VOICES: VIETNAM

# Operation Babylift

**SAIGON, APRIL 1975:** As the city fell, President Ford ordered an airlift of all orphans, many of whom had American fathers. **LeAnn Thieman**, an Iowa nurse, volunteered to help.

OUR ADOPTION AGENCY KEPT 100 infants in a two-story French villa. Every inch of floor was covered with sheets and mats—it was a sea of babies, crying and cooing in 100-degree heat. There was the strong smell of spit-up and diarrhea. The Vietnamese orphanage workers were weeping. For the airlift, they dressed the babies in clothes from America: lace, panties with ruffles, patent-leather shoes. Instead of diapers or rags, the orphans would go to their new homes in party clothes.

Three of us took half of the 100 babies on the first run to the airport, first by Volkswagen van, then by city bus. We put three or four babies on a seat. As the bus started to roll, so did the babies, so we all stretched out, spread-eagled in the aisle. At the airport, a Vietnamese guard told us our flight had been canceled. The babies were

wet from crying and sweating. Many were losing bodily fluids. It was a crisis. We were there a couple of hours, feeding and cleaning the babies, when we got clearance to fly.

Our plane was a C-5A cargo jet, the big one you can drive a truck inside. The U.S. government had gutted it and strapped down 22 cardboard boxes end to end down the center. We put two or three babies to a box. There were nine of us to care for 100 babies. We took our seats for takeoff and the true terror began: Would we be shot down? Would we even get off the ground? There was an eerie silence, as if even the babies knew the risk. Then nothing but the roar of the engine. Finally the captain announced, "We're out of range of the Viet Cong." There were whoops and hollers and tears. The babies started fussing again. So it was back to work, but it was joyful work. The babies were going to their homes, to freedom.

COURTESY LEANN THIEMAN

**ORPHAN EXPRESS:** Thieman takes her infant charges to the Saigon airport

# The Christmas Bombing

**WASHINGTON, DEC. 18-29, 1972:** As North Vietnam undercut progress at the peace talks, President Nixon ordered bombing raids on Hanoi and Haiphong. The United States dropped 20,000 tons of bombs, the most concentrated air attack of the war. Secretary of State **Henry Kissinger** was the key figure in negotiating with Hanoi.

DECEMBER 1972 WAS A MELANCHOLY period for me. The issue of bombing first arose when we resumed negotiations after the presidential election in November. Hanoi stonewalled, and I told Nixon that I thought bombing would have to be resumed in order to reach peace. But he wanted to give negotiations one more try. Three weeks later we had a disastrous session which suggested that Hanoi had in effect made a strategic decision to prolong the war, abort all talks and seek unconditional victory once again. The president ordered

bombing attacks using B-52s for the first time in the Hanoi area.

No foreign-policy event of the Nixon presidency evoked such controversy as the Christmas bombing. After 12 days Hanoi returned to the table. A few weeks later, just after Nixon's second Inaugural, I went to Paris and initialed the agreement ending the war. Lyndon Johnson, whom I had often briefed at the LBJ Ranch, died on the same day. It was symbolic that this hulk-ing, imperious, vulnerable, aspiring man, so full of life, should die with the war that broke his heart. He, too, was a casual-ty of Vietnam.

WHITE HOUSE

# A President's Pain as We Sound Retreat

**WASHINGTON, APRIL 29, 1975:** As Americans and South Vietnamese fled by helicopter from the U.S. Embassy, President **Gerald R. Ford** watched in anguish.

THAT WAS PROBABLY THE HARDEST day of my presidency for me. I had supported Kennedy when he sent our first combat troops to Vietnam. I supported Johnson even though I differed on some of his military strategy, but I supported the effort to try to win the war. I did the same with Nixon, and with all my support, I'm the president who ends up losing the war.

You have no idea how painful it was. To sit in the Oval Office and watch on TV the American troops, military, civilians being evacuated along with as many South Vietnamese as we could who had supported us. And we had a conflict. The secretary of Defense, Jim Schlesinger, had wanted us to get out of Saigon a week earlier. And then we had Graham Martin, the ambassador. He wanted to stay until the North Vietnamese shot him. So we were torn, Henry Kissinger and myself, between the two extremes. And I made the decision, and Henry fully agreed, that we would stay as long as possible to get all our military and as many of our civilians and many as we could of our South Vietnamese allies out. I think we made a very heroic effort and did the best we could under the worst of circumstances. I look upon it as the sadness of a retreat that I'll never forget.

**GETTING OUT:** The tortured evacuation from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon

UPI—CORBIS-BETTMANN

MARCH 8, 1999 NEWSWEEK 67

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Henry Kissinger

The Christmas Bombing//mu>this is one character short.. can you squeeze? mnp

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WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 18-29, 1972: As North Vietnam undercut progress at the peace talks, President Nixon ordered bombing raids on Hanoi and Haiphong. The United States dropped 20,000 tons of bombs, the most concentrated air attack of the war. Secretary of state, Henry Kissinger was the key figure in negotiating with Hanoi. <start/makeup readjusting here. this precedes should fit. mnp>

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DECEMBER 1972 WAS A MELAN-choly period for me. The issue of bombing first arose when we resumed negotiations after the election in November. Hanoi stonewalled and I told Nixon that I thought bombing would have to be resumed in order to reach peace. But he wanted to give negotiations one more try. Three weeks later, we had a disastrous session which suggested that Hanoi had in effect made a strategic decision to prolong the war, abort all talks, and seek unconditional victory once again. The President ordered bombing attacks using B-52s for the

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first time in the Hanoi area.

No foreign-policy event of the Nixon Presidency evoked such controversy as the Christmas bombing. After 12 days Hanoi returned to the table. A few weeks later, just after Nixon's second inaugural, I went to Paris and initialed the agreement ending the war. Lyndon Johnson, whom I had often briefed at the LBJ Ranch, died on the same day. It was symbolic that this hulking, imperious, vulnerable, aspiring man, so full of life, should die with the war that broke his heart. He too was a casualty of Vietnam. ■

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REVISOR: JMEACH; 02/23/99, 17:19

December 1972 was a melancholy period for me. The issue of bombing first arose when we resumed negotiations after the election in November. At that point I told Nixon that I thought bombing would have to be resumed in order to reach peace. But he wanted to give negotiations one more try.

Three weeks later, we had a disastrous session in which the North went back on things we had already agreed upon—Hanoi had in effect made a strategic decision to prolong the war, abort all talks, and seek unconditional victory once again—and the President ordered attacks using B-52s.«CK»

No foreign-policy event of the Nixon Presidency evoked such fury as the Christmas bombing. We attacked the North for 12 days—and forced Hanoi back to the table. A few weeks later, just after Nixon's second Inaugural, I went to Paris and initiated the agreement ending the war. By coincidence, Lyndon Johnson, whom I had often briefed at the LBJ Ranch, died on the same day. It was symbolic that that this

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