>> we are polling them on as

fast as we can. >> we are pulling them on as fast as we can. ercis sea of humanity. it's impossible to stop the crowd. we are pulling away. we are leaving them behind. we are falling away in the plainest taking up a. >> as the north vietnamese army closed in on saigon and resistance crumbled the skeletal staff of american diplomats and military personnel left in the country began to consider the certain imprisonment and possible death of their south vietnamese allies, friends and co-workers. but with an official evacuation of south vietnamese held up by congress and the american ambassador individual americans and south vietnamese took matters into their own hands to execute the evacuation and save as many south at the mises possible.

ms. kennedy also talks about her career as a filmmaker and her family's history. she is the daughter of robert f. kennedy and apple kennedy. c-span: rory kennedy can you remember when your you were first to where there was a vietnam war? >> guest: well i was seven when the events took place that we document in the sound the last days of the war which was 1975. you know there's not a moment where i remember vietnam but i feel like it was kind of in the ethos of my childhood. it was in my consciousness. i have always felt it's a event in our nations history and i was happy to have the opportunity to revisit yet mom and to this particular story of the final days of the war. c-span: did you go there at all? >> guest: i never went to vietnam. my tent -- intention was to go

there but you know the story that i wanted to tell from the vietnamese perspective is about the vietnamese who were left behind and what happened to them. but we were told that and i did extensive research that nobody in vietnam would talk to us about this time in history particularly who had been imprisoned or tortured where you know they kind of struggled in the aftermath of the war. there is still fear in concerns of government retaliation and repercussions. because her story is 100% in 1975 really in its final days there is not really a big story to be told about what's going on in vietnam today other than what happened to the people left behind which is obviously a significant part of our story but we ended up finding a number of people who were in america to

help provide that perspective. c-span: how do you win her husband divide up the responsibilities on something like this? >> guest: well, technically i'm the producer and director and he's the writer but mark is really my partner in all of my feature documentaries. we decide whether we should do them together often and he from the beginning when i'm doing entries and selecting characters in the general direction of the story he is a part of all of those discussions. sometimes they are formal and now this. sometimes it's over dinner or what the kids screaming across from us but he really plays an essential role particularly in this film which i would say the biggest challenge for us is in the edit room because it was such a complicated story. there were so many perspectives. trying to orient the audience

some of whom are familiar with vietnam, some of who aren't to know what was happening and we didn't use a narrator and we didn't use any historians are experts looking back. it's kind of in real time so that made it challenging. he played a huge role along with my editor and we had a great producer writer kevin mcallister. c-span: what was the biggest help initially in getting your kind of parameters on this story and how many days are involved in the documentary? >> guest: well, we knew we wanted to take on the last days of vietnam and you know i think a lot of us are familiar with the iconic image of the helicopter going off of what we think is the embassy and in fact it's not the embassy. c-span --. c-span: what was that building? >> guest: initially the plan there were 13 buildings that

helicopters if they had to resort to what was option for a four options which was the helicopter airlift, there was 13 buildings that they would have helicopters lead from but once they called for the evacuation by playing the song white christmas throughout the streets of saigon if you were call from the film, then the streets got so crowded and overrun with people largely south vietnamese that nobody could get to those buildings. so they ended up centering the entire evacuation out of the embassy. right now what was it that you saw or read that capsulized all of this for you early? >> guest: solo, i would say there are two things. i was familiar with that iconic image and i wanted to understand more what had happened. and i thought i knew a lot and as i did the research i was

really blown away by the actual events and what took place and how dramatic they were and how i knew very very little of it and how important it seems. so part of my interest was to share those events with people because i found a lot of other people didn't know what happened happened. and then we started to uncover these really extraordinary stories of americans and vietnamese who went against u.s. policy which at that point was to just get the americans out of the country because the north was coming in so fast and saigon fell much quicker than anybody expected south vietnam fell much quicker than anybody expected. so the policy there was about 6000 americans on the ground at that point. we had signed the paris peace accord in 1973 so there was new troops in the country. it was people who were military

