Fall of Saigon

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Fall of Saigon
Part of Vietnam War
This iconic photo taken by Hubert Van Es shows South Vietnamese civilians scrambling to board a CIA Air America helicopter during the U.S. evacuation of Saigon. The staircase leading up to the helicopter pad is on permanent display at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Date April 30, 1975 Location Saigon, Republic of Vietnam Result Capitulation of the South Vietnamese government and military, Mass exodus of Vietnamese refugees, Establishment of the Provisional Revolutionary Government.
Combatants
North Vietnam National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam	South Vietnam
Commanders
Van Tien Dung Tran Van Tra	Duong Van Minh
Strength
100,000+	30,000+

Vietnam War

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The Fall of Saigon (in Vietnamese: Sự kiện 30 tháng 4, or April 30 Incident), was the capture of the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon by the Vietnam People's Army (NVA) on April 30, 1975. Those sympathetic to the North Vietnamese hailed the event as the liberation of Saigon. The event marked the end of the Second Indochinese War and the start of a transition period leading to the formal reunification of Vietnam under Communist rule.

NVA forces under General Van Tien Dung began their final attack on Saigon on April 29 with a heavy artillery bombardment. By the afternoon of April 30, North Vietnamese soldiers had occupied the important points within the city and raised their flag over the presidential palace. South Vietnam capitulated shortly after. The city was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

The fall of the city was preceded by the evacuation or flight of almost all the Americans in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese. The evacuation culminated in Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation in history.^[1] In addition to the flight of refugees, the end of the war and institution of new rules by the Communists contributed to a decline in the population of the city.

Contents 1 North Vietnamese advance 2 Evacuation 2.1 Administration plans for final evacuation 2.2 Refugees 3 Political movements and attempts at a negotiated solution 4 Last days 4.1 Operation Frequent Wind 4.2 Capitulation of South Vietnam 5 Aftermath 5.1 Turnover of Saigon 5.2 Evaluation of the evacuation 6 References 7 Notes 8 External links

[edit] North Vietnamese advance

See also: Ho Chi Minh campaign

The rapidity with which the South Vietnamese position collapsed in 1975 was surprising to most American and South Vietnamese observers, and probably to the North Vietnamese and their allies as well. For instance, a memo prepared by the CIA and Army Intelligence and published on March 5 indicated that South Vietnam could hold through the current dry season—i.e. at least until 1976.^[2] These predictions proved to be grievously in error. Even as that memo was being released, NVA commander Van Tien Dung was preparing a major offensive in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, which began on March 10 and led to the capture of Ban Me Thout. The ARVN began a disorderly and costly retreat, hoping to redeploy its forces and hold the southern part of South Vietnam, perhaps an enclave south of the 13th parallel.^[3]

Supported by artillery and armor, the North Vietnamese continued to march towards Saigon, capturing the major cities of northern South Vietnam at the end of March—Hue on the 25th and Danang on the 28th. Along the way, disorderly South Vietnamese retreats and the flight of refugees—there were more than 300,000 in Danang^[4]—damaged South Vietnamese prospects for a turnaround. After the loss of Danang, those prospects had already been dismissed as nonexistent by American Central Intelligence Agency officers in Vietnam, who believed nothing short of B-52 strikes against Hanoi could possibly stop the NVA.^[5]

By April 8, the North Vietnamese Politburo, who in March had recommended caution to Dung, cabled him to demand "unremitting vigor in the attack all the way to the heart of Saigon."^[6] On April 14, they renamed the campaign the "Ho Chi Minh campaign," after revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, in the hopes of wrapping it up before his birthday on May 19.^[7] Meanwhile, South Vietnam failed to garner any significant increase in military aid from the United States, killing President Nguyen Van Thieu's hopes for renewed American support. One reason Washington was hesitant to provide aid was fear that South Vietnam would collapse before it could arrive.

The NVA reached Xuan Loc, a strategic gateway situated on the highway into Saigon, on April 9. The battle of Xuan Loc lasted until April 20, and though the ARVN fought with unusual tenacity, the NVA captured the town. The NVA front line was now just 26 miles from downtown Saigon.^[8] The victory at Xuan Loc, which had drawn many South Vietnamese troops away from the Mekong Delta area,^[9] opened the way for the NVA to encircle Saigon, and they soon did so, moving 100,000 troops in position around the city by April 27. With the ARVN having many fewer defenders, the fate of the city was effectively sealed.

