Marines recall embassy hot spots

Jace Radke

Tuesday, May 9, 2000 | 10:20 a.m.

For a week in late 1956 Neil Huff found himself in the eye of a conflict that threatened to ignite the Cold War into armed aggression.

Huff was a Marine serving as a U.S. Embassy guard in Cairo, Egypt, when Israeli troops invaded the Sinai Peninsula and raced for the Suez Canal on Oct. 29, 1956.

A day later French and British troops attacked and invaded Egypt, as Huff and eight other Marines prepared to defend the embassy from Egyptian mobs in the streets of Cairo.

"At that point the Egyptians were pretty mad with France, England, Israel and anybody else," Huff said. "The Egyptian police had withdrawn from the area and we started to set up to defend the embassy.

"We found some old World War II Browning machine guns in the basement that we put in the windows, and we raided the commissary for flour and sugar for sandbags."

Huff, who now lives in Boulder City, is one of 82 Marines sharing memories at the second annual reunion of the Marine Embassy Guard Association at the Golden Nugget this week.

Jack Futch of Rockport, Texas, was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon for 11 months in 1966 and says that embassy guards had a tough and sometimes scary job no matter where they were.

"Embassy guards are a very elite group of Marines," Futch said at Monday's reunion reception. "You have to remember that we were 19- and 20-year-olds, only a couple of years removed from high school. Guarding those embassies and American citizens and diplomats is a lot of responsibility."

Huff and four other association members were charged with safeguarding 15 service people, including the ambassador to Egypt and his wife, as the situation worsened in Cairo in 1956.

"When the police withdrew, the mobs began moving in around the embassy, but luckily a cease-fire was reached and the police returned and set up a perimeter around the embassy," Huff said.

About 3,000 Americans living in Egypt were evacuated by the Marines in the days leading up to what developed into a hairy situation, former guard Ed Vasgerdsian said.

The Marines led a caravan of Americans 120 miles to Alexandria and the port of demarcation, where they boarded U.S. Navy and Greek ships.

"The lead car had an American flag on it and the last car in the line had a flag, and then there was a long line of foreign nationals following behind hoping to get out," Huff said. "All the people could bring was one suitcase, but they showed up with dogs, cats, parakeets, even a donkey.

"I still remember all those dogs and cats staked out on the embassy lawn."

The embassy guards in Cairo were also able to help the United States in getting intelligence information on a new Russian tank during Huff's and Vasgerdsian's time there.

"This huge new Russian tank, a Stalin II, rolled up and parked under a tree across the street from the embassy," Huff said. "Egyptian soldiers started getting out, and it was like one of those clown cars at the circus."

The soldiers set up a camp outside the embassy, and eventually became friends with the Marine guards.

"They'd come into our barracks and drink beer and smoke cigarettes with us," Huff said. "One night we got them all in there drinking, and a military attache snuck outside into the tank and took a bunch of pictures. I don't think the Egyptian soldiers ever knew."