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The North Carolina-born son of a Baptist minister, Martin, 62, has been a Foreign Service officer for 28 years. Far from being an Indochina hawk, he actually opposed American military involvement in Viet Nam in 1963, when he was serving as Ambassador to Thailand. "In fact," he insists, "my known opposition to using U.S. troops turned Thieu off when I first arrived." Says one former colleague: "In Bangkok, he was a real professional. He was one of the few ambassadors in that part of the world who could keep the U.S. military in their country under control. In Saigon, he has got crotchety and cranky." Some friends point out that Martin and his wife Dorothy lost a son, Glenn, in action in Viet Nam in 1966, and that this has affected his attitude. "He has a kind of messianic complex," says one State Department official. "I am sure he has said to himself, 'I don't care if I'm vilified, I'm going to save Viet Nam, if anybody can.'"
As the cautious Martin says of himself: "I'm still the only guy around who's not emotionally involved in Viet Nam." After nearly three decades in the Foreign Service, he dreams of being able to retire to some property he owns in Italy. "I told Henry [Kissinger] I'd come out here for a year, and it's been almost two," he says. "In Italy, I would do some writing, and I'd experiment with grafting an olive to a juniper to produce an instant Martini—one that needed no gin."
Martin is not much given to levity these days. Soft-spoken and articulate, he argues: "Certain people back home are trying to sweep things under the rug. The way I read history, it is determined by what people did or didn't do." The theme is echoed by one of Martin's admirers in the embassy, who says: "The ambassador has been hit so much that he no longer cares whom he annoys. He is only thinking of historical results, and he wants to be on the right side."
Last week in an interview with TIME Correspondents Roy Rowan and William Stewart, Martin made these additional comments:
ON THIEU. Has the mandate of heaven been withdrawn? I don't know; Thieu is a Vietnamese problem. There has been no advice from Washington for Thieu to step down. I think it is a mistake to intervene; you take the responsibility for what comes after. I don't know what the U.S. did or didn't do in Chile, but those who are so vocal condemning our actions toward [Marxist President Salvador] Allende [now] want us to do something about Thieu. I think it would be immoral.
ON THE CURRENT FIGHTING. The [South Vietnamese] pullback is now being interpreted as a great North Vietnamese victory. The North Vietnamese did not take Military Region I and II by force of arms, but by a government decision to evacuate. That does not make the North Vietnamese army ten feet tall. A year ago, Hanoi had put the war on the back burner. The level of violence would have got down to the endemic level. Then came the traumatic period: the Nixon resignation, appropriation cuts, a new Congress, and the Soviets quadrupled their aid to the North Vietnamese army in the past year. They want to get credit for the victory.