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00:00Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam, but it cannot
00:10be achieved by refighting a war that is finished, as far as America is concerned.
00:21The war was not quite finished when President Ford spoke those words, but the end of the
00:27road was in sight. The road led south along the seacoast of Vietnam, refugees fleeing before
00:33the advancing enemy. They were joined on the road by South Vietnamese troops, no longer
00:39fighting but running for their lives. Six days after the President spoke, the last Americans
00:45were evacuated from Saigon, many flown by helicopter from the grounds of the American Embassy.
00:51The next day, the Army of North Vietnam occupied Saigon, and the government of South Vietnam
00:57surrendered. At last, the war was over. The war was lost.
01:31THE Mzwed
01:46The Vietnam War was supposed to have ended in 1973
01:50with the signing of a ceasefire agreement in Paris.
01:53But for two years after that agreement,
01:56North and South Vietnam would accuse each other of violating its terms.
02:00And in fact, both did.
02:02The war went on, but the war was fought without American troops.
02:06The ceasefire agreement required that all remaining American forces leave Vietnam within 60 days.
02:12The ceasefire created another dramatic event in 1973,
02:16the release of prisoners of war, including almost 600 Americans.
02:24The first group of POWs was released on February 12, 1973,
02:29flown from Annoy to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.
02:33Most were American pilots shot down over North Vietnam.
02:37For all of those aboard these planes,
02:39the flight to freedom meant the end of a nightmare.
02:43The world was watching on television as the flights arrived in the Philippines.
02:48The first ex-prisoner to emerge was Navy Captain Jeremiah Denton,
02:53who would later be elected senator from Alabama.
02:57He had been a prisoner for seven years.
03:03We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances.
03:14We are profoundly grateful to our commander-in-chief and to our nation for this day.
03:31The friends and relatives and loved ones of all of these men were watching,
03:36watching from thousands of miles away,
03:38watching from their living rooms,
03:40waiting for a familiar face to appear on their television screens.
03:44Ike Pappas described the scene in one of those homes.
03:47Marion Purcell prayed as she waited these last few minutes,
03:51prayed as she had for seven and a half years that her husband would be brought safely home.
03:55She gathered her family around her in the early morning hours
03:58to watch for a glimpse of her husband, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert Purcell,
04:02shot down in 1965 while on a mission over the North.
04:05She had received several letters from him over the years,
04:08saying that he would come home someday.
04:11But it was difficult now for her to realize that it was really happening.
04:14Marion Purcell had said earlier that she was apprehensive,
04:18concerned about the future,
04:20about the reaction that her husband would have
04:21to the way the family had developed over the past seven and a half years.
04:25She even wondered whether he would like the car that she bought.
04:28Her apprehension grew as the last of the former prisoners
04:31came off the first jet from Hanoi.
04:33Her husband was not aboard.
04:35Thirty minutes later, the process was repeated
04:37as the men were taken off the second plane
04:39and Marion Purcell and her long wait ended
04:42in tears and screams of joy.
04:45Lieutenant Colonel Purcell stepping off the door.
04:49There he is.
04:58Oh, Mary, it looked a lot like him.
05:09Oh, Mary, it looked a lot like him.
05:10Oh, Mary, but it wasn't him.
05:13Oh, my God.
05:16Oh, Mary, it looked a lot like him.
05:45And soon the former prisoners were home,
05:48reunited with their families.
05:50These scenes of joy were repeated at Air Force bases
05:53across the United States.
05:55It was several weeks before the last of the prisoners were released.
05:58We reported that story from Hanoi on March 29, 1973.
06:05The North Vietnamese turned out in greater numbers
06:08than ever before at their bomb-battered Hanoi Airport today
06:11to watch the last of their American prisoners head for home.
06:15There was no apparent hostility here,
06:18but any cheers were reserved for the very last American to go
06:22of the 590 they had captured.
06:24He was Lieutenant Commander Alfred Agnew of Mullen, South Carolina.
06:29A Navy pilot, he went down on December 28,
06:32the last day of the Christmas bombing offensive.
06:35Today, he was preceded by 66 others.
06:38These prisoners were mostly short-termers,
06:41if any time spent in a North Vietnamese cell could be called short-term.
06:46The oldest prisoner among today's group,
06:48oldest in time behind Communist bars,
06:51was Air Force Captain Marion Marshall of Hyattsville, Maryland,
06:55shot down July 2, last year.
06:58In recent weeks, at any rate,
07:00they've been held in a prison two miles from downtown Hanoi.
07:04The gate to the camp, called Na Tu So,
07:06was at the end of a deceptively pastoral lane
07:09off a busy street in a working-class district.
07:14On the last day of captivity,
07:16the prisoners were inspected by this ceasefire's
07:18International Control Commission,
07:20a formation outside their cells,
07:22the half-dressed men, grim, unsmiling.
07:28Then, seemingly to a silent signal,
07:30they marched to their cells,
07:32one grasped my hand in passing,
07:34only to have a guard break our grip.
07:37We weren't supposed to talk with them,
07:39but we managed to sneak in a few words
07:41before guards broke it up,
07:43these with Master Sergeant James Goff
07:45of Fresno, California.
07:47When were you shot?
07:49When were you shot?
07:51December 27th.
07:53December 27th.
07:54December 27th.
07:58December 27th.
08:00D-52?
08:08When was the first you knew about a ceasefire?
08:11Uh, five days after it was signed.
08:13Or after it was signed, yes.
08:14Uh-huh.
08:17So you had reasonable...
08:19You had a reasonable feeling
08:20you were going to get out pretty soon.
08:25Outside the camp,
08:26a large crowd in holiday,
08:28not unfriendly spirits,
08:30gathered to await the prisoners' departure
08:32in their camouflage buses.
