Graham Anderson Martin (September 22, 1912 – March 13, 1990) was an American diplomat. He was the ambassador to Thailand and as U.S. representative to SEATO from 1963 to 1967, ambassador to Italy from 1969 to 1973 and the last United States Ambassador to South Vietnam from 1973 until his evacuation during the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
Early life
Martin was born and raised in the small town of Mars Hill, North Carolina, in the state's western mountains. His father was an ordained Baptist minister. He graduated from Wake Forest College in 1932. Like almost all whites from the South at the time, Martin was a Democrat in his politics. However, unlike many other Southern whites who represented the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, Martin was an avid supporter of the New Deal, which he saw as a way to improve North Carolina, which was a very backward and underdeveloped state at the time. Under the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, Martin became a protégé of W. Averell Harriman, who became his patron, which greatly aided his career. Martin began his career in the National Recovery Administration, a New Deal agency created to counter the effects of the Great Depression. During World War II, he was a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer, and he was aboard USS Missouri for the Japanese surrender in 1945.
Career
Martin first worked in the diplomatic field at the U.S. embassy in Paris, France, from 1947 to 1955. The American journalist Stanley Karnow described Martin as a "fierce anti-Communist liberal" whose main duties in Paris were to counter the influence of the French Communist Party on French life. His abilities as an administrative counselor and deputy Chief of Mission gained him attention from the State Department, which rapidly advanced his career. President Eisenhower appointed Martin as the Representative of the United States to the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva, and he served in that office from 1960 to 1962. He finished his explanation by saying "If you become President yourself someday, Mr. Vice President, you can be sure that I will guard your interests as closely as I did President Johnson's tonight".
During Ambassador Martin's tenure in Thailand, he forged close bonds with the local government and the Thai Royal family. Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara heeded the Joint Chiefs' request to escalate bombing runs over North Vietnam; and to provide close air support cover for covert missions in the highlands of South Vietnam; the secret war in Laos; and Cambodian excursions. The U.S. military needed more air bases for staging, and to launch B-52 bomber missions. Using his personal relations with Thai royals and government leaders, Martin convinced Thailand to allow more U.S. troops and materiel to be stationed at bases on Thai soil. Martin advised that if Thai commanders were "in charge", these would remain "Thai bases"...and avoid embarrassment or public support for the escalating U.S. war. In 1972, he gave over $800,000 to General Vito Miceli, Italy's army intelligence chief, with the approval of the director of the National Security Council, Henry Kissinger, despite objections from the CIA Rome station chief about Miceli's ability to spend the money properly and his association with a prominent neo-fascist journalist (believed to be Pino Rauti, the founder of Ordine Nuovo). Philip Willan, in his book Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy (1991), explains that Martin – described by the Pike Committee in 1976 as a "man of unusual force" – managed to seize control of this money through willpower alone, citing an argument that he had about the funds with the Rome station chief as evidence of his uncompromising nature: