Operation Babylift: An Escape from

Vietnamese Orphanages to American

Opportunity

Interviewer: J. Schissler

Interviewee: Ross Meador

February 10, 2016

Table of Contents

Interviewer Release Form …...……………………………………………………..……………. 2

Interviewee Release Form ...……………………………………………………………...……… 3

Statement of Purpose ...... ……………………………………………………....……………….. 4

Biography ...………………………………………………………………………………....…… 5

Historical Contextualization - “Operation Babylift: A Complete History” ...... 7

Interview Transcription …...……………………………………………………………………. 22

Interview Analysis ...…………………...………………………………………………………. 65

Appendix ……………………...………………………………………………………………... 70

Works Consulted ……………………………………………………………………………..… 77

Statement of Purpose

The Vietnam War destroyed the lives of soldiers and the country of Vietnam alike, but history forgets about the helpless victims with no voice, the children. The war sparked a cycle of illegitimate children and orphans, who found themselves in incompetent orphanages or wandering the street. In order to understand the plight of these children, one should examine the account of a man who was instrumental role in lifting these children out of poverty. The purpose of this interview is to document the life saving work by orphanage volunteers like Ross Meador, specifically their work with the events known as Operation Babylift. Furthermore, this interview serves to expose the civilian repercussions of war, often overlooked in the narrative of Vietnam

War history. Mr. Meador’s story should remind the public about the innocent civilians of war torn countries, and inspire compassion for them. His story not only serves to inspire compassion, but also to inspire the youth to follow in his footsteps and volunteer abroad.

Biography

Ross Meador was born in Mexico on August 25, 1954 to American parents, who then moved to Texas, and then Arizona, before finally settling in California. He describes his childhood as “generally happy”, but “not at all exposed to foreign culture” because he ate at his first Chinese restaurant in high school. Mr. Meador spent the summer between eleventh and twelfth grade in India, which inspired him to see more of Asia before he went to college. He got involved in an organization called Friends of Children of Vietnam. At nineteen years old, he was sent to war torn Vietnam to set up an orphanage there. Once established, he placed kids all around the world with adoptive families. The impending take over by the Northern Communists brought crisis to the orphanage, which could not leave their children, but faced danger if they remained. The resulting events were labeled as Operation Babylift, which were the independent and the government sponsored flights that evacuated orphans to the United States and other participating countries. After the babies and children were safely out of the country, Mr. Meador remained in Saigon to oversee the distribution of the orphanage’s resources to the local people.

He stayed in Saigon until the last possible moment, until he was finally evacuated off the top of the US embassy on one of the last helicopters out of Saigon. Upon his return to the United States he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and visual arts from the University of

California, San Diego. He continued his education at University of California, Berkeley, earning his Juris Doctor degree to become a lawyer. He practiced law all over Asia, including Vietnam,

Indonesia, and Korea. In Korea, he met his wife. They moved back to the United States, where he continued to practice law. They now have three children and reside in Fullerton, California.

Historical Contextualization

Operation Babylift: A Complete History

She collapses into a seat out of sheer exhaustion. She is finally safe, finally going to

America. Not long after take off, her feeling of security is ripped away from her, much like the back door of the C-5 military airplane she is flying in. Luckily, she is buckled in, but she sees children sucked out, falling 25,000 feet to their deaths. Soon she loses consciousness because of the air pressure, and she wakes up in a muddy field, back where she came from - broken, poor, without anyone to love. This traumatic scene describes the true account of the crash during the first flight of Operation Babylift. The people aboard the plane were orphans on their way from war torn Vietnam to their adoptive parents. Operation Babylift started with tragedy, but saved thousands of children’s lives. The children stuck in the middle of the ugly Vietnam War survived day to day. Many were homeless, many were starving, many were victims of violence and abuse, but all had been exposed to the atrocities of war. Some, like the girl above, were lucky to be cared for by orphanages. The work of these orphanages goes unrecognized by the public, overshadowed by the violence and gore. The humanitarian aspect of war is repeatedly overlooked. There are countless resources about the battles of the Vietnam War, but the lives of civilians and children are routinely forgotten. Operation Babylift is a rare exception to this pattern of history. In this operation, humanitarian aid triumphed. The account from the little girl was saved because just before Saigon fell to the Communists, thousands of orphans were airlifted to the United States and other nations; these efforts became known as Operation

Babylift. In order to understand the significance of Operation Babylift one must examine the factors that led to war and the conditions the children were surviving in, as well as gain a first hand perspective from someone who was there.

Without an understanding of Vietnam and the war itself, one will be unable to grasp the magnitude of the Babylift. The Viet ethnic group lived under the control of the Chinese empire

for a millennium until the end of the T’ang dynasty in the tenth century, which allowed Vietnam to be independent (Lawrence 8-9). The years leading up to the French colonization in the 1860s were relatively peaceful, with one civil war that ultimately united Vietnam under one government. The French colonized Vietnam and were motivated by their need to further their factories with raw materials, but they claimed they were civilizing the people. Under the French, a small group prospered but most peasants found life to be unbearable (Lawrence 11-13). The rise of Ho Chi Minh, who later became a leader of the Communist National Liberation Front

(NLF), began because of his activism in liberating Vietnam from French authority. By the end of the second world war, Vietnam was on the verge of gaining independence. After the final battle, Dien Bien Phu, both parties met in Geneva, Switzerland to negotiate the transfer of power.

To the inconvenience of Vietnam, other international strife intervened in what was supposed to be the simple exchange of power. The United States was unwilling to accept that Vietnam was to become a communist state, so they intervened by revising the treaty to make northern Vietnam communist and southern Vietnam democratic. This arrangement was only supposed to last for two years, but when the time came to vote, the U.S. kept stalling because they realized that the

Communist Party would win (Caputo 20). The North began to terrorize the South with assassinations, ambushes, and boobytraps. President Eisenhower responded by sending 740 military advisors, but no ground troops (D. Anderson). This minimalistic approach was discarded after the Tonkin Gulf Incidents, when the North Vietnamese attacked U.S. ships that were there to gather intelligence. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was passed by Congress on August 7, 1964, states:

The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the

maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia. Consonant with the

Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations and in accordance

with its obligations under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States

is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including

the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia

Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom. (Transcript of

Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964))

With the newfound freedom to exercise any steps he found necessary to defend Vietnam’s freedom, Lyndon B. Johnson increased the number of advisors to 23,000 (The War in Vietnam).

The new president, Kennedy, although he criticized the policies of President Johnson, increased aid to South Vietnam, after his blunders with Cuba and Germany (D. Anderson).

Of the eight years U.S. troops were on the ground, there were many notable battles, such as Operation Rolling Thunder and the Tet Offensive. Operation Rolling Thunder, which started in 1965, was a bombing campaign of North Vietnam, with the goal of dissuading the North

Vietnamese civilians from aiding the Vietcong. In total, more than 900 American planes were shot down, and more than 818 pilots were lost. The North Vietnamese suffered even greater casualties with roughly 182,000 civilians dead (Vassar Chronology). Originally, the campaign was planned to last for eight weeks, but it ended in 1968, three years later. There were several pauses, in an attempt to negotiate with the Vietcong, but each time the North used this time to regroup and send more resources into South Vietnam. In three years, the U.S. dropped one million tons of bombs, which caused the people of North Vietnam to support the Vietcong, the opposite of America’s goal (The War in Vietnam). The Tet Offensive, although shorter in duration, is more well known than Operation Rolling Thunder. This battle lasted three months; it started on the day of the Vietnamese festival, Tet, on January 30 and ended on March 20. In

previous years, both sides enjoyed a cease fire, but 1968 was to be an exception. The North planned a sweeping attack on multiple cities and strategic locations. One of the most notable attacks was on the U.S. Embassy (Vitko). Mark Lawrence eloquently articulates:

Within hours, communist forces had struck five or six major cities, thirty-six of

forty-four provincial capitals, and sixty-four district capitals. In Saigon, nineteen NLF

soldiers blew a hole in the wall surrounding the U.S. embassy at 2:45 a.m. and waged a

six-hour firefight with Marine guards before being killed or wounded. Other NLF units

attacked the Saigon airport, President Thieu’s palace, and the national radio station.

(Lawrence 122)

Although the battle started in favor of the NLF, the U.S. and the Army of the Republic of

Vietnam (ARVN) forces were able to reverse most of the progress made by the NLF. This hard won victory for the U.S. started the long negotiation process for peace, although it took five years to come to an agreement. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a victory for the U.S., but politically it benefited the North Vietnamese. The media, eager for a crowd provoking story, portrayed the Tet Offensive as a win for the Vietcong, which made the already wary of war

American public even more skeptical of the government’s leadership (Caputo 76).

The war in Vietnam was unlike any other war the U.S. had ever fought. New helicopters made it possible to bring reinforcements, supplies and even evacuate wounded soldiers. Also, this war was a total war, where guerrilla warfare was used, which meant that everything could be a target (Caputo 32). Since the U.S. never officially declared war on North Vietnam, international war laws did not need to be followed; this made the lives of prisoners of war especially hard (Caputo 90). Moreover, reporters helped bring the horrors of war to the homes of everyday Americans. This knowledge of the brutal casualties helped add fuel to a strong anti-

war movement. Protests against the Vietnam War attracted hundreds of thousands of participants, including John Lennon of the Beatles, and Ross Meador (Caputo 86).

There were six presidents involved in Vietnam, but it was President Nixon whose administration signed the “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” in

Paris on January 27, 1973. The agreement entailed the U.S. troops leaving within 60 days and all American prisoners of war being returned, and North and South Vietnam honoring a truce.

The agreement was ignored by the North when they invaded South Vietnam. Their fighting continued for two more years, before Saigon fell to the Communists in 1975 (Caputo 28).

The lives of Vietnamese people surviving through a war they wanted no part in were defined by three main factors: violence, fear, and poverty. The essence of the lives of the civilians stuck in the middle of the Vietnam War is encapsulated in this quote from Vietnamese poet Nguyen Duy, “In the end, in every war, whoever won, the people always lost” (Duy). Of the total number of casualties of the Vietnam War, more than half were civilian lives. One of the problems was that soldiers could not tell who was the enemy and who they were trying to protect, which resulted in confusion and ultimately innocent killings. The uncertainty of everyday life is manifested in this quote, “At any time, the Vietcong might raid a village, taking all the villagers’ food, killing their livestock and burning their home, and even torturing or killing the villagers themselves. Trouble could also come from soldiers of the South Vietnamese army, who were looking for Vietcong or their sympathizers” (Warren 7). The atrocities of war can be seen in the Massacre of My Lai. In this massacre, U.S. troops slaughtered between 300-

500 unarmed old men, women, and children (The War in Vietnam). Whole villages were uprooted and sent to designated land that often had barbed wire around it, making it resemble a prison. The purpose for the displacement was that the U.S. did not want the villagers to support

the Vietcong, but it caused the civilians to resent the Americans (Caputo 42). The traditional family structure, which maintained that as long as one has extended family one has a home, was abandoned because families could not afford another mouth to feed. The U.S. also employed herbicides to clear vegetation that hindered troop’s ability to spot the enemy. The consequences were harmful for both the Americans spraying it and the future generations of Vietnam. The soldiers who handled the chemicals reported “respiratory issues, persistent skin rashes, some forms of skin cancer, and birth defects in their children” (Caputo 66). Also a Canadian study found that “Children born in sprayed areas were more than 8 times as likely to suffer hernias and more than 3 times as likely to have cleft palates, be mentally retarded, and have extra fingers and toes” (Caputo 66).