08:34Their route took them past
08:36some of their own work,
08:37the bomb-damaged Long Bien Bridge,
08:41and past the destroyed railroad repair yards,
08:46and then on to the airport.
08:48As the buses stopped outside the airport,
08:51the quick, illegal conversations renewed,
08:54like questions as to who won the Super Bowl
08:56and how other teams were doing.
08:58How are the Boston Bruins doing?
09:01Boston Bruins, uh...
09:02How are they doing?
09:02Boston Bruins.
09:03That's not my team.
09:05No, no, no.
09:06Just great to see Americans.
09:08Yeah, well, it's great to see you too, sir.
09:10And then the North Vietnamese guards
09:12used their last minutes of authority
09:14to shut off the conversation again.
09:18Those are the last known American prisoners of war.
09:22That part of the Vietnam tragedy is over.
09:25But they leave behind 1,300 others
09:28missing in action.
09:30There's not much hope that many of them survive.
09:33But now the grim search begins
09:35to try to account for everyone if possible.
09:38But for these men, it is now the flight to freedom
09:41and on to Clark Field, the Philippines.
09:45This is Walter Crongite, CBS News, Hanoi, North Vietnam.
09:501973.
09:51The prisoners were home.
09:53American troops were home.
09:55And other news was crowding Vietnam into the background.
09:59The other news was called Watergate,
10:02the scandal that embroiled and ultimately destroyed
10:04the Nixon presidency.
10:06It led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974,
10:10succeeded by his vice president, Gerald Ford.
10:13But partly eclipsed by Watergate,
10:15the war was continuing in Southeast Asia.
10:18Even after the ceasefire,
10:19American planes had continued to bomb
10:22communist strongholds in Cambodia.
10:24Congress finally forced an end to the bombing
10:26in August 1973.
10:29In Vietnam itself, the war was escalating again.
10:32The communists continued to build their strength in South Vietnam.
10:36The South continued to hammer away at communist positions.
10:40Some of those positions were controlled by local guerrilla forces.
10:43In late 1973, Ed Bradley visited the Viet Cong.
10:51Each village we visited had its own guerrilla force.
10:55A group of men and women, some of them still really boys and girls,
10:59who were armed with modern weapons and trained to fight.
11:02Here in the Wacho village, when the local leaders learned we were interested in filming guerrilla activities,
11:08they arranged a series of demonstrations.
11:11Although they scheduled this tour,
11:13everything we saw, we had seen before or would see in visits to other villages.
11:18Similar scenes that were part of life and that were not staged for our benefit.
11:23The guerrillas are taught to care for and use their weapons at an early age.
11:28In many locations, we saw fully armed boys and girls only 14 or 15 years old.
11:33These Viet Cong guerrillas, or liberation fighters as they prefer to be called,
11:39served as the local police force.
11:41These guerrillas had finished their demonstration and were moving off on patrol
11:46when a government observation plane fired a rocket to mark the area for an airstrike.
11:56The villagers started for their bunkers, well camouflaged, holes in the ground.
12:01In the two weeks we spent with the Viet Cong, almost every house had a bunker
12:05and most of them were built with concrete walls, reinforced with sandbags,
12:10and covered with mounds of dirt and grass.
12:15Within a few minutes, government air force jets were on target.
12:22Local officials pointed to this attack as an example of Saigon's violation of the ceasefire accord.
12:28They told us their village was under Viet Cong control long before the ceasefire date.
12:35Yet they said almost every day since then this area had been bombed or shelled by the big guns from
12:41nearby government artillery bases.
12:44During our two weeks with the Viet Cong, we saw planes on bombing runs or heard the shelling every day.
12:50And on several occasions had to scramble into bunkers in the middle of the night.
13:03The Ho Chi Minh Trail is still in operation primarily to supply Khmer insurgents in Cambodia.
13:09Since Hanoi doesn't have to worry about American bombing, supplies for South Vietnam are trucked across the so-called demilitarized
13:17zone
13:18to those areas in this country's northern provinces that are controlled by the Viet Cong.
13:23But from this point, the trail springs to life again, and men and women replace the trucks.
13:30Our Viet Cong interpreters called these people cargo carriers.
13:35They are the heart of the Viet Cong supply system.
13:39They carry food, medicine, clothing, weapons, ammunition, anything that is needed in the areas of South Vietnam controlled by the
13:47Viet Cong.
13:48Only occasionally did we see jeeps or trucks during our visit.
13:54They make easy targets for Saigon's planes or artillery bases which bomb and shell these areas.
14:00The cargo carriers can slip off the road or into a bunker.
14:05They don't burn gas or require preventive maintenance.
14:08They work only in their own districts, so they know all of the trails and many of the people.
14:14As the monsoon season swept into Bendin province, we expected a halt in this human transportation system.
14:21But the swollen rivers were only minor obstacles.
14:25This supply system is slow, antiquated, and by modern standards, inefficient.
14:30It takes a long time for supplies to reach from one end of the pipeline to the other.
14:35But this archaic system provided the men and supplies to defeat the French.
14:40It withstood the years of massive American bombing.
14:44And today, the Ho Chi Minh Trail keeps a steady flow of materiel into South Vietnam.
14:51Ed Bradley, CBS News, with the Viet Cong.
14:55By the start of 1975, it was clear that North Vietnam was on the verge of a major offensive.
15:02In January, communist forces captured a province only 60 miles north of Saigon.
15:08In March, they attacked over here in the Central Highlands, a large mountainous area, sparsely populated, difficult to defend.
15:16The breaking point apparently came when the communists encircled and captured the provincial capital of Banh Mi to it.
