American Experience (1988) s27e07 Episode Script

1
(blowing whistle)
STUART HERRINGTON:
As we began to contemplate
evacuation,
the question,
the burning question was,
"Who goes,
and who gets left behind?"
I borrowed a truck
and I basically sent
the signal to my folks,
and this meant a group
of South Vietnamese majors,
lieutenant colonels, colonels
and their families
to muster at an address
in downtown Saigon.
I drove down there,
they loaded up onto the truck,
and I drove them to the airbase.
And I had told them,
"When you hear three thumps,
"that means
hold the babies' mouths.
"Don't breathe, don't talk,
don't make any noise
because we're going through
the gatepost."
I saluted in uniform
as a captain
of the United States Army.
The guard waved me through,
and I drove straight out
to the flight line
to an aircraft
that was awaiting.
One Vietnamese colonel that was
putting his family on the plane,
he had wanted to stay in Vietnam
to defend the country.
And this full colonel had,
like, eight kids and a wife.
And he was in tears,
the family
The family were in tears,
and I said to him,
"Get on the plane.
"Just go.
Go."
It was a terrible,
terrible, terrible moral dilemma
for everybody.
We today have concluded
an agreement to end the war
and bring peace with honor
in Vietnam.
NIXON:
We have adopted a plan
for the complete withdrawal
of all U.S. combat
ground forces.
We are finally bringing
American men home.
HENRY KISSINGER:
We who made the agreement
thought that it would be
the beginning
not of peace
in the American sense,
but the beginning of a period
of coexistence
which might evolve as it did
in Korea into two states.
Reconciliation between
North and South Vietnam
we knew would be
extremely difficult.
But I was hopeful.
HERRINGTON:
Because of the Paris Agreement,
American soldiers
were going home.
But I was on my way back
to Vietnam.
I was assigned to Saigon
in the first week
of August 1973,
so about six months
after the ceasefire.
I would say that between
the State Department people
and CIA people,
the contractors who were there
to maintain infrastructure,
maintain aircraft,
as well as people like me,
we had 5,000 to 7,000 Americans
in country.
A lot of the guys had Vietnamese
girlfriends and wives,
in many cases with children.
In general,
things were eerily calm
and in many ways normal
in Saigon.
My sense was that
we were gonna be there,
you know, pretty much
for a long time to come.
I was assigned to the
American embassy in Saigon.
I was in charge
of the 84 Marine security guards
that were there,
making sure that they kept up
with their physical fitness
training.
We were there to protect
American lives
as well as American property.
It was just a day-to-day job.
FRANK SNEPP:
The Ambassador there was a guy
named Graham Martin,
a North Carolinian,
just as I was.
He spoke with a slow
Southern drawl.
He was a great gentleman.
He was a cold warrior
in the old stripe.
He'd lost an adopted son
in Vietnam to combat.
And he was not gonna give up
South Vietnam to the Communists.
He was determined
to keep U.S. aid
flowing into Saigon.
When the ceasefire occurred
in 1973,
everybody toasted it
with Bloody Marys
in the U.S. embassy.
It was a grand party.
We thought peace was at hand.
But the Paris Peace Accord
was a masterpiece of ambiguity.
HERRINGTON:
In order to get President Thieu
and the South Vietnamese
to go along
with the Paris Agreement,
President Nixon
pulled out all the stops,
and in a letter
to President Thieu,
he promised that
if the North Vietnamese
were to substantially violate
the terms
of the Paris Agreement,
the United States would respond
with full force.
In other words, reenter the war.
SNEPP:
The North Vietnamese
viewed Nixon as a madman.
They were terrified of him.
They believed that Nixon,
if necessary,
would bring back
American air power.
But in August 1974, he was gone.
Nixon resigned
because of Watergate.
And overnight,
everything changed.
Hanoi suddenly saw the road
to Saigon as being open.
(cheering)
(gunfire)
(explosion)
(gunfire)
(explosion)
HERRINGTON:
The South Vietnamese population
had ample reason to fear
the Vietnamese Communists.
The Communist conduct
throughout the course of the war
had been violent
and unforgiving.
For example,
when the city of Hue
was taken over
by the North Vietnamese,
several thousand people
on a long blacklist
were rounded up
Schoolteachers,
government civil servants,
people who were known
anti-Communists
And they were executed,
in some cases even buried alive.
(crying)
So panic was
but a millimeter away.
WALTER CRONKITE:
Hundreds of thousands
of refugees
are in a blind rush
to flee even further
from the rapidly advancing
Communists.
Bruce Dunning reports.
BRUCE DUNNING:
President Thieu broadcast
a strong appeal
to the soldiers and the people
of Da Nang,
urging them to stay and fight.
As the enemy approaches,
the panic has swept
from the coastal city's
crowded backstreets and pagodas
onto runways at the airport.
REPORTER:
Our plane is surrounded here.
I don't know how the hell
we're gonna get out.
We're racing down the runway,
leaving behind hundreds
and thousands of people.
Another dozen of them
running along,
grabbing at the air stair.
We're pulling them on
as fast as we can.
There's a sea of humanity
jamming on.
Impossible to stop the crowd.
We're pulling away.
We're leaving them behind.
We're pulling up with the
People are falling
off the air stairs!
The plane is taking off.
HERRINGTON:
It was every man for himself.
So you saw
the World Airways flight
being mobbed
by South Vietnamese soldiers.
You saw ships
with thousands of refugees,
including lots of soldiers.
You saw out-of-control panic.
Basically
any boats, trucks, airplanes,
or anything going south
were besieged by people
wanting to get onboard.
SNEPP:
The Americans were gone,
and as a result, the house
of cards began to collapse.
The North Vietnamese
decided to escalate,
escalate, escalate, escalate
at every turn
to see if the United States
would react.
RON NESSEN:
In April of '75, I was
with President Gerald Ford,
and we were flying across
the country on Air Force One
when one of the airplane's crew
comes and hands me a note,
and it says,
"Da Nang has fallen."
Ford was bombarded
by questions from the press
after he got off Air Force One.
Around 150,000 to 175,000
well-trained North Vietnamese
regular forces
in violation
of the Paris Peace Accords
moved into South Vietnam.
We have objected
to that violation.
It's a tragedy unbelievable
in its ramifications.
SNEPP:
We are now in a crisis.
We had a wave of humanity:
500,000 refugees rolling,
rolling south towards Saigon,
and 160,000 North Vietnamese
troops moving right behind them.
I had become so concerned,
I decided to pull
our best Vietnamese agents in
out of the woodwork
to try to see
what they could tell us
about Communist planning, which
obviously was rapidly evolving.
On the 8th of April,
I met with one of our
best agents,
who said, "The Communists
are gonna drive on Saigon.
They're gonna be in there
by Ho Chi Minh's birthday,"
which was May 19th,
literally a month away.
Communist forces
in South Vietnam,
already solidly in control
of 11 provinces,
began working on yet
another one today: Binh Dinh.
(explosions)
(gunfire)
KIEM DO:
HERRINGTON:
I kept a map every day
on the progress of the North
Vietnamese onslaught.
By the 5th of April,
the North Vietnamese had 15,
even 16 divisions
heading in the direction
of Saigon.
They were bringing
SA-2 missiles down
to provide anti-aircraft cover
for their forces.
There were people
who were saying,
"Look, we've gotta do
some heavy, heavy planning here
"because depending
on how this goes,
and it doesn't look good now,
we may all have to evacuate."
And Ambassador Martin
wouldn't tolerate or countenance
such thought.
That was defeatism.
That was poisonous
to the prospects
of the people
we're here to help.
But people could see
what was going on
and they started leaving,
especially the Americans.
I'm leaving Vietnam.
Why?
I'm kind of scared,
to be honest with you.
To be perfectly honest with you,
I'm really scared.
I think the situation's
a lot worse than we know about.
SNEPP:
There was always a standing
evacuation plan in the embassy.