The circumstances that led to abandonment and adoption were varied. Before the war,

Vietnamese culture upheld the concept that as long as one had extended family, they were not orphaned. With the hardships of war this concept was discarded, leaving many children alone to fend for themselves. Moreover, "As there was no legal or social pressure on a woman to keep her baby, abandonment was the easiest option. Since birth certificates were rarely issued, a mother could simply walk away from her baby without social or legal repercussions" (Peck-

Barnes 58). Additionally, infanticide was practiced on malformed and unwanted babies. The

Vietnamese did not use birth control to control the population because abortion clinics and birth control pills were not available to most. Further, the small population of Amerasians, babies fathered by American soldiers with a Vietnamese woman, were subject to alienation by the community. One American volunteer who experienced ethnic prejudice on the streets of

Chicago said it “did not begin to compare with the displayed feelings of the Vietnamese against their mixed-blood countrymen”(Peck Barnes 104). Also if the North took over, families with

Amerasians would be in extra danger, because the babies were proof that the family associated with the enemy. On a different note, parents who were too poor to provide for their children were hesitant to put them up for adoption because of fear that when the war was over they would not be able to reunite with their children, thus these children became “Biu Doi, the dust of life”, or street children (Peck Barnes 70). Older orphans would often form gangs that would roam the streets begging, stealing, and doing what they had to do to survive. In conclusion, there were many factors that led to the abandonment of children, such as lack of contraception, lack of resources, and fear of the future.

There were multiple types of orphanages in Vietnam, but regardless of type every one of them faced economic and medical challenges. There were several groups that organized orphanages: foreign aid agencies, religious orders (mostly Catholic), and the South Vietnamese government. The goal of the orphanages run by the South Vietnamese government was to raise the children, and did not focus on having the kids be adopted internationally. This was because

"The growing number of orphans was becoming an embarrassment to the government, simply because by approving foreign adoptions, they were admitting they could not be cared for in their country" (Peck-Barnes 55-6). In most cases, the orphanages were underfunded, resulting in the inadequate care of the children. The limited funds meant that resources were insufficient, the kids were malnourished, the orphanage was understaffed, and medical care was sparse. Lack of staff meant that babies would often spend the whole day laying in a crowded cribs, sometimes in cardboard boxes. Older kids sometimes slept on mats on the porch, because their was no room inside. The babies did not get the stimulation they needed, creating developmental delays. A volunteer states, “Almost all of the children were deficient in both physical and emotional development for their age, usually due to malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, and lack of

stimulation”(Peck-Barnes 60). To combat the deficiencies, orphanages started foster home programs, to give the babies a family based environment. In the orphanages, the smell of feces and urine assaulted the nostrils of visitors, because short handed staff could not change diapers fast enough. Many orphanages had to care for children with “ear infections, pneumonia, bronchitis, hepatitis, and primary tuberculosis. Others were covered in lice, had worms, intestinal parasites, typhoid, anemia, conjunctivitis, boils, fungus infections, scabies, thrush, and vaginal infections” (Peck-Barnes 60). Mortality rates were high. Meador upon his arrival felt like he had been “thrown to the wolves” (Peck-Barnes 100), because nothing could have prepared him for the conditions and the emotional toll. The adoption process was complicated, especially if the child was abandoned as opposed to given up. If the child was given up, the mother’s cooperation with the orphanage made the process go more quickly. Orphanages were better off when the American troops were still stationed in Vietnam, because of their generosity.

Sometimes the children were treated in American medical facilities. Ross Meador’s orphanage was funded by one of the more prominent Vietnamese aid organizations, so his orphanage was better off than most, but still underfunded. Funds were sometimes misused by crooks.

Moreover, most workers were unskilled at handling disabled kids. Handicapped and retarded children were not treated humanely; they were often found chained to chairs in a back room because the staff did not know how to handle them. The growing need for orphanages is shown in the statistic from Peck Barnes, "In 1966 there were 83 known orphanages or children's homes in South Vietnam, caring for over 11,000 children. A short eight years later in 1974, that figure more than doubled and there were 134 registered orphanages and children's homes in the Saigon area alone" (Peck-Bernes 59).

