Fortunato

By Sergei Blagov

This genre-breaking book, "Fortunato," combines history, fiction and a measure of investigative journalism. The book focuses on the dramatic events in Saigon, and also aims to identify covert action of intelligence services and trace connections between John F. Kennedy's early involvement in Vietnam and the assassination in Dallas.

 

I researched the topic since early 1980s, lived in Vietnam for about seven years, met and interviewed some participants and eyewitnesses of the events. The new book builds on my earlier publications, including books and newspaper articles: "Honest Mistakes: The Life and Death of Trinh Minh The." New York, 2001; "Hollywood Attacks America in Graham Greene Remake" (21 February 2003, The Asian Wall Street Journal) and "Vietnam's Preview of Dealey Plaza: A Tale of Two Assassinations" (22 November 2003, Asia Times).

 

The book, "Fortunato," comes as a unique work as it was written simultaneously in three languages, English, Vietnamese and French. I did not write in one language and then translated into other languages, but I wrote all three versions simultaneously. These texts are not exactly the same, and each has some of its own literary and historical context.

 

This "dramatized historial" comes a prequel and sequel of Graham Greene's "The Quiet American". The book offers a narrative of events preceding and succeeding real life plot elements of Greene's novel. It takes a new look at "The Quiet American" and Greene's actual role in Vietnam.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sergei Blagov
• Release date: Nov 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223446156

Book preview

Chapter 1. Arrival

They invited me to watch the watchmen, thought Fortunato as he looked up at the top of the watchtower. They believe I’m a guardian capable to protect them and their guests. Yet the guards themselves are not supposed to be guarded.

Fortunato no longer belonged to any commando unit, but he still was unable to say no to Antoine Savani. They stopped by a sidewalk café on the Rue Catinat, and found a corner table.

I think we have some privacy here, Antoine spoke in a confidential voice.

A waiter came toward them, bowing, but Savani waved him away.

You are the best sniper in Indochina, Savani told Fortunato. So your anti-sniper protection should be the best as well.

Who’s coming, French president?

Some well-connected Americans, Antoine smiled and did not speak directly. Now we can not afford to get one of them murdered in Saigon.

On 7.30am October 16, 1951 at Tân-Sơn-Nhứt airport, Fortunato met up with Marco and his team of rangers. They were also called to provide extra security to important Americans expected to arrive at the French air base in Saigon.

This hot October morning, Fortunato took position in the shadow of the watchtower, trying to figure out if his carbine may become pointed at any angle. As a riddle-reader, he marvelled and did strive to know how to react in a worst possible situation.

Why I’m needed here? Fortunato asked himself. The perimeter is well secured, a good shot is impossible from outside the airbase. It’d be too far, too far. Only if some of their own, some traitors, may be able to shoot downward from the watchtower.

As the plane landed, no dignitaries were to be seen under the hot sun of Cochinchina. Only a man with unmistakably young face walked out the plane.

Who is this youngster? Fortunato wondered.

He is an important man over there, a lawmaker, said Marco. These are his brother and sister, he said looking at even younger companions exiting the plane.

What your team is doing here? Fortunato asked. Marco made no reply, so Fortunato continued, Your men were all drunk at La Croix du Sud last night.

The Americans had nothing in their appearance to indicate importance. These youngsters rather seemed to be fresh from the student campus. However, were met by a defilade of the French army unit in full dress uniform regalia. The French troops lined up and stood at correct attention in the heat, saluting the  Americans.

Hope they are not going to drive them to Saigon in an open car, Fortunato commented. Tell them to drive as fast as they can in a closed car. They should be wary of snipers.

But the crowd wouldn't get to see the show. They wouldn't see anybody in it, said Marco.

Anyone aiming at them also wouldn't see anybody too. Speed is the best defense against ambushes. No good shot is possible at a target moving at more than fifty miles an hour. Otherwise, they would be easy marks.

The drive to Saigon was made under bamboo and palm triumphal arches erected few days before for other visiting foreign dignitaries. Every fifty meters along the route a policeman was facing the pavement. On the drive to downtown, they happened to hear some gunfire.

Yet another attack by the rebels, their driver remarked. Marco’s team followed the Americans to make sure they would be safe in the city.

In 1951, Saigon was a kind of backwater for the American diplomats. Yet the visiting Americans lost no time to meet privately the deputy chief of the US mission on the rooftop bar of the Hotel Majestic at the corner of Rue Catinat. Its curved corner façade was elaborate, with Art Nouveau décor of gilded metalwork on arched windows and the entrance on the ground floor. Panes were taped to prevent shattering glass from inflicting damage in case of a grenade attack.

