about this time in history, particularly who had done imprison or torture or they kind of struggled in the aftermath of the war. there was fear of government retaliation and repercussions. so that -- because their story is 100% in 1975, you know, really in those final days, there's 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 amount of people who helped provide that perspective. >> how do you and your husband divide up the responsibilities on something like this? >> 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 i should do them together often and he from the beginning when i'm doing interviews and selecting characters and kind of the general direction of the story, he is a part of the discussions. sometimes they're formal. sometimes it's over dinner, with 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 was in the edit room because it was such a complicated story. there were so many perspectives. there was trying to orient the audience some of whom are familiar with vietnam, some of who aren't. we didn't use a narrator. we didn't use any historians or experts liking -- looking back. it was all in realtime. so that made it challenging. so he played a huge role along

with my other writer don and kevin macalister. >> what was the biggest initiative in getting your parameters to this story? and how many days are involved in the documentary? >> 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 what we thought was the embassy. it was in fact, not the embassy. >> what is that building? >> it was the c.i.a. outpost basically. initially the plan was there were 13 buildings that helicopters -- they had option four, four options which was a helicopter airlift. there were 13 buildings that they were going to have helicopters leave from, but once they called for the evacuation by playing the song "white christmas" throughout the

streets of saigon if you recall from the film, then the streets got so crowded and overrun with people, you know, largely south vietnamese that nobody could get to those buildings. so they ended up centering the entire evacuation out of the -- out of the embassy. >> what was it that you saw around that cast a light early for you? >> i would say there were two things. one -- was i was familiar with that iconic image and i wanted to understand that more and what had happened, right? and i thought i knew a lot. 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 seemed. so part of my entrance was to share those events with people because i fought that a lot of other people didn't know what happened and then we were -- 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 6,000 americans at that point. we had the peace corps in 1973. and there were no troops in the country. and so it's people who are military personnel who are protecting the embassy, you know, advisors an whatnot. so the idea was to just get them out of the country. and these americans who were on the ground basically said not so fast, we have our south vietnamese allies, people we worked with, many of them had wives and children. many of them were south

vietnamese and we were about to leave them behind. we started uncovering them and getting deeper into those stories, then i was really excited because i felt like these stories nobody knew. for so many americans vietnam is such a dark moment in our history and the acts of these men who were there were so heroic and courageous and, you know, when i watched the film even though i've seen it too many times it really makes me proud of them, you know, in this wave of history moving against them and this tied that they did the right thing. >> where did you go to high school? >> i went to madeira. >> right out here in the suburbs of washington. and you went to brown university. >> did anyone at madeira or brown university teach you about vietnam? >> at brown, yes.

this story was not part of that curriculum. so i did not know this story. >> so many people today said that no one ever teaches a man about the vietnam war. why isn't there a lot of talk in your opinion? what are the lessons of vietnam? before we get into that we're going to show some excerpts of the film >> right. i would say there are many lessons about vietnam in terms of what i feel like i've learned in making this film is -- 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 in 1975 or 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. i think that would have been helpful and make some difference. i don't think it would have changed things so dramatically. so what it says to me the real choice is when you enter a war, and when you enter a war especially when it goes into a lesson you don't anticipation which is losing there are virtually no options. you know that decision of entering a war and understanding i think from the beginning what the exit strategy is, what the goals are, what the time line is. and having an appreciation for what the impact is going to be because now they're saying, i think they're making this film has taught me is reminder of the human cost of war, which is significant in which you see in

watching this film. and i think sometimes gets lost in the debate of what we're doing and the strategies and the plans. you know, what is -- what's the cost on the ground to the people who are most directly impacted and affected. >> let's watch about two minutes of this and it shows the north vietnamese coming south back then and get you to explain some more. [video clip] this is the way my map looked in mid april. the north vietnamese just rolled 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 additional aid. he came back to saigon and the chief said go on and tell the old man what's happening. >> i went in and said, mr. ambassador south of the vietnamese army has disintegrated. please, sir, plan for an evacuation, at least allows putting together a list 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 under ground 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 in the south vietnamese military. as the north vietnamese came closer and closer to saigon, these people were dead men walking. >> we're back to the ambassador graham martin. what part did he play in this? >> so graham martin was the ambassador and he was really the gatekeeper in some sense. he has the authority to green light the evacuation plan. the evacuation plan is created by the military. but the ability to approve it and to put it in motion is really left in the hands of the ambassador.