15:23South Vietnam's President Chu then ordered his troops to abandon the Central Highlands and the northern provinces of South Vietnam.
15:30That was the beginning of the end.
15:33Charles Collingwood, describe what happened next.
15:38The South Vietnamese forces in the area broke and fled.
15:44The civilian population was already moving out, carrying what belongings they could, snaking in a pathetic column along back roads
15:53which were still uncut by the enemy.
15:56Soldiers and civilians were intermingled, and at times they came under fire, adding to the casualties and confusion.
16:05The goal was to reach the great cities of the coast where they thought they would find safety.
16:11They did not know then that there was no safety there, and that their flight had only begun.
16:17For already, the North Vietnamese were sweeping down the coast, driving before them new floods of refugees.
16:27Outside the legendary former imperial capital of Hue, the South Vietnamese at first put up a feeble defensive effort.
16:37But no major battle was fought for Hue.
16:42Morale broke.
16:44Some of the best troops in South Vietnam simply disintegrated as fighting units.
16:51Generals abandoned their command to colonels, colonels to majors, until there was no command, and the troops joined civilians in
16:59a panicky exodus.
17:01Bruce Dunning reported on the mass migration south.
17:05These people are just part of the greatest flight of refugees ever to occur in Vietnam in all its years
17:10of war.
17:12Many of these people had walked all the way from Quang Tree, seeking safety in Hue, only to learn that
17:18they must join the thousands of Hue residents moving farther south to Da Nang, 60 miles away.
17:25The rich can leave by plane, but like the poor, they can only take what they can carry with them.
17:32The less rich can afford a ride on a bus or a truck, but the poor must walk.
17:37Young children, the old, many are barefoot, struggling along under heavy bundles.
17:45Whole families push carts weighed down with precious belongings.
17:54Soldiers are trying to get their families out of way.
17:57Rockets are hitting the center of the city, making everyone aware that the North Vietnamese are not far away.
18:04The refugees came to Da Nang by ship as well as on foot.
18:18They were crowded into the ships like sardines, and like fish, they had to be unloaded in nets.
18:34But even as the refugees swarmed ashore in Da Nang, the word was passed that Da Nang itself would be
18:40the next place to fall.
18:45The refugees who had already come so far were joined by hundreds of thousands in Da Nang, seeking to escape.
18:52Perhaps a million and a half people in all.
18:57Panic and disorder were the rule.
19:04Ships sent to help evacuate the multitude had to lie well offshore.
19:12There was a frenzied scramble to reach them.
19:15As usual by now, the unruly, undisciplined soldiers were in the forefront.
19:23Some managed to crowd onto small boats to cross the intervening water.
19:27Others waited out as far as they could and swam for it.
19:32Some drowned.
19:34Many were left behind.
19:37The scenes were even worse at Da Nang's airport, where desperate Vietnamese scrambled and fought to find a way out.
19:44On March 29th, the World Airways jumbo jet flew into Da Nang to evacuate refugees.
19:50The airline president, Ed Daly, was aboard the flight, and so was CBS News correspondent Bruce Dunning.
19:58Reports from Saigon said thousands of people were roaming Da Nang airfield.
20:02But as the plane landed, this did not at first seem evident.
20:05But then people poured from behind buildings and revetments, racing on cars, jeeps, trucks, Hondas, and on foot.
20:11Desperate to get to the plane and make sure they got on before anyone else.
20:16One guy got on.
20:18As soon as the rear stairway was lowered, the stampede of terrorized people tried to storm the plane.
20:24From the cockpit, the pilots reported by radio that the situation was out of control.
20:37Several times the pilots moved the plane, hoping to break the crowds around the rear ladder.
20:41There was no control. High-ranking officers in Da Nang have fled, leaving soldiers and airmen to fend for themselves.
20:47The hordes tried to jam up the stairway as Daly himself tried to block the stairs.
20:56As men clamored over one another, pushing aside women and children in their panic-stricken fury, members of the aircrew
21:03dragged them onto the plane, trying to fill it as fast as possible.
21:06The tension and panic intensified. The heavily armed men were menacing.
21:11They left their wives, their children, their aged parents on the runway, while they forced their own way on board,
21:16a rabble of young enlisted men.
21:17CBS News cameraman Mike Marriott and sound man Mai Van Dook dared not leave the plane, aware they might not
21:24be able to get back on.
21:25One newsman was left behind as the crowd pushed him out of reach of the plane.
21:30The stewardesses dragged people on and rushed them to seats, screaming all the while,
21:34Where are the women and children?
21:36They piled four, five, and six men into seats intended for three.
21:40Finally, there was room for no more.
21:42The plane began to move as people still clamored up the ladder.
21:45Angry men left behind, fired pistols and automatic weapons at the plane, determined that no one would go if they
21:51couldn't.
21:52A grenade went off under one wing, damaging it.
21:55Unable to move on the blockaded runway, the plane raced down the taxiway, swerving to avoid abandoned vehicles, perhaps even
22:02running over people.
22:03As the plane strained laboriously into the air, people were still clinging to the wheels on the rear stairs.
22:09Seven men fell off as the plane reached heights of a thousand feet or more.
22:14As the plane reached six thousand feet, one man was still stuck in the ladder.
22:19Daly had to climb out and pull him back as the plane swerved and shuddered under its heavy load.
22:25As calm fell on the smug men who had managed to fight off their friends and relatives to get on,
22:30the hard-working cabin crew took a count.
22:33268 people were on board, among them five women and two or three small children.
22:38The rest were some of the men whom President Chu said would defend Da Nang.
22:43They had no apparent feelings about leaving others behind, only gratitude that World Airways had saved their lives, with a
22:49flight that Ed Daly intended for refugee women and children.