[edit] Evacuation

The rapid North Vietnamese advances of March and early April led to increased concern in Saigon that the city, which had been fairly peaceful throughout the war and whose people had endured relatively little suffering, was soon to come under direct attack.^[10] Perhaps worse, once the NVA took the city it would be occupied by the Communists, a cause for fear among many South Vietnamese. In 1968, the NVA and NLF had occupied Hue for close to a month. After the Communists were repelled, American and ARVN forces had found mass graves; a study prepared for the U.S. mission in Vietnam indicated that the NVA had targeted ARVN officers, Catholics, intellectuals and businessmen, and other suspected counterrevolutionaries.^[11] More recently, eight Americans captured in Ban Me Thout had vanished and reports of beheadings and other executions were filtering through from Hue and Danang.^[12] Most Americans and other Westerners wanted to evacuate the city before it fell to the Communists, and many South Vietnamese who had associated with the Americans wanted to leave as well.

As early as the end of March, some Americans were leaving the city; for instance, ten families departed on March 31.^[13] Flights out of Saigon, lightly booked under ordinary circumstances, were full.^[14] Throughout April the speed of the evacuation increased, as the Defense Attache's Office (DAO) began to fly out nonessential personnel. Many Americans attached to the DAO refused to leave without their Vietnamese friends and dependents, who included common-law wives and children. It was illegal for the DAO to move these people to American soil, and this initially slowed down the rate of departure, but eventually the DAO began illegally flying undocumented Vietnamese to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.^[15]

On April 3, President Ford announced "Operation Babylift", which would evacuate about 2000 orphans from the country. One of the C-5A Galaxy planes involved in the operation crashed, killing 138 passengers and seriously reducing the morale of the American staff.^[16]

[edit] Administration plans for final evacuation

By this time the Ford administration had also begun planning a complete evacuation of the American presence. Planning was complicated by practical, legal, and strategic concerns. The administration was divided on how swift the evacuations should be. The Pentagon sought to evacuate as fast as possible, to avoid the risk of casualties or other accidents. The Ambassador to South Vietnam, Graham Martin—technically the field commander for any evacuation, since evacuations are in the purview of the State Department—believed Hanoi's offensive was less a threat than panic and loss of morale in Saigon, and that the American withdrawal should be as drawn out as possible. Ford approved a plan between the extremes in which all but 1250 Americans—few enough to be removed in a single day's helicopter airlift—would be evacuated quickly; the remaining 1250 would leave only when the airport was threatened. In between, as many Vietnamese refugees as possible would be flown out.^[17]

American evacuation planning was set against other administration policies. Ford still hoped to gain additional military aid for South Vietnam. Throughout April, he attempted to get Congress behind a proposed appropriation of $722 million, which might allow for the reconstitution of some of the South Vietnamese forces that had been destroyed. Kissinger was opposed to a full-scale evacuation as long as the aid option remained on the table, because the removal of American forces would signal a loss of faith in Thieu and severely weaken him.^[18]

There was concern in the administration over whether the use of military forces to support and carry out the evacuation was permitted by the new War Powers Act; eventually White House lawyers determined that the use of forces to rescue citizens in an emergency was unlikely to run afoul of the law, but the legality of using military assets to withdraw refugees was unknown.^[19] The evacuation of Saigon also had to compete for resources with the imminent evacuation of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, which in the event fell on April 12.

[edit] Refugees

While American citizens were generally assured of a simple way to leave the country, just by showing up to an evacuation point, South Vietnamese who wanted to leave Saigon before it fell often resorted to independent arrangements. The under-the-table payments required to gain a passport and exit visa jumped sixfold, and the price of seagoing vessels tripled.^[20] Those who owned property in the city were often forced to sell it at a substantial loss or abandon it altogether; the asking price of one particularly impressive house was cut 75% in a two-week period.^[21] American visas were of enormous value, and Vietnamese seeking American sponsors posted classified ads in newspapers like the Saigon Post. One such ad: "Seeking adoptive parents. Poor diligent students:" followed by names, birthdates, and identity card numbers.^[22]

