The Fall of Saigon: A Turning Point in the Vietnam War

Ambassador Graham Martin stood on the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon, watching North Vietnamese tanks roll down Le Loi Boulevard as the sound of artillery grew closer by the hour. It was April 28, 1975, and Martin was overseeing the final preparations for what would become known as Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation in history. The man who had spent two years insisting that South Vietnam could survive was now facing the collapse of everything he had worked to preserve. As Marine guards prepared the embassy's rooftop landing zone and began destroying classified documents in the courtyard below, Martin embodied both America's stubborn refusal to accept defeat and its ultimate powerlessness to prevent the inevitable conclusion of its longest war.

The seeds of Saigon's fall had been planted two years earlier with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973. The agreement that was supposed to bring "peace with honor" to Vietnam had instead created conditions that made Communist victory virtually inevitable. While American forces withdrew and prisoners of war returned home, North Vietnamese troops remained in South Vietnam in violation of the agreement, using the ceasefire period to rebuild their forces and prepare for the final offensive that everyone knew would come. The accords had been designed to provide a decent interval between American withdrawal and South Vietnamese collapse, but that interval was rapidly drawing to a close.