personnel who were protecting the embassy and advisers and whatnot. so the idea was to just get them out of the country. these americans who were on the ground basically says not so fast. we have ourselves vietnamese allies, people we worked with. many of them had wives and children who were soft enemies and they weren't about to just leave them behind. so once i got started uncovering and getting deeper into those stories then i was really excited because i felt like the stories, nobody knew and for so many americans vietnam is such a dark moment in our history. the acts of these men who were there were so heroic and courageous and when i watched the film even though i have seen it so many times it really makes me proud of them and this wave of history moving against them and this tide that they did the

right thing. c-span: where did you go to high school? >> guest: i went to madeira. c-span: write it here in the suburbs of washington and he went to brown university. did anyone at madeira or a brown teach you anything about vietnam or? >> guest: at brown yes, i took a course on vietnam so there was a course dedicated to vietnam but this story was not part of that curriculum. so i did not know the story. c-span: so many people today stayed no one teaches them anything about it no more and there's a lot of talk and why isn't there a lot of talk in your opinion and what are the lessons of vietnam and we will show some excerpts of the sound. >> guest: well i would say there are many lessons about vietnam in terms of what i feel like i have learned in making this film and having a deeper appreciation for getting out of

a war after having made this film that i feel that there were very few options available at april 29, 1975 were in early april when it became pretty clear that the country was going to fall. and you know we were trying to get congress or kissinger and ford were trying to get congress to pass a bill that would provide $722 million to the vietnamese during those final hours. i think that would have been helpful and made some difference that i don't think it would have changed things so dramatically. and so what it says to me is that the real choice that you have is when you enter a war and want to enter a war, especially when it goes in a direction that you don't anticipate which is losing there are virtually no options. so that position of entering a

war and understanding i think from the beginning what the strategy is, what the goals are what the timeline is and having an appreciation for what the impact is going to be because you know another thing that i think making this film has taught me is a reminder of the human cost of war which is significant and which you see in watching this film. i think it sometimes gets lost in the debate about what we are doing and the strategies and plans. what is the cost on the ground to the people who are most directly impacted? c-span: let's watch about two minutes of this and it shows the north vietnamese coming south and get you to explain some more. >> this is the way my map looked mid-april. the north vietnamese just roll

down the coast. saigon was clearly threatened. the situation was urgent, urgent understates it. >> at this time, ambassador martin had been back in washington trying to persuade congress to vote for additional aid. he came back to saigon and my boss this cia station chief said tell the old man what's happening. i said mr. m. basset are half of the south vietnamese has disintegrated. we are in grave trouble. please plan for an evacuation and at least allow us to begin putting together lists of south vietnamese we should rescue. and he said no frank, it's not so bleak and i won't have this negative talk.

young officers in the embassy began to mobilize a black operation, meaning a makeshift underground railway evacuation using outgoing cargo aircraft that would be totally below the radar of the ambassador. >> people like myself and others took the bull by the horns and organized an evacuation. in my case that meant friends of mine who were senior officers and the south vietnamese military. as the north vietnamese came closer and closer to saigon these people were dead men walking. c-span: go back to the ambassador. but part of the play in a? >> guest: graham martin was the gatekeeper and some centanni

had the ability to greenlight the evacuation plan. the evacuation plan is created by the military but the ability to approve it and to put it into motion is left in the hands of the ambassador. graham martin had lost a son in the vietnam war. he was dedicated to preserving south vietnam. and he didn't want to see us walk away from south vietnam. largely phobe for those reasons he was resistant to putting an evacuation plan into place and green lighting it. early on when everybody, most people both on the ground and to some degree in washington realize the south vietnam was is going to fund was inevitable. c-span: the former cia agent very controversial was sued by her own government. why did you pick him?