graham martin had lost a son in the vietnam war. he was very dedicated to preserving south vietnam. he didn't want to see us walk away from south vietnam. and i think largely for those reasons he was resistant to putting in an evacuation plan into place and green lighting it early on when most people both on the ground and to some degree in washington realized that south vietnam was going to fall and that it was inevitable. >> frank snap, former c.i.a. agent and was sued by our own government. why did you pick him as a spokesperson? >> well, we were really committed to finding people who were on the ground, who were in

saigon at the end of april when things were flying and he was -- he was there. he was sued by our government because he wrote a book about the events that took place. i don't believe that he would sue because he misrepresented -- he was sued because he -- in the capacity that he did. but the reality was that he had very good firsthand knowledge and i think helps us explain the story for folks and to understand exactly what happened. >> where is he today? >> he's in los angeles. >> doing what? i know that he's writing some scripts and pitching some ideas to make into films. but i don't know if he has a job beyond that. >> scott harrington you see a lot of him during the film? >> so stew harrington was the captain in the u.s. army and he -- he plays a significant role because he was at the forefront of these events as we document

them. and he also helped on a number of levels getting vietnamese out of the country. he was one of the people -- this clip shows started a block operation, black ops in mid april when it was very clear to him that the country was going to fall and that he wasn't getting approval from the ambassador. and so he started getting high risk vietnamese out of the country with a group of other people. he was basically have a meeting spot, put them in advance, take them to the airport and send them off on cargo aircraft. so he helped initiate that effort. he also continues on where our story ends up landing which is in the embassy on april 29th 1975 when the evacuation is really underway.

he helped start that evacuation and he is there to the bitter end. he was in a -- 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 in the film when you see that he was asked to be -- the first person to leave the embassy on a helicopter. he was told he needed to go. and he refused to get on the helicopter. he wanted to get as many vietnamese out as possible. and so he among others were trying to fill the helicopters with south vietnamese knowing that once the americans got out that the u.s. government would stop the evacuation. so he played a big role in that. in any case, coming back to stew harrington, he then stayed there throughout the night helping

vietnamese get on these helicopters and about 3:45 in the morning, martin got a presidential order saying that he had to get on the next helicopter out which was the second to last helicopter. so the ambassador left at 3:45 and then probably the third to last helicopter and they were told that there were going to be no more helicopters for vietnamese. so stew harrington had to tell the 420 vietnamese who were left behind who were still in the embassy and he had to tell them that they were in american soil. he wasn't going to leave until they all left. and he left them in the courtyard. he said he was going out to the backyard and he walked to the back side of the building and walks up the staircase to a helicopter that was waiting on the roof. and so the son was coming up. he looked down at these 420 people who were left behind and, you know, he saw how wrong this

was and how it kind of encapsulated the vietnam war in that moment. >> do you have any idea -- we have about a million and a half vietnamese -- a lot of children have been born since that day. we have very few iraqis. very few were allow into the country. why did we bring so many from vietnam and so few from iraq or even afghanistan? >> well, the events of this film and in those -- that last moment there were about 130,000 vietnamese who -- who were able to get out of the country. and then over the next couple of decades they were -- 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.