It held that in an emergency,
all Americans
still in the country,
about 6,000 people,
would be evacuated
and that no South Vietnamese
would be evacuated with them.
BINH PHO:
I was a student.
The school's not closing,
but it seemed like nobody's
interested in school anymore.
You can't stay here.
You can't live
with the Communists,
especially if you have
a connection with the Americans.
Then you really gotta get out.
HERRINGTON:
If we really made up a list
of endangered South Vietnamese,
the ones who really worked
closely with us during the war,
this number could be
150,000, 200,000.
Including their families,
many more than that.
But the idea
of talking about an evacuation
and of planning
for an evacuation of Americans,
let alone an evacuation
of Vietnamese,
was still anathema
in the embassy.
If you mean, "Is South Vietnam
on the imminent verge
of collapse?"
I think the answer
is quite definitely no.
STEVE HASTY:
We were dealing
with an ambassador
who was just convinced
that somehow,
he was going to be able
to pull this out
and that there wouldn't have
to be an evacuation
and therefore, there wouldn't
have to be a concern
about evacuating
South Vietnamese.
GERALD FORD:
The situation in South Vietnam
has reached a critical phase
requiring immediate and positive
decisions by this government.
There are tens of thousands
of South Vietnamese employees
of the United States government,
of news agencies,
of contractors and businesses
for many years
whose lives,
with their dependents,
are in very grave peril.
I'm therefore
asking the Congress
to appropriate without delay
$722 million
for emergency military
assistance for South Vietnam.
If the very worst
were to happen,
at least allow the orderly
evacuation of Americans
and endangered South Vietnamese
to places of safety.
There was no way in 1975
that the Congress
was going to vote any money
to go to the aid
of South Vietnam.
We had pulled out our troops
in 1973
and public opinion
at that point shifted.
The people of the United States,
having seen Watergate,
having seen the deception
of the generals,
weren't about to give any help
in Southeast Asia.
And you know,
Kissinger knew this.
We knew we were not going to get
the $722 million.
By that time
it made no big difference,
but President Ford said
he owed it to Vietnam
to make a request.
We've sent, so to speak,
battleship after battleship
and bomber after bomber
and 500,000 and more men
and billions and billions
of dollars.
If billions and billions
didn't do
at a time when we had
all our men there,
how can $722 million
save the day?
HERRINGTON:
This is the way my map looked
in mid-April.
The North Vietnamese
just rolled down the coast.
Saigon was clearly threatened.
The situation was urgent.
Urgent understates it.
SNEPP:
At this time, Ambassador Martin
had been back in Washington
trying to persuade Congress
to vote additional aid.
REPORTER:
Do you have anything to say
on your arrival?
He has no statement to make.
SNEPP:
He came back to Saigon,
and my boss,
the CIA station chief, said,
"Go down and tell the old man
what's happening."
I went and I said,
"Mr. Ambassador,
"half of the South Vietnamese
Army has disintegrated.
"We're in grave trouble.
"Please, sir,
plan for an evacuation.
"At least allow us
to begin putting together
lists of South Vietnamese
we should rescue."
And he said, "No, Frank.
"It's not so bleak.
And I won't have
this negative talk."
Young officers in the embassy
began to mobilize
a black operation,
meaning a makeshift
underground railway evacuation
using outgoing cargo aircraft
that would be totally below
the radar of the Ambassador.
HERRINGTON:
People like myself and others
took the bull by the horns
and organized an evacuation.
In my case,
that meant friends of mine
who were senior officers in
the South Vietnamese military.
As the North Vietnamese came
closer and closer to Saigon,
these people
were dead men walking.
I had arranged a signal
with my intelligence
community friends
that if I said,
"I'm having a barbecue,"
that meant come to a certain
pre-designated place
and bring your families
and only bring one suitcase
because we're going
to have a party.
But it was understood
the party meant
I was going to get them out.
Black Ops were essentially
violating the rules
In this case meaning,
you're not allowed to bring out
Vietnamese military people
who were under obligation
to stand and fight.
We were fully expecting
if we got caught doing this
that we would be run
out of country.
End of career, do not pass go.
But sometimes there's an issue
not of legal and illegal,
but right or wrong.
SNEPP:
The deputy defense attaché
moved out Vietnamese personnel
and their families to Clark Air
Base in the Philippines
without any approval whatsoever,
without any immigration papers,
anything
Passports, you name it.
And when they began showing up
in the Philippines,
Martin hit the roof
and fired him!
But that didn't stop
other State Department people
who had Vietnamese friends
and family members.
They continued to organize
these makeshift airlifts.
TERRY McNAMARA:
That April, I was in Can Tho,
which was about 100 miles
from Saigon.
And we were getting reports
of this town falling and
that province falling and so on.
And then we were attacked.
Sergeant Hasty came by to
give me a report on the damage.
Can Tho came under pretty
intense artillery bombardment.
The North Vietnamese had overrun
some South Vietnamese
artillery batteries
and managed to turn those around
and shell the center of Can Tho.
TERRY McNAMARA:
I was in regular contact
with the embassy,
and I was told that
when the time came,
I should be ready to evacuate,
and that I should not try
to take any Vietnamese out
because it was too dangerous,
and I should only
restrict myself
to evacuating Americans
using my three helicopters.
Well, I'd been there for almost
five years at this point,
and I was committed
to the Vietnamese.
I did have a responsibility,
I thought,
for the people
who had worked for us
and who had given their loyal
service to us over many years.
So I decided that
despite the order from Saigon,
we're gonna really
make an effort
to evacuate the people
in Can Tho
who I thought might be
in mortal danger.
This could be hundreds
of people.
So I spent one sleepless night
worrying about this.
"How am I going to do this?"
And then I thought,
"Hell, we're on a river.
"We don't need helicopters.
We can go down the river."
It's 70 miles from Can Tho
down to the mouth of the river.
So I found two invasion barges
and got them ready to go.
We knew that
the situation was bad.
We could see that the South
Vietnamese Army was eroding.
Supplies had been cut off
and you could see
the armaments dwindling.
McNAMARA:
We were, under the terms
of the Paris Agreement,
committed to resupplying
the South Vietnamese.
They lacked simple things,
like barbed wire
and bags for sand bags.
(artillery fire)
They were rationing
their artillery shells
because they were running out.
The military support,
the material support,
was not coming.
HENRY KISSINGER:
When President Ford
went before the Congress,
he had two major concerns.
The first was to save
as many people as we could.
He cared for the human beings
involved;
they were not just pawns
that once they had lost their
military power were abandoned.
The second was the honor
of America,
that we would not be seen at
the final agony of South Vietnam
as having stabbed it
in the back.
RON NESSEN:
Congress wouldn't pass it.
They said, "No more.
No more troops, no more money,
no more aid to the Vietnamese."
Well, I had to go into President
Ford's office to tell him.
I had never heard Ford
use a curse word
in all the time I'd known him.
But when I showed him
this story, he said,
"Those sons of bitches."
I think there were a total
of 50 ships that were there.
I mean, it wasn't just us;
it was a whole bunch of ships.
We were standing by
for the evacuation of Americans.
I was a terrible letter writer.
I would write one letter
for my wife's ten letters,
and she didn't like that,
so she said,
"We're going to exchange tapes."
So I would run
into my stateroom,
turn the tape recorder on
for a couple of minutes
and tell her what's happening.
DOYLE (on tape):
I really don't know
where to start.
It's been such an unusual
couple days for us.
We went with the rest
of this huge task force of ours
up into about, oh,
20 miles off the coast,
basically east of Saigon.
As most Navy operations are,
it was very carefully planned.
We planned it to death.
The chain of command,
as I understood it
as a captain of the United
States Marine Corps,
and I think I got it right,
is that for any evacuation,
that decision
is the Ambassador's decision.
Graham Martin
is the responsible guy.
But the military is responsible
for giving him
all kinds of plans.
And this is how we got
into the four options.
The first option was
you would take commercial ships
right up the Saigon River
to a couple blocks
from the embassy.
