Hận Biden

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Two weeks before the fall of Saigon in 1975, the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (ủy ban đối ngoại thượng viện) arrived at the White House for an unprecedented (chưa từng có tiền lệ) meeting with President Gerald Ford, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger on the new war appropriations (phân bổ ngân sách mới cho cuộc chiến) and the rapidly deteriorating situation (tình hình xấu đi nhanh chóng) in South Vietnam. With the North Vietnamese army closing in on the capital, the senators demanded that the administration speed up the evacuations (di tản) of the remaining Americans. That decision meant leaving about 175,000 South Vietnamese in the gravest danger behind. Frank Church of Idaho feared that committing more funds to a large-scale evacuation was a recipe for a wider war, while New York’s Jacob Javits supported “large sums” limited to an evacuation-only approach for Americans and “deserving (xứng đáng) South Vietnamese.”

Joe Biden agreed. “I am not sure I can vote for an amount to put American troops in for one to six months to get the Vietnamese out,” said the freshman (sinh viên năm nhất, người mới bắt đầu, người mới vào nghề) Delaware senator (thượng nghị sĩ). “I will vote for any amount for getting the Americans out. I don’t want it mixed with getting the Vietnamese out.”

On the final day of the American occupation (chiếm đóng) of South Vietnam, American officials had only evacuated a minuscule fraction of their imperiled allies. One group of petrified Vietnamese at the CIA’s hotel residence believed the CIA officials, who told them to go to their homes, where they would be picked up. The transportation never arrived. When the Vietnamese remaining in the embassy tried to follow the last contingent of Marines (thủy quân lục chiến, lính thủy đánh bộ) sprinting (chạy nước rút) to the roof (nóc nhà) to a waiting helicopter, the Marines pelted them with tear gas (hơi cay, hơi làm chảy nước mắt). North Vietnam had begun its final offensive (cuộc tấn công), pushing through the center of the country, on March 10. Just six weeks later, on April 30, a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the gates of the American Embassy in Saigon.