(PHOTO Dimitri Khalezov explains how the nuclear-tipped "Granit" missile with 500 kiloton warhead used in the Pentagon attack.)

(February 8, 2011) You may not remember Nick Rowe. His 1971 book, Five Years to Freedom, told the story of his being captured by Viet Cong after a hellacious gunfight in October, 1963 and his five years as a POW, followed by his escape just before being executed. The Vietnamese Communists had just learned that he had deceived them for five years and kept from them the fact that he was in Special Forces, rather than in the engineers.

American students had passed on to the Viet Cong Central Committee their research on Nick. Hiding his true identity and the loss of face to the Reds resulted in a death sentence. He was being marched to the place of execution when a B-52 air raid scattered the firing squad and Nick whacked the one remaining guard with a limb and a circling Huey picked him up.


I met Nick when he came to Monterey in ’87 to take a crash course in Tagalog at the Defense Language Institute.