You would load
whoever you wanted
to bring out on these ships
and you'd be done with it.
The second option was, you know,
United and Continental
and Flying Tiger Airlines
were still using Tan Son Nhut
Air Force Base at the time,
and you could've brought
anybody you wanted out
by commercial aviation.
The third option was military
fixed-wing aviation
The C5As, the C-141s,
which carry a lot of people.
You could've brought them
out of Tan Son Nhut on those.
The very last option,
the very last option,
was helicopters off the carriers
in the Tan Son Nhut
Air Force Base.
We had 75 Marine Corps
helicopters out there.
The helicopter option,
that was absolutely
the last resort.
You know,
they don't go very fast,
they don't carry
that many people.
That was if everything else
failed.
RICHARD ARMITAGE:
I got into Vietnam late
on the 24th of April, 1975.
Saigon was full of rumor,
of false stories,
whether we were going to have
a last attempt
to draw a line
across the country,
that Saigon and the south
would remain a free republic,
all of these things,
and it was all churning
all around.
The fighting was close to Saigon
but hadn't shown up
in the streets of Saigon.
I served as a naval officer
in three and a half tours
in Vietnam,
two of those years
as a Special Forces advisor
with a 20-boat River Division,
all Vietnamese.
I could tell jokes
and hear jokes in Vietnamese.
And once you start off
like that,
you eventually end up being able
to dream in Vietnamese.
In 1975, my mission was
to remove or destroy
as many ships, swift boats,
anything that I considered
to be a benefit to the enemy.
I met with Captain Do Kiem,
who was the operations officer
of the Vietnamese Navy.
ARMITAGE:
The plan was to sail
all the large ships
of the South Vietnamese Navy
down the Saigon River to the sea
and rendezvous
at Con Son Island.
We had to keep this secret.
If word got out,
it would have had an effect
on the morale of the people
in the street.
JOE McBRlDE:
We knew that there were
roughly 5,000 Americans
still in the country.
Many of them had Vietnamese
wives, mistresses, whatever.
Just hadn't left.
And they were basically
letting us know,
"We're not leaving
without our families."
Finally, we were given authority
by the Ambassador
to bypass the immigration laws
and send these Vietnamese
out of the country.
So then we started an operation
basically to get out
the Americans
and their Vietnamese dependents.
SNEPP:
It was not an official
evacuation.
We still had no organized plan
for evacuating high-risk
South Vietnamese
because we had an ambassador
who was making up his mind
on the wing.
GARRICK UTLEY:
The President also
asked Congress
for authorization to use
American troops here
to evacuate Americans
and Vietnamese
who worked for Americans.
If it were necessary.
Do you have plans for that?
Well, of course, every embassy
in the world has plans for it.
Do you think
it will be necessary?
That again, you see,
is a judgment
that I can't possibly make
at this time.
We have been reducing
the population here
as measure of prudency
and will take measures
to reduce it further
as a question of prudence.
The Ambassador
was extremely skittish,
and I guess understandably so,
about talking about evacuation,
about sending signals
that an evacuation
was being planned
or even executed.
He feared it would trigger
a panic.
BINH PHO:
It time to get out.
And in Saigon at that time,
it was like, "Who do you know?"
The the key word
would be "connection."
There's a lot of people,
they try to get their money
because if the people
have money,
maybe they will find
a connection to get out.
You know, and so,
"You want to go?
Give me this kind of money."
One guy said to me,
"Your family, tell them
to come to the boat dock.
I'll be waiting for them."
Of course they took the money,
but they never got us.
DAM PHAM:
There was chaos in Saigon
at that time.
Everybody was looking for ways
to get out as soon as possible.
Of course, the Americans
we worked with
had a plan in place for us.
They told us to get
to the meeting place,
which was a safe house
near the American embassy,
and to wait for buses
to come to pick us up.
If we were gonna get people out,
we were gonna have
to make it happen
and deliver the Vietnamese
to the big airplanes
in some form or fashion.
And the only way
we could do that
was keeping the airport open
as long as we could.
HERRINGTON:
Ambassador Martin
still hoped that somehow,
this thing would not end
with the North Vietnamese
humiliating the United States
by attacking Saigon.
But it seemed like the North
Vietnamese had other ideas.
(explosions)
(explosions)
What may be the final battle
of Saigon has begun.
Communist ground forces
have started moving in
on Saigon's
Tan Son Nhut Airport.
REPORTER:
Rockets exploded
all over the base,
touching off three major fires.
HERRINGTON:
The air base was under
continuous artillery fire.
I felt the rounds.
They were so close,
the shrapnel was plinking
against the fence behind us.
It was abundantly clear that
it was a whole new ball game.
JUAN VALDEZ:
We never expected
any trouble out there.
And then, of course,
fear a little bit set in
because now we knew that it
really meant business, you know?
Were they gonna continue
shelling Tan Son Nhut?
They had given us a warning,
you know?
"Get out."
HERRINGTON:
As the sun came up,
General Smith,
who was our defense attaché
out at Tan Son Nhut,
contacted the Ambassador
and said,
"The plan to use the fixed-wing
"to get a few thousand people
out today
"isn't gonna work.
"And we need to consider
that this is it.
"Option 4:
a heavy-lift
helicopter evacuation."
And Ambassador Martin
wouldn't hear of it.
He said,
"I want to come out there.
I want to see it,"
and which he did.
He got in a sedan.
He didn't lack for guts.
There were still rounds
coming in
Sporadic, but there was still
artillery fire.
And he could see that
the main runway
was full of craters
from North Vietnamese artillery.
And it was understood
that General Smith
was not being premature with the
recommendation for Option 4.
McBRlDE:
Ambassador Martin's concern
very clearly up to now
was that once we started
an official evacuation,
it's pretty obvious that
the game is over.
You've got to remember,
this is an ambassador
who had lost his only son
in combat in Vietnam.
One becomes pretty invested
in that country.
He had been holding out hope
that some kind of third-party
solution could be worked out
so that South Vietnam
could continue
with some form of independence
or autonomy.
And he was being encouraged
to think that
this might be possible.
But the morning of the 29th,
he came to accept the fact that
that wasn't going to happen.
And I picked up the phone
and told Secretary Kissinger
to inform the President
that I had decided we would have
to go to Option 4.
HENRY KISSINGER:
When I tell President Ford
the airport is being shelled
and that it's now time
to pull the plug,
he keeps coming back
time and again,
"You really think
we have to do it?"
That's how heartbreaking
it was for him.
He finally reluctantly
gave the go-ahead
for the final evacuation.
RADIO DJ:
This is the American Forces
Vietnam Network.
SNEPP:
The prearranged signal
for the evacuation
was broadcast on American radio
in Saigon.
The message was,
"The temperature
is 105 and rising,"
and then Bing Crosby's
"White Christmas."
And sure enough,
about 10:00 in the morning,
I believe, on the 29th,
there was Bing Crosby
on the airwaves.
CROSBY:
I'm dreaming
of a white Christmas ♪
Just like the ones
I used to know ♪
Where the treetops glisten
and children listen ♪
To hear sleigh bells
in the snow ♪
HERRINGTON:
The plan was
when the signal was given,
Americans still in Saigon
would immediately go
to pick-up zones around the city
so that buses could then come
to these 13 locations
and get everybody
out to the airbase,
where they would be helicoptered
to the fleet.
We had prepared
three or four landing zones
right across the street
from the main runway
of Tan Son Nhut airbase
Areas which had not been
under artillery fire,
where heavy lift helicopters
could come in.
It was a good plan,
they had good facilities,
they had good security.
Now that Option 4
had been declared,
I don't think anyone said,
"Okay, we have 7,000,
6,000, 5,000," or what have you
left to evacuate.
I think it was,
"We are going to bring out
"everybody we have left
at the airport
"and everybody
who might show up,
"and at a point in time,
"the embassy will evacuate
its few hundred by buses to us
and it'll be over."
