‘Let me get this right,’ one of the senators interrupted, ‘the South Vietnamese army is liable to crumble once the attacks start. Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Donovan replied. ‘Our best intelligence is that morale is mostly shot to pieces. And we have reports already of desertions and some of the commanders organising their departures and those of their families.’

‘Despite all the money and equipment that’s been pumped in?’ another asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s not what we’re getting out of the Embassy.’

‘No disrespect to the Embassy, but I’m outlining our findings as openly and as honestly as possible and without prejudice. I think Mr Bloomfield’s intelligence sources are corroborating what we believe to be the reality of the situation,’ Donovan said as he held a hand out to the standing American in a gesture of invitation.

So this was George Bloomfield, the seeming object of Donovan’s implacable enmity. I didn’t understand and, as Bloomfield accepted the opportunity to give his support to the analysis just delivered, I looked at this slightly overweight man a few years older than Donovan who was clearly sweating despite the air conditioning. He wore large heavy glasses that made his eyes look as if they were peering out from under rippled water and from time to time he pushed them back on the bridge of his nose with a finger. I don’t know exactly what I had expected but I guess it would have been someone more obviously combative, someone cut from similarly aggressive cloth as Donovan.

‘All our sources are telling us similar things to what you’ve just heard. I believe Mr Donovan’s analysis is wholly correct.’

‘So why are we hearing from Ambassador Martin this very morning that he retains his confidence in the South Vietnamese and that Saigon is safe for the foreseeable future?’

‘I guess he’s reluctant to panic anyone unnecessarily,’ Donovan said, shrugging his shoulders as if to say please don’t ask me to call the Ambassador a schmuck. ‘But listen to what Mr Miller has to say, based on the extensive interviews he’s conducted with our own agents, well-placed defectors and captured enemy.’

They all stared at me, no one more intently than Bloomfield, and after a moment’s hesitation I told them what Donovan wanted. There were no immediate questions, just a row of nodding heads, and after I had finished Donovan ushered me off the scene to wait for him in the car, either to avoid the possibility of subsequent ones or because he didn’t want me to hear any more of what was being said. When eventually he came out I didn’t ask him how it had gone.

‘Went pretty well, Mikey,’ he said as if I had, ‘but these fact-finding trips are a dime a dozen. They get a bit of wining and dining and hear only what someone needs them to hear. And they never go off track or step outside the carefully prepared schedule that’s been arranged for them – probably the political equivalent of flower arranging or a puppet show. These guys, however, are heavyweights and when they go back they’ll squawk in the right ears and to their contacts in the press.’