>> guest: well we were really committed to finding people who were on the ground who were in the embassy who were in saigon at the end of april when things were falling and he was there. he was sued by her government because he wrote a book about the events that took place. i don't believe that he was sued because he he misrepresented. he was sued because he wasn't supposed to share them in the capacity that they did but the reality is that he had very good first-hand knowledge and i think helps us explain the story for folks and to understand exactly what happened. c-span: where is he today? >> guest: he's in los angeles. rekha doing what? what kind of work? >> guest: i know he's writing scripts or pitching ideas to make into film buds i don't know

if he is a job beyond that. c-span: and scott herrington. who is he? disco stu herrington was the captain and he plays a significant role because he was at the forefront of these events as we document them. he also helped on the number of levels giving vietnamese out of the country. he was one of the people as this clip shows started black ops in mid-april when it was very clear to him that the country was going to fall and he wasn't getting approval from the ambassador and he started getting high-risk vietnamese out of the country with a group of people. he would basically put them in dance and take them to the airport in some off on cargo aircraft raided so he kind of

helped initiate that effort. he also continues on where our story ends up landing which is in the embassy on april 29, 1975 when the evacuation is really underway and he helped start that evacuation and he is there to the bitter end. he was in a particularly difficult predicament where he stayed throughout the night and the ambassador doesn't come across very well in that clip but he does to some degree redeem himself later in the film when you see that he was asked to be one of the the first person to leave the embassy on a helicopter. he was told he needed to go when they refuse to get on the helicopter. he wanted to get as many vietnamese out as possible so he among others were trying to fill the helicopters with south vietnamese knowing once all the

americans got out that the u.s. government would stop the evacuation. so he played a big role in math but in any case coming back to stuart herrington he then stayed throughout the night also helping the vietnamese getting on these helicopters. about 3:45 in the morning martin got a presidential order saying that he had to get on the next helicopter out which was i think the second to last helicopter. so the ambassador left at 3:45 3:45 and probably the third to last helicopter and they were told they were going to be no more helicopters sent for vietnamese. so stu herrington was in a terrible position where he had to tell the 420 vietnamese that were left behind who were still in the embassy, he had to tell them that they were on american soil. he wasn't going to leave until they all left and he left them in the courtyard.

he said he was going to go to the bathroom and he walked around the backside of the building and walked up the staircase to a helicopter that was waiting on the roof. so as the sun was coming up he looked down at these 420 people who were left behind and he thought how wrong this was and how it it encapsulated the whole vietnam war in that moment. c-span: do you have any idea we have about a minute and a half of vietnamese, some connection. a lot of children have been born since those days. we have very few iraqi's that are even allowed into the country. why did we bring so many into this country from vietnam and so few from iraq's? or even afghanistan? >> guest: will the events of this film in those last moments they were about 130,000 vietnamese who were able to get out of the country and then over the next couple of decades there

was the plight of the boat people where millions of vietnamese fled vietnam and some of them were able to get to america. hundreds of thousands died during those voyages. you know it's a curious thing. i think with vietnam and the vietnamese people, we did have a profound connection to them. i don't think you see the marriage rates in iraq and afghanistan between soldiers and iraqi send afghan base. our soldiers married a lot of vietnamese and have a lot of vietnamese children. so i think the relationship between the two countries and we really fought side by side with them in a pretty united fashion. so i think they were different

wars in different cultures and different people. so i think it speaks to kind of those larger cultural issues in the natures of those wars. c-span: here some more video. for somebody my age i remember this like it was yesterday. the helicopters being pushed off the ship. the name of the ship? desk of the uss kirk. c-span: the helicopters belong to? >> guest: the helicopters belong to the south vietnamese air force which have been fallen apart and so can you give me a moment to set this up? c-span: sure. >> guest: what was happening was there was a fleet out in the south china sea, the u.s. fleet and they were helicopters going from that fleet to the embassy picking people up and bringing them back to the fleet. then what happened is the south vietnamese air force had

disintegrated but the pilots were still there and they still have their helicopters. so they then started getting in their helicopters, filling them to capacity and beyond with their families and friends and chasing the u.s. helicopters out to see not knowing where they were going if they would be able to land housing no communication with united states and feeling that the risk of going out to see and not knowing where they were going to land was less than the risk of staying behind in what might happen to them. so the uss kirk was monitoring the waters between the fleet and the land and so was the first for these helicopters to see the uss kirk did know who they were or what is happening that they took the risk to take the first one down. c-span: this is less than a minute.

