The Fall of Saigon

 ((Fri. (28), 9-11 p.m., Discovery Channel))

By JEFF SILVERMAN

A Barraclough Carey Production for Discovery Networks. Executive producer, Nancy LeBrun; producer, George Carey; producer-director, Michael Dutfield; photographers, Michael Miles, Ben Philpott.
 
Narrator: Garrick Utley.
 

If American involvement in Vietnam was a mistake, the final days in Saigon only compounded the damage. Had American foreign policy been as well conceived and carefully crafted as "The Fall of Saigon," Discovery's two-hour examination of the American evacuation, the people of both the United States and Vietnam would have been far better served.

So many of the lingering images we hold of Vietnam have helicopters flying through them. Fittingly, then, "The Fall of Saigon" begins with footage of helicopters intercut with some prominent talking heads, the first of which sets the tone for what is to follow. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says, with the sad face and tightened voice of a man who's run out of excuses, "Vietnam would find more ways of breaking one's heart than anyone could have ever conceived."

That statement, from one of the architects of the endgame of what history has deemed a bankrupt policy, says much about America's complex and troubled foray into Southeast Asia. But it is only a provocative preface to what follows in this powerful look back on the evacuation of the South Vietnamese capital on the 20th anniversary of the event.

What makes this examination so extraordinary is that it's not out to assess blame or cozy up to excuses. There's no absolution offered or assuaging of guilty consciences; instead, there's an illumination. Told straightforwardly through archival footage and an impressive collection of American and Vietnamese participants, it is a chronicle of chaos -- some of it controlled, most of it not -- failed diplomacy, broken promises and, in the end, the inability of cool heads to prevail. Even the weather seemed intent on fostering havoc.

Structured as a time line, "Fall" makes quick work of crucial background material, then meticulously traces the events -- and the chain of command directing them -- in almost hour-by-hour detail from the night of April 27, 1975 , when the North Vietnamese army surrounded Saigon, to the late afternoon of April 30, when the last Americans had been choppered to carriers in the South China Sea and Communist forces seized the Imperial Palace, demanding nothing less than unconditional surrender.

There's so much that's interesting, informative and heartbreaking here: President Ford talking about objectives and policy; Kissinger trying to negotiate a last-ditch settlement through Soviet diplomatic channels; the clash in evacuation strategy between Kissinger and Ford, on the one hand, and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, on the other; the North Vietnamese decision not to bomb the runways at Ton Son Nhut airport so Americans could leave by plane, and the general panic of South Vietnamese pilots who left debris all over those runways, forcing the airport to close; unauthorized helicopters landing on American carriers; civilians pushing their way into what they thought was the haven of the American Embassy; the three-hour delay in beginning the airlift because someone on the ground had confused time zones; the promises of safety to the Vietnamese who had helped the American cause that American soldiers knew, in the last moments, they could not keep; the pain that continues to fill the voices of the soldiers who took part.

Vietnam still has the power to break hearts. "The Fall of Saigon" is a powerfully poignant reminder of how hard it is to fix a heart once it's been broken.

Editor, Phil McDonald; sound, Bruce Wills; composer, George Fenton.