Peter Arnett, Herbert Fix, Joe Galloway, Sydney Schanberg, and Russ Thurman, "The Fall of Saigon and Phnom Penh: The End of Folly", in The VVA Veteran, August/September 2001. Transcript of a panel session at an April 6-8, 2000, symposium "Rendezvous with War," sponsored by Vietnam Veterans of America and the College of William and Mary. There are brief introductory remarks by Michael Finn. (Articles published in The VVA Veteran only remain online for about two years.)
Anthony T. Bouscaren, ed., All Quiet on the Eastern Front: The Death of South Vietnam. Old Greenwich, CT: Devin-Adair, 1977. ix, 164 pp. One presumes that the strong anti-Communism of the editor is reflected in the selections.
Walter J. Boyne, "The Fall of Saigon." Air Force Magazine, April 2000 (83:4). The text has been placed online.
Breakdown of the Vietnam Ceasefire: The Need for a Balanced View. Washington, D.C.: Indochina Resource Center, (1974?). 51 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, in two parts: front matter and pp. 1-24, and pp. 25-51.
David Butler, The Fall of Saigon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. Paperback New York: Dell, 1986. viii, 527 pp. Butler was in Saigon as a reporter for NBC.
Philip Caputo, Means of Escape. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. One section of this memoir deals with what Caputo experienced as a journalist in Saigon during the last three weeks before the end of the war in 1975.
Chien dich Ho Chi Minh giai phong mien Nam, thong nhat dat nuoc. Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 2005. 486 pp.
Chien thang Xuan Loc-Long Khanh trong cuoc tong tien cong va noi day mua xuan, 1975. [Bien Hoa?]: Nha xuat ban Tong hop Dong Nai, 2003. 806 pp.
Coalition to Stop Funding the War. This anti-war group urged Congress to cut off military aid to Saigon, Phnom Penh, and Vientiane. Some of its documents have been placed online in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University. There is a detailed description of the makeup of the coalition enclosed in a letter dated March 22, 1974. I did not see names I recognized in the lists of its leaders, but the list of organizations cooperating in the coalition was impressive. It published two newsletters reporting on its efforts, and on congressional debate and action on military aid, sometimes listing names of congressmen voting aye and no on crucial measures.
January 14 1975: "1975: Will Peace Come to Indochina?"
February 14, 1975: "Defeat the Supplementals!"
March 31 1975: "Congress Stalls at Indochina Crossroads!"
June 1975: "What Have We Learned?"
COMUSSAG/7AF Nakhon Phanom Aprt, "USSAG/7AF OPLAN 5060V-1-75, Frequent Wind (Option II)," 220930Z Apr 75 (22 April 1975). A 23-part message, 89 pp., laying out the plan for the evacuation of Saigon. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
"Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law" or, occasionally, "Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to Contemporary Law." A collection of material presenting U.S. opinions on issues involving international law appeared in each issue of The American Journal of International Law. It was compiled by someone (usually the Assistant Legal Adviser) in the Office of the Legal Adviser, Department of State. If you browse the Internet through an institution that has subscribed to JSTOR, you can access the full text of this journal through the JSTOR American Journal of International Law browse page. Some of the more interesting Vietnam-related material that can be found in these compilations:
Alan Dawson, 55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977. xvi, 366 pp. By a reporter for UPI who was present, and chose not to leave in the evacuation.
Defense Attache Office (DAO). The Defense Attache Office was the principal U.S. military headquarters remaining in Saigon after Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, was disbanded in April 1973. It was commanded by Major General John E. Murray from 1973 to August 1974, and by Major General Homer Smith for the remainder of the war. Its main function was arranging the delivery of US military aid, but it also had an intelligence role, trying to keep track of the military situation. Some of its assessments of the situation are available. It should be noted that until late 1974, DAO summaries very seriously undercounted ARVN casualties (see Arnold Isaacs, Without Honor, pp. 310-313). See below under Stuart Herrington and William E. LeGro for accounts by officers who worked in the DAO.
Defense Attache Office, Saigon, Quarterly Assessments. Six massive reports (more than 300 pages each), beginning with the one for the last quarter of 1973, and ending with the one for January through April of 1975. These have been gathered on a CD-ROM, published as one item in the collection Carr's Compendium of the Vietnam War, and can be purchased from Carr's Compendiums.
Intelligence Branch, DAO. A variety of documents of the DAO Intelligence branch have been place online in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
DAO Intelligence Branch Fact Sheets. A collection of documents, all or most dating from about mid 1973, laying out the organizational structure and missions of the DAO Intelligence Branch and giving some other details. First section; second section (consists mostly of the Monthly Intelligence Estimate Update (MIEU) (see below) for May 1973); third section.
Fact Sheet: "Changes in Enemy Order of Battle in South Vietnam since Ceasefire." 2 March 1974. 4 pp. Showed larger increases in armor and artillery strength than in personnel strength. The text.
Defense Attache Office, Saigon, Monthly Intelligence Estimate Update (MIEU). This publication, issued from April 1973 onward, contains a lot of useful information. There were two versions; the code word edition included material from the most highly classified sources, while the other edition did not.
Monthly wrapup estimate presented to DAO on 27 April 1973, pp. 1-12, pp. 13-22 (incomplete; p. 23 is missing).
May 1973, first part, second part. This copy is not very legible, but it is a more complete version. The more legible copy that was included in the DAO Intelligence Branch Fact Sheets, above, was of the less complete version of the report.
June 1973, first part, second part.
Monthly Intelligence Estimate Update - July 1973, dated 4 August 1973.
Soon after the MIEU began to appear, the general who headed intelligence at USSAG at Nakhon Phanom in Thailand, complained that the DAO was not authorized to issue intelligence estimates. So Colonel William LeGro, Chief of the Intelligence Branch at DAO, changed the title to remove the word "Estimate." It became the Monthly Intelligence Summary and Threat Analysis (MISTA), starting with the report for August 1973.
August 1973 (appears incomplete, missing first page or pages, also portions are not very legible).
September 1973 MISTA, first part and second part, presented to MG Murray, DATT, on 6 October 1973.
October 1973 MISTA, pp. 1-13 and pp. 14-27, presented to MG Murray, DATT, on 2 November 1973.
"November Threat Assessment" covered November 1973, presented to MG Murray, DATT, on 6 December 1973.
"December Threat Assessment" covered December 1973, presented to MG Murray, DATT, on 10 January 1974.
"January Threat Assessment" covered January 1974, presented to MG Murray, DATT, on 7 February 1974.
"February Threat Assessment" covered February 1974.
"March Threat Assessment" covered March 1974.
"April Threat Assessment" covered April 1974.
"May Threat Assessment" covered May 1974, presented to MG Murray, DATT, on 6 June 1974.
"June Threat Assessment" covered June 1974.
"July Threat Assessment" covered July 1974.
"August Threat Assessment" covered August 1974.
"September Threat Assessment" covered September 1974.
"October Threat Assessment" pp. 1-12, pp. 13-19.
"November Threat Assessment" covered November 1974.
"February Threat Assessment" covered February 1975. Reported a big increase in infiltration.
"March Threat Assessment (As of 10 April 1975)" pp. 1-12, pp. 13-23. The overall conclusion of the report was that the Republic of Vietnam would probably not last to the end of the year, and "may very well fall around June. . . . A Communist victory in this current campaign is virtually certain unless U.S. air power is applied in the south." Ambassador Martin added a disclaimer at the end, predicting that international diplomatic pressure would deter the DRV from pushing its offensive to final victory.
Handwritten notes by Col. William E. LeGro, the officer who had been responsible for the MIEU/MISTA, summarizing key points of MIEUs and MISTAs from April 1973 to December 1974.
Weekly Wrap-up South Vietnam. Produced by the Current Intelligence Section (CIS) of DAO Intelligence. Most issues are signed by Wallace D. Moore, Deputy Chief, CIS/3177. A few issues have been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Delegation of the RVN at the Official Meetings Between the Two South Vietnamese Parties, Brief Summary of 90 Days of the Implementation of the Paris Agreement on Viet Nam (January 27th 1973). n.p., n.d. 48 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Larry Engelmann, Tears Before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of Saigon. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. xiii, 375 pp.
James Fenton, All the Wrong Places: Adrift in the Politics of the Pacific Rim. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988. 269 pp. By a British journalist. A substantial chunk of the book deals with the last stages of the war in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Russell H. Fifield, The Liquidation of a War: The United States and Vietnam. Bruxelles: Centre d'Etude du Sud-Est Asiatique et de l'Extreme-Orient, 1978.
Brigitte Friang, La mousson de la liberté: Vietnam, du colonialisme au Stalinisme. Paris: Plon, 1976. 319 pp. Pages 29-94 are a summary by Friang, a French journalist who covered the war, of the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975. Pages 99-290 are the diary from May 1975 to May 1976 of Huynh Tran Duc, a South Vietnamese who had been sympathetic to the Communists until he found himself under their rule.
"A Group of French University Professors" [Madeleine Rebérioux et. al.], The Forgotten Prisoners of Nguyen Van Thieu. Paris: privately printed, May 1973. 47 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, in two parts: pp. 1-24, and pp. 25-47. The French Original was Saigon: les prisonniers. Paris: Maspéro, 1973.
John F. Guilmartin, Jr., A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. xxv, 238 pp. A very good account by an almost-participant (Guilmartin would have been a pilot in the operation if his helicopter had not been down for maintenance) of the effort to rescue the crew of an American merchant ship siezed by the Khmer Rouge May 12, 1975. Good on capabilities of aircraft, especially Air Force H-53 helicopters.
Philip C. Habib, et. al., an interesting assortment of February 1975 State Department and CIA documents about United States aid to the Republic of Vietnam. The date February 19, 1973, on the first document, a briefing paper in which Habib prepared the Deputy Secretary of State for a meeting with RVN figures, is a typo; the actual date was February 19, 1975. Attached were brief biographical summaries on the RVN figures: RVN Senate Chairman Tran Van Lam, Senatory Tran Minh Tung, and Ambassador Tran Kim Phuong. The texts have been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University
Richard W. Hale, "A CIA Officer in Saigon." Vietnam Magazine, June 2003. Hale arrived in Vietnam in June 1973. The text was formerly online at HistoryNet.com.
P. Edward Haley, Congress and the Fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia. Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press and Associated University Presses, 1982. 227 pp. Deals mostly with the year 1975.
Charles Henderson, Goodnight Saigon: The True Story of the U.S. Marines' Last Days in Vietnam. New York: Berkley Caliber (Penguin), 2005. xvii, 420 pp.
Stuart Herrington, Peace With Honor? An American Reports on Vietnam, 1973-75. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Memoir by a military intelligence officer who was in Vietnam during this last phase of the war, after the US ceased to have a combat role.
Hoang Van Thai, The Decisive Years: Memoirs of Vietnamese Senior General Hoang Van Thai. JPRS-SEA-87-084. Springfield, VA: NTIS, 1987. (Translated from General Thai's memoirs as serialized in the Ho Chi Minh City newspaper Saigon Giai Phong, March 13 to May 14, 1986.) Deals mainly with the period 1972 to 1975. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, in four parts: front matter and pp. 1-47, pp. 48-97, pp. 98-147, and pp. 148-156.
Stephen T. Hosmer, Konrad Kellen, and Brian M. Jenkins, The Fall of South Vietnam: Statements by Vietnamese Military and Civilian Leaders. Santa Monica: Rand, December 1978. xviii, 131(?) pp. R-2208-OSD. Rand has placed the text (apparently missing the last two pages or so) online. An October 1977 preliminary draft, significantly different from the final published version, has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, in five parts: front matter and pp. 1-46, pp. 47-96, pp. 97-145, pp. 146-185, and pp. 186-203.
Stephen T. Hosmer, Konrad Kellen, and Brian M. Jenkins, The Fall of South Vietnam: Statements by Vietnamese Military and Civilian Leaders. New York: Crane, Russak, 1980. 264 pp. I am not sure to what extent, if at all, this has been modified from the final version of the previous item.
Arnold Isaacs, Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. 559 pp. Really excellent study of how the war finally ended.
James Jones, Viet Journal. New York: Delacorte, 1973.
Julie Kane, "Secret Evacuation of the VNN Fleet." Vietnam Magazine, April 1995, pp. 30-37, 68.
Lam Quang Thi, Autopsy: The Death of South Vietnam. Phoenix: Sphinx Publishing, 1986. iii, 212 pp. Lt. Gen. Thi, a VNA/ARVN officer since 1951, was deputy commander of I Corps in 1975.
"Last Days in Vietnam." Oral histories under this title were collected under Project 82-2 of the U.S. Army War College in 1982. Three of these were online in the Army Heritage Collection Online for a while, but that collection was reorganized a while ago, and I have not been able to relocate these items in that collection.