22:53Once in flight, at low altitude, because the damaged rear stairway wouldn't close, the pilots assessed the damage to the
22:59plane.
23:00Bullets had damaged gas lines and the plane was losing fuel.
23:03The pilots were not sure the wheels would function on landing, because people had attempted to hide in the wheel
23:08wells.
23:08The flight from Da Nang to Saigon normally takes about 50 minutes.
23:13This one took more than an hour and a half.
23:16Another World Airways plane flew alongside, trying to assess the damage, and reported that the cargo hatches were open and
23:22full of people.
23:28Do you think the nose gear will come down, or you can't tell yet?
23:31Can't tell. I don't want to check until we get in closer. That's the biggest problem I see at the
23:39moment here.
23:40Clong 945, clear to Saigon.
23:42Or something hanging down in the gear, or in my gear doors. It may be a body.
23:50Did you say a body?
23:51Well, I can't tell. It sure looks like it.
23:55Could be. We had them climbing all over.
23:57One man on the escort plane said that that crew was praying for us on the damaged plane.
24:04Not knowing whether the wheel assemblies would hold, the flight crew put the plane, almost empty of fuel, down very
24:10gingerly on the runway at Saigon.
24:12And the deserters on board cheered.
24:14As the plane taxied to a parking place, soldiers poured out of the luggage holes.
24:19As cameraman Marriott was filming the unloading, a South Vietnamese Air Force security officer arrested him for taking these pictures.
24:26The Air Force had things under control again.
24:29But the men and women of World Airways had brought their plane and its load home.
24:33Bruce Denning, CBS News, back from Da Nang.
24:40On Easter Sunday, Da Nang fell to the North Vietnamese once again without a fight.
24:47The horde of refugees pressed on south before the advance of the feared North Vietnamese.
24:52They were making now for the port cities of Quignan and Natrang.
24:59But even as the flood of homeless civilians and leaderless troops rolled on,
25:05Quignan was surrounded and Natrang was being evacuated.
25:14As battered cargo ships brought their thousands of demoralized civilians and soldiers into Natrang,
25:23Tens of thousands more were trying to get out.
25:28But there were some who would never get farther than not trying.
25:33The people on this uncovered open barge had spent three days at sea escaping from Da Nang.
25:42Exposed to the elements, without water, without food, more than a hundred on this barge died.
25:50Most of them were children.
26:03For those who got as far as Natrang and were not too exhausted to continue their escape, the next stopping
26:10place was Cam'ron.
26:14Cam'ron Bay is one of the great deep water ports of the world, developed into a major installation by
26:20the Americans well protected from assault.
26:24But like other strongholds up and down the coast, Cam'ron was evacuated without a struggle.
26:33Ironically, the South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were running away faster than the North Vietnamese were advancing.
26:40Days after radio contact with Natrang and Cam'ron had ceased, the North Vietnamese hadn't even got around to occupying
26:48them.
26:50The domino theory had come to Vietnam with a vengeance.
26:55As province after province, city after city, toppled not through enemy action, but through the contagion of collapse.
27:06Countless thousands of refugees had traveled huge distances only to find they would have to travel again.
27:12There was no safety at the end of the road.
27:15For many, the journey ended at Vung Tao on the coast not far from Saigon.
27:20And what the refugees found most often was heartbreak and misery.
27:24Bob Simon reported.
27:26This is the end of the refugee trail, Vung Tao, the fashionable coastal resort two hours from Saigon,
27:33with people arriving every day courtesy of the Navy.
27:36This ship sailed from Cam'ron Bay four days ago.
27:39Its cargo, 20,000 human beings.
27:43There was no food on board, very little water.
27:46Many people died.
27:48No one knows how many.
27:49The corpses were thrown overboard.
27:52The ship sailed from Cam'ron, but the people are from Quang Tri, Hue, Khantum, Pleiku, Da Nang, Quinyon, Natrang.
27:59All those names, all those places abandoned by the government and the army of South Vietnam.
28:06Saigon says people fled to escape communist rule.
28:08Hanoi says it was because of American and South Vietnamese propaganda.
28:13But that's not what the people say.
28:15People say it was not politics, not propaganda, it was panic.
28:19They left their homes because everyone else was leaving, the soldiers, the civil servants, their neighbors.
28:23The fear was contagious, overpowering.
28:27The Ngo family left Khantum in a truck.
28:30Near Quinyon, the communists shelled the road.
28:33Ngo Tan Hieu, 25 years old, a teacher, was badly wounded.
28:37He'd been leading the family, making the decisions.
28:40When they got to Quinyon, they saw that people weren't stopping, so they continued.
28:44When they got to Da Nang, they saw government troops running wild, so they continued.
28:49When they got to Cam'ron, they scrambled onto fishing boats to get to this ship.
28:54When they got on board, Ngo Tan Hieu realized his mother, two sisters, and two brothers were missing.
29:00There was nothing he could do.
29:02Ngo Tan Hieu is treated for his wounds and taken away in an ambulance.
29:06The rest of the family will have to continue without him.
29:09His father, a potato farmer, is now in charge.
29:20They're ordered to get out of the naval base onto the road.
29:23A truck will take them to a refugee camp.
29:28They wait two hours, but no trucks come.
29:31Finally, they're told there are no trucks because the refugee camp is full.
29:36What the Ngo family missed by not getting into the camp was the company of a hundred thousand people,
29:41some order, a little food, and a large military presence.
29:46The soldiers are not here to prevent the North Vietnamese from getting in.
29:50They're here to prevent the refugees from getting out.
29:54Saigon doesn't want them around.
29:56The Ngo family doesn't know what to do.
