Vietnam War: Stopping nuclear disaster

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1975, during the final days of the Vietnam War, most of the world was unaware that the North Vietnamese were advancing a new breed of nuclear reactor, gifted to the South by the United States government. Not only was it technology the North's Russian allies did not yet have, it was also a source of weapons-grade nuclear fuel. As a last resort, the US discussed bombing the facility, risking nuclear fallout, rather than risk the technology falling into Soviet hands. To avoid humanitarian and environmental disaster, a physicist from Idaho in the US, called Wally Hendrickson, volunteered to be dropped into the front line to remove the fuel rods from the reactor. He speaks to Ramita Navai. A Two Degrees West production for BBC World Service. (Photo: Dalat nuclear institute. Credit: Diane Selwyn)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service, with me, Ramit Navai.
0:13.4	This is the story of a remarkable mission that took place in March 1975 during the end
0:19.0	days of the Vietnam War, a war between the country's communist north and the US backed
0:24.4	south that lasted almost 20 years.
0:27.5	A huge column of refugees is now making for the city.
0:30.8	They are flight triggered off by the war.
0:32.2	They are already being moved out in an operation both the South Vietnamese and the Americans
0:35.6	have been trying to play down within the South Vietnam.
0:38.0	Oh, that's the view I'm talking of.
0:39.8	They've seen the communist making pretty subtle use of the choke they now have, around
0:44.6	what is left of South Vietnam.
0:46.0	One year is the warfare.
0:48.4	Those suffer once again.
0:50.6	Armies on both sides will take new cases.
0:54.3	And the war will go on.
0:58.2	Just weeks before the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, two Americans
1:03.9	see 130 Hercules planes flew to the central Highlands.
1:08.4	Territory was falling as the north's army marched south.
1:12.2	The troops were advancing fast, and the crew was in a race against time.
1:16.6	The South Vietnam of 1965 did not have surfaced, survived.
1:26.2	The enemy's kept offensive.
1:28.8	The elected government of South Vietnam survived that attack, and is rapidly disappearing the
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -554 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.