But unfortunately,
the plan was compromised.
JIM LAURIE:
Vietnamese would come up
to these pick-up points
and just try to
get on the buses.
It was word of mouth.
Everybody in Saigon that day
seemed to want to leave.
And by the time I got to my
pick-up point, it was chaos.
Take it easy now, one at a time!
LAURIE:
Everybody knew these buses
were going to be going out
to Tan San Nhut airbase
and there would be an escape
from Vietnam.
McNAMARA:
I got a telephone call
from Saigon
saying that the president
had given an order for us
to evacuate all Americans.
Everybody was alerted,
including all the Vietnamese
that I had informed.
We got everybody
down to the boats.
Our plan was that my deputy
would bring up the rear,
and he would go through
the consulate buildings
and make sure
that we had destroyed
all of the sensitive materials.
Staff Sergeant Hasty stayed
and helped him.
HASTY:
I made the last broadcast.
You know, "Saigon
and any monitoring station,
"this is Can Tho Consulate,
signing off the air.
We are evacuating."
And then we drove down
to where Terry McNamara
was loading people
onboard the landing craft.
We were trying to be, um
as unobtrusive as possible
in doing so.
We did not want a repeat
of Da Nang.
We set sail
with two landing craft
packed with 18 Americans and
300-and-something Vietnamese.
The biggest concern, of course,
was basically
the North Vietnamese
or what remnants
of the VC were there
would ambush us
at the narrowest portion,
and basically we'd get our ass
handed to us.
McNAMARA:
We got some distance
from Can Tho
and suddenly, there were
some boats that came along,
and they fired across our bow.
(gunshots)
HASTY:
They were South Vietnamese
navy boats
and they told us to heave to,
which we did because they were
extremely well-armed.
Evidently, the orders
had gone out from on high
to stop, you know,
anybody going out.
McNAMARA:
They had been given orders
to bring us back to Can Tho
because they thought that
we had deserters on board
You know, military officers
and people of military age.
There actually were a couple,
including the deputy
air force commander
who put on civilian clothes
and snuck on the boat.
But I wasn't going to go back
to Can Tho,
so there was a standoff
in the middle of the river.
I asked the Vietnamese officer
in charge
to get in touch with the navy
commander, Commodore Thang.
I had gotten Commodore Thang's
wife and children out of Saigon.
I was hoping that he would
reciprocate.
And he did.
He came down finally and
in a very loud voice, he said,
"You don't have any
military people on here
or people of military age?"
And I said,
"Oh no, of course not."
Well, he told the sailors
to stand down,
and we continued down the river.
The chances of success
of going down the river
were 50/50 at best.
But we continued on nonetheless.
HERRINGTON:
As the morning progressed,
the helicopter evacuation
was pretty well underway.
But the timing
of when it would be over
wasn't really our timing.
It was, frankly, what the North
Vietnamese would tolerate.
How long would they stand by
and let us do this?
But that morning, Ambassador
Martin received a message
that said within 24 hours,
the U.S. presence in Vietnam
had to be closed out.
Meaning, we had to be gone.
I was part of the Four-Party
Joint Military Team,
which was stationed out
at Tan Son Nhut.
We thought, "We're going
to get ordered to leave."
But instead, we got orders
from the ambassador
to go to the embassy
and be prepared to stay
after the embassy evacuated.
We were to be the sole U.S.
military presence in Vietnam
once the embassy evacuated
and the ambassador was gone.
You know, lock ourselves
in a room
and then come out
when the dust is settled
and introduce ourselves
to the North Vietnamese.
This was not a popular plan.
But we complied.
And around 11:00, 11:30,
we drove to the embassy.
And when we got there,
it was teeming with people.
McBRlDE:
That morning, there must
have been, I would guess,
at least 10,000 people
literally ringing the embassy.
The embassy compound
was the size of a city block.
It was big.
And all sides of it were filled
200, 300 feet back.
Fortunately, people were
by and large very controlled.
They were very patient.
They were just hoping
desperately to get in.
PHO:
It's like the whole of Saigon
want to get inside
the American embassy.
So you have to know somebody,
you know?
If you're like me,
I find my friend
and got a little paper
to ensure us to get in.
So several of us
went to the embassy.
Then my friend, he showed
the paper to the guard,
and he's just kind of pointing
at each one of us,
and we, one by one,
could go inside of the embassy.
When I first got in,
I feel so good.
"I'm in America
I'm almost there."
They have a courtyard
and a swimming pool,
and we mostly gather
around the swimming pool.
And 1,000 people there,
and they just keep coming in.
SNEPP:
That morning, CIA choppers
began picking up evacuees
off the roofs of buildings
around the city
and bringing them
to the embassy.
There was an old pilot
named O.B. Harnage.
He was blind in one eye
and lame in one leg.
And I said, "Harnage,
we got people at 6 Gia Long.
You gotta go pick them up."
It was the deputy CIA station
chief's apartment building.
There were a number
of very high-risk Vietnamese,
including the defense minister
of South Vietnam,
all waiting to be rescued.
As they climbed up the ladder
to the roof,
a photographer took
that famous photograph.
Many people thought
that was the U.S. embassy.
It wasn't.
But it indicated to what extent
chaos had descended
on this entire operation.
HERRINGTON:
So the CIA choppers were
bringing people to the embassy
who were then supposed to go
to Tan Son Nhut airbase by bus,
where they would magically
find their way
to heavy lift helicopters.
It was very clear
to the citizenry
that something was up,
and that something was probably
the Americans are leaving.
Inside the embassy,
we discovered
as we walked through the
buildings and the outbuildings
and the swimming pool area
and the social club area,
everywhere we looked
was teeming with Vietnamese.
We counted them,
and the total number
was about 2,800.
There was no hiding it
that somehow,
people had to have let
these people into the embassy.
Was it, you know,
Marine security guards who kind
of looked the other way?
Was it American employees
in the embassy
who were doing kind of
what we did with black ops
and taking care of their own?
We never got
to the bottom of that
and frankly,
we never pursued it.
One of my Marines said to me,
"You know, we should take out
the tailor."
There was a tailor who made
all our civilian clothes.
So I said,
"Why don't we
take out the cook too?"
He said, "Well, you should
take out the cook too,
"and all the other cooks.
"They should get out.
They had business
with Americans."
So they took the bread truck
and they rounded up the tailor,
the cooks and the dishwashers,
a few others and their families,
and drove them
into the embassy compound.
STUART HERRINGTON:
The embassy had become a refuge.
People were hoping to get in,
and we were hoping
to get people out
and down to the airbase.
(bus honking)
JOE MCBRIDE:
You couldn't have gotten to
the airfield if you wanted to.
The roads were totally blocked.
It forced the buses
to come back.
So what if the master plan
to take people out by air
from Tungshen doesn't work?
Where's our fallback?
Where's Plan B?
HERRINGTON:
If we were going
to bring out everybody
who was inside the embassy,
it was obvious
that there was the need for
a hasty plan to be developed
for a helicopter airlift
out of the embassy to the fleet.
And we had less than 24 hours
to pull it off.
SNEPP:
There was in the parking lot
of the embassy
a great tamarind tree,
which the Ambassador
had often referred to
as "steadfast as the American
commitment in Vietnam."
The CIA station chief
that last morning said,
"Mr. Ambassador,
we have to cut this tree down."
VALDEZ:
You could not land any large
helicopters on the parking lot
unless the tree and all
the shrubbery was all gone.
The Ambassador had resisted us
cutting that tree
because he did not want anybody
to be alerted
that we were doing
any sort of evacuation
or were going to do
any sort of evacuation.
SULLIVAN:
He was upset.
But finally he succumbed,
you know, to just common sense
and gave up his, uh
I guess you could call it
a dream.
And we cut it down.
(chainsaws buzzing)
SNEPP:
He had also,
for the past few days,
prevented us from burning
classified documents
for fear that it would panic
the South Vietnamese.
