Inspired by the “self-determination” rhetoric of American President Woodrow Wilson at the end of World War I, nationalists in a far-off corner of Asia then known as Indochina sought to free themselves from their French colonial overlords and establish the independent nation of Vietnam. Their delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 was led by a young student who would come to be known as Ho Chi Minh.
But Ho never got his requested meeting with Wilson. French leader Georges Clemenceau refused to entertain his petition for independence from France, and there the matter remained for decades.
The Japanese invasion and occupation of Indochina in World War II led to the Vietnamese nationalists fighting a guerilla-style campaign against the occupiers. And when the French returned in 1945 to resume their colonial occupation, the insurgency just kept going, ending in a French debacle at a place called Dienbienphu in 1954.
By this time the politics of the Cold War had become intertwined with Vietnam’s fate. Fearful of a communist takeover of such a strategic part of the globe, western countries called for a conference to decide Indochina’s future. The result was the Geneva Accords, which split the former French colony into four countries: Laos and Cambodia on the western side, and a divided Vietnamese nation to the east along the South China Sea. The northern part was to be ruled by Ho and was supported by the Soviet Union, the southern part was led by Ngo Dinh Diem and was backed by the United States.
Peace did not last long. Diem’s corrupt regime was soon destabilized by a number of factors. By the early 1960s hundreds, and then thousands of Americans were in country, dispatched by President John F. Kennedy and his administration, christened the “best and brightest” by author David Halberstam. The troops were sent officially as “advisors” but increasingly as combat troops. Diem was overthrown and killed in November 1963 and was followed by a succession of shaky South Vietnamese military governments.
After a confused maritime encounter between American and North Vietnamese warships in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, the U.S. Congress authorized President Lyndon Johnson to take retaliatory measures against communist military forces in North Vietnam.
Things escalated from there.
Carrier-based strike aircraft launched the first American attacks, but soon land-based aircraft were needed. When communist guerillas, known as the Viet Cong, attacked the air bases, ground forces were sent in to guard them, coming ashore at Da Nang in March 1965.
Soon Americans were launching “search-and-destroy” missions into the countryside to find the guerillas. More combat troops were necessary for these missions, as well as support troops – logistics, communications, engineers, medical, intelligence, and much more. The American troop presence climbed sharply, going from an authorized strength of a few hundred advisors to more than 500,000 personnel at its peak.
President Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and General William Westmoreland issued optimistic statements to the country about the situation in Vietnam, claiming that the American combat mission had “turned the corner,” and that they could see “the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Meanwhile, back at home anti-war demonstrations grew in intensity as draft calls increased, casualty counts mounted, and the nation’s leaders seemed unable to explain why, other than with vague statements about American “credibility” being on the line 8000 miles from home.
Everything came crashing down on January 30, 1968, when the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong launched an offensive tied to the Vietnamese New Year celebrations, an occasion known as Tet. Violating a traditional cease-fire, they launched a nationwide series of brutal attacks, striking every major city in the south and even breaching the U.S. Embassy in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon. All of Washington’s optimistic pronouncements were disproved in a spasm of violence.
Legendary CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite personally toured Vietnam and came home with a grim analysis that the conflict seemed mired in stalemate and that America should start looking for a way out. Johnson, despondent over the broadcast, was said to have commented, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.”
In short order, President Johnson announced he would not seek re-election, Secretary McNamara stepped down, and General Westmoreland was reassigned.
The new President, Richard Nixon, began a policy of “Vietnamization,” gradually withdrawing American forces while building up the South Vietnamese military to stand on its own. At the same time, fifty years after Ho’s unsuccessful attempt to meet with President Wilson, American envoy Henry Kissinger began secret negotiations in Paris with North Vietnamese diplomats.
After four years of talks, the United States and North Vietnam, as well as a very reluctant South Vietnam, signed the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973. Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nixon triumphantly announced that his administration had “concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam.”
Both the peace and Nixon’s triumph were short-lived.
American prisoners of war were released and brought home, and the last American combat troops were soon withdrawn.
