The tricolored flag of the Communist Provisional Revolutionary Government fluttered over the presidential palace in Saigon. On the open-air terrace of the Continental Hotel, where Americans drank Saigon's infamous "33" beer and vodka tonics and ogled slender Vietnamese girls for more than a decade, Viet Cong troops lounged self-consciously and sipped orange juice. Soviet-built tanks and Chinese-made trucks rumbled through the streets of Saigon to cheers from the populace.
With incredible suddenness it was over, not only Viet Nam's agonizing Thirty Years' War but also...