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Cold War: Stories from the Big Freeze

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Factual: History

Bridget Kendall presents an oral history tracing decisive moments of the Cold War.

Cold War: Stories from the Big Freeze: Series 2

Cold War: Stories from the Big Freeze: Series 2: The Fall of Saigon

10/07/2017

The Fall of Saigon

Series 2

BBC Radio 4 - Cold War: Stories from the Big Freeze, Series 2, The Fall of Saigon

Bridget Kendall hears how a student and a schoolgirl witnessed the end of the Vietnam War.

Bridget Kendall hears how a student and a schoolgirl witnessed the North's final victory in the Vietnam War - and how many Vietnamese fled the newly communist South on small boats.

Bridget Kendall hears how the end of the Vietnam War coloured the lives of two young Vietnamese people. 

Nguyen Huu Thai was a student activist, working for the pro-North Vietnam liberation movement. On the day Saigon fell to the National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese forces, he played a key role in two of the day's signature events - one at the radio station, one at the Presidential Palace. 

Across town, meanwhile, Minh-hoa Ta was a schoolgirl growing up in her ethnic Chinese upper-middle-class family. She witnessed the North's final victory in the Vietnam War when troops marched, waving, down her street. But she also saw horrors. 

And before long, the oppression of the new unified communist state, exacerbated by hostility towards ethnic Chinese people, led her mother to decide they should flee. And so Minh-hoa Ta became one of the Vietnamese 'Boat People' - trying desperately to escape their country across the ocean.

With: Nguyen Huu Thai, Dr Minh-hoa Ta

Producer: Phil Tinline.

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Bridget Kendall presents an oral history of the early Cold War.

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Cold War: Stories from the Big Freeze

Series 2

The Fall of Saigon

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