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Vietnam /Schindler's list hero? Not such a 'feel good' story

posted 11 years ago by liching1
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Just finished watching a story segment with Lesley Stahl about a Citibank employee who manged to get 105 bank employees out of Vietnam during the final days of the war back in April of 1975. Basically the "Schlinder" type hero lied and falsified documents by showing these 105 employees were his family members (dependents). Still Lesley plays it up that this a "feel good" type of story as the camera records the Citibank guy (now a gray haired grandfather type) greeting the grateful people he saved along with their children and now grandchildren ---all beneficiaries of the American dream.

What bothers me about this is that the vast majority of Vietnamese who needed to get out of Saigon (as employees or dependents of American government and military personnel) in the final days did not make it out. There were just not enough seats on departing planes and helicopters. So for every person that the Citibank guy lied and got out there was another person who was just as deserving (and perhaps more deserving) who was left behind. Plenty of sons and daughters of american servicemen were left behind.

I am glad for these people that they got out and I wish no ill to them but this is hardly a clean slam duck ---there are moral questions.

[–] tmaj48 11 years ago

His "lies" managed to save over a hundred innocent people. There would have been no chance for any "more deserving people" because no one was providing safe
transport out; Citibank provided a plane for himself and his family members, and
he did what he could. Spending time looking for the sons and daughters of American servicemen was unfeasible and would have resulted in saving no one,
not even himself. It's difficult, and perhaps morally questionable, to second-guess someone who risks his own safety to save other people's lives.

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] liching1 11 years ago

Perhaps we need to check the facts on this.

My understanding from the segment on 60 Minutes is that Citibank had bugged out days before and told "the hero" not to go back in (at the pain of being fired) -- He decided to go back in after talking to his boss in Hong Kong.

I wasn't aware that the plane that finally took the Citibank employees out of Saigon was sent in by Citibank ---If that was the case then why did this Citibank manager have to make numerous visits to the U.S. Government Evac center and fill out paperwork on his fake "dependents"? The whole point was to get passes for seats on planes that were evacuating American citizens and their families. Why would the Citibank emplyess need these passes when all they had to do was to make it to the airport (like many of thousands of others did) ---and then jump on a Citibank plane sitting on the runway?

I do remember mention being made that Citibank manager went back to Saigon on the last commercial flight. So I think at that point the airport in Saigon was only being used for military and government traffic. How is it that Citibank could make a call and get clearance to land a plane? It may have happened that way but questions remain. If Citibank did manage to land a plane in those last desperate days who should have got on it? Citibank employees or the actual wives and children of American servicemen or the true and actual dependents of American citizens? I for one believe that the true dependents should have had priority and not Citibank employees who obtained passes by the use of deception. Plenty of women and children were left in front of the locked gates of the American embassy or standing on the runway at the airport.

The Citibank manager gets credit for risking his life for these people ---but the actions he took to lie and falsify documents as a way to get these people out still leaves me queasy.