Alan Carter, "Last Days in Vietnam". iii, 52 pp. plus appendices. The final evacuation of Saigon in 1975. Carter was Minister and Counselor of Public Affairs, U.S. Embassy, Saigon.
Wolfgang J. Lehmann, "Last Days in Vietnam". iii, 45 pp. plus appendices. The final collapse and evacuation in 1975. Lehmann was deputy U.S. ambassador in Saigon from March 1974 to April 1975. He was acting ambassador during the evacuation of the Central Highlands in March 1975.
Col. Harry G. Summers, Jr., "Last Days in Vietnam". v, 71 pp. plus appendices. The final evacuation of Saigon in 1975. Summers was Chief of the Negotiations Division of the U.S. Delegation to the Four-Party Joint Military Commission, July 1974 to April 1975. (For an abridged version, see below under Summers.)
Wolfgang J. Lehmann, oral history. Lehmann was deputy U.S. ambassador in Saigon from March 1974 to April 1975. He was acting ambassador during the evacuation of the Central Highlands in March 1975. Online in the American Memory website of the Library of Congress.
Le Hai Trieu, Anh hung trong chien dich Ho Chi Minh. Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 2005. 359 pp.
J. Edward Lee and Toby Haynsworth, eds., White Christmas in April: The Collapse of South Vietnam, 1975. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. xiii, 256 pp.
J. Edward Lee and H.C. "Toby" Haynsworth, Nixon, Ford, and the Abandonment of South Vietnam. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002. 216 pp.
Marc Leepson, "Escape To The Sea", in The VVA Veteran, April/May 2000. The story of how Terry McNamara, U.S. Consul General in Can Tho at the time the war ended in 1975, got hundreds of Vietnamese associated with the United States out by boat down the Bassac River (see McNamara's book, below). (Articles published in The VVA Veteran only remain online for about two years.)
Col. William E. LeGro, Vietnam from Ceasefire to Capitulation. Washington: Center of Military History, 1981. vi, 180 pp. Covers the period from 1973 to 1975. The text, unfortunately without the maps and tables, has been placed on-line by The New York Military Affairs Symposium, in three parts: Foreword, Introduction, and Chapters 1-6; Chapters 7-12; and Chapters 13-18.
Col. William E. LeGro, U.S. Army, Retired, "Intelligence in Vietnam After the Cease-Fire." INSCOM Journal, 20:2 (March-April 1997). The text has been placed online at a Federation of American Scientists web site. LeGro went to Vietnam in December 1972 as adviser to the ARVN's director of training. Early in 1973 he shifted jobs, assigned to organize the intelligence branch of the Defense Attaché Office (DAO). He remained until 1975.
George McArthur, "'It Became Sinful': A Reporter's Story." Vietnam Magazine, April 1995, pp. 22-28, 66. McArthur was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, previously Saigon bureau chief for AP.
Francis Terry McNamara, with Adrian Hill, Escape with Honor: My Last Hours in Vietnam. Washington: Brassey's, 1997. xii, 227 pp. McNamara was US Consul General in Can Tho; he evacuated a substantial number of Vietnamese from Can Tho by boat down the Bassac when the RVN collapsed in 1975.
Earl S. Martin, Reaching the Other Side. New York: Crown Publishers, 1978. Martin, a Mennonite aid worker, stayed in South Vietnam through the last months of the war and for a few months after the Communist victory of 1975.
Cecile Menetrey-Monchau, "The Mayaguez Incident as an Epilogue to the Vietnam War and Its Reflection of the Post-Vietnam Political Equilibrium in Southeast Asia," Cold War History, August 2005, pp. 337-67.
Carolyn P. Miller, Captured. Chappaqua, NY: Christian Herald Books, 1977. 288 pp. Missionaries captured by Communist forces during the 1975 offensive.
Major General John E. Murray, notes of conversations with CINCPAC (Admiral Noel Gayler) and other officers, Hawaii, August 20, 1974. Murray was stopping off in Hawaii on his way back to the United States, after completing his tour as Defense Attache (commander of the DAO) in Saigon. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Major General John E. Murray, USA (Ret.), "Vietnam: The Map Turns Red." Air Force Magazine, February 1975. Reprinted in the Congressional Record, March 6, 1975, pp. 5560-61.
