Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking, they change laws, change society, or even

earn the label, Crime of the Century. But the stories that made headlines and decades past

aren't necessarily remembered today.

I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist and author, and in each episode of this show,

I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today, but was huge when it happened.

This is Crimes of the Centuries.

Thank you. This is Crimes of the Centuries. A quick note before we begin, it's been explained to me that Vietnamese names are written last name, middle name, first name,

and further, that the proper way to address them in a journalistic context is by their first name.

Thus, Fam Sounan will be referred to as on on second and subsequent reference.

Also, I did try in pronunciation, but I still have to ask for grace.

On the last two days in April 1975, when Americans were hastily making their way to the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon to be

hauled by gunships to wading carriers in the South China Sea, a dozen or more friends

implored Famsunan to get in.

Anne worked for Time magazine as a war correspondent. He'd done fabulous work, first as a stringer, then as a full-fledged

reporter for the venerable weekly publication that had been ahead on many of the stories

of the previous decade coming out of the region. He had, in fact, established himself as the

unofficial dean of the press corps there, as many who reported from

Vietnam depended on on to tell them how the Vietnamese thought, how they lived, how they wage war,

and how they viewed the American intrusion into their homeland. How this was not the Vietnam

war to them, but then and now, to be referred to as the American War,

the one where the Americans tried to tell them how to run their own country.

Badan was not just an interpreter of words and customs.

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