we will watch it now. >> would have to disarm them. >> none of them had ever landed on a ship before. five minutes later another one came in to land and we pushed his airplane over the side. i was second. i helped push that one over too and the third plane came in. it landed also. we pushed it over the side. so we had thrown three helicopters into the water so far. this was incredible. i know you probably don't believe this but it's all true. c-span: how many helicopters were pushed over the side? >> guest: i know for the uss kirk i think it was 17 is my recollection. i think there were 157 people that they saved to to bringing

the helicopters down. the issue with the uss kirk is it was not one of the ships from the fleet so it wasn't meant to land helicopters. it only had space for one helicopter so then the question was well what do we do? >> can't land another helicopter if we keep these helicopters onboard. so the commander said throw them over. did you get approval from washington and? absolutely not. we just made the decision on the fly and we would live with the consequences. so they really had no choice and people asked well why didn't they just get some pilots and throw them in the helicopters and go back but of course they didn't have the gas. they didn't have pilots on board. they didn't have the wherewithal to do that. the helicopters that the u.s. had were schenecker helicopters which could fit 50 people in them and the smaller huey

helicopters can comfortably fit for were six. c-span: you told us earlier i think you were six when the end came? you were to turn seven later on that year? >> guest: i guess technically. c-span: you and your husband put this together. he wrote it and you produced and directed it to how did you protect yourself? there were a lot of people from vietnam, americans that are still alive, from knowing the facts on this? because you are going to face a lot of people asking questions about the vietnam war. >> guest: we did a lot of research and it was interesting the research process because there were so many conflicting reports. i think part of why things got to the point of helicopters were landing on the embassies and on the embassy roof wasn't part excess of the communication

break down. and you know that was real, what was happening what washington knew and the information they were basing on 120 people left behind. kissinger claims he only learned that in 1992 or something and that was stuart herrington story for the first time. he never knew that. he thought this is what he claims. when they sent the last helicopter that they were getting the last people out of the embassy. so my point is that there was so much misunderstanding on the ground and miscommunications that it took a lot of double sourcing things, getting multiple perspectives on the same event, trying to get really to the truth of it. but i'm happy to say that we have screened at in multiple cities now and is on the brink of its reactor cloverleaf.

it just came out of new york and so for -- so far they have not been any major claims of misinformation. there was one little thing that i think we got wrong but i think most of white christmas we have it as being crosby's version and it wasn't. other than that there has been no significant factual corrections. c-span: what version was a? >> guest: there was -- c-span: the ink spots had a version. >> guest: i wasn't incorporated spots but it was supposed to be bing crosby's version but things got very hectic and the people on the air force radio couldn't find his versions of a put a different one on. it still debated but that seems to be correct. c-span: what documentaries this for you? how many? >> guest: i think i have made about 40 documentaries at this point that i have either produced or directed? c-span: ready with? >> guest: i live in los angeles.

c-span: y. there? >> guest: my husband mark is a screenwriter so we moved from brooklyn to l.a. about five years ago. c-span: how old are the kids? >> guest: george is about to turn 12. bridget is 10 and zachary seven. c-span: how long did you work on this documentary? >> guest: 14 months. c-span: total? >> guest: from when we started development until when we lost the picture. c-span: how long is a? >> guest: is 97 minutes. c-span: and what kind of exhibit is it going to have? is a theater or television? >> guest: it's in theaters that had its theatrical premiere in new york on september 5. it's opening in d.c. on december 12, this friday and then it will go to about 15 cities total theatrically. we are also doing community screenings and then ultimately it will premiere on pbs on american experience in april which will be the 40th

anniversary of the fall of saigon. c-span: here are some more from your documentary. >> i went with my wife to the embassy. a lot of people they clenched to the tub but they couldn't get in. >> each gate was besieged like that. the side gate was the principle place where they came. people holding letter saying i work for the americans, please let me in. journalists were arriving and counting on being recognized to be led in by the marines.

.. >> they left and said the plan for evacuating people fell a part because it was supposed to

happen after the country fell. he was left and he had an opportunity to get out of the country at one point but it would have meant leaving his family and others behind so he ultimately chose to stay and spent 13 years in hard labor. >> did you talk to him about it? >> yes. he said there was little food they worked around the clock and many people died over the course of the years he was there. he walk

was still shaken by this and bringing up the memories was difficult. the film premiered at the sun dance festival and i invited him but he could not come because it was too hard to watch the movie. he has not seen the film and i don't know if he will. >> c-span: i read 30% of the live in california? >> guest: that is right. >> c-span: how many came to the country you found? are there others?