29:58A man with a lambretta offers to take them to a nearby Catholic mission for a thousand piastres.
30:04People are still making money from this war.
30:06It may be their last chance.
30:08The family only has five thousand piastres, but they take the gamble.
30:12It doesn't pay off.
30:13The gates of the mission are locked.
30:15The priests tell them to go away.
30:17There's no more room.
30:23Another lambretta driver, another thousand piastres demand, another decision.
30:28But they have no choice.
30:30This trip takes them to a soccer stadium.
30:32It will be their last trip for the day, probably for several days, maybe for a lot longer.
30:37A man from Hue shows them pictures of his family, the family he hasn't seen in ten days.
30:43He wants to know if the Ngo family has come across them.
30:46They explain that they're from Khantun, not Hue, that they've taken a different route.
30:51But the man doesn't understand.
30:57An official tells them there's no food, no facilities in the stadium, but assures them it's only temporary.
31:02They'll be moving on very soon.
31:05It's not the first promise they've heard from a government official.
31:08But what they really want to know is whether no Tangier, when he's released from the hospital, will ever find
31:14them.
31:14What they really want to know is whether his mother, two sisters, and two brothers drowned in Cam Ran, are
31:21trapped there, or made it onto another ship.
31:24They may never find out.
31:27Bob Simon, CBS News, Bung Tau.
31:31There seemed to be no limits to the tragedy unfolding in Vietnam.
31:36On April 4th, a plane load of orphans took off from Saigon.
31:40It crashed a short time later.
31:42Our reporter was Murray Frompson.
31:45The orphans airlift was considered a victory over red tape.
31:49It took an order from President Ford to dispatch the C-5A to Saigon.
31:54Then the agreement of Vietnamese authorities to expedite passports and exit visas for the orphans.
32:00Some of those put aboard the plane had been born only weeks ago.
32:04Most seemed to be between the ages of two and eight.
32:07Some sat along the side of the plane.
32:10Others were strapped to the floor.
32:12More terrified of the television lights than their first trip in an airplane.
32:18Wives of American officials being evacuated home with their own children agreed to act as chaperones to the orphans.
32:28Destination the west coast and then onward to American families who had already begun the adoption process.
32:36Two hours ago I watched this airplane take off from Tonson Road Air Base.
32:41It was a perfect take off carrying those orphans to the United States.
32:46What can one say except when will the misery in this country ever stop?
32:53The huge plane crashed into a field about five miles from the end of the runway near a small village
32:58in Ja Den province.
33:00There were pieces of wreckage scattered across a half a mile of rice paddy.
33:04A fire was slowly burning itself out near the engines.
33:08Smashed bodies or parts of them were uncovered by Vietnamese Air Force crews and American officials who rushed to the
33:15scene.
33:16It was like a combat operation.
33:19Helicopters hovered overhead.
33:21Body bags were used to remove corpses for identification purposes.
33:27Scores of ambulances rushed survivors to a nearby hospital.
33:51Some of the chaperones were in a state of shock.
33:54Moments before they had been happy to be leaving Saigon.
34:13The orphans were to be the first of 2,000 to be airlifted out of Vietnam.
34:17Many were mixed blood.
34:19The children of Vietnamese women and black American GIs.
34:22They would never have had a chance for happiness in Vietnam
34:25where racial prejudice is as strong as in any other country.
34:29Now, they have no chance at all.
34:35Murray Fromson, CBS News in Ja Den province.
34:43The enemy was moving ever closer to Saigon.
34:47But hope remained that somehow the communist advance could be stopped.
34:51A number of South Vietnamese units remained intact but were handicapped by a shortage of air support.
34:57South Vietnam had an Air Force but did not have the resources to keep the planes repaired.
35:02One of the key defense points was Te Ninh, only 55 miles from Saigon.
35:08Bob Simon reported.
35:11Just outside Te Ninh, a 105-millimeter howitzer lets the North Vietnamese know they may have a fight on their
35:18hands.
35:18Tanks race up from Saigon, deploying along Route 22, a road which the communists have cut several times this week.
35:27Regional forces now comb the rice paddies and hamlets every morning to keep the road open.
35:32There's artillery, there's air support.
35:35But of 800 planes operational two years ago, less than 250 are now flying.
35:41Of these, less than 150 are fighter planes.
35:46Air support for the Te Ninh region is being supplied from the sprawling base at Ben Hoa, 20 miles from
35:52Saigon.
35:53The pilots are flying at least two missions a day.
35:56Morale seems to be high.
35:57Perhaps it's because these men are doing what they've always done, what they've been trained to do.
36:02They've not experienced the panic and humiliation of the soldiers who were told to retreat when they knew their job
36:08was to fight.
36:10The main force at Ben Hoa consists of some 75 F-5 fighter bombers.
36:15Another 20 here are grounded due to lack of spare parts.
36:19An American maintenance advisor told us it's not that the spare parts aren't available.
36:24There are plenty stacked in warehouses around Saigon.
36:27But the South Vietnamese never made a proper inventory, he said.
36:31No one knows where to look.
36:34On the ground, the Te Ninh district is being defended by the 25th Division.
36:38The men still smile for the cameras, but will they stand and fight?
36:43The 25th has never been one of South Vietnam's best.
36:47Morale is not high.
36:49Many men speak of their relatives trapped in Da Nang and Queen Yan.
36:53The officers don't know what to expect from Saigon.
36:56The men can't know what to expect from their officers.
36:59Can anything be done?
37:01A change of leadership in Saigon might help, but one officer said what's really needed is the sight of American
37:08B-52s and Phantoms flying overhead.
37:11Many soldiers here still expect to see them any day.
37:15No matter what they read in newspapers, no matter what they hear on the radio, they simply cannot believe that
37:22the great nation which virtually created their country would ever leave them entirely on their own.