The imminent threat of the oncoming North Vietnamese made orphanages desperate to get their kids to safety. The first babylift was sponsored by Ed Daly, the president of World

Airways. Daly got involved with the orphans of Vietnam because of his daughter, Charlotte, who was friends with an organizer from the adoption agency Friends for all Children. At the request of his daughter he organized a flight within days. The U.S. government did not approve of Daly’s impromptu charity, saying his plane was unsafe. Because of the government’s warning, Friends for all Children declined Daly’s plane, but the plane did not go to waste. Ross

Meador’s organization, Friends of Children of Vietnam, approached Daly and took the flight.

The flight took fifty-seven children safely to the United States (Engelmann). The official

Operation was commissioned by President Ford the next day, April 2, 1975. In his press release

President Ford stated “I have directed that money from a two million dollar special foreign aid children’s fund be made available to fly 2,000 South Vietnamese orphans to the United States as soon as possible” (Ford). Both the South Vietnamese and the U.S. government cut the red tape preventing the immediate evacuation of the kids. The first official Operation Babylift flight never arrived in the United States because about forty miles outside of Saigon, the plane’s rear door flew off, forcing the pilot to crash land in a rice paddy field. Passengers were seated on both the upper deck and the bottom cargo deck. The failure of the door locks caused the loading doors to fly off the plane, taking with it supplies and human lives. People strapped in on the cargo deck were not sucked out of the plane, but many lost consciousness because of lack of oxygen. Meanwhile, on the upper deck attendants were sharing oxygen masks and were bracing for impact. The crash resulted in the deaths of 172 people, 78 of whom were children (Peck-

Barnes 129). The exact numbers of how many people died are unclear, because an unknown number were sucked out, and some were ejected deep into the mud of the rice field. Ironically,

some of the babies on the government sponsored plane were scheduled to take Daly’s flight, but opted for the government sponsored flight because Daly’s was deemed unsafe. Nevertheless, workers still prepared babies to be evacuated. From April 5-26th Operation Babylift continued.

Children who already had adoptive families waiting for them in the U.S. and who were healthy enough to survive the trip were the first to go. A few of the babies did not survive the trip and some of them died after they were placed with their adoptive families. Ross Meador was not one of the escorts to bring the children to the U.S.; he stayed until the last Americans were forced to be evacuated off the roof of the U.S. embassy. In total, about 3,300 children were spared the

Communist take over, with about 1,300 orphans flown to Canada, Europe, and Australia, and around 2,000 orphans taken to the United States.

Additionally, there was controversy over whether some of the kids taken were orphans at all. It was alleged that some of the kids were the kids of Southern Vietnamese officials who bribed their way onto the plane. Also, since some children were put in orphanages by the parents with the intention of reclaiming them after the war, the U.S. government faced litigation because they were accused of taking children without the parents’ consent. The class action lawsuit against the U.S. government was eventually dropped. The judge ruled that if birth parents wanted their children back it had to be done individually. Some parents put their child on an

Operation Babylift flight with the intention of immigrating to America and reclaiming them in the U.S., only to find that their child had been adopted to another family. For some children the lawsuit only delayed the process of obtaining citizenship. For other children, they were in a legal battle between their birth parents and adoptive parents (Martin). The legacy of Operation

Babylift is still alive today through books, movies, plays, reunions, and the lives of the participants and the adoptees.

The press took advantage of the dramatic event of the fall of Saigon, including the stories of the Babylift. In the days following the first Babylift and the crash, multiple articles were published, both praising and criticizing the Babylift. One article published in the Washington