So that morning of the 29th,
we had thousands of pages
of classified documents
we had failed to destroy
beforehand.
Our next job was just looking
at that classified document idea
and getting rid of that.
So we went to every office
and told them to start
pulling stuff,
and piles and piles of paper
began coming out.
And we began shredding.
There was a small building
where we handled the pay
for the Vietnamese
who worked for the embassy.
And in this building,
there was over $1 million
in U.S. currency.
So we had to send a message
to the Navy,
who sent it
to the Treasury Department,
who came back and said,
"Destroy it."
So I assigned a few Marines
to get rid of the money.
And I said, "Oh, by the way,
we're gonna lock you in there."
It took them eight hours
to burn a million dollars.
ARMITAGE:
That morning,
fear and desperation
were the order of the day.
But I had a job to do,
and it was an important job
to do, I thought,
to deny the enemy the South
Vietnamese Naval ships.
ARMITAGE:
We had expected, frankly,
a longer time period
to get ready.
We had been told by people
in our intelligence community
that we might have as long
as the 4th of May,
but the North Vietnamese
were closing in quite tightly,
and clearly it was time
to send the signal to leave.
ARMITAGE:
I knew this,
but I didn't know
how many civilians
were gonna be on board.
I had no idea.
KIEM DO:
GERALD BERRY:
I was the first one
into the embassy.
And my only mission
at this time,
this is early in the afternoon,
was to bring the Ambassador out.
It was actually a mission that
was called "Embassy Snatch."
I was just supposed
to get the Ambassador.
I land and I said to the people,
I said, "I'm here to get
the Ambassador."
Well, not quite.
SNEPP:
The Ambassador refused to leave
until he could get
as many Vietnamese
on as many choppers as possible.
The evacuation
of Vietnamese happened
because Graham Martin
wanted it to happen.
BERRY:
So they loaded some Vietnamese
onto my helicopter
and because I'm supposed to have
the Ambassador on board,
we go right to the command ship,
the USS Blue Ridge.
We land on the Blue Ridge,
General Carey comes out,
wants to know where
the Ambassador is.
I said,
"Well, he didn't get on."
I mean, I don't know
who I'm supposed to tell,
but I told everybody I was
supposed to get the Ambassador
but the Ambassador
didn't get on.
So that starts the lift.
Like I say, we had
75 Marine Corps helicopters.
You and your wingman
would fly into the embassy,
get your passengers loaded,
and fly back out to the ships.
It was a little over an hour
back and forth.
PAUL JACOBS:
On the USS Kirk,
our mission was
to protect
the helicopters moving
from the embassy out
to the aircraft carriers
and back and forth.
We were very close
to the action.
HUGH DOYLE:
You could stand there
on the deck
and you could
watch it all happening.
We thought that the USS Kirk
was just going to be
an observer to this whole thing
and when all of a sudden
on radar we started seeing
these little blips
coming out from the shore.
MAN:
I really don't know
where to start.
We looked up at the horizon
and all you could see
were helicopters all heading
toward us.
DOYLE:
These were not Marine Corps
helicopters.
They were small helicopters,
the little Hueys,
which were never part
of the evacuation plan.
But they were flying
over top of us.
We were watching them fly
over top over and over
and over again.
JACOBS:
We viewed them as enemy until
we could verify who it was.
Then we realized that these
were South Vietnamese
trying to escape.
I figured if we could save one,
at least we'd save
15, 20 people.
They were packed in there
like sardines.
So I made the decision.
Land the helicopter.
DOYLE:
One of our sailors could speak
rudimentary Vietnamese.
So we put him on the radio
and he started broadcasting.
"This is ship 1087.
Land here."
So, we got his attention.
He came flying over
and landed on our flight deck.
And it turned out that
the pilot, he was the pilot
for the deputy chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Real high up.
And he had the general with him,
who was a two-star general,
and the two-star general's
nephew, three women,
and about four children.
It was a big deal for us.
When it landed,
we got everything off.
And I looked up
because there were five, six,
seven stacked up ready to land.
DOYLE:
Turned out all throughout
the southern part of Vietnam
there were South Vietnamese Army
and Air Force installations
with one or two or three
or four helicopters.
And those helicopters
were flyable.
Their pilots were there.
And when they realized that
the evacuation was happening
and they weren't going
to be part of it, they said,
"Oh yeah, we are."
JACOBS:
These young Vietnamese pilots
would go to their homes,
land right in their front yards,
pick up their families
and anybody else,
and head out to sea,
hoping they can rendezvous
with a ship.
Well, we're one of the
first ships they saw.
DOYLE:
Our flight deck will only take
one helicopter at a time
landing.
There are no wheels on them.
They just have skids.
We couldn't think of what else
to do and these other planes
were looking for a place to land
so we just physically
pushed them.
Of course, this was a big old
helicopter, thousands of pounds,
so we had to figure out how
to get it 15 feet over
to the edge of the flight deck.
You don't have time to think
about what you did,
you just had to do it.
So, we open up our flight deck
and they begin to land,
one right after the other.
Some of them were shot at,
holes in them.
DOYLE:
Most of the Vietnamese
who came out, I'm talking
about the flight crews,
they were heavily armed,
all with side arms,
some with M-16 rifles.
They had no idea what was going
to happen so they came out
ready for anything, really.
So we had to disarm them.
None of them had ever landed
on a ship before.
They were Vietnamese Air Force.
Everybody had a gun and we took
all the guns away from them.
Then about five minutes later
another one came in and landed.
And we pushed his airplane
over the side.
That was the second one.
I helped push that one over,
too.
Then the third plane came in.
It landed also.
We pushed it over the side.
So meanwhile, we've thrown three
helicopters in the water so far.
This is incredible.
I know you probably
don't believe any of this,
but it's all true.
HERRINGTON:
By late afternoon,
the chopper flow at the embassy
really started.
And each time a bird came in,
here would go another
40, 50 people.
But did the right mix of people
get out?
You know, who says that
these were the people
who either deserved
or should have gone out?
At the embassy a lot
of the people who got out
happened to be good
wall jumpers.
VALDEZ:
The choppers started coming in
at ten-minute intervals.
One would land on the roof
and one would land
on the parking lot.
They would put all
the Vietnamese in groups,
they would search them,
and if they had any weapons
all those weapons were thrown
into the swimming pool.
And as soon as the chopper
would land they would be brought
into the restricted area where
a couple of the Marines
would escort them
into the aircraft.
Then they would raise
the ramp up and take off.
BINH PHO:
I remember I talked to my friend
and he said,
"Oh, it's our turn now.
We're almost there."
You know, so we're all excited.
And I remember very
distinctively that every time
the helicopter coming down
it just blew us away.
We have to kind of duck down
to fight with the wind
of the chopper.
HERRINGTON:
Three of the choppers that came
in each landed a platoon
of 40 Marines
from the task force.
And they had to be brought in
because we didn't have enough
Marines in the embassy security
guard to secure the walls.
PHAM:
I went with my wife
to the embassy.
A lot of people, they clenched
to the top of the wall,
but they couldn't get in.
HERRINGTON:
Each gate was besieged
like that,
although the side gate was the
principal place where they came.
People holding letters saying,
you know,
"I worked for the Americans.
Please let me in."
Journalists were arriving
and counting on being recognized
to be let in by the Marines.
There was a sea of people
wanting to get out
by helicopters.
But, well, they looked up
at the helicopters leaving
and I could see their eyes.
Desperate eyes.
MIKI NGUYEN:
My dad flew a Chinook helicopter
in the South Vietnamese
Air Force.
He had been waiting for orders
but his captain had,
you know, basically just left.
So he and some other pilots
picked out the best Chinooks
and took off.
He said it was the Wild West
at this point.
Just you and your horse and you
just do what you had to do
to survive
and take care of your family.
He had given my mom a heads-up
that if she did hear
a Chinook coming, to get ready.
I was six and a half years old.
I can still hear the rumbling,
a very, you know, familiar
rumbling of a Chinook.
