THE EXODUS: Last Chopper Out of Saigon

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By the end of the week, another seven or so South Vietnamese helicopters had landed or tried to land on the U.S. naval vessels. One South Vietnamese pilot set his chopper down on top of another whose blades were still whirring. Others ditched their craft and had to be fished out of the water. An American search-and-rescue helicopter from the U.S.S. Hancock crashed at sea, and two of its four crew members were listed as missing, possibly the last American fatalities of the war.

"The last days of the evacuation were very hairy indeed," Ford confessed afterward. "We were never sure whether we were going to have trouble with the mobs." As Ford noted, the whole operation had gone better "than we had any right to expect." According to the Defense Department, 1,373 Americans and 5,680 South Vietnamese—many more than the U.S. had originally intended—had been removed. Another 32,000 desperate Vietnamese had managed to make their way by sampan, raft and rowboat to the U.S. ships offshore, bringing to about 70,000 the number evacuated through the week.

Almost three hours after the ambassador's departure the last U.S. Marine was withdrawn from the Saigon embassy. A few American journalists, missionaries and others remained behind, as did six Americans in South Vietnamese jails. But the U.S. presence in Viet Nam can be said to have ended last Wednesday morning at 7:52 local time when a helicopter pilot radioed the final official message from Saigon: "Swift 22 is airborne with eleven passengers. Ground-security force is aboard."

At week's end another group of nearly 600 refugees reached Thailand after an arduous, 3½-day truck journey from Phnom-Penh. Mostly French, the evacuees had sought haven in the French embassy when Cambodia's capital fell to the Khmer Rouge and had been virtual prisoners ever since. To the annoyance of France, one of the first non-Communist countries to recognize the Khmer Rouge, the embassy had been turned into a virtual prison. Food, medicine and communications had been cut off. After protests from Paris, the regime finally allowed the 600 out. Sidney Schanberg, a correspondent of the New York Times, was one of several journalists in the group, most of whom seemed in good health. All the journalists have agreed not to write their stories until those remaining in the embassy, about 250 in all, have also reached safety.