the gerald r. ford presidential library and museum
TRANSCRIPT
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum
The Ford Library in Ann Arbor
The Ford Museum in Grand Rapids
- 21 million pages of materials
- 400+ sets of papers
- 500,000 audiovisual items
- 17,000 artifacts
- holdings include Congressional, Vice Presidential, and Presidential materials
Overview of Holdings
Gerald R. Ford
CongressionalPapers
President’s Commission on
the Assassination of John F.
Kennedy (Warren Commission)
Files
National Security Adviser Files
Congressman Ford and Vietnam
Serves in the Navy during WWII. The experience changed his world view.
Seat on the House Subcommittee on Defense.
Tours Vietnam in 1953.
By the late 1960s Gerald Ford still felt the North Vietnamese could be defeated.
Paris Peace Accord signed in January 1973.
War Powers Act of 1973 signed in November.
The 1970s
Richard Nixon announces
end ofVietnam War
Gerald Fordbecomes
38th Presidentof the
United States
“Almost by definition, the decisions that must be made in the Oval Office are difficult. If they’re
easy, they’re made elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy.”
Gerald R. Ford
38th President of the United States
…a full, free, and absolute pardon…
Gerald R. Ford and the Vietnam WarThe Fall of Saigon
“It was the saddest hour of my time in the White House, sitting in the Oval Office and watching those last Americans being finally evacuated from Vietnam. To see United States troops kicked out, literally, was a hard thing for a
President to swallow, and hard for most Americans to swallow.”
PresidentialDecision-making
The Fall of Saigon
Timeline1974
August 9: Gerald R. Ford sworn in as 38th President of the United States
August 12: Gerald Ford addresses a Joint Session of Congress
August 13: Congress cuts the budget for South Vietnam in half.
August 19: Addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Chicago, announcing his Clemency Program
September 16: Unveils Clemency Program December 30: Ford signs Foreign Assistance Act of 1974
Timeline1975
January: North Vietnam steps up movement into South Vietnam. March 25: Ford meets with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, National Security
Advisor Major General Brent Scowcroft, Ambassador Graham Martin, Army Chief of Staff General Frederick C. Weyand.
March 26: State Department announces beginning of evacuation of remaining U.S. personnel and Vietnamese refugees.
April: Evacuation of South Vietnamese orphans, “Operation Baby Lift.” April 4: Receives General Weyand’s memo regarding the status of South Vietnam April 5: Meets with General Weyand … report on situation Meets with National Security Council April 10: Addressed Joint Session of Congress April 14: Senate Foreign Relations Committee requests a meeting with President
Ford April 17: Khmer Rouge troops take Cambodia April 23: Gives Tulane University Speech April 25: Final siege of Saigon begins April 28: Air Force halts evacuation flights because of artillery attacks. Ford convenes NSC Ford orders final evacuation April 29: In 16 hours 6,500 Americans and South Vietnamese are evacuated from
Saigon.
North Vietnamese forces step up their advance into South Vietnam. By the end of March 1975 they control
most of the country.
Ambassador Graham Martin, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Frederick Weyand, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger discuss the situation in Vietnam, March 25, 1975.
April 1975The Final Month
April 10President Ford Addresses aJoint Session of Congress
President Truman's resolution must guide us today. Our purpose is not to point the finger of blame, but to build upon our many successes, to repair damage where we find it, to recover our balance, to
move ahead as a united people. Tonight is a time for straight talk among friends, about where we stand and where we are going.
A vast human tragedy has befallen our friends in Vietnam and Cambodia. Tonight I shall not talk only of obligations arising from legal documents. Who can forget the enormous sacrifices of
blood, dedication, and treasure that we made in Vietnam?
Under five Presidents and 12 Congresses, the United States was engaged in Indochina. Millions of Americans served, thousands died, and many more were wounded, imprisoned, or lost. Over $150
billion have been appropriated for that war by the Congress of the United States. And after years of effort, we negotiated, under the most difficult circumstances, a settlement which made it possible for
us to remove our military forces and bring home with pride our American prisoners. This settlement, if its terms had been adhered to, would have permitted our South Vietnamese ally, with
our material and moral support, to maintain its security and rebuild after two decades of war.
The chances for an enduring peace after the last American fighting man left Vietnam in 1973 rested on two publicly stated premises: first, that if necessary, the United States would help sustain the terms
of the Paris accords it signed 2 years ago, and second, that the United States would provide adequate economic and military assistance to South Vietnam.
April 23President Ford Speaks At Tulane University
Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is
concerned. As I see it, the time has come to look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the Nation's wounds, and to restore its health and
its optimistic self-confidence.
The Final 48 Hours
April 28The Air Force halts evacuation flights.
The President convenes a meeting of the National Security Council.
Just before midnight, Gerald Ford orders the final evacuation of Saigon.
April 28
National Security Council Meets
April 29
State Department Cables to and from
Ambassador Graham Martin, April 29, 1975
Scowcroft (Situation Room) to
Martin:
“Insure that all 400 Americans in the
Embassy compound are evacuated in this operation ASAP. “
9:47 a.m. EST 1:42 p.m. Zulu Time
From Secy. Of State Kissinger to Martin
(via Brown)
“IBM headquarters reports its personnel still in Saigon and is most disturbed. Do
what you can.”
10:11 a.m. EST 2:11 p.m. Zulu Time
The End
In 16 hours, United States forces evacuated 6,500 Americans and South Vietnamese from
Saigon, ending decades of American involvement in the area.
Refugees
What Would You Do?
Refugees & Immigration
There were now over 120,000 South Vietnamese refugees … men, women, and children who had nowhere to go.
On April 30, 1975 Gerald Ford requested $507 million from Congress for refugee transport and care.
The United States House of Representatives rejected that request the following day.
April 1975“Operation Baby Lift”
The evacuation of South Vietnamese orphans begins.
Refugees escaped using any method available to them
…
On foot
By boat
By air
Political Cartoons
Amnesty
President Gerald R. Ford's Remarks Announcing a Program for the Return of Vietnam Era Draft Evaders and Military
Deserters
September 16, 1974
Good morning:
In my first week as President, I asked the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense to report to me, after consultation with other Governmental officials and private citizens concerned, on the status of those young Americans who have been convicted, charged, investigated, or are still being sought as draft evaders or military deserters.
On August 19, at the national convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars in the city of Chicago, I announced my intention to give these young people a chance to earn their return to the mainstream of American society so that they can, if they choose, contribute, even though belatedly, to the building and the betterment of our country and the world.
I did this for the simple reason that for American fighting men, the long and divisive war in Vietnam has been over for more than a year, and I was determined then, as now, to do everything in my power to bind up the Nation's wounds.
I promised to throw the weight of my Presidency into the scales of justice on the side of leniency and mercy, but I promised also to work within the existing system of military and civilian law and the precedents set by my predecessors who faced similar postwar situations, among them Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Harry S. Truman.
draft evaders and military deserters 24 months of alternate service Clemency Review Board The primary purpose of this program is the
reconciliation of all our people and the restoration of the essential unity of Americans within which honest differences of opinion do not descend to angry discord and mutual problems are not polarized by excessive passion.
“… never did enough to win. We always did just enough to keep the battle going.”
Demise…
Burial…
Gerald R. Ford38th President of the United StatesJ uly 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006
For more information visit our websites:
www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov
www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/guides/vietnam.asp
www.archives.gov