The Fall of Saigon 1975, Fifty Years On

American involvement in the Vietnam War ended on the 27 Jan 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. The last American forces were withdrawn on the 29 March 1973. When the North Vietnam forces pushed south to capture Saigon in 1975 they broke the Peace Accords but the USA Congress by then was so war weary it would not support its former ally to resist. From 1974 successive American governments until 2000 applied very heavy economic sanctions on the newly united Vietnamese nation. The long road to economic, social and political recovery from the long civil war and previous colonial wars was a very painful one.

DELIVERY MODE

• Face-to-Face

SUGGESTED READING

• Grandolini, Albert, Target Saigon 1973-1975, Helion and Co. 2020, ISBN 13: 9781911512929
• Fitzgerald, Frances, Fire in the Lake, The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam, originally published 1972, updated 2002, New Press
• Dao, Quynh, Tales from a Mountain, A Memoir, Odyssey, 2016, ISBN 97803161591

COURSE OUTLINE

• Vietnam War 1973-1975 and the withdrawal of USA troops
• Anti War movements in the USA and across the world
• Capture of Saigon April 1975 and its impact on Vietnam
• 1975-2000 economic sanctions by USA and impact on society and economy in the post war recovery period
• Vietnam as a nation in 2025

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Understand why the Vietnamese call the Vietnam War “the American War”
2. Discuss the factors which led to the withdrawal of American and allied forces from 1973 and the impact of the withdrawal on the outcome of the war
3. Explain the factors which were involved in the long recovery period from 1975-2025