i think -- you know, it's a curious thing. i think with vietnam and the vietnamese people we did have a profound connection to them and, you know, i don't think you see the marriage rates that, you know, in iraq and afghanistan between soldiers and iraqis and afghanis. 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 and they -- in a pretty united fashion. so i think that it was -- there were different wars and cultures and different people. and so i think it speaks to kind of those larger cultural issues and the natures of those wars. >> here's some more video for somebody my age, i remember this like it was yesterday.

the helicopters being pushed off to ship. the name of the ship? >> the u.s.s. kirk. >> and the helicopters belong to? >> the helicopters belong to the south vietnamese air force which had then fallen apart. and so if -- can you give me a moment to set this up? >> sure. >> so what was happening is there was a fleet in the south china sea, the u.s. fleet and there were helicopters going from that fleet. u.s. helicopters were going to the embassy picking up people an bringing them back to the fleet and then what happened is the south vietnamese air force had disintegrated but pilots were there still and they still had their helicopters. so then started getting in their helicopters, filling them to capacity and beyond and chasing the u.s. helicopters out to see not knowing where they were going, having no communication

with the united states but feeling that the risk of going out to sea and not knowing where you're going to land which was less than the risk of staying behind and what could happen to them. so the u.s.s. kirk was monitoring the helicopter between the sea and the land. they took the risk to take the first one down. >> less than a minute. [video clip] >> so we had to disarm them. >> never landed on a ship before. >> about five minutes later another one came in and landed. he and -- and we pushed his

airplane to the side. i helped push that one too. and the third one, a plane came in. it landed over. we pushed it over the side. we were throwing three helicopters in the water. this is incredible. i know you probably don't believe this but it's all true. >> how many helicopters were pushed over the side? >> on the u.s.s. kirk, i think there was 17. i think there was about 157 people that they saved, bringing the helicopters down. the issue with the u.s.s. kirk was it was not one of the ships from the fleet and so it meant to land helicopters. so it only had space for one helicopter. the question is what do we do?

we can't land a helicopter if we can't keep them onboard. so the captain said throw them overboard. i said did you get approval from washington? no, absolutely not. we just made the decision on the fly. you know, 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 they didn't have pilots onboard, the gas, or the wherewithal to do that. and the helicopters that they had were chinook helicopters which could fit 50 people in them. and the smaller helicopters could only fit four to maybe six. >> you told us -- i think actually six when the end came. returned seven later on that year? >> yeah, i guess technically. >> but how -- you and your husband did this. he wrote it.

you produced it, directed it. how did you protect yourself? there are a lot of people from vietnam, americans that know this. how did you do that? because you're going to face a lot of people asking about the vietnam war? >> we did a lot of research and it was -- it was interesting the -- the research process because there were so many conflicting reports. and i think part of why things got to the point where helicopters were landing on the embassies or on the embassy roof was in part because the communication breakdown. and -- and, you know, that was real, what was happening, what washington knew, the information they were basing the 420 people left behind. kissinger claims that he only learned that in 1992 or something and that that was in hearing stewart harrington's

story for the first time. he never knew that. he thought when they were -- this is what he claims that when they were -- 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 miscommunication that it took a lot of double sourcing things, you know, getting resources on the same event and trying to get to the truth oil. but i'm happy to say that we have, you know, screened it in multiple cities now. it's on the brink of its theatrical release. it hasn't come out in new york. so far there have not been any major claims of misinformation. there was one little thing that i i we got wrong. but i think "white christmas," we have it as a big production version. other than that there's been no

significant difference. >> who's version was it? >> it was -- i can't remember but it was supposed to be bing crosby's version. but then things got very hectic and the people at air force radio couldn't find his version. it was debated but seems to be corrected. >> how many documentaries have you made? >> 40, that i've either produced or directed. >> where do you live? >> i live in los angeles. >> why there? >> my husband, mark, is a screen writer. so we moved from brooklyn to l.a. about five years ago. >> how old are the kids? >> georgia is about to turn 12. bridget is 10. and zachary is 7. >> how long did you work on this documentary? >> 14 months. >> total?

