University of Virginia Library

Precious Cargo

The plane and its precious cargo, reportedly
owned by General Rathikoune's wife, were
destined for a Chinese opium merchant and
piloted by a former KMT pilot, L.G.Chao.

Whatever their ownership, the dope-running
planes usually land at Tan Son Nhut airbase,
where they are met in a remote part of the
airport with the protection of airport police.

A considerable part of the opium and heroin
remains in Saigon, where it is sold directly to
U.S. troops or distributed to U.S. bases
throughout the Vietnamese countryside. One
GI who returned to the states an addict was
August Schultz. He's off the needle now, but
how he got on is most revealing.

Explaining that he was "completely straight,
even a right-winger" before he went into the
Army, Mr. Schultz told RAMPARTS how he
fell into the heroin trap: "It was a regular day
last April (1970) and I just walked into this
bunker and there were these guys shooting up. I
said to them, "What are you guys doing?'
Believe it or not, I really didn't know. They
explained it to me and asked me if I wanted to
try it. I said sure."

Probably a fifth of the men in his unit have
at least tried junk, August says. But the big
thing, as his buddy Ronnie McSheffrey adds,
was that most of the officers in his company,
including the MPs, knew about it. McSheffrey
saw MPs in his own division (6th Battalion, 31st
infantry, 9th Division) at Tan An shoot up, just
as he says they saw him.