The Plaza Hotel: My Vietnam “Foxhole”

Mention the "Plaza Hotel" and decadent luxury springs to mind, with glamorous guests arriving at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Movie actors, presidents and monarchs are among the VIPs who have slept at the lavish Central Park address. In a Google search during the summer of 2018, the “best rate guarantee” was $755 a night.

The Plaza Hotel in New York City where suites come with their own butler service.

Plaza Hotel in Saigon, Room 434. copyright:rf

In 1969, when the New York City property was designated a National Historic Landmark, I was a guest of another Plaza Hotel: this one at 135 Tran Hung Dao Street in Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam.

The two Plazas were identical in five respects: the five letters that spell out the hotels’ name. Beyond that, the comparisons were a world apart—well, a half-world apart to be precise.

I checked into Room 434 at Saigon’s Plaza in March 1969 when the hotel provided lodging for U.S. enlisted military personnel during the Vietnam War. I was a broadcaster with the American Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN). There were dozens of these living quarters scattered around Saigon: BEQs, Bachelor Enlisted Quarters, or BOQs for bachelor officers.

The Rex was the most famous hotel for U.S. officers. copyright:rf

Essentially long-stay hotels, some of them had fantasy names like Five Oceans, Hawaii, North Pole, and even White House. It was popular to christen them after cities and states. You could serve in Vietnam and still live in the Maryland, Arizona, Dodge City, or, in my home state of Iowa. I wonder if the Splendid and Lucky hotels lived up to their names. One can presume that the Plaza is the namesake of the grand New York City landmark.

The heavily protected Plaza Hotel in 1969. copyright:rf

In 2018 the Plaza was boldly painted with ferns and leafy vines. copyright:rf

Let’s face it, the Plaza BEQ, where I lived for ten months, was more of a barracks than a hotel. There was no concierge service, no front desk, no pool, not even room phones. Two lobby elevators, when they functioned, whisked passengers to the top floor, nine stories high. It was one of the city’s tallest buildings. Since I was midway up on the fourth floor annex, I always took the staircase and was never stranded on a lift.

Let me emphasize, I am not complaining. These accommodations were extremely comfortable when compared to our military brothers who were fighting the war and who lived in a tent, a foxhole or a bunker, or tried to sleep wrapped in a poncho or on a cement slab at the “Hanoi Hilton” as a prisoner.

I rarely went without a shower or a decent meal and had my own bed. The living conditions were better than many stateside billets, especially large, open “squad bays” lined with steel bunk beds. Marines called them “racks.” Across Vietnam, it was the folks in the field who made the praiseworthy sacrifices.

Laundry Day at the Plaza in 1969. copyright:rf

The one true luxury we did have at the Plaza was maid service. For $10 a month, a housekeeper would clean the room, do your laundry and iron your uniforms. My room had three men, so the maid got $30 a month, just from our one room. They could work together and combine multiple rooms into a pretty decent income.

One very good reason to go to the top floor was for a Schlitz beer and a sandwich at the night club. Former AFVN sportscaster Preston Cluff offered this reminder: "Spent many a night on that top floor where any drink was but ten cents!"

The live entertainment was good enough, but the ninth floor had another attraction: “A line of slot machines, rows of 20, back to back, just off the bar,” according to Ken Kalish, another AFVN veteran, seen here selecting music. “They were almost always full, and most of the players were Vietnamese women,” remembers Kalish. “I don’t think I ever saw an open machine.” (Photo from afvnvets.net)

The Swooners and Ron Hesketh in back. (Photo from Hesketh)

Ron Hesketh, an AFVN newscaster and show host, shared a wonderful photo of The Swooners, a band from the Philippines, posing between sets at the Plaza. Ron was celebrating his 25th birthday in 1965, a milestone he almost did not survive. The night before this photo, he was walking to dinner at the My Canh floating restaurant when terrorists blew it up. More than 100 people were killed or wounded.  

Hesketh stayed at the nearby Dai Nam Hotel, but said he used to eat at the Plaza when the top floor had a dual purpose: “By day it was a mess hall and by night a night club.” 

When I arrived in ’69, there was no longer any daytime meal service. Plaza residents went up the street to the Ky Son BEQ, where their mess hall prepared decent military grub. 

I shared my Plaza room with two U.S. Army enlisted men. One was never there and the other had opposite working hours, so I pretty much had my own place. Sometimes there was warm water in the shower, and sometimes not. We had a refrigerator and window air conditioner—both incapable of reaching optimum temperature. One roommate had a new tape deck, turntable and tuner, but none of us invested in a portable TV.

 

My maid and the taped windows that shook during B-52 bombings. copyright:rf

The thing I remember most was the vigorous rattling of our windows when B-52 bombers were dropping payloads on the outskirts of Saigon. There was no sound of the aircraft or explosions, just long, sustained vibrations from “carpet bombing.”

Today, behind the Plaza’s painted jungle motif, live more than 1,000 young Vietnamese students. It is a dormitory for Ho Chi Minh City’s University of Economics, part of Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training. I was denied entry when I visited during the Tet Lunar New Year in 2018, but my Vietnamese friend was able to convince the security guard to allow a few pictures in the dismal lobby.

A few Tet marigolds brighten the dreary lobby in 2018. (Photo by LA)

No longer known as the Plaza, the building manager said there were six to eight students per room, double the ordinary occupancy during the war. Some negative comments had been posted on the Internet complaining about crowded living conditions.