>> from when we started development to when we locked picture. >> how long is it? >> it's 97 minutes. >> and what kind of a exhibit is it going to have? theater, television? >> it's in theaters. so it had its theatrical premiere in new york in september 5th and it's opening september 12th, this friday. it will go to about 15 cities total theatrically. and we're also doing 50 screening. we are also doing pbs and on the 15th anniversary of the fall of saigon. >> here's some more of your documentary. >> thank you. [video clip] >> i went to my wife to the embassy. a lot of people, they couldn't get in.

>> the side gate was the principle place where they came. people holding mutters saying i work for the americans, please let me in. they were count on being recognized by the marines. >> there was a sea of people wanting to get out by helicopters. but well, they looked up at the helicopters.

and i could see their eyes. >> who's the vietnamese gentleman? >> that's dan pham. and he -- he -- he was really an extraordinary man who as so many vietnamese at the time tried desperately to get out of -- out of the country. he had worked with the u.s. government and so he was particularly vulnerable. he had been promised a way out through the company he had been working with but then they left. and so the plan for evacuating people fell apart because it was supposed to happen after the country fell. so he was left -- he -- he had an opportunity to get out of the country at one point.

but it would have meant leaving his familiar lip and others behind. so he -- he ultimately chose to stay but he then spent 13 years in hard labor in a re-education camp. >> did you talk to him about it? >> yeah, of course. >> what did he tell you? >> you know, it was rough. he barely survived. it was -- there was very little food to eat. some, you know, often one meal a day. and they -- they worked them around the clock. many people died over the course of those years that he was there. he -- i talked to him a week after the interview and he told me that he was still shaken by it to putting these memories up for him was very difficult. and he was one of the few people, the film premiered at the sundance film festival.

i invited him to him us there. he wouldn't come because it was too hard for him to watch the movie. he hasn't seen it and i don't know that he will. >> i read that 30% of the vietnamese live in california, southern california. do you notice the vietnamese? >> a lot of them live in orange county. and i don't spend a lot of time in orange county but i have been to little saigon, they call it. and it's amazing. there are pockets of vietnamese but it's largely orange county. >> how many vietnamese that you talked to explain? where there others besides this film? >> there were other gentlemen, five. i don't know the exact number. we interviewed a few more who didn't end up making it in the final version. but it was very important to me to, you know, this is very much

a film from american perspective largely. but, you know, the heart of the you know, the heart of the film what it meant ng to be the vietnamese behind. >> you talk to henry kissinger. published under the give you? >> he gave me about an hour and a half. >> what did you learn from him that you did not expect? >> well -- you know, i think me t what was surprising to about the interview is tthat i he was emotionally present and invested in recalling these events.

by his ability -- i think he was 89 at the time i interviewed him -- to recall every event that i asked him about. down too often the minute of the it took place, information he had, and the statements he made based on the had at that time. that was both helpful film on we rely in the our interviewees to explain this to us because we do not have narrator. he was able to, i think, document what happened from washington's perspective during this tumultuous.. interviewing f the do you do? did probably 95% of it. experience from interviewing people? to the give you the truth?

if you don't get it, what do you do? >> i think that people have their own perspective and i i don't try -- , i don't believe in a single that was i think that very evident in making this film that there were people with a lot of different perspectives. there are some people, for example, there is one person who said that there is no one at the embassy. of course, everybody else talked about the numbers of people at the embassy and how chaotic it was. was an odd thing that, you know, you can have people at the same ent was 40 but of course it years ago and their recollections are different. i think, you know, part of it is the choices you make as a

filmmaker and to you trust. so, for example, harrington role in significant is, i ilm because he think -- comes across as a trustworthy narrator. is believable and he feels he is emotionally present and he is also present throughout all of the events in this time period that we are focused on. >> here's the story of -- i a chinook. will listen to a little bit of this and get your comment on it. >> my mom grabbed my little sister shoes laces at the time. my little brother, who was about three or four years old, ran into the chinook

