[3] Despite having no previous Asian experience, in January 1972 he was appointed as CIA station chief in Saigon, South Vietnam taking over from Theodore Shackley.
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms, an old friend and colleague of Polgar's advised him that he would have four permanent items on his Saigon agenda, none of them operational.
[4]: 107 At the time of Polgar's appointment Saigon was the largest CIA station in the world and he oversaw a network of more than 550 field officers, including more than 200 undercover.
On April 6 Polgar wrote that:[4]: 109–11 The illusion that [the] war is over and we have won is shattered...American support in the air and in military and civilian advisory capacities remain essential for survival of a non-Communist Vietnam as long as Soviets and China continue support to North Vietnam.In early May Polgar showed Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker an assessment that included a devastating critique of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) commanders.
[4]: 117–8 In September 1972 CIA executive director William Colby wrote to Polgar urging him to develop a new political action strategy for South Vietnam.
Polgar rejected Colby's request pointing out that the investment of billions of American dollars and a gigantic civilian effort had not resulted in U.S.-style political institutions taking root in South Vietnam and he called instead for "constant, generous, and sincere moral and material support to... President Thiệu, no matter what internal policies he pursues, as long as [these] do not damage fundamental U.S.
Arguing that democracy was too antipathetic to the Vietnamese tradition to constitute a real alternative, Polgar thought the U.S. should abandon what he called the "social reformist/missionary" resulting in a regime "more autocratic-not more democratic," but if this trend was accompanied by better security, the populace would welcome it.
[4]: 114–5 In April 1973 Polgar accompanied Bunker on Thiệu's visit to President Richard Nixon at the "Western White House" in San Clemente, California.
The essential point as Polgar saw it was that Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and then Thiệu had succeeded where their predecessors failed by establishing security and by offering the fundamentally apolitical peasant the prospect of improved living standards.
[4]: 137 Polgar's year-end assessment for the Far East division stated that 1973 was a relatively good year for Saigon "certainly better than 1972" and as having seen an erosion of VC influence, Communist discomfort as the result of continuing ARVN pressure and economic difficulties in North Vietnam.
The Saigon government, for its part, was constrained by Nixon's "debility in Washington," economic problems and a manpower shortage; it too "might welcome a respite from the very heavy burden of continuing fighting."
"[4]: 142–3 On August 9, 1974, the same day that Nixon resigned as a result of the Watergate scandal, Polgar sent Martin a threat estimate that stated that despite intensified military action, Hanoi showed no unambiguous signs of intending to tear up the Paris agreement and launch an offensive on the scale of 1968 or 1972.
[3] In 1977 Polgar's subordinate Frank Snepp wrote his book Decent Interval giving his perspective of the Fall of Saigon without the approval of the CIA.
Snepp criticised Polgar as indulging Ambassador Graham Martin's overoptimistic view of likelihood of the survival of South Vietnam and the possibility of negotiations to end the North Vietnamese assault.