Yet on their first evening in Saigon, they enjoyed a nice setting overlooking the Saigon River with a breeze from the riverside had some cooling effect. In the twilight, they listened to the remote gunfire and mortar shells exploding in the distance. The rebels opened up with mortar fire from Thủ Thiêm area, while another group made raid near Tân Thuận Đông village in southeast of city with light machine guns and rifles. French patrol boats and mortars apparently returned fire.

No casualties Vietnamese or French side in these attacks earlier this week, the DCM commented.

In mortar fire, were US ships the target?

Last week, one shell exploded on quay nearby wounding a French petty officer and a Vietnamese policeman, the diplomat replied.

Any other consequences?

The US units had to bring back sailors returning from liberty on the run.

The DCM told the visiting Americans that the French had lost the war. You don't have to be a military genius to see the writing on the wall. You mark my words, the French will not last in Indochina. If we come in here and do the same thing, we will lose, too, warned the diplomat.

I don't want to see us involved in something that is beyond our ability as long as we don't even realize it is beyond our ability, the visiting young American declared. We should not act as though Vietnam had just started as a country the day before we got here.

Here we are, in a country, a backwater most Americans have never heard of, but it could get really interesting in the next few years, the diplomat said.

They looked as serious as if they discussed atomic bomb secrets, said Fortunato, who also happened to be on the top of the Hotel Majestic that evening.

It sounds like you know far too much, said Savani. The diplomat does know lots of nuclear secrets, American and British as well. How they let him come here? And what do you know about him?

In fact, very little. It was just a wild guess of mine, Fortunato shot back.

But a nosy waiter and 2eme Bureau agent, who overheard a big part of the conversation, insisted it was all about Indochina.

Savani broke news that a plot was uncovered to assassinate important foreign officials. Plain-clothes detectives spotted the plotter entering the garden of the residence for visiting officials. He seemed to come for reconnaissance and left within a few minutes. The next day he was arrested, detectives seized a rough sketch of the residence and garden, a Sten submachine gun, a revolver and grenades. He was wearing the uniform of a French Sergeant and had well-forged ID papers.

As the would-be residence of the Americans was compromised, the authorities invited them to Norodom palace in downtown Saigon. The guests were offered a single large room.

Then the Americans were wined and dined at Norodom palace. Once belonging to the French top colonial administrators, it was given to Vietnam’s former Emperor and the current chief of state Bảo Đại. The Americans nicknamed their host Crisco fried emperor. They took notice that for first minutes with any stranger Bảo Đại tended to freeze into oriental impassivity. He was not a typical Vietnamese with personality split between Vietnam and France.

The the Americans stayed at the only room in the palace that had air conditioning. There was a bed with the bundle of the mosquito-net overhead. The older American was suffering back pain so he was forced to spend the night on the floor.

General de Lattre de Tassigny, personally welcomed the Americans and accompanied them to the North. He was keen to make sure that the U.S. government could have a better understanding of the problems that the French were running into.

The French top commander wore a black ribbon on the left arm to honor his fallen son. Bernard de Lattre was killed instantly on May 30 near Ninh-Bình, when the rebels attacked Phát Diệm and chased out the Bishop.

Le Roi Jean himself! Fortunato murmured. Wondering where is his royal banner.

He came to assure Americans that his banner would still move forward and rebels would be defeated in a few months, Marco replied.

The general is unlikely to live that long, said Fortunato, noting General’s pale face with a green eye-shade. He looks like as if he came from his deathbed. His Royal Banner may well end up in Hell.

Le Roi Jean flew to Hanoi with fellow General Joseph Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff, United States Army. Young Americans also rode on that plane. General de Lattre told them it would be impossible for the French to lose with 250,000 troops. They were flying over a large part of the defensive perimeter in the River Rouge delta where the French Foreign Legion was fighting rebels.

General Collins who was in Vietnam from October 21 to October 23, was greatly impressed with what he saw. General de Lattre pledged to continue counterattacks by mobile forces. He employed parachute battalions to cut off the rebels’ lines of retreat. General de Lattre’s tactics appeared to be effective, and the French forces were believed to be able to hold Indo-China indefinitely. But the war in the North was largely seen a General de Lattre show. There were concerns that without Le Roi Jean, there could well be a collapse in Indo-China.

In Hanoi, the Americans received a flag-waving parade welcome. When back from Hanoi, the young Americans got in touch with the foreign reporters based in Saigon in a bid to get briefed on the main points and cross-check the French optimistic narrative. They heard that the French efforts were hopeless despite all the US aid.