>> guest: i can maybe five are interviewed in the film. i don't know the exact number. and we interviewed a few more who didn't end up making it in the final version of the film. it was important to me -- this is "last days in vietnam" and it is a film from american's perspective but the heart of the film is understanding what it meant to leave the vietnamese behind so their perspective is essential. >> c-span: how much time did henry kissenger say he would give you? >> guest: he said 45 minutes and i got an hour and a half. >> c-span: what did you learn that was not expected? >> guest: i think what was surprising is i felt he was

emotionally present and invested in recalling these events. i was struck by his ability -- he was 89 at the time i interviewed him -- to recall every event i asked him about down to often the minute of when it took place and the information he had at that time. in this film relied on the interview pieces to explain the pieces because there is no narerator and he was able to i think, document what happened from washington's perspective during this period. >> c-span: how much interviewing did you do? >> guest: i did probably 95% of

it. >> c-span: and what is your experience from interviewing people? do you get a straight answer? if you don't get it what do you do? >> guest: i think people have their own perspective and you know i don't try to -- i don't believe in a single truth. and i think that was very evident in making this film. there is a lot of different perspectives. one person argued there was no one at the embassy and the chaos was a mess. everybody else talked about the numbers at the embassy and how chaotic it was. you can have people at the same event but it was 40 years ago

and their recollections are different. i think part of it is the choices you make as a film director and who you trust. stewart herrington plays a huge role because he, i think, comes across as a trust worthy narrator of events. he is believable. he feels like he is emotionally present and he is present throughout all of the events and the time period we are focused on. >> here is this story of a this vietnamese man and we will listen and get your comment. >> my mom grabbed by little sister who was six months and i had a little brother who was

three or four years old. i remember how the pacific ocean was big and wide and my dad was afraid there wasn't enough fuel. he was flying blind. and then he saw a ship out there. it was way too big to land. as the ship was moving forward, four or five or six knots, the pilot communicated he was running low on fuel. >> he opened up the front part and hovered and then here comes a human. one by one we jump out. my mom was holding by sister

obviously very scared. she just trustingly with one hand, with her right hand holding on with her left to brace herself. >> c-span: that footage is from what source? >> i was lucky with the footage. when i was developing the firm i was in contact with john herman who wanted to tell the story. he was in his attic and found a box and it included this amazing

story where the pilot drops his family including his baby on to the boat. he then can't -- his helicopter is too big to land. he jumps out of the helicopter and the helicopter goes crashing down and he goes crashing down and everybody thinks he is not okay. this is the son. on the right side of the screen you can see the helicopter pilot. >> c-span: how many hours of footage did he give you? >> guest: he gave us i think, ten canisters of maybe eight-minute footage.

he used 12 minutes in the film. >> c-span: what was your reaction? >> guest: they asked if i wanted his number and i said yes, and called him the next morning. i was in california at the time and he was outside of washington, d.c. and he was protective of the footage so he would not fly it out. but i sent him a ticket and he came out to california. it was a treasure-trove. at the end of the footage, there is a story about richard arm tig where he helped save 30,000 vietnamese and that whole story is documented through dan's footage. >> c-span: we will run that but before we do i heard you talk

about richard somewhere else. you didn't tell the story. he ended up in prison in the philippines? how? >> guest: he didn't get authorization to bring 30,000 people to the philippines. he said i decided i would rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. he expected i think they would say no because there was a sense a lot of vietnamese were coming out of the country. he made the decision to bring folks with him and went to the philippines and got arrested there. i think he spent two-three nights in a makeshift jail and a friend rescued him. >> c-span: was it a filipino or american jail?

