Riveting Documentary “The Last Days of Vietnam”
The 2014 documentary “The Last Days of Vietnam” puts viewers amid the chaos of the final days of the South Vietnamese government and the fall of Saigon in 1975. News footage of North Vietnam’s assault on Saigon and the heroic response of U.S. military and embassy officials to evacuate South Vietnamese gives a realistic view of Black April, as the South Vietnamese refer to the collapse of their country.
The documentary draws on U.S. government archives to give viewers the historical context of Saigon’s collapse. Archival footage of President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) announcing the successful negotiations of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 gave hope of a lasting cease-fire between North and South Vietnam and the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
After Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal, fighting continued between North and South Vietnamese under the administration of President Gerald R. Ford. Anti-war protesters across the U.S. caused Congress to end funding for military assistance to Vietnam.
Dr. Kissinger, who died in 2024, recalls on film: “We who made the agreement [the Paris Peace Accord] thought it would be the beginning, not of peace in the American sense, but the beginning of a period of coexistence which might evolve, as it did in Korea, into two states.” Dr. Kissinger’s plan for peace was unrealized.
Much of the exciting news footage in this film has been widely available in the public domain for years. It is expertly and excitingly edited to tell the heroic story about a significant effort by U.S. military and embassy officials to evacuate as many South Vietnamese as possible.
The dramatic news footage of the communist takeover of South Vietnam is supplemented with various surviving ground personnel speaking of their efforts to evacuate Americans and thousands of South Vietnamese who fought alongside U.S. troops.
U.S. personnel interviewed in the documentary include Navy Officer Richard Armitage, who died in April 2025; Colonel Stuart “Stu” A. Herrington, CIA analyst Frank Snepp, and Marine Embassy Guard Juan Valdez.
Armitage said he gave orders without permission from his superiors. “I figured it was better to beg forgiveness later than to seek permission,” he said of saving South Vietnamese lives. Colonel Herrington spoke emotionally about ordering South Vietnamese military officials to board U.S. aircraft to safety.
The last U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, Graham Martin, believed Saigon could be successfully defended from the massive invasion of North Vietnamese communists. His staffers and military personnel began an early secret evacuation of some South Vietnamese personnel without Martin’s or Washington’s knowledge.
As reality sank in, the U.S. embassy was opened to as many South Vietnamese as could gain access to the compound. The scenes of the mad rush of South Vietnamese for the safety of the embassy are chaotic and unsettling.
The scene of a South Vietnamese military vessel being denied entry to a port in the Philippines is touching. The South Vietnamese flag is lowered and replaced with an American flag so the boat can safely dock. The South Vietnamese aboard the vessel sang their national anthem as their flag came down at the same time their country ceased to exist.
The evacuation and repatriation of South Vietnamese to America was a credit to President Ford’s leadership and human compassion. James Cannon, in 2013’s “Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life,” wrote, “To his great credit, [Ford] ended the Vietnam War, which three Presidents before him had mismanaged. It was a humiliating ending to the war, but Congress, having cut off money for Vietnam, gave Ford no choice. The withdrawal he managed well, pulling out the last U.S. forces, saving American lives, and rescuing thousands of Vietnamese who had supported the American effort.”
Dr. Yanek Mieczkowski, in his 2005 book “Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s,” wrote, “On April 23, [Ford] addressed students at Tulane University and declared, ‘Today, America can regain a sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by re-fighting a war that is finished as far as the American people are concerned.’”
“The [Tulane speech] was a milestone in contemporary American history. Ford did something no American president had been able to for thirty years: He spoke of the Indochina war in the past tense,” wrote Ron Nessen, press secretary to President Ford. Nessen died in March 2025.
In “The Last Days in Vietnam,” we hear the voices of U.S. soldiers who aided humanity on a large scale in a chaotic time. We hear the voices of South Vietnamese happy to have made better lives in America. We hear the voices of young Vietnamese Americans speaking proudly of their elderly parents’ efforts to get them to safety in America.
“The Last Days of Vietnam” is an outstanding documentary about a painful chapter in American history.
James Patterson is a former U.S. diplomat, life member of the American Foreign Service Association.
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