Operation Baby Lift
Operation Baby Lift during the closing days of the Vietnam War was an attempt to save some of the smallest and most innocent victims of the conflict. The first flight on April 4 was one more horror piled on top of countless others, but the following missions took place without incident.
North Vietnamese forces were bearing down as the last flight left on April 14, 1974.
Saigon fell 16 days later.
As it became clear that the Communists were going to overtake South Vietnam, fear began to spread about what was in store for the enemy. It was rumored that children of American servicemen would be dealt with especially harshly by the NVA.
President Ford initiated “Operation Baby Lift,” which transported more than 3,000 children out of South Vietnam bound for adoption in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Many South Vietnamese mothers jumped at the chance to help their mixed-race child escape their war-torn country.
Not everyone thought it was such an altruistic, well-meaning idea though. Some saw it as a last desperate attempt to garner sympathy for a highly unpopular war. Some Americans posed the question of whether fear of communism justified snatching…
