One of the most famous photographs of the Vietnam War shows an Air America “Huey” loading passengers atop a building in Saigon on Americans’ last day in the country. — Hubert Van Es photo
Paul C. Velte Jr. led a quiet life in Ridgefield, serving as a scoutmaster, a church building committee chairman, and even a justice of the peace. But his final job was anything but quiet: Working for the CIA, he orchestrated the evacuation of more than 1,000 Americans in the final hours of the U.S. presence in Vietnam just 40 years ago next week.
Velte was CEO of Air America, a large airline that was secretly owned by the Central Intelligence Agency and used for a variety of missions in Southeast Asia. During the war years, Air America had flown civilians, diplomats, spies, doctors, refugees, commandos, drug enforcement agents, injured soldiers, and even the likes of Richard M. Nixon.
But its last mission was rescuing Americans from Saigon as the city was about to fall to North Vietnamese troops.
On April 29, 1975, the South Vietnamese capital became the scene of what has been called the largest helicopter evacuation in history. “Two United States Marine Corps helicopter squadrons, ten U.S. Air Force helicopters, and Air America carried out 1,373 Americans and 5,595 people of other nationalities,” wrote William Leary and E. Merton Coulter in MHQ, a military history magazine.
Air America “Huey”-type helicopters were used to evacuate United States citizens from Saigon on the last day of America’s presence there because they were light enough to land on many buildings. This one was photographed in Hue in 1968. — Curt Knapp photo.
Velte didn’t direct operations from the headquarters in Washington: He was on the ground in Vietnam, often in situations where he, his pilots and staff were under fire, such as at Tan Son Nhut airport just outside the city. He tried to supply 28 Air America Bell UH-1 Huey helicopters that were light enough to land on buildings; the larger Marine copters, used for most of the evacuation flights, were too heavy for many buildings.
“Because of a shortage of pilots, many of these helicopters would have to be flown by a single pilot,” Leary and Coulter wrote. “According to the U.S. Air Force account of the final evacuation, ‘This was risky, but Air America was accustomed to such risks and expressed no reservations about that aspect of the Saigon air evacuation.’”
Mr. Velte had to deal not only with the enemy fire but also with many other problems. U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin hesitated for days to act on evacuation planning. There was a lack of adequate fuel to keep the Hueys going.
The military refused to protect Air America’s helicopters, and the North Vietnamese subsequently stole some of those unprotected aircraft.
Paul C. Velte Jr., left, is shown receiving a commendation from a Central Intelligence Agency official for his service with Air America in Southeast Asia. — Courtesy of Paul J. Velte IV
In mid-April Velte had tried to get the Air Force to arrange for an aircraft carrier to be offshore to serve as an operating base in case his Hueys were needed for the evacuation and the Tan Son Nhut was under attack or overtaken.
“The baby carrier,” Velte told the Air Force, “had the necessary machine shops to do repair work, had fuel, and had mobility. It could move up and down the coast and would allow Air America to perform its missions as required.”
An Air Force general said the carrier could not be provided, but then tried to arrange for 30 Marine pilots to serve as copilots on the Air America helicopters. Ambassador Martin, still reluctant to admit Saigon was about to fall, vetoed the plan for copilots.
Ambassador Martin was later criticized for delaying the evacuation planning and execution — even though most of South Vietnam had already fallen to the North. “Faced with imminent disaster,” Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote, “Martin decided to go down with the ship. … I considered Martin’s stonewalling dangerous.”
In the end, Air America, down to around 13 helicopters, still managed to evacuate more than 1,000 Americans to offshore ships or to locations on land where the bigger Marine copters could ferry them to vessels.
Paul Velte’s simple gravestone in Ridgebury Cemetery. — Jack Sanders photo
“That was no small accomplishment, to be sure,” said a CIA analyst named Frank Snepp, “particularly in view of the fact that the maximum capacity of each Huey was barely 12 people.”
According to Velte’s grandson, David Wilson, he “was on the last helicopter out of Saigon with nothing but a .45 pistol and a pair of underwear.”
The end of the Vietnam conflict also spelled the end of Air America. On May 5, 1975, CIA Director William Colby cabled Velte: “The withdrawal from Vietnam draws to a conclusion Air America’s operational activities.”
He added a few words of praise for the staff. “Air America, appropriately named, has served its country well,” he said.
However, “the pilots never heard even that modest accolade,” wrote Leary and Coulter. “The CIA would not publicly acknowledge its ownership of the airline for another year, and it would not issue a commendation to these secret soldiers of the Cold War until 2001.”
A native of New York City, Paul Christian Velte Jr. was a Pace College graduate and World War II Navy veteran who had worked as an executive for Pan American Airlines before joining Air America.
He was based in Taipei, Taiwan, and later at the main Air America headquarters in Washington, but had also maintained a home in Ridgefield from 1955 until his death at age 62 in 1976 — the same year the CIA officially dissolved Air America.
His contributions to aviation were recognized in Who’s Who in America, but his contribution to the largest helicopter evacuation in history has gone largely unnoticed or unheralded.
He is buried in Ridgebury Cemetery, where a small monument marks his grave.
This account is an excerpt from the book Hidden History of Ridgefield, to be published by History Press in the fall.