>> guest: i think american jail. >> c-span: connected to the military? >> guest: yes, that is my recollection. >> c-span: and richard went on to do what? >> guest: he worked under powell from there. >> c-span: let's watch that clip. >> there are no words to describe what a slip looks like that has 2,000 on it and holds 200. i don't think anybody understood this. it looked like something from exodus. we had all of these people and my reaction was how the well are we going to do this?

the navy ships were dead in the water. some anchored some just adrift. see what we could do to help get them on their way. >> we had worked a plan to sail ships to the philippines and kirk was going to escort them. and they were going to be crammed with an unknown number of civilians and it was somewhat problematic. the government had a refugee problem and this was 30-40,000 more people to deal with. we were up all night talking about and and i was convinced if we took them back they would kill them all. we decided to bring them.

we didn't get permission from washington to do that. >> i thought it was easier to beg forgiveness than get permission. the decision was made and they all went with us. >> guest: that is sarah stanley's footage and it captured the moment. these are people who just lost their country. and all of them don't have a bag with them. they have the shirt on their back. many of them separated from families. and it is an amazing moment to imagine moving america.

it has been a successful story of culture and population and they have contributed so much. i will say it is one of the great things about having done this film is showing it to the vietnamese community because they have not had the opportunity to process this event and be recognized for what they did in this country to get here. >> c-span: has anybody thanked richard over the years? >> guest: i don't think they have. and i think he is deserving of

some medal. i got an e-mail from his son many months ago saying thank you for sharing this. i never knew this about my father. i don't think he is one to ghost. but i think if i was responsible for saving 30,000 people i might mention it to a few people. >> c-span: before we run out of time i want to talk about films you have done. this one is called "ethal". >> why should i have to answer the questions? >> we are making a film about you. >> six months after my father's death i never had a chance to

know him. i was raised by my mother. was it love at first sight? >> it was. >> my parents were not bed rock from my heart but the children were always included in things we did. >> any occasion there was a party there would be one. >> she had ever single member of president kennedy's cabinet knocked into the swimming pool. >> that was important, tried hard, not part of the culture. >> especially after daddy died we learned sports from mummy. while the rest of the world was grieving and the family was grieving she saw the best in it. >> friends and family who have died get it. >> what are you attributing

success to? >> just the effort we made in the campaign and ethle. >> c-span: sister carrie courtney and others involved, how did you get to know your dad? he was gone when you arrived six months later but how have you gotten to know him over the years? >> guest: i think through my mother and siblings primarily and the people who knew him. i think i learned about him in school and history books and then, you know, over the years, one of the things that has been so just wonderful for me is taking these films out and going to different places. travelling to africa and south america and inevitablely

wherever i go people come up to me and tell stories and they are always first-hand stories of meeting him and having an extroidinary moment and it is really wonderful and then of course making this film about my mother i had the opportunity to interview siblings and my mother and you know i think, we go through life and there is not always the time to sit back like you do and ask all of the questions that we want to ask of our families. and you know it provided that moment so that also gave me you know, deeper insight and then going through some incredible footage. i was familiar with the outtakes that were in films over the years but going in and seeing the source material that is its

own particular experience. and i have to say that one of the things that i found in going through that source material was that there was a genuiness to him. >> c-span: did you listen to the conversations in the oval office with johnson? he talked about the vietnam. >> guest: i did. i listened to a range of them and i thought they were really fascinating and insightful. i remember one engagement where he was negotiating with his hair dresser to get a better fee from the hair dresser; johnson that is. he provided insight into his personal sensibility as well as you know insight into vietnam

and other. >> c-span: your mom talks about her parents being republicans and conservatives and on the other side liberals and democrats. from what you know what was the difference in the families? you say in your film your mother's parents were well off. but made them republicans and the kennedy's democrats? >> guest: i don't know that i can capture that right now right here. but i think it comes from mostly a long lineage of where they came from. from my father's side of the family going far back there was an interest in public service and elected office and politics. i think for my mother's side of the family they were honestly kind of generally speaking less interested in politics and high grandfather didn't go to college and he was very successful