[edit] Political movements and attempts at a negotiated solution

As the NVA chipped away more and more of South Vietnam, internal opposition to President Nguyen Van Thieu went on accumulating. For instance, in early April, the Senate unanimously voted through a call for new leadership, and some top military commanders were pressing for a coup. In response to this pressure, Thieu made some changes to his cabinet, and Prime Minister Tran Thien Khiem resigned.^[23] This did little to reduce the opposition to Thieu. On April 8 a South Vietnamese pilot bombed the presidential palace and then flew to an NVA-controlled airstrip; Thieu was not hurt.^[24]

Many in the American mission—Martin in particular—along with some key figures in Washington believed that negotiations with the Communists were possible, especially if Saigon could stabilize the military situation. Opinions were divided on whether any government headed by Thieu could effect such a political solution.^[25] The Provisional Revolutionary Government's foreign minister had on April 2 indicated that the PRG might negotiate with a Saigon government that did not include Thieu. Thus, even among Thieu's supporters, pressure was growing for his ouster.^[26]

President Thieu resigned on April 21. His remarks were particularly hard on the Americans, first for forcing South Vietnam to accede to the Paris Peace Accords, second for failing to support South Vietnam afterwards, and all the while asking South Vietnam "to do an impossible thing, like filling up the oceans with stones."^[27] The presidency was turned over to Tran Van Huong. The Communist line, broadcast by Radio Hanoi, was that the new regime was merely "another puppet regime."^[28]

[edit] Last days

All times given are Saigon time.

On April 27, Saigon was hit by three NVA rockets – the first in more than 40 months.^[29]

[edit] Operation Frequent Wind

See also: Operation Frequent Wind

Before daybreak on April 29, the Tan Son Nhut airport was hit by rockets and heavy artillery. Continuing rocket fire and debris on the runways caused Homer D. Smith, the U.S. defense attaché in Saigon, to advise Ambassador Martin that the runways were unfit for use and that the emergency evacuation of Saigon would need to be completed by helicopter.^[30] Reports came in from the outskirts of the city that the NVA was moving.^[31] At 10:48 a.m., Martin relayed to Kissinger his desire to activate the "Operation FREQUENT WIND" evacuation plan; Kissinger gave the order three minutes later. The American radio station began regular play of "White Christmas," the signal for American personnel to move immediately to the evacuation points.^[32]

Under this plan, CH-53 and CH-46 helicopters were used to evacuate Americans and friendly Vietnamese to ships, including the Seventh Fleet, in the South China Sea.^[33] The main evacuation point was the DAO compound at Tan Son Nhut; buses moved through the city picking up passengers and driving them out to the airport, with the first buses arriving at Tan Son Nhut shortly after noon. The first CH-53 landed at the DAO compound in the afternoon and by the evening, 395 Americans and more than 4000 Vietnamese had been evacuated. By 11:00 p.m. the U.S. Marines who were providing security were withdrawing and arranging the demolition of the DAO office, American equipment, files, and cash.

The original evacuation plans had not called for a large-scale helicopter operation at the U.S. embassy. Helicopters and buses were to shuttle people from the embassy to the DAO compound. However, in the course of the evacuation it turned out that a few thousand people were stranded at the embassy, including many Vietnamese. Additional Vietnamese civilians gathered outside the embassy and scaled the walls, hoping to claim refugee status. Thunderstorms increased the difficulty of helicopter operations. Nevertheless, the evacuation from the embassy continued more or less unbroken throughout the evening and night.

At 3:45 a.m. the morning of April 30, the refugee evacuation was halted and Martin announced that only Americans were to be flown out, due to worries that the North Vietnamese would soon take the city and the Ford administration's desire to announce the completion of the American evacuation.^[34] Ambassador Martin was ordered by President Ford to board the last evacuation helicopter, which took off around 5:00 a.m—had Martin refused to leave, the Marines had a reserve order to arrest him and carry him away.^[35] The embassy evacuation had flown out 978 Americans and about 1,100 Vietnamese. The Marines securing the embassy followed at dawn, with the last aircraft leaving at 7:53 a.m. A few hundred Vietnamese were left behind in the embassy compound,^[36] with an additional crowd gathered outside the walls.

