A review of White Christmas in April: The Collapse of South Vietnam, 1975 by J. Edward Lee and Toby Haynsworth

By Terry Plumb, The Herald, Rock Hill, S.C. October 31, 1999.

This book by two Winthrop University professors reminds me of the tale of blind men groping a camel, each reaching a different conclusion, depending on which part of the beast he holds.

An oral history, "White Christmas in April, The Collapse of South Vietnam, 1975" tells the story of the final days of the Republic of South Vietnam. The title comes from the Bing Crosby ballad, which, played on the radio, was the signal for final evacuation.

Recently retired professor Toby Haynsworth, who along with colleague J. Edward Lee, compiled several dozen interviews, was a career Navy officer aboard the U.S.S. Midway during the evacuation. Many Americans will never forget news footage of helicopters being pushed overboard to make room for more humanity-crammed choppers. Ever since Haynsworth witnessed those heroic landings, he has wanted to set straight the record.

Too often those final days have been portrayed as a shameful debacle. Images of panicked civilians, trying to scale the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, have lingered on while the bigger story went untold.

Collectively, these interviews accomplish the authors' goal. Although speakers recount tales that fit their own concept of the crisis, consistency on larger issues is striking. For example, most would agree with Thomas Polgar, CIA station chief in Saigon, that Vietnam was "lost" once President Richard Nixon became embroiled in Watergate. Neither his successor, Gerald Ford, nor Congress was interested in reengaging U.S. troops in that cursed war. When we failed to send B-52 bombers back over North Vietnam after the Communist violations of the Paris peace agreement of 1973, Vietnam's fate was sealed.

The inadequacy of evacuation planning was evident 34 years ago. As one source said, it was not in our nature to plan for failure. Accounts vary widely, however, as to the blame that should be shouldered by Ambassador Graham Martin. Some saw him as obstinate; others point out that he defied a presidential order to leave, putting the lives of allies before his own.

Two aspects of this tale were new to me. One was the role Military Sea Command vessels played in the evacuation. Although images of helicopters forever will characterize what is described as the largest evacuation since Dunkirk, in truth, the number of people evacuated by sea dwarfed both helicopter and fixed-winged flights in the days before Ton Son Nhut airport fell.

But the most intriguing issue raised in this work is whether U.S. leaders had a tacit agreement with the enemy for an uncontested evacuation. Several interviewees said that with the capital city under their control, the North Vietnamese could have destroyed fleeing helicopters and vessels, which they did not.

The authors say this volume is a precursor to a narrative history on the fall of South Vietnam. If so, they could do a valuable service by examining what sort of deal Secretary of State Henry Kissinger cut with the North Vietnamese. The truth would not detract from the acts of heroism described in these interviews, but it would raise the question as to why they were necessary.