The Fall of Saigon: Scenes From the Sudden End of a Long War

by David Butler

NBC news reporter David Butler was there. He witnessed the apocalyptic departure of the U.S. from the rooftops of Saigon—the passionate end of a war that divided America for a decade. Now he recreates the pulse and feel of that climactic event, and the tumultuous weeks before it that marked the collapse of Vietnam, with a book so powerful, so immediate, that it reads with the authority of the best history and the excitement of great fiction.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, Military Fiction, Asia

576 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1985

Reviews

[Les Dart · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn’t make it through this book. It hasn’t aged well. Author does not situate the reader to the environment or the circumstances. Packed with accounts of trifles that have no bearing on the plot: Saigon’s fall, end of the Republic of Vietnam. Most telling is the author’s penchant for directly pasting his journal notes directly into the text, which serves as a bewildering distraction rather than illuminating the story. From the opening chapter, it just doesn’t appear well ordered. It reads like a data dump more than a fireside story, which isn’t justice to a heartbreaking story such as the end of the Republic of Vietnam.

This is a very dull book.

[Elia Princess of Starfall · Rating 4 out of 5]

45 years ago, on April 30th 1975, the United States government and army, after its long, bloody and deeply misguided military, social and political involvement in South Vietnam, left Saigon and the people of South Vietnam, in a chaotic and desperate helicopter evacuation organised by the American Embassy and government, to face the encroaching onslaught of the North Vietnamese Communists and the beginning of the reunification of a communist Vietnam. It was a sombre end to a brutal and drawn out civil war and a shattering blow to US prestige and power in the greater world. It was a war where millions died, where entire provinces were ravaged and poisoned and ultimately it was a war with few winners.

In the Fall of Saigon, David Butler, an American journalist who lived and reported the NBC news in Saigon from 1974 to the Fall of Saigon itself, in his own words and through several in depth and often sobering interviews turned into third person accounts, tells the swift, startling and despairing collapse of the South Vietnamese regime as the North Vietnamese communists marched relentlessly towards the capital, driving desperate hordes of refugees towards either the sea or to Saigon itself.

It was the chaotic and terrifying final chapter in the Vietnam War and one whose legacy, both for the Vietnamese and Americans, would long linger.



Throughout his book, Butler is both an insider and observer to the last few, terrible days of South Vietnam; a man who tried to help his friends escape South Vietnam and a war reporter who could only watch in horror and dismay as South Vietnam collapsed around him and the South Vietnamese who supported the Americans were faced with the prospect of imprisonment under the approaching communists or of leaving Vietnam entirely with American help. His own beliefs and circumstances often conflict with the crushing reality around him as he veers from optimism (that the communists can be pushed back and South Vietnam saved) to outright pessimism (that without American aid South Vietnam can not withstand the communist onslaught and that its people face a deeply uncertain future) and ultimately he realises that as an American he can flee Vietnam while many others, the South Vietnamese who cannot escape are the ones who will truly suffer in the aftermath of Vietnam's reunification.

Butler, through a series of interviews carried out with South Vietnamese, Americans and several other nationalities who resided in South Vietnam and were caught up in the chaos and mass exodus from South Vietnam, chronicles the solemn stories and tales of those individuals who lived through and endured the final agonising days of South Vietnam as it entered its painful, public death throes on the world stage. From the captured and imprisoned Christian Missionaries in the Central Highlands who ended up in North Vietnamese custody to the desperate but successful attempt of Charlie Benoit, an American contractor, to kidnap his half-Vietnamese daughter Tammy and bring her back to the USA, Butler captures the fear, uncertainty and paranoia that gripped the people living in South Vietnam as its final days began.




The most poignant stories told by Butler, in my opinion, are those of the South Vietnamese who had thrown their lot in with America and the South Vietnamese government. Here we see just how and why these individuals greatly fear the arrival of the North Vietnamese communists who will crack down ruthlessly on those who worked for or collaborated with "the American Imperialists" and the intense lengths certain people go to get their families of dependants out of Vietnam by any means necessary. From the tales of Captain Do Duc Chuong, an ARVN army captain who sees first hand the disintegration of the ARVN forces as they flee the communist forces from North Vietnam and escapes to Saigon only to see the victorious Communist armies enter the former capital of South Vietnam, to the brash Air Army captain of ARVN, Nguyen Cao Ky, who attempted a coup in order to seize the already crippled South Vietnamese government even as the Communists were with striking distance of Saigon, Butlers highlights the unenviable and dangerous positions those South Vietnamese found themselves in as their country crumbled around them, deeply aware that the communists would not look favourably upon those who collaborated with the US government. It is a bleak picture that Butler paints of the final days of Saigon .