Maj. Gen. Nguyen Duy Hinh, Vietnamization and the Cease-Fire. McLean, VA: General Research Corporation [on a contract with the U.S. Army], 1976. v, 194 pp. At the time of the Paris Peace Agreement, General Hinh had been commander of the ARVN 3d Infantry Division, in Quang Nam and Quang Tin provinces of I Corps. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, in four parts: front matter and pp. 1-44, pp. 45-94, pp. 95-144, and pp. 145-194.
Nguyen Huu Duc and Nguyen Thi Thanh, Chien dich Ho Chi Minh qua hoi uc cac tu lenh va chinh uy. Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 2005. 380 pp.
Nguyen Luu Vien, Recapitulation of Events after the 45 Day Time Limit as Stipulated in the Joint Communique of June 13th 1973, "As Presented By Dr. Nguyen Luu Vien, Deputy Prime Minister, Chief of Delegation Of The Republic Of Viet Nam At The 19th Session On August 2nd, 1973, Of The Conference Between The Two South Vietnamese Parties At La Celle Saint-Cloud". 24 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Nguyen Xuan Phong, Hope and Vanquished Reality. New York: Center for a Science of Hope/Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2001. 374 pp. Phong, head of the RVN delegation in Paris, returned to Vietnam April 25, 1975 and witnessed the fall of Saigon. He remained in Vietnam, and was imprisoned. Chapter 7, nominally about his experiences in prison, contains extended flashbacks to his role as a member of the RVN cabinet in the 1960s, and American policies during that period.
Richard Nixon. The Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, has begun to put online some of President Nixon's correspondence with President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Republic of Vietnam.
Nixon letter to Thieu, June 6, 1973. Nixon said he was "astounded" at Thieu's letter of June 6, in which Thieu said his government would not sign a communique that had been negotiated in Paris between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho.
Nixon letter to Thieu, as passed to Thieu by the U.S. Embassy on June 8, 1973, strongly urging Thieu to sign the communique. Nixon said the consequences of that refusal would be disastrous.
Nixon letter to Thieu, as passed to Thieu by the U.S. Embassy on June 9, 1973, strongly urging Thieu to sign the communique. Nixon told Thieu "in total confidence" (and rather implausibly) that the communique was part of a package deal that would include a withdrawal of PAVN force from Laos over a sixty-day period beginning July 1.
James E. Parker, Jr., Last Man Out. Camden, SC: John Culler & Sons, 1996. xxi, 450 pp. Parker went to Vietnam in 1965 as a 2d lieutenant with the 1st Infantry Division. He joined the CIA in 1970, served in Laos (this part of his career is covered by his book Codename Mule), and was in the Mekong Delta during the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.
Shirley Peck-Barnes, The War Cradle: Vietnam's Children of War: Operation Babylift--The Untold Story. Denver, Colorado: Vintage Pressworks, 2000. 318 pp.
Pham Huy Duong and Pham Ba Toan, eds., Chien dich Ho Chi Minh, trang su vang qua cac tran danh. Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 2005. 864 pp.
Pham Huy Duong and Pham Ba Toan, eds., Dai thang mua xuan 1975: ket thuc cuoc khang chien chong My, cuu nuoc cua dan toc Viet Nam. Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 2005. 734 pp.
Pham Kim Vinh, Cai chet cua Nam Viet Nam: nhung tran danh cuoi cung. Los Alamitos, CA: Xuan Thu, 1988. 430 pp.
Douglas Pike, "South Vietnam's Prospects in the Immediate and Near Future." Draft dated March 31, 1975. 7 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
John Pilger, The Last Day. New York: Vintage, 1976. The author was a correspondent for the London Daily News.
D. Gareth Porter, A Peace Denied: The U.S., Vietnam, and the Paris Agreements. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1975. ix, 357 pp. A rather left-wing view.
Paul Quinn-Judge, "Inside Saigon: Eye-Witness Report." A pamphlet, reprinting an article in Commonweal, 26 September 1975, pp. 429-432. An interesting discussion of the behavior of "third force" elements in Saigon immediately before and after the end of the war in 1975, and their willingness to talk, much more openly than before, about their contacts with the NLF. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Paul and Sophie Quinn-Judge, "Socializing the Revolution in Saigon." 50 pp. An oral history interview, dated September 1975, covering events from when the couple left Quang Ngai about March 20, 1975, through the early period of Communist rule in Saigon. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Republic of Viet Nam, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Communist Violations of the Paris Agreement of January 27, 1973. Saigon: June 1973. 189 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, in four parts: pp. 1-38, pp. 39-77, pp. 78-116, pp. 117-155, and pp. 156-189. The last section includes (pp. 168-181) the text of the Joint Communique signed in Paris June 13, 1973, by the signatories of the Paris Agreement of January 27, 1973, and also a map (following p. 189) showing the locations of ICCS teams in South Vietnam.