all flew off -- out to the pacific ocean. dad was afraid for not having enough fuel. afraid for a lot of things. he was just flying blind. and then he saw the ship out there. >> that was way too big to land. we thought that the helicopter were just by way, but as the ship was moving forward -- or 6 kn four or five -- the pilot indicated that he was running low on fuel. >> the open the port side of the helicopter. here all of a sudden, comes a human! >> one by one, we jumped out. i jumped up, my brother jumped out. my mother was holding my sister, obviously very scared, she just, you know, holding

left to brace yourself and just dropped my baby sister. >> that footage comes from what source? >> well, i was very fortunate with this footage because when i was developing this film, i guy named tact with a with the n who worked u.s. navy and he was saying that i wanted to tell the story kirk in this film know, i aid that, you had a friend who is on the kirk. he found a box of undeveloped footage. all of the kirk,

including this extraordinary story where a pilot taps his family, including his baby, onto the boat. his helicopters too big to land. so he jumps out of the helicopter and the goes crashing down and he goes crashing down and everybody thinks he has died. it was very emotional. this is a footage. over on the rights they are -- is the son -- over there you can see the helicopter pilot. did he give hours you? think it was -- i -- 10 canisters of eight minute footage -- >> you used how much in the -- >> we use 12 minutes, as i recall. >> what was your reaction? know, i said give me his

number and i called him the next morning. was in california and he was outside washington dc. protective of the footageso he wouldn't fedex it out to me. so i flew him out to california and we developed the footage other. it was really, you know, a treasure trove. at the end of that sequence, that footage is shot, he then -- there's footage on the ship where the father reunites with the children in the family. at the end of the film, there story about richard armitage, who helped save 30,000 vietnamese. that whole story is documented through that footage. >> we are going to run that, but before we do, i heard you talk about richard somewhere else. the story there -- he ended up in a prison in the philippines?

>> yes he did. >>how ? >> he didn't have authorization people to the 0 philippines. he just decided to take 30,000 people, and he said i would rather beg for forgiveness. he thought at that point they might say no because there was a sense that there were a lot of the ies coming out country -- vietnamese coming out of the country. he made the executive decision on the fly and went to the philippines. then he got arrested there -- i two or ou spent maybe three nights in some makeshift with a friend of his. i think it was an american jail. >> connected to the military? that is my recollection. >> and he went on to do what?

>> then he worked under powell and so he -- he played a significant role during abortion ministration. >> let's watch that clip. >> there are no words to a ship looks like has 2000 s 200 and it on it. i don't think anybody understood the magnitude until in front of us. it looked like something out of exodus. the mission was to help ship in international waters, but now they had all these people. my reaction is how the hell are going to do this? most of the navy ships were dead in the water. some were anchored, some were

just a draft. so we sent over our engineering people to see what we could do and get them underway. worked to plan out to send the ships in the philippines. kirk was going to escort them. but the fact that they were going to be crammed with an civilians was of somewhat problematic. the us government already had a refugee problem. this was another 30 or more thousand people. night talking all about it and if we didn't take them back, they would have killed them all. richard decided to bring thrm. he didn't get permission from washington to do that. was a lot easier to take them than to get permission.

the decision was made, and they all went with us. ♪ >> that is the footage, so it really captures this moment. so those people -- it is extraordinary to me. these are people who have just and all of untry them -- they don't have a bag with him. they have issued on their back. many of them are separated from such families and it is an extraordinary moment to -- imagine moving america and being on a ship heading out to see. know, without any family or any connection to where you are going.