37:34Just outside Saigon, embankments are going up.
37:37They're being called tank barriers, but they could never stop North Vietnamese tanks and they're not meant to.
37:43They're works of art, fragile symbols of Saigon's will to survive.
37:49Even closer to the capital, men, boys rather, 17 years old, are being inducted into the army.
37:56It might all be over before they get a chance to fight or to run.
38:01On another road to Saigon, the road from Vungtau, the port where shiploads of refugees unload every day, police roadblocks
38:08have been set up.
38:09Only people who can prove their Saigon residents are permitted through.
38:13The police hope to prevent communist sappers from infiltrating the city.
38:18They also want to make sure Saigon doesn't become another Da Nang, flooded with refugees who made the city indefensible
38:25before the communists had even arrived.
38:29Soldiers, in uniform or out, are handed over to the military police.
38:34According to the government, they will be regrouped, rearmed, redeployed.
38:38Whether these men, after what they've been through, have any fight left in them is a very open question.
38:45And even if Saigon could make use of every survivor of the five divisions which disintegrated this past month,
38:52it still could not match the number of troops which North Vietnam could muster for a final attack.
38:58The military situation was getting worse every day.
39:02American leaders were now convinced that South Vietnam could not be saved without additional aid.
39:08President Ford requested that aid, but Congress refused to provide it.
39:13It's a tragedy, unbelievable in its ramifications.
39:19I must say that I'm frustrated by the action of the Congress in not responding to some of the requests,
39:30both for economic and humanitarian and military assistance in South Vietnam.
39:35Secretary of State Kissinger echoed that argument.
39:38And what we face now is whether the United States not just will withdraw its forces, which we achieved,
39:46and not just will stop the end of the loss of American life,
39:50but whether it will deliberately destroy an ally by withholding aid from it in its moment of extremity.
39:58Many in Congress felt it was too late for aid to accomplish much,
40:02and they had no desire to invest any further in a lost cause.
40:05The aid was not provided, and any slim hopes of turning the tide disappeared.
40:11But South Vietnam was not the first nation to fall in Southeast Asia.
40:15That fate belonged to Cambodia, where communist insurgents known as the Khmer Rouge
40:20were closing in on the capital city Phnom Penh.
40:23Again, a sudden dramatic collapse was in progress.
40:27How had Cambodia reached this point?
40:29Charles Collingwood explained.
40:35For years, while the war in Vietnam mounted in intensity next door, Cambodia seemed to lead a charmed life.
40:43Its capital city of Phnom Penh was gracious and uncluttered, unmarked by war.
40:49Cambodia's primitive agriculture ensured that no one was really hungry.
40:53The ancient rituals were undisturbed.
40:57That this was so was largely due to the machinations of Cambodia's colorful and exotic ruler, Prince Siong.
41:05He was able to maintain an equilibrium between the rival attentions of the North and South Vietnamese,
41:11Americans, Russians and Chinese, and dissidents within his own kingdom.
41:16Siong had to give a little here and there.
41:19A border sanctuary to the North Vietnamese.
41:22A blind eye turned toward American bombings thereof.
41:26But for a long time, he kept Cambodia unscathed.
41:30It was too good to last.
41:32In 1970, Siong took a vacation in Europe.
41:36In his absence, he was promptly overthrown by his anti-communist Prime Minister, General Long Noel,
41:42who appealed to the United States for help.
41:44It was not long in forthcoming.
41:48On April 30, 1970, President Nixon announced that 70,000 American and South Vietnamese troops
41:56had entered Cambodia to wipe out the communist sanctuaries there.
42:00The so-called incursion accomplished little.
42:04But from that time on, not only was Cambodia in the war, but its fate was sealed.
42:11As usual, at the beginning of a war, what passed for the martial spirit in Cambodia at first ran high.
42:19Youngsters enlisted, uniforms were popular, haphazard training was undertaken beneath the eyes of American advisers.
42:35The anti-government factions quickly raised their own forces, trained and indoctrinated by the North Vietnamese.
42:42The war in Cambodia became a civil war, Cambodian fighting Cambodian.
42:49Every year the war dragged on, Cambodia became more like its neighbor.
42:53Its villages in ruins, its people turned into refugees, depended on others for food, and for medical care.
43:11Its cities terrorized by rockets from nowhere.
43:21The dead were everywhere.
43:25The United States invested a billion and a half dollars in Cambodia's defense, but nothing was enough to stem the
43:32insurgents' advance.
43:34As the end neared, only a few major population centers could be garrisoned by government troops.
43:40The perimeter around Phnom Penh had so shrunk that even the airlift of essential supplies was constantly interrupted by rebel
43:48fire.
43:48Nor did the firing stop when Lone Knoll, after clinging to power for five years, said a tearful farewell and
43:57left for Indonesia and America.
44:01Cambodia was dragged into the war only in 1970, and it took no more than five years to reach the
44:08end of the road.
44:10The road in Cambodia led to Phnom Penh.
44:13The fighting raged closer and closer to the capital.
44:16Ed Bradley was among the reporters covering the last days of Cambodia.
44:21Death came when they least expected it.
44:24Two soldiers took a break by the side of a road, far enough behind the so-called front lines that,
44:29for the moment, they felt secure.
44:31But at that same moment, a Khmer Rouge gunner changed the coordinates on his captured American-made 105 artillery piece.
44:39One shell, two dead, their bodies ripped apart by the blast.
44:47Morm Varek was luckier.
44:49He narrowly escaped death, but never before had the war and the killing left him so dazed.
44:54He was walking through the field with his sergeant.
44:57They were born within a year of each other and grew up in the same village.
