April 30 is the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Effectively ending the Vietnam War and bringing a humiliating end to the American effort to prop up South Vietnam’s government.
An eyewitness to the events that day was a man who had also been a pivotal figure in trying to preserve South Vietnam, former Premier and former vice president Nguyen Cao Ky.
Ky Was head of South Vietnam’s Air Force but had
virtually no government experience when he was thrust into a leadership role in the mid-1960s.
Nguyen Cao Ky proved a complicated, controversial and flamboyant leader who frequently alienated his American allies.
In 2002 Ky wrote in Memoir, one of the only books detailing the war from the South Vietnamese perspective. He called the book Buddha’s Child, and that’s when I had the chance to spend a few minutes with him.
Nguyen Cao Ky died in 2010 at age 80.