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Clips of Network Coverage of the Fall of Saigon, 4/30/75

M

Mike Stroud

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, when the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), fell to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Communist forces on April 30, 1975. Network TV crews covered the event thoroughly, and much of that footage survives and can be found online. Some instances in particular:

http://archives.museum.tv/archives--Museum of Broadcast Communications archives site (registration required); on TV search page, type "Vietnam" in keyword line and "1975" in air date line. Three programs are of interest: the first is a 45-minute clip of a young Ed Bradley reporting on the last-minute escape of South Vietnamese and Americans on April 29, and the latter two are retrospectives about the American phase of the conflict, one from PBS titled "The End of the Ho Chi Minh Trail" (two parts) and one from CBS (hosted by Walter Cronkite and aired during prime time) titled "Vietnam: A War That is Finished," (broken into three parts).

CBS also has on its site additional footage, at http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/saigon/framesource.html.

Finally, NBC's coverage of the last two days of the life of South Vietnam was made into a documentary for its "Time and Again" series, narrated by Jane Pauley. Hulu has that broadcast, athttp://www.hulu.com/watch/5136/nbc-news-time-capsule-the-fall-of-saigon-april-29-30-1975.

Whether you are news/history buffs or not, these clips are great indicators of TV news' increasing power during the 1970s.
 
This puts me in mind of a TV Guide ad I have for a Westinghouse-KYW-TV 3 Cleveland Special aired Sunday, June 4,1961-"The Quiet War"..About the Vietnam War. The ad had this statement/question..

"Sten Guns among the Sugar Cane:Can South Vietnam survive?"

Of Course, History shows they did not survive..
 
someone must have cut that footage of Cronkite taking a victory lap...
 
Right now, I'm teaching my seventh graders the short story "An Unforgettable Journey," about a young girl in Southeast Asia during the collapse, whose father worked for the CIA. As a result of this, they got a faster track out, eventually to the United States, but suffered many hardships during a grueling journey, which included the death of her baby sister.

Parents would give their kids opium to keep them quiet, and some parents abandoned children that would not stay quiet. They were taken advantage of by fishermen that extorted basically all they had that was valuable.

Thanks for posting the link! Much appreciated!
 
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