45:01From childhood, they were best friends, and since the start of this war, had served in the same unit.
45:07The sergeant was looking for a place to relieve himself when he stepped on a mine.
45:12Varek, who was walking next to him, caught shrapnel under both eyes.
45:16He picked up the body of his friend and placed it in a bunker.
45:19His leg had been blown away and there seemed to be no life left in his body.
45:24Varek walked out looking for help.
45:25More than three hours later, Chun Ben is carried out, still alive.
45:31All of this takes place just ten miles from Phnom Penh.
45:35Yet there were no helicopters to evacuate his friend, no blood to give him a transfusion,
45:40no morphine to deaden the excruciating pain, no medicine to prevent shock,
45:45not even a roll of gauze to bind the stump that is left of his leg.
45:53More than three hours after he stepped on a mine, Chun Ben is still alive.
45:58He's taken to the command post where his papers are kept.
46:02And as a crowd gathers at the open window, he still receives no medication, no blood transfusion.
46:08His leg is wrapped in gauze as life continues to ebb.
46:13Four hours after he stepped on that mine, Chun Ben is back in the ambulance,
46:17now racing towards Phnom Penh in the 401 hospital.
46:21There is still life left in his body, but a good deal of his blood has spilled to the ground.
46:27Morm Varek couldn't come to the hospital with his friend.
46:30His wounds were considered light, so they were cleaned in the field and he was sent back to his unit.
46:35So he wasn't here when his best friend finally received medication and a blood transfusion.
46:41And he wasn't here to see his friend's body fight against the pain.
46:47And he wasn't here to see Chun Ben die.
46:54Americans were leaving Cambodia now. Contractors, relief workers, much of the U.S. Embassy payroll, getting out while they still
47:02could.
47:02On April 12th, the last Americans left Phnom Penh.
47:06Again, a report from Ed Bradley.
47:11The American Embassy was tense. Marine Guards in civilian clothes, armed with M-16s, stood behind a closed and locked
47:18gate.
47:19The rumors and speculation of the last several days had become fact.
47:23The Americans were leaving. The decision had been made to evacuate the American Embassy and all its personnel,
47:28including a number of Cambodians and their families who had worked for the Embassy, as well as some high Cambodian
47:34officials.
47:35Flatbed trucks were loaded behind the Embassy as a few remaining American officials secured the area prior to their own
47:42departure.
47:42The trucks were then taken to an area that had been secured by some 350 U.S. Marines flown in
47:49from the Okinawa and Hancock, cruising on station in the Gulf of Thailand.
47:53The evacuation of Phnom Penh was carried off with the memory of recent evacuations in Vietnam.
47:58There was an overpowering fear among American officials, both in Phnom Penh and in Washington, that this evacuation would cause
48:06panic in the streets and possibly a rash of anti-American sentiment.
48:10With that in mind, the Marines established a perimeter around the landing zone.
48:14But there was no real need for soldiers or weapons, as the only crowds that gathered were, for the most
48:20part, smiling and waving children drawn by curiosity.
48:24The CH-53 helicopters lifted off from Phnom Penh, headed for the Gulf of Thailand, ending still another phase in
48:30the American involvement in Indochina.
48:33In a matter of hours, it was all over. The American presence in Cambodia ended with the liftoff of Ambassador
48:39Dean and his party.
48:40But the official announcement heard aboard ship provided the period to the ending.
48:45There were the familiar notes of the boatswain's pipes and then these words, announcing the arrival on board of the
48:51American Embassy from Phnom Penh.
48:54Ed Bradley, CBS News, aboard the USS Okinawa.
48:58Four days later, Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge.
49:02What followed was a bloodbath.
49:03The Communists evacuated the cities and in the next three years killed more than one million persons.
49:10But even as Phnom Penh was falling, Communist troops in Vietnam were advancing towards Saigon.
49:16The panic that had swept down the coast was at large now in the city streets.
49:21Thousands of desperate Vietnamese trying to find a way out.
49:25Bill Plank reported.
49:28By eight this morning, there were 1,500 lined up outside the embassy.
49:33They, too, are a part of the U.S. legacy in Vietnam.
49:36The American role as protector is about to end.
49:39And some of those who once felt safe are now filled with fear.
49:44Their faces tell more than words, hope, despair, resignation.
49:50They clutched documents, telegrams or letters from relatives in the states, financial guarantees.
49:57At midday, there is still a small crowd at the gate to the U.S. Consulate.
50:01Some are waiting for a letter or telegram of sponsorship from the states.
50:05Others grasp for any way out.
50:07They gather around any American who ventures near.
50:11Three years ago, a woman says, I worked for a U.S. company in Vietnam.
50:15Can I get out?
50:16Can you sponsor me, asks another.
50:19It is painful to have to tell them that there is nothing you can do.
50:26Some Vietnamese found it easier to leave the country.
50:29President Chu resigned on April 21st and four days later flew to safety in Taiwan.
50:35By this time, enemy troops were only 35 miles from Saigon.
50:39The United States mission in Vietnam had prepared emergency plans to evacuate American citizens.
50:45Ambassador Graham Martin had delayed implementing those plans, hoping the situation could still be improved.
50:52But by April 29th, North Vietnamese rockets were falling on Saigon's airport and time was running out.
50:59The order was given to begin the largest helicopter evacuation in history.
51:03More than 1,000 Americans and almost 6,000 Vietnamese were flown to U.S. Navy ships offshore.
51:10Countless thousands of Vietnamese who wanted to leave the country were left behind.
51:15Some found other ways out. Most did not.
51:19We have two reports from Peter Collins and Ed Bradley.