Republic of Vietnam (?), [documentary collection for which I have not so far found the title]. Portions at least of this have been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University: II: "Statement by H.E. Tran-Van-Lam, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Viet-Nam, and Text of a Draft Accord on a Political Solution for South Viet-Nam, April 25th, 1973 (pp. 16-19); III (p. 19); IV: "The First Ninety Days of the Paris Agreement: Communique of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Vietnam, April 28th, 1973" (pp. 20-24).
Republic of Vietnam, "Proclamation of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Partition of Viet Nam," July 20, 1974. 4 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
The Republic of Viet Nam Penitentiary System and the Civilian Prisoner Question. Saigon: Republic of Vietnam National Commission for Information, June 1973. 33 pp., plus numerous pages of photographs without page numbers. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Alain Sanders, Chien fou: Maroc 1971, Congo ex-belge (Zaire), 1972, Sud Vietnam, 1974-1975. Paris: Godefroy de Bouillon, 1998. 116 pp.
Sau muoi ngay thi hanh hiep dinh. (Alternate title: 60 ngay thi hanh hiep dinh.) Hanoi: Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 1973. 46 pp.
Robert Schulzinger, Ceasefire, War, and Peace: Vietnam and the United States, 1973-1976. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield (forthcoming).
George W. Schwarz, Jr., April Fools: An American Remembers South Viet Nam's Final Days. Baltimore: AmErica House, 2001. 282 pp. Schwarz, a former U.S. Army officer, seems to have arrived in Vietnam in 1972, as a civilian working for Alaska Barge and Transport, a major U.S. contractor, running port facilities, initially at Newport (the new port of Saigon), next at Cam Ranh.
Robert Shaplen, "Letter from Saigon," New Yorker, January 6, 1975, pp. 64- . The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
"The Sixth Annual An Quang Congress and Prospects for An Quang Opposition Activity." March 5, 1975. 12 pp. The authorship of this report on the congress of the An Quang Buddhists, December 25-27, 1974, is unclear. Probably it was written by someone in the U.S. Embassy. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Henry S. Sizer, "Government vs Opposition vs Communists: Vietnam from Three Perspectives." July 29, 1974. An informal end of tour report by the Second Secretary of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, leving after four years in Vietnam. The text, with a cover memo by Ambassador Graham Martin, has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Melvin Small, "A Plan to Save South Vietnam in April 1975: Nguyen Huy Han's Aborted Coup." SHAFR Newsletter, 32:4 (December 2001), pp. 13-31. About two-thirds of this is an account by Ngyuen Huy Han (edited by Small) of a plot Han says he organized in 1975, shortly after resigning as the RVN's director-general of taxation, to overthow Nguyen Van Thieu and put in power a government capable of turning the war around and defeating the Communists. The remainder is written by Small.
Major General Homer D. Smith, "The Final Forty-Five Days in Vietnam." Unpublished paper, 22 May 1975, 18 pp. Maj. Gen. Smith was the Defense Attache, the chief U.S. adviser in Saigon, at the end of the war in 1975. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University. A substantially revised version was published under the same title in Vietnam Magazine, April 1995, pp. 46-52, 72, 74.
Major General Homer D. Smith, "End of Tour Report." 30 May 1975. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Frank Snepp, Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the CIA's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1977. xii, 590 pp. Reprinted, with foreword by Gloria Emerson: Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. xxv, 590 pp. Excellent book by a CIA man who was in Saigon during the last part of the war. He was very careful not to spill the identities of agents, or other facts that he regarded as genuine secrets, but he didn't go through the review process he was legally supposed to go through to let the government make sure he wasn't spilling any secrets. He believed (in my opinion correctly) that if he had gone through the review the government would have tried to cut out of his book his statements that the government behaved with disgusting stupidity and immorality in not making adequate preparations to get Vietnamese who had worked for the CIA, or who were for other reasons in danger, out of South Vietnam before the Communists took over. The U.S. didn't even bother to destroy a central file listing the names of Vietnamese who had cooperated with our intelligence operations; the Communists captured this file intact. The government sued Snepp for not putting his book through the review, and won.