that is the story of each and every one of those. they went to the philippines, some of them went to the philippines then to guam, most to the eventually came united states and resettling here. such a successful story of -- of culture and population coming into this country and they contributed so much. that it is -- one of the great things about having to e this film is showing it the vietnamese community because i think for them they haven't had the opportunity to process this event and be recognized in this country for what they went through to get here. this would happen directly, has anybody think richard directly? >> i do not think they have to and i really think he is deserving of some medal. i got an email from his son

many months agosaying thank you for sharing the story, i never knew this about my father. he is one to kind of post about himself, which are really up -- boast about himself, which i really appreciate about him. before we run out of time, i talk about another documentary you have done. an hbo documentary called , "apple". answer should i have to all these questions? >> well, we are making a documentary about you. ♪ because it was four and six months after my death, i never had a chance to know him. i was raised by my mother, apple kennedy. love at first sight?

>> it was. were not bedrock democrats, but i put the republican notion behind me. i think it probably made them more interesting. >> any occasion that there was to have a party, there was a party. >> she had every single member of president kennedy's cabin knocked into the swimming pool. >> that was important -- trying hard. losing isn't any fun. >> especially after daddy died, learn sports for mommy. >> while the rest of the world the family was d the ving -- grieving and family was grieving, he was the face of. attribute to u your success --

>> your sister carrie and your brother joe -- and there are others in that documentary -- before we talk about your mother, how did you to know your dad? he was gone when you arrived six months later. think that, you know, through my mother and my siblings primarily and the people who knew him. i think i also learned about him to school and history books. over the years, one of the things that has been so is taking for me going to ms out, different places and, you know, traveling to africa and south america. inevitably, wherever i go, people come up to me and tell me stories. they are always firsthand stories of meeting him and some kind of

extraordinary moment and it is it is really wonderful. film urse, making this about my mother, i had the opportunity to interview my mother and, you know, we go through life and time to sit always back and ask all the questions that we want to ask about her family. the provided that moment. so that also gave me, you know, deeper insight. they going to some incredible i was al footage, i think very familiar with the outtakes films over n various the years, but to really go in material that rce there is, that is a film particular experience. i have to say that one of the

to ngs that i found in going that source material was that there was a genuineness to him. every step of the way. >> did you ever listen to it any of the old oval office conversations? >> i did listen to some of that. your reaction to that? he talked about the vietnam war. about the talk vietnam war. i listen to a range of them and i thought they were really fascinating and insightful. i remember one engagement where he was negotiating with this get a esser to try and hairdresser or the -- johnson -- so, you know, he insight to rovided his personal sensibility as some insight into vietnam and other -- your mom talks about being

republicans and conservatives, then on the other side democrats and all that. from what you know, what was the difference in the families? you say in your documentary that your mother's parents were well off. what made them republicans and what made the kennedys democrats? i can on't know that capture that right now, right here. think it comes from mostly a long lineage of where they all came from. i think that for my father's side of the family there is, going pretty far back, they had been an interest in public service and elected office. i think that for my mother's family that they kind of estly, generally speaking, less interested in politics. my grandfather did not go to college and he was a very successful businessman. that his interest from

the business opportunities that he was pursuing, largely -- so i think it was just a different background and perspective is. >> any of your siblings that want to talk in that document you about your mom? >> almost all of my siblings spoke. one of my brothers decided not to. >> is there a reason why he did not want to go on camera? >> i do not ask him. what i was them all it up to just left them because i did not want to pressure anybody to do it if they did not want to. i thought it was nice that so many of them -- i think that is not rybody it particularly comfortable to talk about ourselves and to talk about our family. think that, you know, everybody has so much respect admiration for my mother her and ed to recognize

all her contributions. >> here's another clip, i want to ask you why you did this. >> okay. >> at which point to say it is enough? >> there would've been no investigation. do whatever you want to do to them to get that information. >> they were crazy if you don't to what you seeing. >> it was never clear to me what was allowed and what was not allowed in iraq. >> there is no such thing as a little bit of torture. ghost of abugrave. >> it was seven years ago.