51:24The sky over Saigon was filled with dozens of assorted aircraft, helicopters, transports, even fighter bombers in a nameless whirling
51:32merry-go-round over the city.
51:34U.S. Embassy helicopters flew from roof to roof, plucking up stranded Americans and occasionally depositing them on the landing
51:41pad atop the embassy.
51:43But from the roof of the Caravelle Hotel in downtown Saigon, it looked as though every pilot in the South
51:49Vietnamese Air Force who would get his hands on an aircraft had decided that now was the time to get
51:54away.
51:55It was mid-morning when the word came. A full-scale emergency evacuation had been ordered.
52:01All Americans were to report immediately to assembly points designated weeks in advance.
52:06When buses arrived at the assembly points, they were soon jammed with anxious Americans and some Vietnamese who slipped aboard.
52:14Then came a hair-raising ride to the airport.
52:17American Marines brought in to guard the helicopter landing zone stayed close to bunkers, as the steady thump of rockets
52:24and the clatter of small arms kept up throughout the day.
52:28The landing zone was the parking lot of what used to be the American military headquarters in Vietnam, once known
52:34as Pentagon East.
52:35But now, the huge building was the last-ditch holding area, while overhead, big Air Force and Marine helicopters arrived
52:42to land at intervals of about five minutes.
52:45Inside the building, the evacuees were broken into groups of 50, and then it was a mad dash out the
52:50door into the parking lot for the waiting helicopter.
52:54Although it seemed much longer, it took only two or three minutes to load the helicopters, and then it was
52:59farewell to Vietnam.
53:01To avoid the threat of surface-to-air missiles, the big chopper skimmed low over Saigon, with the door gunner
53:07at the ready,
53:08and the engines deliberately set to produce a stream of white smoke so that any aircraft crews would have a
53:13hard time spotting it.
53:15It was a 45-minute ride from the encircled and threatened city of Saigon to the safety of American aircraft
53:21carriers waiting offshore.
53:23On the midway, the refugees are led quickly away from the howling blast of the helicopters by Navy crewmen.
53:28For them, it is only the first leg in a journey away from Vietnam and the war, but perhaps an
53:34uncertain future in America.
53:37Peter Collins, CBS News, with the final American withdrawal from Vietnam.
53:46The crowds of Americans and other foreigners lined up at installations around Saigon waiting for buses was the queue.
53:54It told the Vietnamese that this was the end of the line.
53:58For most of those who wanted to leave their country, this would be their last chance.
54:03Some Americans who pushed towards the bus tried to pull their Vietnamese wives and children along with them.
54:15There were desperate scenes with families separated and crying out for help, pleading not to be left behind, clutching at
54:23the last straw of hope.
54:25We rode through the streets of Saigon for more than four hours, unable to find a way out or anyone
54:31who could tell us where to go.
54:33At Thompson Road Airport, armed paratroopers turned our buses back.
54:37At one point, we were unloaded on the Saigon waterfront where we could see American helicopters circling the city
54:43and Vietnamese trying to escape on boats heading to the sea.
54:47No one wanted to be left in this crowd that at times was strangely quiet, but that always was on
54:54the verge of panic.
54:55We all decided to try and reach the United States Embassy.
54:59And once there, we found it surrounded by Vietnamese looking for a way in and a way out.
55:05Helicopters were landing on the roof and inside the compound as we walked to the back of the embassy.
55:10We had to push and shove our way through a crowd of several hundred Vietnamese trying to scale the walls,
55:16only to be knocked back by U.S. Marines.
55:20Once inside the compound, for the Americans and those Vietnamese who managed to get in with legal documents,
55:27and the many who managed entrance without, the rest was easy.
55:31It was just a matter of waiting your turn for a helicopter to take you to one of the ships
55:35on station off the Vietnamese coast.
55:38The American fleet had been having problems since the start of the evacuation with the arrival of South Vietnamese pilots
55:45and their helicopters loaded with family and friends.
55:48Hovering above the decks to unload their passengers, the pilots were unfamiliar with landing their craft on the moving ship.
55:56One crashed into the side of the USS Blue Ridge, others managed to crash land on the deck of the
56:02ship.
56:02For those that did manage to put down, they were simply pushed over the side and into the sea by
56:08U.S. sailors and Marines to make room for the returning American craft based on that ship, filled with evacuees
56:15from Saigon.
56:16Other South Vietnamese pilots just hovered long enough to unload their passengers, and then headed to the side of the
56:23ships and just jumped out with their license to be picked up by U.S. sailors, their helicopters crashing into
56:30the sea.
56:31Still other pilots headed out to the side of the ships after unloading their passengers and settled the craft into
56:38the water and then jumped out, again waiting to be picked up by U.S. sailors.
56:43Many hours later, as one of the last evacuees arrived, U.S. ambassador Graham Martin, the final American ambassador stationed
56:53in South Vietnam.
56:54After so many long and 30 years, the American involvement in Vietnam was over.
57:03The next day, April 30th, 1975, Communist troops moved into Saigon.
57:09They met very little resistance.
57:11That same day, the government of South Vietnam surrendered.
57:15In the central plaza of Saigon was a giant statue of two soldiers honoring South Vietnamese fighting men.
57:21What happened to the statue was symbolic of what happened to the war.
57:33It had been 21 long years since the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu.
57:38Ten years since the arrival of the first American combat troops.
57:42We had poured men and money and material into Vietnam.
57:45And in the end, all of it, the bombers and helicopters, tanks and warships, the field hospitals and body bags,
57:53in the end, all of that was not enough.
57:56It was at last, as President Ford had described it, a war that is finished.
58:02This is Walter Cronkite and this has been another in our continuing series of videocassettes on the Vietnam War.
58:26The BritishIME
58:27The British national massacre
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