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Fall of Saigon



Whether the evacuation had been successful was questioned following the end of the war. Operation Frequent Wind was generally assessed as an impressive achievement — Van Tien Dung conceded this in his memoirs, and the New York Times described it as being carried out with "efficiency and bravery"[51] But the airlift was also criticized for being too slow and hesitant and that it was inadequate in removing Vietnamese connected with the American presence.

Ambassador Martin shouldered much of the blame, and did so without feeling the need to explain his motives to the media. Martin's actions had either allowed thousands of South Vietnamese to escape who otherwise would have been trapped, or doomed thousands of others who could not escape. The evacuations might have caused a rash of panic resulting in loss of American lives, or they might not. Meanwhile, from the onset of the evacuation, President Ford and Henry Kissinger were only concerned about the evacuation of crucial American personnel.

However, many in the United States Congress (with no first-hand knowledge of the massive operation) blamed Martin for proceeding too slowly. This was in direct contradiction to the realities of the situation, since Martin had been the one who had allowed many to leave the country days before the final evacuation with little or no official reason.

The U.S. State Department estimated that the Vietnamese employees of the American Embassy in Vietnam, past and present, and their families totaled 90,000 people. In his testimony to Congress, Martin asserted that 22,294 such people were evacuated by the end of April.[52] Of the tens of thousands of former South Vietnamese employees of the State Department, CIA, U.S military, and countless armed forces officers and personnel at risk of communist reprisal in the northern two-thirds of the country abandoned to the communists, nothing is known.

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Commemoration

April 30 is celebrated as a public holiday in Vietnam as Liberation Day or Reunification Day. Workers get the day off, as well as May 1, and the holiday is filled with much public pageantry.

In overseas Vietnamese communities, the week of April 30th is referred to as Black April and is used as a time of commemoration of the fall of Saigon. [53]. The event is approached from different perspectives, with arguments that the date was a sign of American abandonment [54], or as a memorial of the war and mass exodus as a whole. The term, "Black April", is the namesake for a rock band which includes two Vietnamese-American musicians [55].

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References

  • Associated Press. "Minh Surrenders, Vietcong In Saigon", The New York Times, April 30, 1975. (accessed January 25, 2007)
  • Brown, Weldon. The Last Chopper: The Dénouement of the American Role in Vietnam, 1963-1975. Kennikat Press, 1976.
  • Butterfield, Fox. "Many Americans Quit Vietnam; U.S. Denies Evacuation Orders", The New York Times, April 2, 1975. p. 1.
  • Dawson, Alan. 55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam. Prentice-Hall, 1977.
  • Dunham, George R. and Quinlan, David A. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter End, 1973-1975. History and Museums Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 1990.
  • Isaacs, Arnold. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.
  • Kissinger, Henry. Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War. Simon & Schuster, 2003. ISBN 0-7432-1532-X
  • Pike, Douglas. The Viet-Cong Strategy of Terror. 1970. (accessed January 18, 2007)
  • Smith, Homer D. The Final Forty-Five Days in Vietnam. May 22, 1975. (accessed January 16, 2007)
  • Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the CIA's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam. Random House, 1977. ISBN 0-394-40743-1
  • Tanner, Stephen. Epic Retreats: From 1776 to the Evacuation of Saigon. Sarpedon, 2000. ISBN 1-885119-57-7. See especially p. 273 and on.
  • Todd, Olivier. Cruel April: The Fall of Saigon. W.W. Norton & Company, 1990. (originally published in 1987 in French)
  • Tucker, Spencer, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. Oxford University Press, 1998.
  • Van Tien Dung. Our Great Spring Victory: An Account of the Liberation of South Vietnam. Monthly Review Press, 1977.
  • Weinraub, Bernard. "Attack on Saigon Feared; Danang Refugee Sealift is Halted by Rocket Fire", The New York Times, April 1, 1975. p. 1.
  • "The Americans Depart", The New York Times, April 30, 1975. p. 40.

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Notes

  1. ^ a b North Vietnam Invades 1975
  2. ^ Dunham and Quinlan, 202.
  3. ^ Todd, 433.
  4. ^ Tanner, 303.
  5. ^ Dawson, xiii.
  6. ^ Snepp, 280.
  7. ^ Todd, 248.
  8. ^ Todd, 249.
  9. ^ Dawson, xv.
  10. ^ Dawson, xv.
  11. ^ Weinraub.
  12. ^ Pike.
  13. ^ Tanner, 312.
  14. ^ Dawson, xiv.
  15. ^ Butterfield.
  16. ^ Snepp, 312.
  17. ^ Dunham and Quinlan, 157; Snepp, 304
  18. ^ Kissinger, 540-1.
  19. ^ Snepp, 330.
  20. ^ Snepp, 303.
  21. ^ Snepp, 352.
  22. ^ Brown, 318.
  23. ^ Todd, 311.
  24. ^ Snepp, 287
  25. ^ Snepp, 316.
  26. ^ Snepp, 289.
  27. ^ Snepp, 319
  28. ^ Todd, 296.
  29. ^ Todd, 298.
  30. ^ Dawson, xv.
  31. ^ Smith.
  32. ^ Tanner, 313.
  33. ^ Todd, 353.
  34. ^ Accounts of Operation Frequent Wind can be found in Spencer (s.v. "FREQUENT WIND, Operation"), Todd (346-387), and Isaacs.
  35. ^ Todd, 366.
  36. ^ Todd, 367.
  37. ^ Isaacs gives the number of Vietnamese left waiting as 420.
  38. ^ Snepp, 478.
  39. ^ Tanner, 314.
  40. ^ Tanner, 314.
  41. ^ Todd, 370.
  42. ^ Todd, 347.
  43. ^ Snepp, 551.
  44. ^ Snepp, 568.
  45. ^ Associated Press, "Minh Surrenders, Vietcong In Saigon".
  46. ^ Dawson, 351.
  47. ^ Snepp, 568.
  48. ^ Dawson, xvi.
  49. ^ Snepp, 569.
  50. ^ Dawson, 351.
  51. ^ New York Times, "The Americans Depart".
  52. ^ Snepp, 565.
  53. ^ News: Black April events commemorate fall of Saigon | april, black, saigon, little, vietnam - OCRegister.com
  54. ^ Black April 30th 1975
  55. ^ http://blackapril.com/biography/BlackAprilBIO.pdf

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