At the 2eme Bureau office, Savani leaned back in his desk chair and lit his cigarette, as he regarded the ceiling fan.

Did they meet up with Graeme? wondered Fortunato who sat at the other end of the low table.

Australian or British? Antoine raised an eyebrow.

Probably both.

If they met the British writer, then they are likely to be written up in his next spy novel as dirty dogs, Antoine leaned back in his chair and grinned.

Well, these youngish Harvard graduates looked pretty harmless, not exactly like villains, Fortunato noted.

The Brit probably told them stories about the inevitable defeat of the French. His best friend, consul in Hanoi and big fan of Ho Chi Minh, likes to tell the French that they are loosing the war, said Antoine. This boozer liked to tell the French to their faces that they were going to be defeated.

They say General de Lattre complained that the consul, also the Secret Service agent, was not enough for the Brits and they even sent their novelists as another agent to meddle with the Catholics, said Fortunato. The French authorities accused them of secretly encouraging the northern Catholics to become an anti-French Third Force. I heard the writer claimed that he never had anything more to do with his old firm."

Once a spy, always a spy, Antoine blew smoke toward the ceiling fan.

You surely know how it is, Fortunato nodded. But the Americans are unlikely to appreciate the idea of French defeat. And British consul in Hanoi is already persona not grata in French Indochina.

If the Americans are told they are pouring money and arms down a bottomless hole in desperate efforts to sustain the French rule in Indochina, it may sound convincing, Antoine smiled. Congress wouldn’t like it.

They say the Americans got a very major impression, Fortunato said.

Antoine reflected for a moment and said, The Americans are likely to appreciate the idea of the third force, both anti-French and anticommunist.

Yes, we’ve got lots of third force types here in Cochinchina, Fortunato noted dryly. The only problem is that a leader must be found for this third force.

Chapter 2. Departure

Fortunato hardly appeared to be a friend of fortune, yet his parents never had any doubts about their young son's future. They believed Fortunato would make all the right choices in life, the kinds of choices his parents would make for him if they could. They hoped he would become a priest, or may be a bishop eventually. His small village in Alta Rocca has produced many Catholic priests.

As a boy, Fortunato did not feel the goal of his life was to become a priest like his uncle. He was to spend years studying before he would be ordained. As a Catholic priest, he was due to take vows of obedience and humility, vows that were all against his natural inclinations.

His father’s insistence on Fortunato's becoming a priest was shattered the day he volunteered to serve in the French resistance. In November 1942, when the Allies landed in North Africa, Corsica was occupied by Italy. His father was said using the word betrayal to describe his son’s decision to enter the savage way of war.

Furtunato felt he was leaving forever. Yet he joined other insurgents, or maquisards, in a dense gloomy brushwood, maquis. Those who have fallen foul of the law could always find safe places in the maquis northwest of Porto-Vecchio. When needed, they also moved along the Sentier des Douaniers, the trail once used by custom officers to catch smugglers. When Fortunato reached a mountain’s foot, he did not look on high.

Insurgents or maquisards were good at small unit tactics. They knew how to protect their flanks. They were brave under fire and wouldn’t hesitate to run out and help a team member who was in trouble.

Fortunato was known for his shooting skill, extraordinary even by Corsican standards. Before the war, he never used buckshot for hunting, but would be shooting even small game at a hundred paces or more with a bullet. With a carbine, Fortunato was able to hit a coin at more than two hundred paces. He used his guns easily by night as by day.

Yet it did not take long to realize that Fortunato still had a lot to learn about shooting. Luigi, the group’s sniper and engineer, gave Fortunato some lessons of basic marksmanship.

Do you know how to determine which eye is dominant?

What the point of doing this?

You should extend one arm to the front and point the index finger to select an aiming point. Then with both eyes open, you should align the index finger with the aiming point. Then close one eye at a time while looking at the aiming point. One eye will make the finger appear to move off the aiming point. The other eye will stay on the aiming point, this is the dominant eye.

Never before Fortunato heard the language of marksmanship. It also came as a surprise to know that his right eye was the dominant one.

You are my teacher and sharpshooting authority, Fortunato told Luigi.

But the new knowledge did not change his intentions. The resistance fighters started their revolt against Italian forces in June 1943. But this brief revolt was defeated by the OVRA, the Italian political police. Three leaders were executed by order of Italy’s Fascist War Tribunal court in Bastia.

Following the Allied landing in Italy, Rome signed the Armistice of Cassibile on September 3, 1943 and Benito Mussolini was arrested. The armistice envisioned that Corsica should be restored to the Allies.

Many Corsican members of the resistance remained suspicious of the Italians.