Post on April 5, 1975, lauded Daly and his crew calling them “The New Angels of

Mercy”(Will). The article was humorously written with lines like “Rrrriiiiipppp”(Will), the sound of Daly cutting through the red tape stopping them from completing their mission. When asked about take off despite the fact that they were not cleared to leave, the pilot, Ken Healy, replied “I just didn’t get the message in time”(Will). More humor was added in the line, “Arrest the man! He did not comply with Federal Regulations about dispensing cookies and paper diapers…” (Will). The article did acknowledge the safety concerns, but defended Daly’s actions by saying it was safer than letting the kids stay in Vietnam and the “piece of bark” that transported millions of other immigrants across the Atlantic Ocean. Further, the article closed with a call for the public to have compassion for the newcomers and gave resources to people who were interested in helping. The author seemed to be trying to soften the topic of the Babylift with his informal, humorous writing. He may have chosen to write the article this way because he wanted to gather support for the cause without being too despairing. Since this article was published on the day of the first successful government sponsored airlift, it makes sense that the author would want to rally supporters, because there would be many more kids in need of support. Another article told of the everyday people doing extraordinary things to help, titled

“The Unsung Heroes of Vietnam” (J. Anderson ). One family was so inspired to help the children, they returned their Easter candy and donated the refund to the orphans. Another man removed his seven children out of the house, in order to convert his home into a makeshift

orphanage (J. Anderson). This article shows that the public was responsive to the plight of the children.

Other reporters chose to portray the opinions of those who did not share the same feelings. They criticized the corruption and disorganization of the operation. In another article,

“Red Cross Criticizes Baby Lift” (Dispatches) from the Washington Post, the Red Cross attacked the operation saying that the adoption agencies did not follow the laws set in place by the

Geneva Convention. These laws stated that in order to evacuate the children, the adoption agencies had to be absolutely sure that the child was in fact an orphan or had no one to take care of them. The Red Cross contended that in the chaotic urgency these steps were skipped, making it illegal for the children to be adopted permanently. The article also voiced the dissent of the

Buddhist community who said that the children should be returned to Vietnam as soon as there is peace. The Vietnamese public also spoke out against the migration. The article quoted reports from newspapers abroad. In multiple papers, the airlift was referred to as an "abduction".

Further, in another article titled “Abuse of Airlift by Saigon is Seen” (Abuse Of Airlift) the validity of some of the orphans’ status’ as orphans was called into question when it was discovered that some of the children were offspring of government officials, who may have bribed their way onto the plane. The article also talked about the disorganization of the deplaning of sick infants. Some critically ill babies were left waiting in limbo for twenty minutes before being taken to an ambulance. Who to blame was debated, with the medical staff and the agencies taking criticism. One source found faults on both sides, including the doctors and the volunteers. In conclusion, the criticisms of Operation Babylift were varied, but were based on legitimate concerns.

A previous oral history project, done by Alexandra Lee, also explored the Vietnam War through a humanitarian lens. She interviewed a professor who oversaw a seed aid program to help the South Vietnamese farmers become self reliant from outside seed distributors. Her interviewee, Dr. Angus Hanson, made several trips to war torn Vietnam as a part of his job as a leader of the program. In his travels, he saw first hand the positive contributions his program was making, but also got to talk to military personnel who helped shape his views on the war.

The interview started with Dr. Hanson’s childhood and how he got his job working on the seed aid program. His time talking to soldiers who trained the ARVN recruits dampened his morale because the soldiers saw no way the U.S. could win. Dr. Hanson said, “I have to say my view of the Vietnam experience was very, very negative having been over there and talked to the people on the ground” (Lee) in response to a question asking him about how he felt about the Vietnam

War. He noted that many of the soldiers became drug addicts because of the trauma and loss that the soldiers experienced. He made connections between the Vietnam War and the conflict in

Iraq, hoping that Iraq would not have the same consequences for U.S. soldiers. Later when asked if the U.S.’ actions were justified he said, “In retrospect, we made a tragic error in going into Vietnam” (Lee). Dr. Hanson drew parallels between the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the United States in Vietnam, with the other side “winning” in each instance. To elaborate, in both conflicts each side wanted to instill their form of government on the country in question. In the case of Vietnam, the Soviet Union won because their form of government was victorious, while in the case of Afghanistan, the Americans won.

