UNDER CONSTRUCTION
September 1972 – General Paul K. Carlton, assumed command of the Military Airlift Command on Sept. 26, 1972. He remained the commander until March 31, 1977. His entire career was spent with bombers and SAC, and he brought many of SAC’s procedures to MAC. One was that the crews should be assigned as a cohesive unit, it fly together with the same people. Which made sensed from a safety standpoint.
The ceasefire agreeement of 23 january 1973 marked an end to the American policy of Vietnamizaton. The agreement specified the complete withdrawal of all American military forces in South Vietnam, including advisors, and the cessation of all US military actions in support of Saigon. The North Vietnamese in turn, agreed to a ceasefire in place, the return of American prisoners of war, and an end to infiltration into the South. The accord caught many American generals by surprise, including General Abrams, the new Army chief of staff, who had felt that the United States would end up with some type of permanent ground and air commitment similar to that in South Korea. Instead, there was to be no resideual support force, not even an advisory mission, and , in theory, the Viet Cong and Saigon governments were to settle their political differences at some later date. Whether the agreement was only a device to ease the disengagement of the United States from Southeast Asia, or whether it gave the Vietnamese a realistic opportunity to settle their own differences, remains an open question.
Henry Kissinger, who led the American negotiating team in Paris, saaw a major breakthrough in the long, arduous, and often bizarre process on 8 October 1972. Afer a series of fruitless morning and afternoon sessions, Le Duc Tho, Hanoi’s chief representative, suddenly suggested separating the military and political aspects of the war and reaching an accord to end the fighting as soon as possible. The North Vietnamese dropped their objecions to continued American military aid to Saigon and agreed to cease their own infiltration of troops into the South. In the ensuing days the two parties worked out the details of the agreement, producing a draft on the twelfth. At the same time Kissinger informed Ambassador Bunker what was in the works and urged that Saigon try to hold on to as much territory as possible. Nixon, Haig, Laird, and Abrams endorsed the agreement, but both Nixon an dBunker felt that Thieu’s acquiescence might be difficult.
Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965-1973
By Jefrey J. Clarke
Center of Mlitary History
United States Army
Washington, DC, 1988
The last days of South Vietnam, 1973–1975[edit]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger_and_the_Vietnam_war
Along with North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Duc Tho, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords on “Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam”, signed the previous January.[140] According to Irwin Abrams, this prize was the most controversial to date. For the first time in the history of the Peace Prize, two members resigned from the Nobel Committee in protest.[141][142] Tho rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been restored in South Vietnam.[143] Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted the award “with humility,”[144][145] and “donated the entire proceeds to the children of American servicemembers killed or missing in action in Indochina.”[146] After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, Kissinger attempted to return the award.[146][147]
On 9 August 1974, Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Vice President Gerald Ford assumed the presidency. Ford kept Kissinger on as both National Security Adviser and Secretary of State. Around the same time, the South Vietnamese economy, under the weight of inflation caused by the Arab oil shock and rampant corruption, collapsed. By the summer of 1974, the U.S. embassy reported that morale in the ARVN had fallen to dangerously low levels and it was uncertain how much more longer South Vietnam would last.[139] The South Vietnamese regime had lost popular support with widespread protests against corruption breaking out; protestors accused Thiệu and his family of corruption.[148] In August 1974, Congress passed a bill limiting American aid to South Vietnam to $700 million annually.[149] By November 1974, fearing the worse for South Vietnam as the ARVN continued to retreat, Kissinger during the Vladivostok summit lobbied Brezhnev to end Soviet military aid to North Vietnam.[150] The same month, during a visit to Beijing, he lobbied Mao and Zhou to do the same.[150]
On 1 March 1975, the PAVN launched a major offensive that saw them quickly overrun the Central Highlands, by 25 March, Hue had fallen.[151] Thiệu was slow to withdraw his divisions and by 30 March when Danang fell, the ARVN’s best divisions were lost, [152] leaving the road to Saigon wide open. It was imperative for the North Vietnamese to take the Saigon before the monsoons began in May, leading to a rapid march on the city.[153] Kissinger resisted pressure from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Secretary, James Schlesinger, to immediately withdraw American civilians from South Vietnam, arguing it would damage South Vietnamese morale.[154] Despite this position, Kissinger advised President Ford not to have the U.S.A.F. bomb the advancing PAVN forces, saying “If you do that, the American people will take to the streets again”.[155] He expressed little sympathy with South Vietnam, saying: “Why don’t those people die faster? The worse thing that could happen would be for them to linger on”.[155]
On 15 April 1975, with the PAVN rapidly advancing, Kissinger testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee, urging Congress to increase military aid to South Vietnam by another $700 million, which was refused.[153] Kissinger maintained at the time, and still maintains that if Congress had approved this request, South Vietnam would have been saved.[156] In opposition, Karnow argued that by this point, South Vietnam was too far gone, the ARVN’s morale had collapsed and it is very doubtful anything short of sending U.S. troops back in could have saved South Vietnam.[156] On 17 April 1975, the Lon Nol regime collapsed and the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh. On 20 April, Kissinger instructed Graham Martin, U.S. ambassador in Saigon, to start preparing to evacuate all Americans from the country. Kissinger further instructed Martin that no South Vietnamese were to be included in the pull out.[157] Martin complained to Kissinger that the “only ass which isn’t covered is mine”,[158] Kissinger assured him: “When this thing is finally over, I’ll be hanging several yards higher than you”.[158] On 29 April, Option IV, the largest helicopter evacuation in history began as 70 Marine helicopters flew 8,000 people from the American embassy to the fleet offshore.[159] Later in the day Kissinger ordered Martin to blow up the satellite terminal at the embassy, saying “I want you heroes home”.[160] At 7:53 am, the last Marine helicopter departed from the embassy in Saigon, marking the end of the American presence in Vietnam.[161] On 30 April 1975, Saigon fell to the PAVN and the war in Vietnam finally ended.[
21 April 1975, Friday – On two days, 21 and 22 April, sixty-four hundred persons left Tan Son Nhut for Clark AB aboard thirty-three C-141s and forty-one C-130s. Operations were around-the-clock, the C-141s landing by day and the C-130s generally by night. Other C-141s and the contract carriers meanwhile moved those refugees already at Clark eastward to Guam and Wake Island. Nearly all aircrews reported tracer fire and airbursts with some bursts reaching to eighteen-thousand feet.
26 April 1975 , Wednesday – On 26 and 27 April, twelve-thousand persons left Tan Son Nhut for Clark AB aboard forty-six C-130 and twenty-eight C-141 flights. The intensifying enemy fire forced the decision to stop C-141 landings at Saigon at nightfall on the twenty-seventh, while C-130 flights continued.
29 April 1975, Saturday – On 29 April all US fixed-wing evacuation flights from Tan Son Nhut were stopped