Editing Graham Martin (section)

====Evacuation of Saigon====
On 20 April 1975, Kissinger instructed Martin to start preparing to pull out all the Americans in South Vietnam while also saying that no South Vietnamese were to be pulled out.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=654}} Martin in a telephone call to Kissinger complained the "only ass which isn't covered is mine".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=656}} Kissinger assured him: "When this thing is finally over, I'll be hanging several yards higher than you".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=656}} On 21 April 1975, Thiệu resigned as president and on 25 April fled to [[Taiwan]] as the United States was unwilling to grant him asylum, being replaced as president by General [[Trần Văn Hương]].{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=656}}

The evacuation was chaotic largely because Martin did not order an evacuation to begin until late April 1975. On 29 April 1975, [[Operation Frequent Wind]], the largest helicopter evacuation ever began as U.S. helicopters flew 8,000 people from Saigon to the fleet offshore in the South China Sea.{{sfnp|Karnow|1983|p=668}} Martin had waited so long to order an evacuation that it was only possible to leave Saigon via air as the city was surrounded by the advancing PAVN. Martin also refused to classify the Vietnamese common law wives of Americans and their illegitimate children as refugees under the grounds he disapproved of premarital sex.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=655}} Martin decreed that only Vietnamese women married to Americans and their legitimate children would be flown out, a ruling that excluded the vast majority of the Vietnamese women in relationships with American men and their children. General [[Homer D. Smith]], the American military attaché was able to perform an end-run around Martin's order by having an embassy secretary, Eva Kim, type up an unofficial document known as an "affidavit of support" bearing the seal of the embassy together with a blank space for the name of the Vietnamese refugee and another blank space for an American promising to be financially responsible for the said refugee when he or she arrived in the United States that was photocopied thousands of times.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=655}} Through the "affidavits of support", Smith was able to allow many more Vietnamese to flee South Vietnam than what Martin wanted.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=655}} 

The CIA had provided thousands of laminated name cards for Vietnamese who worked as spies for the CIA that was intended to serve as free passes that would allow them to fly out of Saigon.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} Because of Martin's opposition to evacuation, the passes were never issued, and instead had to be burned on the embassy's grounds to protect the identities of the CIA's spies.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} [[Malcolm Browne]], an American journalist in Saigon married to a Vietnamese women described the evacuation as characterized by "blatant racism" as even those Vietnamese with American passports had their papers carefully scrutinized and were often turned away while any white person was allowed in.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} Browne complained that the embassy staff were most suspicious of his wife and children despite having valid American passports.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} Browne was finally forced to have his wife and children fly out in one of the last passenger flights out of Saigon airport to Hong Kong as it proved impossible to leave via the embassy.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}}

Martin ordered the U.S. Marines who served as the embassy's guards to burn the $2 million U.S. dollars in cash that served as the embassy's reserve funds.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=659}} The Marines took the bags of cash out to the embassy's courtyard, doused them in gasoline and set them afire.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=659}} Moments later, an aide ran out to shout that Martin had changed his mind and wanted to save the money after all.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=659}} As the Marines attempted to rescue the burning money, the blades of the helicopters scattered the money, leading to a chaotic scene as the refugees pressing their way into the embassy fought with themselves to grab as many of the charred U.S. dollars as possible.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=659}} Martin also pressed to have the gold of South Vietnam's Central Bank worth $60 million US moved to New York, but the State Department would not allow the gold to be flown out of Saigon until it was insured.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=659}} The State Department moved so slowly in insuring the gold that the gold was still at the Central Bank when Saigon fell on 30 April 1975.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=659}} Martin's attempt to leave the embassy on 29 April 1975 via his limousine to go to his house set off a near-riot outside the embassy as thousands of people clamored to get inside the embassy when they saw the gates opening.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} Unable to exit via his car, Martin was forced to walk four blocks down from the embassy to his house where he picked up his wife, Dorothy, together with one suitcase and a model of a Buddhist pagoda.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} Upon returning to the American embassy, Martin gave the model of the pagoda as a gift to Jean‐Marie Merillon, the French ambassador who was frenetically trying to negotiate a compromise peace.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} Later that day, Dorothy Martin boarded a helicopter that took her to the American fleet in the South China Sea, leaving behind her personal suitcase so a South Vietnamese woman might be able to squeeze on board with her.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} Kissinger was highly concerned that Martin would not leave the embassy and stay behind to die fighting for South Vietnam, observing that Martin was deeply committed to saving that state.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=662}} Later on the same day, Kissinger ordered Martin to blow up the satellite terminal at the embassy in Saigon, saying "I want you heroes home".{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=664}}  At 7:53 am on 30 April, the last Marine helicopter flew away from the embassy in Saigon, marking the end of the American presence in Vietnam.<ref name=GerryBerry/>{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=665}}

Martin was evacuated by helicopter from the US Embassy on the morning of 30 April 1975 as PAVN forces [[Fall of Saigon|overran the city]].<ref name=GerryBerry/> Though he did not know it, the helicopter's crew had orders to arrest him and bring him on board by force if he had refused to go.<ref name=GerryBerry/> The helicopter used was a [[United States Marine Corps|USMC]] [[Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight|CH-46 Sea Knight]] call sign ''Lady Ace 09'' of [[HMM-165]], Bureau Number 154803.<ref name=GerryBerry/>