When you hear the Chinook
coming, you know it's coming.
I knew my dad was coming.
In Saigon, during my childhood,
it was like, say, living in
the middle of busy L.A.
So, there's really not
a big area to land the Chinook.
So he came in and landed
in a playfield.
Caused a lot of wind,
caused a lot of commotion.
My mom grabbed my little sister,
who was about six months
at that time,
and I have a little brother
who was
about three or four years old,
and myself.
We quickly ran into the Chinook
and we all flew off
out into the Pacific Ocean.
My dad was afraid
for not having enough fuel,
afraid for a lot of things.
He was just flying blind.
And then he saw a ship
out there.
DOYLE:
In the middle of the day,
after we had taken
those first helicopters aboard,
this huge helicopter called
a Chinook,
it came out and tried to land on
the ship.
And oh, we almost the thing
almost crashed onboard our ship.
JACOBS:
This big Chinook showed up.
There's no way he could land
on Kirk without impacting
the ship.
He would have killed everybody
on this helicopter plus my crew.
DOYLE:
It was way too big to land.
We thought that the helicopter
would just fly away.
But as the ship was moving
forward probably four, five,
six knots, something like that,
the pilot communicated
that he was running low on fuel.
JACOBS:
He opened up the port side
of the helicopter and he hovered
across the stern of the Kirk.
Then, all of a sudden,
here comes a human.
NGUYEN:
One by one, we jump out.
I jumped out,
my brother jumped out.
My mom was holding my sister,
obviously very scared.
And she just, you know, just
trustingly, just with one hand,
with her right hand, holding on
with her left to brace herself,
you know,
just dropped my baby sister.
DOYLE:
One fella is standing there
and he said he looked up
and he saw this big bundle
of stuff come flying out
and it was a baby.
It was the one-year-old baby.
And then the mother jumped out
and he caught her, too.
Then the pilot flew out
on our starboard, right side.
He hovered with his wheels
in and out of the water.
He hovered there for like
ten minutes and we couldn't
figure out what he was doing
and it turned out
what he was doing was taking
his flight suit off.
Here's a man flying a twin rotor
helicopter by himself,
and at the same time
he's taking off a flight suit.
How you do it, I've talked
to helicopter pilots
and they can't figure out how he
did that, you know, how
like a Houdini,
trying to get out of this thing.
And finally, he made
the helicopter roll to the right
as he stepped out the door
on the left.
(loud crash)
NGUYEN:
Just thunderous loud noise.
The shrapnel is just blowing up.
And suddenly just quiet.
And he pops up.
And he's alive.
(applause)
DOYLE:
And he swam away.
And the helicopter
was only about 20 feet from him
when it hit the water;
it was amazing.
(cheers and applause)
We went out and picked him up.
He was none,
no worse for the wear.
He was a little bit wet.
Only one unfortunate thing is
he had some small bars of gold,
which was all his worldly
possessions,
that were in his shirt pocket
and it sank.
So he lost everything.
He didn't own
a thing but his underwear
when he finally came aboard
the ship.
He was a tremendous pilot.
The guy was just so cool
and calm.
We've so far taken a total
of 17 helicopters.
We ended up with 157 people
aboard this ship.
JACOBS:
And that crew was very special.
They went, they took their
money, went to the Navy exchange
and commissary, bought all the
clothes and food they could get,
took it up and gave it to the
refugees they had befriended.
They were unbelievable.
DOYLE:
We laid mats and all kinds
of blankets and stuff out
on the deck for the babies.
And there were all kinds of
there were infants
and children and women,
and oh, it was a scene
I'll never forget.
NGUYEN:
We were happy.
My mom was just, you know, wow.
Symbolically, it was like,
you know, the first step
onto not American soil,
but American freedom.
HASTY:
We continued down the river,
our landing craft in the lead.
We were, at this point,
four or five hours from Can Tho.
It's a metal landing craft.
The sun is beating down,
it's hotter than hell.
A less than pleasant voyage.
When suddenly, whoosh, bam!
(loud explosion)
Somebody fired
a B40 rocket at us.
We immediately started
returning fire.
We weren't sure who the dip-wad
was that was opening up on us,
but we continued blazing away
as we got past the ambush site.
(gunshots continue)
We said, "All right, that was
just a taste of what's coming.
"Once we hit the absolute
narrowest portion,
"that's where we're going
to really be in danger.
Stack the ammo because
this one's gonna be ugly."
McNAMARA:
The people on the boat
were scared.
We had to go through narrow
channels between the islands.
If we're gonna really get hit,
it'll be there.
But just at that point,
dark clouds formed in the sky
and it started raining
like hell.
(rain pouring)
HASTY:
Could not see the bow of the
landing craft from the stern,
and that's 60 feet.
The noise of the rain
hitting the water on the river
was so loud that it muffled
the sound of our engines.
And this continued on
for about 25 minutes.
It was long enough
to get us through
the most dangerous part
of the trip.
And as the rain started
to let up,
we had reached the area
of the river past the channel,
past the little islands,
where it opened up
into a broad river again.
So somebody was looking out
for us that day.
McNAMARA:
I remember looking back
at the sun setting
over the Mekong Delta,
which is a beautiful place,
and thinking, "Well,
I'll never see this again."
I had gotten very attached
to Vietnam.
HASTY:
As we came out
into the South China Sea,
it got dark,
and every now and then,
I would fire off
a couple of flares,
just in hopes that, you know,
maybe there is a ship out there.
Nothing.
And then we saw a faint light
on the horizon,
and as we got
a little bit closer,
we could see that they were
the lights of a ship's rigging.
So we said, "What the heck?"
So we made for it.
We came up alongside
and somebody shouted,
"Get rid of your weapons.
Nobody comes aboard
with weapons."
So I yelled, "We're Marines
and we're coming aboard
with our weapons."
Well, as it turned out, the guys
yelling down were Marines.
McNAMARA:
It was an American freighter,
the Pioneer Contender.
They took us aboard.
And I had 300 people with me.
They got them
into the hold of the ship.
HASTY:
All our Vietnamese remained
on the Pioneer Contender.
We made sure
they were taken care of
and the Pioneer Contender
was going to Guam.
We knew they were safe.
BERRY:
When we started the evacuation
we were very, very excited
about it.
Then your next emotion
probably was
just determined to get this job
done and get these people out.
And then, later as it went on
you became fatigued
and frustrated that you could
never make a dent in the amount
of people that were coming out
of the embassy.
You'd ask questions like, was
the crowd getting any smaller?
"When are we going
to finish this?" you know.
And they'd say,
"You know, we're under orders
from the Ambassador.
We're doing the best we can."
HERRINGTON:
Carrier pilots were saying,
look, it's an uncontrollable sea
of people
and Ambassador Martin has lost
his objectivity,
that Ambassador Martin is trying
to evacuate
all of Saigon
through the U.S. embassy.
But he was doing his best
under terrible circumstances.
JOSEPH McBRlDE:
Ambassador Martin was dragging
out the evacuation
as long as he could
to get as many South Vietnamese
out as possible.
Each helicopter took
about 40 people.
He knew that once the Americans
were gone,
the evacuation would be over.
So they just put one or two
Americans on each one.
You're very tired and you're
not seeing an end to this thing.
So I got the word out,
"You know, we could use
some help out here.
We only have 75 helicopters."
And the word comes back, "No.
No, Marine pilots
don't get tired."
Back at the embassy under
the Ambassador's direction,
we, of course, were taking
advantage
of the presence of the aircraft
to evacuate threatened folks.
But there were other independent
efforts to get people out.
McBRlDE:
Several of us at the embassy
agreed that we would drive vans
down to the docks
on the Saigon River.
I had an assigned assembly point
in the middle of Saigon,
and I crammed about 15 people
into a nine-person van
and then drove through
the streets of Saigon
through various checkpoints
down to the docks.
People would get out
and go running for these
commercial boats and get on.
I made a number of runs
and there'd just be more
and more and more people.
