325. Fall of Saigon: Apocalypse Now

“It is 105 degrees in Saigon, and rising.” This announcement, made through U.S. Armed Forces radio on a spring morning in 1975, is the cue for all Americans remaining in Saigon to head to the US embassy, in order to be evacuated. With up to a million South Vietnamese also expecting to be flown to safety, the city erupts into panic and unrest. The last U.S. troops barricade themselves on the roof of the embassy, waiting for the final helicopter to pick them up. Join Tom and Dominic as they dissect the final hours of American presence in Saigon, and the legacy of the war in Vietnam and abroad.

*The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*:Tom and Dominic are going on an international tour in 2023 and performing in London, Edinburgh, Salford, Dublin, Washington D.C. and New York!

Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook

[kenlewis]

I was a Canadian foreign service officer serving in MALAYSIA after the fall of Saigon. We worked with the USA Aussies to evacuate the boat people who had fled to East Coast Malaysia. Our American comrades told us you Canucks and Aussies get first pick as you joined up to help. Never forgot it and respect those US officers for it.

[ruthradford]

I remember watching on the news, in 1974, when I was about 10 years old. Chilling to listen to these 2 episodes after so many years, with details that I was too young to remember or understand.

[sazajacz]

Ken Burns reports that after the war, NVN generals met cordially with American generals. One general said, "you know, we could have won the war." To which a VN general replied, "that may be true, but it is also irrelevent."
Always loved that reply.

[broken]

Favourite cast.
DO come to the Midlands on one of your tours.

[braindamage]

Great work. Love the show. Keep it up!

[clivemason-msju]

Very interesting episode. I remember the news reports on UK TV about the fall of Saigon. I read that when the NVA tanks crashed through the gates of the presidential palace they found that it hadn't been filmed, so they replaced the gates and crashed through them again while cameras were rolling that time.

[philiphema]

I would so enjoy Tom and Dom's take on McCarthyism and a breakdown on the main players and what initiated the UnAmerican Trials.

[anthonyrussell]

Loved this episode, love these two in action as always but their ill-considered conclusion right at the end, threatened to undermine all the great work. Of course there is a neat formula. We must never imagine there are any 'just' wars or noble interventions. Until the West is prepared to get behind the adjudication & prosecution of international law for EVERYONE, there will never be the realisation that every intervention is biased, self-serving and fundamentally unfair. Time for us to grow up before it's too late.

[ropeburnsrussell]

I remember this shameful withdrawal, it is very dangerous for small powers to rely on large powers.
Just ask the Kurds.

[haraldisdead]

I'm 36. Until i was about 20, there STILL wasn't the consensus in America that Vietnam was "bad." You still heard shit like "we didn't lose Vietnam."

[andrewmallory]

Well done. I lived for 14 years in Vietnam and left unwillingly in 2021. I long to go back and end my days there. Lovely place with wonderful people. It is FAR from perfect. There are lots of issues with corruption and no rights to protest or speak out against those in power. This is far from unique of course and the UK can no longer call out corruption abroad as that would be hypocritical. VN is still a poor country - the damage done in 30 years of war following 100+ years of colonisation can never be undone. And they are now one of the more vulnerable countries to climate change. What I try to impress on people is that if they think it would be better had the US puppet government prevailed somehow [South Korea is the oft touted example] they are hopelessly naive or disinformed. [New word I've invented as it seems to be needed.]

Thanks for a great channel.

[haraldisdead]

My one good friend is here because his dad and uncles set off into the fucking pacific ocean in a homemade raft until a boat picked them up.

[robertacrownover]

Deerhunter was not a film about Vietnam. Rather, it was a beginning understanding of PTSD. I also think it was Hollywood patronizing the downhome boys. It was tacky and reductionist.
It took me a lot of years to process the war, if I ever have.
I had friends die in Vietnam. I walked out of my church after the Tet Offensive when my church began advocating kill a Commie for Christ.
For me, an idealistic adolescent, my growing concept of self-identity was shattered by my nation's inability to look beyond its obsessive (perhaps necessary) anxiety about the USSR without including the proxy wars thing when we were fighting to keep our friends home, away from that contamination, which represented the same kind of disregard that the US, and others, had about killing others, including "our" disposables.
The nickel, a coin in much use at the time, was um degraded. Nickel, the metal, was needed to make bullet casings. The Vietnam War created world-wide shortages in nickel and copper. Bullets needed to be made.
There was a tv series called The Wonder Years. I loved it. I couldn't watch it. Fred Savage was amazing. The rest of the cast worked it beautifully. I couldn't get past the dinner scenes of the family dinner around the tv watching the reporting from Vietnam. And that was the theme of the series.
I don't like modern history. It makes me crazier that usual.

[fabioq]

The Vietnamese negotiator refused the Nobel, Kissinger, that despicable opportunist and narcissist, took the prize and the money knowing all the time he had no intention of maintaining it.

[davidcoleman]

Terrible. I really like Vietnam. Saigon is a great city . I few there from Bangkok.

[tommonk]

I think it is accurate to say that, had JFK lived, the US would never have gotten so deeply into the problems in Vietnam. LBJ had gone to Vietnam as VP and was shown a bill of goods and convinced the war could be won. And the US government was woefully unaware of Vietnamese history. In fact, Ho Chi Minh had, decades before, come to the US to seek help against the imperialist French and was not given the time of day by my government. Ho only sought help from communist countries because he felt he had to to take back his country.

[ComedyJakob]

A look at the terroristic murders committed by the communists during the Tet Offensive makes it plainly clear that fears of atrocities in Saigon were not ill founded.

[erics]

But ultimately it was their country i.e. the South Vietnamese. If after twenty years they couldn't preserve it on their own then what was supposed to happen?

[launiesoult]

Yes you're right right Reagan did those things he also tore down the wall the Berlin Wall 🧱

[tarquinbullocks]

You can't compare Saigon with the British withdrawal from Kabul in 1842.
Officers, men, wives, camp followers and animals trekking miles across hostile terrain and winter weather being steadily attacked and decimated bears no comparison to the situation as the US abandons Saigon.