But fighting continued as both North and South Vietnam repeatedly broke the cease-fire terms. Meanwhile, Nixon sank deeper into the Watergate scandal, the affair becoming a larger and larger distraction for the President and his administration. As Nixon’s public support plummeted, and the nation dealt with skyrocketing inflation and energy shortages, there was little public appetite for re-engaging in Vietnam in response to continued violence from the communist side.
South Vietnam staggered along for two more years, gradually losing ground until the final communist offensive in the spring of 1975. By then, Nixon had resigned, and Congress had cut off any further support for the South.
As North Vietnam’s Soviet-built tanks battled their way into the capital, President Gerald Ford and Kissinger ordered Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of the last American diplomats and civilians from Saigon, as well as the small force of Marine guards on duty at the embassy.
And so, 50 years ago today, played out the final act in the tragedy of America’s war in Vietnam, after tens of thousands of Americans gave their lives and hundreds of thousands more suffered wounds, physical and otherwise.
Concerned about inciting a panic with a premature withdrawal, Ambassador Graham Martin may have waited too long to execute the evacuation, leading to near chaos. With enemy forces entering the city, the order was finally given, a coded message to all the Americans remaining in the city.
“It’s 105 degrees and rising,” announced the American radio station in Saigon, followed by Bing Crosby singing the beloved holiday tune “White Christmas,” a song so badly out-of-place in the sweltering heat of Vietnam in April that it could not possibly escape notice.
Americans began moving toward their evacuation points, but so did thousands of South Vietnamese. They included government officials, military officers and others who had worked with the Americans over the years, and who feared – with good reason – what would happen to them and their families if the Americans departed and they were left behind.
As the hours passed, the perimeter grew smaller, while the crowd grew larger. An American cargo plane evacuating hundreds from Saigon’s airport crashed, ending any more fixed-wing evacuation flights. Now the helicopter, the enduring symbol of the Vietnam War, would become the last lifeline out.
A succession of choppers, large and small, began landing on the grounds of the American embassy and on the roofs of other nearby buildings, bringing out Americans and as many South Vietnamese as possible, but not all of them could be safely evacuated in time. Some commandeered South Vietnamese helicopters and attempted to land on American ships in the South China Sea. Others jammed onto boats and set off into the choppy open waters trying to escape.
As with so much in this first televised war, much of South Vietnam’s final day was caught on film, including the scene of frightened refugees climbing the staircase to the rooftop helipad of a building near the American embassy, then boarding a Huey helicopter before lifting off for an American ship.
That image was burned into the minds of Americans who saw it on television that night, or in their newspapers the next morning. It was a symbol of American defeat and retreat not to be rivaled until a similar image from the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, shocked Americans again in 2021.
The evacuation of Saigon on April 29, 1975, closed one chapter of American history and opened another. As a picture of that grim era of American foreign policy the Saigon helicopter was bookended by another image of the burned wreckage of an American helicopter that was part of a failed hostage rescue effort in the Iranian desert in 1980.
It was not until the 1980s and the arrival in the White House of President Ronald Reagan that America’s pride and strength in the world was restored.
Reagan, telling the story of a sailor who spotted a group of refugees fleeing toward an American aircraft carrier, the USS Midway, just offshore, turned tragedy into a moment for American pride.
“The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, ‘Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.’”
Despite the disaster of Vietnam and the fall of Saigon, America remained a beacon of freedom for the entire world. Today, Vietnam is an important partner of the United States, both economically and in opposing Chinese expansionism in southeast Asia and the western Pacific.
This afternoon, the Illinois House of Representatives will mark the 50th anniversary of that dark day in Saigon with a bipartisan resolution sponsored by Democrat Rep. Hoan Huynh and Republican Reps. Dan Swanson and Wayne Rosenthal.
It honors the contributions of Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans in upholding human rights, freedom and democracy, recognizes the sacrifices made in support of those values, honors the courage and resilience of the refugees and urges all Illinoisans to take time to learn about the history and contributions of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American people to Illinois and the United States.
More than nine million Americans served in some capacity during the Vietnam War. The names of the 58,318 who gave their lives are etched upon the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.
The names of 2,970 Illinoisans who died or who are still missing are engraved on five black granite walls beneath an eternal flame at the Illinois Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.