50 Years Later, Reflections on Vietnam – From Those Who Lived It

SPECIAL REPORT — Fifty years ago this week, the long U.S. war in Vietnam came to an end. U.S. combat troops had left the country two years before, but on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese forces captured the South Vietnamese capital Saigon. It was a profoundly difficult moment for the United States and its allies in Vietnam; the U.S.-backed government in the South collapsed, and the last American civilians and military personnel were evacuated, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who had worked with the Americans and the government in the South. It would be the largest-scale helicopter evacuation in history, and it produced searing images of the evacuees being ferried from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

Ever since, the long and failed war in Vietnam has provoked debate about the use and limits of American power, and policymakers and military commanders have drawn different lessons from the conflict. A half century later, The Cipher Brief turned to former U.S. officials and members of our network who were involved in the Vietnam war in different ways, and asked for their reflections, and the lessons they have drawn from their own experiences.