Ninth floor study hall for dorm residents. (Photo from government website)

The night club is now a memory. We were told the ninth floor was converted into additional rooms and a study hall. According to the school’s website, the monthly cost for Wi-Fi, or a motorcycle parking space, is around $3 each.

Students can use this canteen on the eighth floor. (Photo from government website)

With pharmacy students living in my room in 1986. copyright:rf

I was hoping to re-enter my old room as I had done in 1986 when I took a picture with two of the occupants who identified themselves as pharmacy students. But the building bosses would not allow it. My friend pleaded, explaining that I used to live upstairs, and please let us just take a quick peek. They said we would need a letter from a government minister.

High on the rooftop in 1969. copyright:rf

I also wanted a nostalgic return to the rooftop, where young servicemen gathered after dark to look out over the city and watch flares and tracers on the horizon, and maybe hear an incoming rocket. That’s what we did nearly 50 years ago, although the haze directly over head was more likely from smoking pot.

The roof is also where a band of young AFVN newsmen would gather to plot their next move in a treacherous campaign to expose news censorship by commanders. Ultimately, there was a congressional investigation, but not before seven of us were duly disciplined.

The Plaza did claim some recognizable residents, at least on a local scale, though not equal to the celebrity status of THE Plaza Hotel’s rich and famous guests in New York. A collection of television and radio personalities lived in the building: on-air announcers, newscasters, deejays and program hosts who worked at the American Forces Vietnam Network.  

The U.S. introduced television to Vietnam during the war and AFVN had a huge shadow audience of Vietnamese in addition to the military, business and diplomatic viewers. More than once I was stopped on the street by locals who recognized me. “You, TV. You, TV,” one excited woman exclaimed while wagging her finger at me.

The booming voice of Gary W. Gears was heard in the Plaza hallways in the late '60s. Gary was an AFVN deejay and newscaster, but his lasting legacy would be as the baritone staff announcer of AFVN radio; his jingles, station IDs and promos were broadcast around the clock.

A better example of true superstar residents would be the warriors who quietly stayed at the Plaza, men who exhibited valor in combat or were wounded. Two of the veteran broadcasters quoted in this story are among them: Ken Kalish and Tom Watson.

At least one famously named soldier was among the hotel’s alumni: Thomas Steinbeck, the oldest son of Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Thom worked at AFVN as a producer and photographer in 1968 and would become a successful novelist himself.

Goofing off on the back wing of the hotel, 1969. copyright:rf

The hotel had an entire floor that was restricted. “The third floor was womens’ quarters. Not just American service members, but other nationals as well,” recalls fourth floor resident Kalish. “Quite an interesting game of cat and mouse when a guy managed to get in there to ‘visit.’ ”

Communist gunners and sappers had coveted Saigon’s network of U.S. military hotels, teeming with American soldiers. The Plaza was targeted on several occasions, including a Thanksgiving Day terrorist bomb in 1969. Fortunately, the plot was discovered. After Thanksgiving dinner, I was returning to my room just as EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) was removing the explosive from the Plaza’s lobby.

Watson (r) with Paul Magers. (Watson photo)

There were other lucky escapes. A 122mm rocket grazed the top of the hotel in 1970. “I think it was a ricochet. I don’t know if it exploded,” recalls Tom Watson, who did the Go Show and played the “Top 40” countdown on AFVN. “I was asleep and heard people talking. I put my feet on the floor and there was water; something was hit and water came through the ceiling.” Several rooms were flooded but there were no injuries.

Another chapter in the Plaza’s serendipitous history came during the ’68 Tet Offensive. When the nearby Hung Dao BEQ came under attack, defenders alerted the Plaza CQ (Charge of Quarters) that a Viet Cong squad was headed their way down Tran Hung Dao Street. According to Stars and Stripes newspaper the Plaza security team set up an ambush. When the VC guerillas, all carrying satchel explosives, got close enough, the American guards opened fire dropping three with four others escaping. 

The Hung Dao BEQ radioed an alert to the Plaza in 1969. copyright:rf

It has been nearly 50 years since I checked in to South Vietnam’s Plaza Hotel. My 2018 return visit was extraordinarily satisfying, mostly because it is still there and providing shelter for its current occupants. My wistful memories are safe; the place where lifetime recollections were made: where I wrote letters home to mom and dad, listened to the Apollo 11 moon landing, was rattled by B-52s and where I got silly after my first puff of marijuana.

The New York Plaza, once featured on Seinfeld, as seen on the hotel's website.

The Plaza New York (top) or the Plaza Saigon? copyright:rf

Now a half century older, if I could choose one day in either of the Plaza Hotels, in New York City or Saigon, I would instantly opt for nostalgic time travel back to Vietnam; dinner and entertainment at the Plaza night club, a climb up to the rooftop to scan the spectacular skyline of modern Ho Chi Minh City, and finally settling in for sentimental dreams in Room 434.

I would gladly pay the $755 rate of the upscale Plaza for one final night in the basic accommodations of the old Plaza in Saigon. And I promise to leave my maid a generous tip.

The writer lived in Vietnam's Plaza from March 1969, until January 1970. It closed as a military hotel in March, 1973.

The Plaza at its worst in 1986. All the air conditioners had been removed and the building was in disrepair. copyright: rf

When I visited 11 years after the war, the lobby was a depressing place. copyright: rf

Better times in 2018. Seen here in the alley behind the Plaza. (Photo by LA)