did you do that? >> those images had come out i was interested in why people would those to both take photographs and engage in the horrific acts that we saw in those images. what i discovered -- so the film really focuses on the people who took the photographs and what they did. i -- became very evident talking to others people that they were given pretty high g orders from pretty above to engage in pretty -- that were very similar to what we witnessed. down and the prisoners came when the prisoners

into abu grave, they were forced to be naked. that was one of the things that happen to all of the prisoners. prepare them for interrogations, the asp is guards -- who were often 20 years old -- that to get the information we need, they need to be vulnerable when they come to us. they would do whatever they need to make them vulnerable. did they say take, yyou know, put them in a pyramid and take these images? no. but they did accept these conditions for these efforts to pick place. one of, i think, the tragedies about here is that the people prison ed up going to and serving time were other on the front re lines, but the people who had

the orders and came from the of the bush administration never served anytime or faced any repercussions. >> one last clip. back to the documentary on the last days of vietnam. this is a minute -- too many people trying to get out of there. you ask questions like, as the crowd getting any smaller. and they would say, you know, we are under orders. pilots were saying, uncontrollable sea of people and ambassador martin has lost his objectivity. he is trying to evacuate all of saigon. was doing his best under terrible circumstances. >> ambassador martin was dragging out the evacuation as long as he could to get as many south vietnamese out as

possible. each helicopter took about 40 people. the americans nce were gone, the evacuation would be over. so they just put one or two americans on each one. >> so what do you want people to take away from it? well, i think that this is such an important moment in our nation's history. so i think we should know what happened during his final days of the vietnam war. i would like them to have that and i think -- you also a moment where they were -- there were who did inary people

extraordinary things and it is within the context of our abandonment of the vietnamese, there were a few make you who would really proud. it is worth celebrating them and witnessing their stories to on a deeper n level, understand what happened in vietnam. lastly, as we are getting out of these wars in iraq and are anistan and there people who were made now to be more vulnerable because of with the ociation americans -- whether they were translators or agents who worked in the country, drivers, whoever it was -- that we have a responsibility to them. and break it, you fix it you own it. so i think that it is important to recognize the -- done ork that people have on our behalf over the last 10

years in iraq and afghanistan our responsibility to them. and as we are debating getting deeper engagements with isis -- may be getting back going into syria -- that we have a tougher our exit ding of what strategy is. name rory kennedy does what positive things for you documentary and what negative stuff? >> i would say that, largely, it is a positive. there are certainly doors that been open to me because of my last name and peoples connection to my family. i think that -- there are issues for certain people, there is more resistance or a sense that i in with a particular set of politics or that i might bring to the film. that was to some degree the

case with this. there were people who are but i ive to what i was, think that everybody we approached ultimately came around. some may have done it because of my last name, others were maybe a little more resistant. working on another documentary? few that i are developing in my head. days in vietnam is the name of the documentary. thank you very much. >> thank you. my pleasure. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments, visit us at "q&a".org.

they are also available as c-span podcasts. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> coming up next, your calls on "washington journal". then at 10:30 am eastern we talk about food safety. the on, we host a form on e bola virus. >> if you remember -- this is

going wonderfully. it is 65 mhz. are so excited about aw3 and we're going to turn around and have a broadcast. have agreed to sec put out ich the -- those after the discussion from a policy discussion to a business discussion. so we are excited about both options. certainly that are carriers to come to them and it is going to be a win-win situation for everyone. >> tonight at 8:00 pm eastern on c-span two.

>> later, defense reporter molly o'toole looks at the on the of elections defense implications. "washington journal" is next. >> it is monday, october 27, 2014. days until election day and our campaign 2014 coverage will continue today with a lot more debate coverage including senate debate later today and a georgia senate debate that just happened last night. here at "washington journal", the first 45 the tes looking at mandatory ebola quarantine that has been implemented in states like new jersey and new york for returning healthcare workers. this from the