Frank Snepp, Irreparable Harm: A Firsthand Account of How One Agent Took on the CIA in an Epic Battle over Secrecy and Free Speech. New York: Random House, 1999. xvii, 391 pp. Story of the legal battle over the preceding item.
Cecil E. Spurlock, The Fall of Vietnam. OCMH-137. Unpublished contract study, Center of Military History, 1978. 132 pp typescript. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, in three parts. Most of the Chapter I "Before the Fall" and pp. 1-12 of Chapter II "The Central Highlands Campaign"; pp. 13-33 of Chapter II, and Chapter III "Hue, Danang, and the Central Coast"; Chapter IV "The Ho Chi Minh Campaign".
I.F. Stone, "Toward a Third Indochina War." New York Review of Books, 20:3 (March 8, 1973).
Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr., "The Bitter End." Vietnam Magazine, April 1995, pp. 38-45, 69-70.
Liz Taylor, Dust of Life: Children of the Saigon Streets. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977. viii, 199 pp. Ms. Taylor went to work in an orphanage in Saigon in 1972, and stayed until December 1975.
Tiziano Terzani, Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon. New York: St. Martin's, 1976. 317 pp. Eyewitness account of the Communist takeover in Saigon by an Italian journalist who stayed when the Americans left.
Carlyle Thayer, "The Communist Movement in South Viet-Nam in 1973," preliminary draft intended for publication in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1974). The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
The Thieu Regime Put to the Test: 1973-1975. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1975. 120 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University, in four parts: pp. 1-32; pp. 33-63; pp. 64-93; pp. 94-120.
John T. Thomas, "Negotiating with the North Vietnamese: A Military Perspective." Master's thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1975. 136 pp. Deals with interaction 1973-1974 between U.S. and DRV representatives on the Four Party Joint Military Team established under the terms of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement. To order from the National Technical Information Service, 1-800-553-6847, specify item ADB006749.
3 Mile Limit / Three Mile Limit. A daily news sheet published aboard USS Midway (CVA-41). A
few issues have been placed on-line in
the Virtual Vietnam
Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University:
April 30, 1975 "Bombs Rock Saigon";
April 30, 1975 Special Edition
"RVN Surrenders";
May 1, 1975 "Evacuation Complete".
Major General Charles J. Timmes, USA, Ret., "Viet-Nam Summary: Military Operations After the Cease-Fire Agreement," Part I, Military Review, 56:8 (August 1976), pp. 63-75, and Part II, 56:9 (September 1976), pp. 21-29.
Brigitte Tison, Sud-Vietnam 1973: Un pays, des enfants et la guerre. Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire: Éditions Alan Sutton, 2005. 127 pp. A photo book with captions. Dr. Tison was director of "le centre Terre des Hommes-France de Saigon," a charitable institution caring for children, in 1973. The photos are good, and quite diverse; street scenes, children, and Montagnards, but also temples, imperial tombs, etc. But the comment on the back cover about the sound of B-52s taking off every day from the Saigon airport does not fill me with confidence.
Tran Van Tra, Nhung chang duong lich su cu B2 thanh dong, 5 vols. projected. Vol. 5, Ket thuc cuoc chien tranh 30 nam, was published first, (Ho Chi Minh City: Van Nghe, 1982), and was translated as Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B-2 Theatre, vol. 5: Concluding the 30-Years War, JPRS 82783 (Springfield, VA: NTIS, 1983). The text is available online at an Army website. This volume covers the period from 1973 to 1975. It was widely rumored that General Tra got in trouble for having published this.
Olivier Todd, trans. by Stephen Becker, Cruel April: The Fall of Saigon. New York: Norton, 1990. viii, 470 pp. French original Cruel Avril. Paris: Laffont, 1987.
United States Information Agency, Media Reaction Report: Worldwide Treatement of Current Issues. A summary of commentary appearing in the media (mainly newspapers) of a wide range of countries. A few issues have been placed online in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University:
No. 17, February 27, 1975, 14 pp.
No. 26, Indochina and the Future of U.S. Policy, April 1, 1975. 21 pp.
No. 27, Indochina and U.S. Policy Review, April 3, 1975. 187 pp.
No. 28, Indochina and U.S. Policy Reassessment, April 7, 1975. 17 pp.
No. 29, Reassessing U.S. Foreign Policy, April 10, 1975. 16 pp.
No. 30, President's Foreign Policy Address, April 14, 1975. 21 pp.
