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closer in his own mind to the G.I. than he was to the West Point--type of person.

What was your advice to him, when you returned?

To find a way out honorably, as quickly as possible. And he practically threw us out of his office and said, “Go over and tell the Secretary [of defense, Robert McNamara] that!”

I don't think we were with him very long that morning. We were dog--tired. We were scared to death, getting out of Vietnam. We lost one plane in the Mekong Delta. It could've been ours as well as the one we lost. The three of us wanted to get out.

We went out by way of Tokyo, and in Tokyo we spent a day trying to compose our thoughts. We didn't make a written report. I think we made some notes; I don't have mine. I don't know whatever happened to them. Palmer Hoyt was a helluva journalist, and strong editorial page writer, and I think he wrote the president a private note. Starzel, I think, did not. I did not. But he picked up the phone and said: “You go over to the Pentagon and talk to McNamara.”

He picked up the phone and talked to McNamara and said: “I've got three guys that are coming over to see you, and I want you to see them right away.”

This was a Saturday morning, and we walked out to the front of the executive wing in the White House, and there was a car waiting for us. I wasn't even aware of the fact that he'd ordered a car for us. We were shot right over there, and when we got there Bob McNamara