A Panorama Special
April 1975. As Saigon shakes to the sound of enemy tanks, the last American troops flee by helicopter from the Embassy roof. In the panic-stricken last moments of evacuation, surplus equipment is abandoned. But the soldiers also leave behind Vietnamese wives, girlfriends and thousands of war babies. Half American and half Vietnamese they are destined to grow up as outcasts in the new socialist Vietnam.
September 1983. Jim Carroll , a former GI, returns to Vietnam to find the child he left behind. The toddler is now a teenage boy speaking not a word of English, illiterate even in Vietnamese, living on the meagre pickings of the black market.
Panorama reporter Jeremy Paxman accompanied the father in the search for his son, and returned with them to a new life in Britain. But he discovered that for many other Vietnamese war babies, the escape from Saigon is a dream which may end in despair.
Producer CHRISTOPHER OLGIATI Film editor IAN CALLAWAY
Panorama editor PETER IBBOTSON
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