Finally, as the sun
was going down,
we were running out of light.
Man came up to me.
I turned to him and said,
"This is my last load.
I, you know,
I can't take anymore."
I said, "Well, get your family."
And he said, "Can't do it.
"My family's too big.
My family's too big."
And he just shook my hand
and said, "Thanks for trying,"
and walked away.
So I came back to the embassy
and parked the van.
It was already getting
well into twilight.
Got my way through the crowd.
It was a big crowd.
I had nothing more I could do.
So I went to get
on the helicopter
and Ambassador Martin pulled me
out of line and he said,
"I know what you've been doing.
"I know you've been out there.
"We've been talking.
I want to thank you."
I thought that
was a kind gesture.
By that time
it was definitely dark.
The lights of the
of the helicopter inside
radiated very clearly.
I sat down, looked around.
I was one of maybe
two or three Americans.
The rest were all Vietnamese.
And we flew out.
PHO:
It was very dark.
I remember that.
And people started to elbow
each other and try to get
in the front line.
And that's when
the Captain Herrington started
speaking to us in Vietnamese.
(speaking Vietnamese)
"Nobody is going to be
left behind."
(speaking Vietnamese)
PHO:
And then he said, "When you
are in American embassy,
"you are in American soil.
"I promise, me and my soldier
will be the last one
leave the embassy."
So after that announcement
everybody feel relaxed.
Literally, we totally relaxed.
We have nothing to worry about.
Yeah.
HENRY KISSINGER:
We were told
that the North Vietnamese tanks
were coming very close.
So we asked,
we in the White House, asked
the Defense Department how many
South Vietnamese were left.
"Left" meant inside
the embassy compound.
And then we calculated
how many helicopters
it would take to get them out.
We told Martin that he had
to be on the last helicopter.
HERRINGTON:
All I know is that in Washington
there was confusion
about the numbers on the ground.
At 1:00 a.m. there were
1,100 people left to evacuate.
After we'd had a flurry
of choppers
and cleaned out
more than half of them
and there were 420 people left,
we received an order
from Washington
that the lift was over
other than the extraction
of the remaining Americans.
BERRY:
About 4:00 in the morning, 4:30,
I land on the
USS Blue Ridge again.
So, General Carey comes out,
gives me an apple
and a cup of coffee
or something and says,
"We're under orders
from the President.
You got to get
the Ambassador out."
So we fly in.
I land on the roof exactly at
4:50 in the morning and I said,
"I'm not leaving until
the Ambassador's onboard."
VALDEZ:
One of the Marines lowered
the flag, folded it up
and escorted the Ambassador
up to the landing zone
up on top of the embassy
and he gave him the flag
and, uh, that was it.
HERRINGTON:
Major Kean came to
Colonel Madison, said, "No more.
Only Americans
from this point on."
And Madison said,
"The hell you say.
We've got these people
over here."
And Kean said,
"Sir, not going to happen.
It's a presidential order."
And Madison said, "I'll take
this up with the Ambassador."
He was very hot
under the collar.
And Kean said,
"You can't, that's him,"
and pointed to the CH-46
that was just flying away.
BERRY:
So the Ambassador's on board.
And out we go.
We land on the Blue Ridge.
15 or 20, maybe 25 people
get off with the Ambassador
and that was the end of it.
I flew 18.3 hours
straight through.
Graham Martin looked very tired,
extremely haggard.
I mean, he looked like I'm
sure the pressure was immense.
REPORTER:
And at what time were you
to cease evacuation?
Cease evacuation?
BERRY:
We could still be flying if we
hadn't gotten the Ambassador out
because he refused to stop
the lift.
I think about 3:00.
REPORTER:
3:00 in the morning?
No, 3:45.
HERRINGTON:
Colonel Madison says to me,
"We're screwed.
"Stu, you stay down here
in the parking lot
and keep these
420 people warm"
Meaning if they see us
all leave at the same time
they'll panic "and then make
your way to the roof.
We gotta go."
And he was very angry
and very disappointed.
So they disappeared
into the embassy.
And I went to where
the remaining Vietnamese
who were waiting and told
them
(speaking Vietnamese)
"Big helicopters about to come,"
and waited a few minutes.
Then I saw a chopper take off
and I thought,
"Shit, was I supposed to be
on that one?"
So, I looked at the Vietnamese
and I said
(speaking Vietnamese)
"I got to take a leak."
And I left into the shadows.
I made my way around
in a circuitous route
and went into the embassy.
I thought about how this
really, really was wrong.
I thought maybe I should
just say, "I'm not leaving
till they go,
because I promised them."
And then I said,
"Don't be a fool.
"Maybe they've started
shooting down helicopters
"for all you know.
"You're not going to get
anybody else out.
"It's a presidential order.
This decision has been made."
So, I got to the roof and a
CH-46 alighted on the rooftop,
put its ramp down
and we got on board.
As it took off,
the door was open.
And down in the parking lot
I could see the group
of 420 of them.
They were right were we had
left them marshaled
on this little patch of grass.
I felt absolutely awful.
It was just so
serious and deep a betrayal.
JACOBS:
Later that night I was
quite surprised that I got
a call to
"Come alongside the flagship.
The Admiral wants to speak
to you."
My first reaction, as any CO,
is, "What did we do?"
not realizing we had been picked
for a special mission.
DOYLE:
We were supposed to pick up
this person.
He was 30 years old,
came aboard, civilian clothes.
And the Captain was just told
to take his direction
from this guy.
RICHARD ARMITAGE:
I went aboard the Kirk and met
with Captain Paul Jacobs.
And the first thing he said
to me is,
"Young man, I'm not accustomed
"to strange civilians coming
aboard my ship armed
in the middle of the night."
And I said, "Captain,
I assure you, neither am I."
JACOBS:
He smelled like a Naval officer,
you know.
You know, one officer
can smell another one.
So, I looked him up
in the blue book.
He's a graduate
of the Naval Academy.
So from that point on
we were fine.
"What do you want to do?"
And we worked together
as a team.
ARMITAGE:
We steamed down to Con Son
Island and we could see
on the radar display that
there were a lot of blips.
And I remember dawn breaking
and the sun coming up,
and seeing what I had seen
as a radar display in person.
There were dozens of ships.
And not just Vietnamese
naval ships,
but also civilian ships.
And they were all totally
crammed with people.
JACOBS:
There are no words to describe
what a ship looks like
that holds 200
and it's got 2,000 on it.
I don't think anybody really
understood the magnitude of it
until we looked at what
we got in front of us.
It looked like something
out of Exodus.
Our mission was to help the
ships into international waters.
But now they had
all these people.
My reaction is, "How the hell
are we going to do this?"
Most of the Vietnamese Navy
ships were dead in the water,
some were anchored,
some were just adrift.
So, we sent over our
engineering, technical people
to see what we could do to help
them and get them underway.
Some of these ships
had been hit by enemy fire
coming down the Saigon River.
One of the boats had been hit
and sinking,
so it went alongside one of the
other Vietnamese Navy ships.
A wooden plank was thrown
between the two ships
for the civilians and naval
personnel on the damaged ship
to cross onto the ship
that wasn't.
The seas were rolling and it was
a somewhat precarious passage.
At one point,
a young Vietnamese man panicked
as a young girl, I remember,
was walking across this plank,
and he kind of rushed ahead
of her
and she fell
between the two ships.
DOYLE (on tape):
Apparently one of the Vietnamese
men pushed a girl.
She was killed.
She was drowned
between the two ships,
and that almost started a panic.
A Vietnamese sailor
immediately shot this guy,
and then order was restored.
DOYLE (on tape):
They said, "There will be
no pushing
and there will be no shoving
on this ship."
People calmed down greatly
after that.
ARMITAGE:
We had worked a plan out to sail
the ships to the Philippines.
And the Kirk was going
to escort them.
But the fact that
they're going to be crammed
with an unknown number
of civilians
was somewhat problematic.