businessman and i think his interest stems from kind of the business opportunities that he was pursuing largely. so i think it is just a difference of backgrounds and perspectives largely. >> any of your siblings not want to talk in the film about your mom? >> guest: almost all of my siblings spoke. one of my brothers decided not to. >> c-span: is there a reason he didn't want to go on camera? >> guest: are didn't ask him. -- i -- i just told them what i was doing and left it up to them. i thought it was so nice so many of them -- i think for everybody it is not particularly comfortable to talk about ourselves and our family and so i think that, you know, everybody has so much respect

and admiration for my mother and wanted to honor her. >> c-span: here is another interview. >> at which point do you say it is enough? >> there would have been no investigation. we can do this and this and do whatever you want to them. we need the information. >> you will go crazy if you don't adapt to what you are seeing. >> it was never clear what was and wasn't allowed in iraq. >> unlawful combatantst don't have rights under the geneva convention. >> there is no suchthi thing as a little -- such thing as a little bit of torture.

i was interested in understanding why people would chose to take those photographs and engage in the horrific acts we saw in the images and ask others to do so. the film really focuses on the people who took the photograph and what they did. and they were given strong orders from high above to engage in acts that were very similar

to what we wincetnessed to break the prisoners down. when they came in they were forced to be naked. that happened to all of the prisoners. to prepare them for interrogation they asked the young guards who were often 19-20 years old in order to us, the interrogators, to get the information, they need to be vulnerable by the time they come to us. so do whatever it takes playing high music intimidate them, humilate them whatever it takes. did they say put them into pyramid and take the pictures? no. but they did set the conditions for this to take place.

>> c-span: one last clip back it the film on the "last days in vietnam" and this is the minute of too many people finally get out of there. let watch this and we will wrap it up. >> you ask questions like was the crowd getting smaller? when are we finished? and they will say we are doing the best we can. pilots were saying look this is an uncontrollable sea of people. ambassador martin lost the objectivety and is trying to evacuate all of saigon through the embassy. but he was doing his best under terrible circumstances.

>> he wanted to get as many vietnamese out as possible. each helicopter took 40 feet. he knew once the americans were gone the evacuation would be over. so he put one or two americans on each one. >> c-span: what do you want people to take away from this? >> guest: i would think this is such an important moment in our nation's history and we should know what happened during the final days of the vietnam war. i would like them to have that knowledge and you know it is also a moment where they either

were extraordinary people who did exceptional things. it is really within the context of the general and overall abandonment of the vietnamese. there were a handful of americans who would make you really proud. people are vulnerable because of their association with americans whether they are translators or drivers or whoever. we have a responsibility to them. it goes back to what powell said; you break it you fix it and you own it. i think it is important to

recognize the work that people have done on our behalf over the last ten years in iraq and afghanistan and our responsibilities to them. and as we are debating getting into deeper engagements with isis maybe getting back into iraq, going into the syria, that we have a proper understanding of what our exit strategy is. >> only a minute left. the name rory kennedy does what positive things for you and what negative things when you do a film? >> guest: i would say largely it is a positive. i think there are certainly doors that have beenope opened because of my last name and people's connection to my family. i think on certain issues for certain people there is more resistance or a sense that i come in with a particular sense

of politics or you know i might bring to a film. and that was to some degree the case with this. people were sensitive to who i was but everybody we approached came around i think and agreed to speak with us. and some may have done it because of my last name and others were maybe more resist resistant. >> c-span: are you working on anything now? >> guest: i have a few my head but i am dedicated to getting this out there. >> c-span: "last days in vietnam" and our guest has been rory kennedy. thank you very much. >> guest: thank you. it has been a pleasure.

>> c-span created by america's cable company 35 years ago and brought to you by your local cable or satellite service provider. >> and the book is called "to the cloud: big data in a turbulent world" and the author is professor vincent mosco who is joining us from boston. professor, where did the term cloud come from? and what exactly is the cloud? >> guest: well there is debate about the origins of the term

but it mainly derives from the network diagrams that telecommunication engineers drew and they tended to identify the nodes in the network, generally locations/cities/towns in the form of a cloud. the diagram would connect the clouds with telephone lines. that is where cloud comes from. but there is debate. more importantly you ask what is the cloud and again there are many different definitions but when you boil it down the cloud is a system for storing, processing and distributing data information, e-mails, apps and software. companies that operate cloud

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