No. 32, Thieu's Resignation, April 22, 1975. 17 pp.
USIS [United States Information Service] - Vietnam, Current Issues Briefing Note. I have hopes that more issues will be placed online in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University:
War Material Shipments to Vietnam, February 25, 1974. 3 pp.
The PRG: Governmental Entity?, March 20, 1974. 2 pp.
Cease-fire Implementation in Viet-Nam, June 17, 1974. 2 pp.
Assessment of GVN and Communist Positions on Major Peace Issues, June 17, 1974. 3 pp.
Communist Violations of the Viet-Nam Peace Agreement, June 17, 1974. 2 pp.
Communist and U.S. Assistance to Viet-Nam Compared, July 11, 1974. 2 pp.
Talking Points for Viet-Nam Military Aid, July 11, 1974. 2 pp.
South Viet-Nam and Implementation of the Paris Agreement, July 11, 1974. 2 pp.
George J. Veith and Merle L. Pribbenow II, "'Fighting Is an Art': The Army of the Republic of Vietnam's Defense of Xuan Loc, 9-21 April 1975," Journal of Military History, 68:1 (January 2004), pp. 163-213. Uses Vietnamese sources from both sides. The text is available to subscribers on Project Muse.
Vietnam Courier/Le courrier du Vietnam was a magazine published in English and French, in Hanoi. A few issues from 1974 and 1975 are available online.
Vo Van Sung, Chien dich Ho Chi Minh giua long Paris. Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 2005. 167 pp.
Ralph S. Watts, Saigon: The Final Days. Boise: Pacific Press Publishing Assoc., 1990. 87 pp. Watts directed the evacuation of Seventh Day Adventist personnel.
Ralph Wetterhahn, The Last Battle: The Mayaguez Incident and the End of the Vietnam War. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001. ix, 384 pp. pb New York: Plume (Penguin), 2002. xiii, 384 pp.
General Fred C. Weyand, "Report to the President of the United States on the Situation in South Vietnam and Options Open to the United States." 4 April 1975. 27 pp., with a 2 pp. cover memo. General Weyand, after an inspection trip to South Vietnam, recommended $722 million in supplementary military aid for the RVN. He said that if no such US support was forthcoming, the United States should prepare for an evacuation of Americans, South Vietnamese, and Third Country Nationals from South Vietnam. He added, astonishingly, that "this evacuation plan would require a major multi-division U.S. military task force, supported by tactical air to suppress North Vietnamese artillery and aircraft." The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
James H. Willbanks, "Neither Peace nor Honor: Vietnamization, U.S. Withdrawal, and the Fall of South Vietnam." Ph.D. dissertation, History, University of Kansas, 1998. viii, 655 pp. DA 9903177.
James H. Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. xi, 377 pp. I have only looked at the first few pages, where I saw more errors than I would have preferred. Thus p. 3 says that in October 1974, "the U.S. Congress appropriated only $700 million for the defense of South Vietnam and Cambodia, indicating that the amount would be drastically cut in the future." P. 4, discussing the situation of early 1975, says "Congress had further reduced military aid to Saigon." The reality is that the figure of $700 million voted in October 1974 was only the South Vietnam component of the Fiscal Year 1975 military aid package for South Vietnam and Cambodia. The Cambodia component, $200 million, was added in a second vote in December. The Congress did not reduce aid below this $900 million. Right up until the time the war was ended by the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon, U.S. aid continued to flow on the basis of the $900 million figure, which indeed had been augmented, not reduced, since the Congress had given the Defense Department permission to give South Vietnam items that were considered surplus to U.S. military need--tens of thousands of tons of artillery shells, for example--without counting their value as part of the $900 million figure for military aid.
A substantial (259 pp.) collection of miscellaneous material relating to the final evacuation from Saigon and its aftermath, including newspaper clippings, wire service reports, texts of press briefings, etc., has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
A variety of documents relating to the last stages of the Vietnam War have been placed online by the Gerald Ford Presidential Library. See General list of collections, Memoranda of Conversations, Minutes of six 1975 Cabinet Meetings, and Vietnam Assessment Report by General Fred C. Weyand, April 9, 1975 (2 pp. cover memo, 15 pp. report, 5 pp. appendices).
Congressional Committee Documentation on the Last Stage
Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, Edwin E. Moise. This document may be reproduced only by permission. Revised June 28, 2008.