The U.S. government already had
a refugee problem
with the U.S. Naval ships.
This was another 30,000
or more people to deal with.
JACOBS:
We were up all night
talking about it.
And I'm convinced that if we
sent them back or took them back
they would have killed them all.
And Armitage decided
to bring them.
And he didn't get permission
from Washington to do that.
ARMITAGE:
I thought it was a lot easier
to beg forgiveness
than to get permission.
So the decision was made.
And they all went with us.
MIKE SULLIVAN:
We had finally got out
the last of the refugees
that we could get out.
Now we had to evacuate
the Marines.
They were all inside the embassy
building except for us.
I was still on the embassy
grounds with two of my sergeants
and I said,
"You two stay right with me.
Don't leave my side."
We slowly walked backwards
to the embassy door
and a couple of Vietnamese
came towards me.
I said,
"We have no more helicopters.
"That's it.
"I'm sorry.
We cannot take you."
And they began to argue with me.
They spoke good English, too.
"We can ride
in your helicopter."
I said, "I'm sorry, no more."
So we spun around and slammed
these huge doors,
and we locked it from behind.
PHO:
I kind of fall asleep
off and on,
but what gets me woke up
is the noise.
It's a different noise.
So I kind of look up.
And the first thing
in my sight was
I didn't see that soldier there
anymore on that wall.
There were people throwing
blankets or jackets
and materials
over the barbed wire
so they can climb over
the wire to come in.
It was like,
"Where are the soldiers?"
SULLIVAN:
We were going up the stairs.
Below me I could hear
feet running on the stairway.
When we got to the roof, Master
Sergeant Valdez was there.
He says, "We got everybody?"
"Yeah."
I said, "Man, there's somebody
chasing me up those stairs."
VALDEZ:
There were wall lockers
up on the roof
and those big fire extinguishers
with wheels so we tilted
all those wall lockers
and the fire extinguishers,
put them against the door.
There was a little window there
that we could see them in there,
all the Vietnamese trying
to get to the roof.
The Marines started going out
as choppers came in.
Then all of a sudden
choppers all cease.
There was 11 of us
still left there.
The briefing was delayed until
the evacuation was completed
and the last helicopters
are now in the air.
The President commends the
personnel of the armed forces
who accomplished it, as well
as Ambassador Graham Martin
and the staff of his mission
who served so well
under difficult conditions.
KISSINGER:
We were told that Martin
had left on the last helicopter
and that the evacuation
had ended.
I'm confident that every
American who wanted to come out
is out.
KISSINGER:
So we held a briefing.
Well, turned out not to be
the last helicopter
because there was another
horrendous screw-up.
VALDEZ:
There were no helicopters.
You know, we were just kind
of sitting down around
looking at each other,
wondering, you know,
what's going to happen here,
you know, whether they truly had
forgotten about us.
SULLIVAN:
So I got on my radio and I began
saying, "U.S. Navy, U.S. Navy,
American embassy, request
extraction immediate."
And I repeated this over
and over and over.
The only option we had
was sit on the stupid roof
like a sitting duck.
And I kept thinking, "Where
are the North Vietnamese?"
VALDEZ:
About 7:45 in the morning
you could start seeing
North Vietnamese
coming down the road.
My thoughts were, "What's
to keep them from bombing
the top of the embassy roof
and blowing us off," you know?
SULLIVAN:
A tank is going to take
one shot.
If it hits the building,
you're gone.
So I didn't like the idea
of being up there,
but where else are you
going to go?
Finally I looked out
and I saw a black dot.
When that chopper landed,
I told the Marines,
"Go. Get in."
I was the last one out.
And as I was putting my foot
on the ramp, I fell down,
and I'm just hanging on
and the ramp's going up.
SULLIVAN:
The ramp is closing
and I did what I was trained
in my first tour count.
So I went, "One, two, three,
four, five, six ten.
"Ten?
"One, two, three, four, five,
six ten.
Ten."
And I looked at the crew chief
and I said, "Put it down."
I knew I was missing one man.
I remember looking at the ramp
and two hands were over
the top of it.
(chuckles)
So the Marines
just kind of grabbed me
and then just pulled me in.
SULLIVAN:
We left, by my watch,
at 7:58 Saigon time.
And we were the last 11.
JIM LAURIE:
My cameraman, Neil Davis, and I
decided to stay.
We saw the last helicopter leave
from the roof.
We then tried to scramble
into the embassy ourselves.
Neil got to the roof.
I did not.
And he saw dozens of Vietnamese
just sitting on the helicopter
pad on the roof of the embassy,
waiting, wanting to get out.
And of course no more
helicopters were going to come.
PHO:
I didn't join them.
I actually scared.
If the Communists come in,
the last thing
we want them to see us
is in the American embassy.
So we get out.
LAURIE:
People were coming in and out
of the buildings.
Literally, anything that could
not be fastened down
or was not fastened down
was being taken away.
Any souvenirs
from the Ambassador's office
were taken away.
Almost brick by brick the
embassy was being dismantled.
It was ordinary looting.
But more than that, I think it
was just frustration and anger
and an opportunity to get back,
perhaps, at the Americans
because in the view of many
in that crowd that day,
we had deserted them.
NBC news correspondent
Jim Laurie
is one of the few Americans
still left in Saigon,
in the city when President Duong
Van Minh went on the radio
and told the Viet Cong
that his country would
surrender unconditionally
and that he had told its army
to lay down its arms.
Here from Saigon radio hookup
is Laurie's report
on the surrender.
LAURIE:
In the words of General Minh,
"We are here to hand over
the power of government to you
in order to avoid bloodshed."
It is a unilateral ceasefire
and an unconditional surrender.
The 30-year war in South Vietnam
is at last over.
The first thing I did was
to destroy my documents,
my badges,
just keeping the civilian ID.
And then I went around Saigon
to see what happened.
I saw a lot of South Vietnamese
soldiers in underwear.
They took off all
their military clothes, boots,
and they threw them away.
And I thought, well, what
would happen to them?
And to me, to myself.
Right.
I thought of my friends who were
killed in action and I thought,
"Well, is this what
we fought for?"
"Is this what the Americans
came for?"
And I didn't have the answer.
SNEPP:
I have wrestled with this
ever since.
I realized that I had become
the quintessential American
in Vietnam.
I had all these causes, all
these big things I was doing.
I was trying to get the truth
back to Washington.
I was talking to agents, trying
to persuade the Ambassador,
and I forgot that what
was at stake were human lives.
PHO:
For years after that,
I hear that sound in my head,
that sound like,
"Tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk."
In the middle of the night
I just jump up.
I thought the helicopter come
pick me up.
I called it
"dream in the wind."
Later we found out
the big fleet is out there.
You can just take a boat
and go there.
They take everybody.
If you can get out there,
you're on board.
And I just didn't know that.
You know, so
JACOBS:
As we approached the Philippines
with our refugees,
there was a big problem.
They wouldn't let us in.
And the reason
they wouldn't let us in is
because the government there
had recognized
the new regime in Vietnam
and these Navy ships
we were escorting,
they were all flying
South Vietnamese flags.
And the solution was to reflag
all these ships
as American ships.
(Kiem Do speaking Vietnamese)
(singing in Vietnamese)
JACOBS:
They lowered their Vietnamese
flag, people crying.
It was very emotional for them
to lose their country,
their flag, their ship.
Everything was gone.
And then we raised
the American flag.
We tried to do that with
as much dignity as we could.
HERRINGTON:
There were thousands
and thousands of Americans
who served in Vietnam who were
sitting at home heartbroken
at watching this whole thing
come to naught.
The end of April of 1975 was
the whole Vietnam involvement
in microcosm
Promises made
in good faith, promises broken;
people being hurt because
we didn't get our act together.
You know, the whole Vietnam War
is a story that kind of
sounds like that.
But on the other hand,
sometimes there are moments
when good people have to rise
to the occasion
and do the things
that need to be done.
And in Saigon, there was
no shortage of people like that.