The Americans and the refugees they flew out were generally allowed to leave without molestation from either the NVA or South Vietnamese. Pilots of helicopters heading to Tan Son Nhut were aware that NVA antiaircraft guns were tracking them, but the NVA refrained from firing. The Hanoi leadership, reckoning that completion of the evacuation would lessen the risk of American intervention, had instructed Dung not to target the airlift itself.^[37] Meanwhile, members of the police in Saigon had been promised evacuation in exchange for protecting the American evacuation buses and control the crowds in the city during the evacuation.^[38]

Although this was the end of the American military operation, Vietnamese continued to leave the country by boat, and where possible by aircraft. South Vietnamese pilots who had access to helicopters flew them offshore to the American fleet, where they were able to land; those who left South Vietnam this way include at least General Nguyen Cao Ky. Most of the South Vietnamese helicopters were dumped into the ocean to make room on the decks for more aircraft.^[39] South Vietnamese fighters and other small planes also landed on American carriers.^[40]

[edit] Capitulation of South Vietnam

At 6:00 a.m. on April 29, General Dung was ordered by the Politburo to "strike with the greatest determination straight into the enemy's final lair."^[41]

After one day of bombardment and general offensive, the NVA was ready to make its final push into the city. In the early hours of April 30 Dung received orders from the Politburo to attack. Dung ordered his field commanders to advance directly to key facilities and strategic points in the city.^[42] The first NVA unit to enter the city on the morning of April 30 was the 324th Division.^[43] Duong Van Minh, who had been president of South Vietnam for only three days, at 10:24 a.m. announced a surrender and asked South Vietnamese forces "to cease hostilities in calm and to stay where they are," while inviting the Provisional Revolutionary Government to engage in "a ceremony of orderly transfer of power so as to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed in the population."^[44]

However, the NVA was uninterested in a handover and simply took the city, arresting Minh. The gates of the Independence Palace were destroyed by NVA tanks as they entered, and the NLF flag was raised over the Palace at 12:15 p.m. At 3:30 p.m., Minh released another radio broadcast, stating "I declare the Saigon government... completely dissolved at all levels."^{[citation needed]} The dissolution of the South Vietnamese government effectively ended the Vietnam War.

[edit] Aftermath

[edit] Turnover of Saigon

The Communists renamed the city after Ho Chi Minh, former President of North Vietnam, although this name was not frequently used outside of official business.^[45] Order was slowly restored, although the by-then-deserted U.S. embassy was looted, along with many other businesses. Communications between the outside world and Saigon were cut. The Communist party machinery in South Vietnam was weakened, owing in part to the Phoenix program, so the NVA was responsible for maintaining order and General Tran Van Tra, Dung's administrative deputy, was in charge of the city.^[46] The new authorities held a victory rally on May 7.^[47]

According to the Hanoi government, more than 200,000 South Vietnamese government officials, military officers, and soldiers were sent to "reeducation camps", where disease and malnutrition were widespread.^[48]

One objective of the Communist government was to reduce the population of Saigon, which had become swollen with an influx of people during the war, and was now overcrowded with high unemployment. "Reeducation classes" for former soldiers in the South Vietnamese armed forces indicated that in order to regain full standing in society they would need to move from the city and take up farming. Handouts of rice to the poor, while forthcoming, were tied to pledges to leave Saigon for the countryside. According to the Vietnamese government, within two years of the capture of the city 1,000,000 people left Saigon, and the state had a target of 500,000 further departures.^[49]

April 30 is a public holiday in Vietnam known as Reunification Day (though the reunification of the nation actually occurred on July 2, 1976) or Liberation Day (Ngày Giải Phóng).

[edit] Evaluation of the evacuation

Whether the evacuation had been successful was questioned following the end of the war. The Operation Frequent Wind helicopter evacuation 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"^[50]—but the airlift was criticized for being too slow and hesitant, and inadequate in removing Vietnamese connected with the American presence. Martin in particular was criticized for bringing some of his problems upon himself, for instance by continuing to believe in early April that a new infusion of American aid might avert the imminent fall of South Vietnam.^[51] Furthermore, the Americans were not able to screen the Vietnamese in the way planned, with the result, in the words of CIA analyst Frank Snepp, that "bar girls and maids often got seats that should have been reserved for 'high-risk' individuals."^[52]

The State Department estimated that the Vietnamese Embassy employees, 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^[53] (More were able to escape on their own later). A retired CIA officer missed the evacuation; he was picked up by the Communists, interrogated by the Soviet KGB, and died a captive.^[54]

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• "Saigon's Finale" - The New York Times.
• "1975: Saigon surrenders" - BBC News.
• Vietnam Babylift web site
• Fall of Saigon Marine Association
• "White Christmas: The Fall of Saigon" - Dirck Halstead, The Digital Journalist.
• "Video of Saigon takeover"