thing. And I was we were then assigned to Manila. And off we went to Manila. And as I previously mentioned, we had a group of people at the airport just waiting for us. It was great. We had a ready to support group. And I enjoyed that job. And I did a lot of traveling. It was a three year assignment. And I traveled throughout the far east as far as India, Beijing. And as far south as Wellington and Exuma. And everything in between anywhere. We had an embassy. And so it was it was quite It was nice and my wife worked. And so he was occupied. And we had, as I said, the good friends there. So we had a really good time, enjoyable for three years. And at that point, I was reassigned back to Washington, I got promoted and became a branch chief. And I did that for one year. And I was not thrilled about that particular job. So I decided that I'd retire I had enough time at that point to put in my retirement papers. And I did just that. So I went to work as a contractor the following Monday. And I've worked for EA systems. And we're the systems I was assigned to the National Reconnaissance Office and our own. And I worked there for a nine and a half years. And then decided I would take a contract job again with the agency, a couple of retired friends started a small company, and provided service to the agency, communication security, mostly. So that's what I took that job. And I stayed with them for almost 10 years, nine and a half years. And finally, in 2012, I retired completely. I retired from the agency then I retired from Unisys, who I worked with the systems. And then I retired from the job contract job with the agency. So three times.
Host 2:06:04
Yeah, that's quite a story. And thank you so much for sharing your your full biography, where that intersects with Burma and the rest of the Southeast Asian region, as well as where that intersects with your overall career in government and the CIA and, and all the different threads that fit within that tapestry that you're weaving that also gives us a better understanding of Burma and such. So I thank you so much for taking the time and sharing all of those details. Very fascinating. And I think listeners will also find it quite interesting as well. So thank you for that.
Wes Kingsley 2:06:45
You're welcome. And thank you for having.
Host 2:07:03
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