In the end, Butler has written an evocative, forceful and deeply introspective work of non-fiction on the final desperate days of the Vietnam War and US involvement in South-East Asia. At times, exciting and engaging, at others somewhat doleful and depressing, Butler's provides an important first-hand rendition of the Fall of Saigon and gives a fair and interesting account of the Fall of Saigon from both South Vietnamese and American perspectives. A highly recommended book that is well-written and highly engaging; a brilliant and accessible snap-shot into the last days of a collapsing regime and the people who would suffer in its aftermath.

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting view of the last days of the Vietnam war from a reporter who was there.

[Mx5z3n · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was alright. There is plenty of interesting history here, though it can often be a bit of a muddle: Butler doesn’t provide a whole lot of historical exposition, so there’s a sense of joining the Vietnam War very much in media res. I had a difficult time keeping track of the different characters he follows throughout the book—part of this may be due to the way people’s stories are interspersed, but in some cases, it’s likely also because certain people are introduced only to have very brief arcs. The chronology of these parallel narratives isn’t always very well-delineated, nor tied together, so often upon returning to someone after an absence of a few chapters, it’s disorienting, and you don’t quite remember who they were or what they were doing.

All that said, it gives an interesting insight into the ground-level experiences of many ordinary people on the frontlines of the end of the war, even if at times you sense a certain anecdotal exaggeration to a lot of the stories, or a bloated sense of import amongst relatively minor players in the course of events (Butler himself included).

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The war in Viet Nam was beginning to wind down in 1975, with the northern communists gaining the upper hand and putting its southern counterpart and USA backs against the wall. This book is collection of stories of around thirty people, the author included, trying to live in period of fifty five days while under the constant fear of not being able to escape from Saigon (and indeed, some of them weren’t). This book was a lumbering piece of work, filled with many details of everyday life in Saigon, and also, the politics behind USA’s final retreat from Vietnam. The sheer number of pages alone caused me to put this book on and off throughout the time.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. For those of us who were too young to remember the details, this book provides a fascinating summary of life in Saigon, the wonderful support given to the Americans by so many Vietnamese, the interplay between the French and American embassies and the lives of so many people who were directly impacted by the events. The story is told by a US journalist and reads much like a detailed diary for the month prior to April 30, 1975. There were a lot of unsung heroes who have been long since forgotten.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly I find this book a remarkably hard slog to get through -sadly because it is telling a heartbreaking story about the "moment the door slammed shut on what was supposed to be the American Century". ok. finished now. the book picks up pace as the war reaches its terminal climax. At the same time as with so many of these Vietnam books I find that the more I get to know the author through his writings the more he seems like a jerk. There is a streak of real hubris through the whole Vietnam adventure, and whether one was a CIA spook or a reporter it seems to have been contagious. At some point someone will probably do a study on the psycho-sexual elements of America's involvement with S.E. Asia (they probably already have) and it won't be pretty. That being said I think this book is well worth reading & at this minute in time I can't help but think of Baghdad as I read "Saigon". There is one really telling line in the book when someone says that all U.S. agencies in vietnam had been built with escape in mind. Think about it.

[Jim Barber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read numerous books on the Vietnam War and recall vividly the fall of Saigon, but I've always wanted more of an inside story. And as inside stories go, this is about as good as it gets. It truly takes you through the agony of South Vietnam's final days and all the horrendous decisions that were made and the promises that were broken. On one hand, it's exciting to relive the harrowing final months of the war. I remember being dumbstruck, even as a kid, about the rapid fall of Vietnam, the thousands of refugees streaming down roads, the ineptness of U.S. policy and the startling scenes on TV. I had so many questions and this book gives a lot of the answers. On the other hand, it's hard to read the back stories behind all those images. Not just hard but also sad, and that's more than 40 years after the fact. One bit of irony: The author doesn't really portray himself as much of a reporter back in the day, but he did an outstanding job chronicling the story after the fact. Hats off to him!

[Aimee Dars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and engaging, though seen primarily through a Western perspective.

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[Glenn Bruce]

Slavish to details, though written by a journalist, this book was crushingly dull. It was not what I needed for the research I was doing, so I gave up on it.

[Rob Tesselaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very detailed account of the last days of the Vietnam War, compiled from a number of sources including the author's first hand experience.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

very eye opening.