Explained: 46 years ago, another US exit and the fall of Saigon
When Saigon fell, TV and the next morning’s newspapers showed large groups of Americans, soldiers and civilians on the roof of the US Embassy, waiting to be rescued by military helicopters.
Taliban fighters patrol inside the city of Kandahar province southwest, of Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. (AP Photo: Sidiqullah Khan) On social media, the Taliban’s march to Kabul is being likened to the ‘fall of Saigon’ — a reference to 1975 when the capital of US-backed South Vietnam fell to Communist-ruled North Vietnam two years after the withdrawal of US military presence of 19 years.
Saigon’s capture on April 30, 1975 (it was later renamed Ho Chi Minh City) signalled the end of the Vietnam War, and the Communists consolidated their hold over the entire country in the next few months — just as security analysts fear the Taliban would do in Afghanistan in the near future.
What happened in the Vietnam War leading to the fall of Saigon?
The Vietnam War (1954-75) left 58,000 Americans and 2,50,000 Vietnamese dead, and ended with the US being thrown out of the country. From 1954, when North Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap defeated French colonial troops at Dien Bien Phu, the war raged for 21 years until Giap defeated the Americans and the South Vietnamese at Saigon.
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