The Vietnam War has caused debate in the historian community about how the war should be remembered. Historians dissect the Vietnam War through economic, moral, and political lenses, each one drawing distinct conclusions. Historian H. Bruce Franklin sees the

Vietnam War through a political lens by arguing that, “The Vietnam War was just a mistake, or series of mistakes, made by well-intentioned, fallible men governing a representative democracy” (Franklin 3). In his book, Vietnam and Other American Fantasies, he explains how his tenure at Stanford University, a supporter of the war, was suspended, because of his outspoken speeches against the Vietnam War. Franklin’s view draws supporters because it asserts his ideas clearly, but does not do so in an accusatory manner. Alternatively, historian

Guenter Lewy’s interpretation draws on the moral justification for the war. This moral argument is seen in his book, America in Vietnam, where he argues, “America cannot and should not be the world’s policeman, but it can be argued, the U.S. has a moral obligation to support nations in their endeavour to remain independent when we, and we alone, possess the means to do so”

(Lewy). Lewy’s isolationist view is challenged by his view of America’s moral obligation to the world. Lewy’s view takes into account some of the dissenters’ objections, which makes his argument more appealing to moderate historians. To summarize, Franklin’s conclusion about the Vietnam War focuses on the political aspect, while Lewy’s focuses on the moral aspect.

The impact Operation Babylift had on society has been understated. Operation Babylift has had a profound impact on the lives of many people. To begin with, the children themselves.

Because of the Babylift more than 3,000 children were spared a grim future, with many of them becoming doctors, soldiers, and humanitarians. Despite the circumstances that brought them together, the bond between the now grown adoptees is irreplaceable. The adoptees hold reunions to keep in touch and share their experiences as they see how Operation Babylift has impacted their lives. Moreover, people’s lives all around the globe have been affected by the lives of

Operation Babylift adoptees. The lives of the family and friends of the adoptees would be

devoid of their contributions. The scope of Operation Babylift is vast, which is precisely why it is worthy of being remembered.

Interview Transcription

Interviewee/Narrator: Ross Meador Interviewer: Jenna Schissler Location: Mr. Meador’s home, Fullerton, California Date: December 28, 2015

Jenna Schissler: This is Jenna Schissler and I am interviewing Ross Meador as a part of the

American Century Project. (cell phone rings) Is that me?

Ross Meador: No, that was me.

JS: Oh, okay. This interview (cell phone rings) took place on December 28th, at his home in

California. To start, can you describe your childhood?

RM: I grew up in a relatively privileged, but isolated family. My parents were from Texas grew up in a very traditional Southern culture themselves. I was actually born in Mexico, but I moved to the United States when I was just still a baby and lived the first part of my life in Texas, and my family moved to Arizona where I went to school and then I went to California, where I went to junior high and high school and feel like I grew up in California. So my parents are both

PHDs so I come from an educated background, and they are psychologists so they are kind of intellectuals, but I had a generally happy childhood, although I think I ate at my first Chinese

restaurant when I was in high school, and so I didn’t learn to use chopsticks until I moved to

Vietnam. So I was not at all exposed to foreign culture very much. The important thing that happened to me though as a kid that I will mention is that when I was in high school I spent a summer school abroad in India in the summer between my junior and senior year of high school and that really changed my life, because I saw this amazing culture that I had no idea existed and it was so different from anything that I had ever seen when I was growing up and I made up my mind when I came back from that trip to India when I started my senior year of high school that I wanted to go back to Asia before going to college and that’s really what drove me ultimately to taking this job in Vietnam.

JS: Wow. How did your parents react when you said you were going to Vietnam?

RM: I had already done a lot of traveling even before I went to Vietnam, so they had somewhat gotten used to the idea of me taking off and doing crazy, risky things. For example, I hitchhiked across the United States a number of times. I had gone off to Mexico by myself when I was eighteen for quite some time and so they had somewhat gotten used to the idea. In fact, they are the ones who first introduced me to the people that were working in Vietnam, that I ultimately connected with. They were supportive, but at the same time of course they were worried because there was a war going on and so on, but I think they were more proud of me when I first went over there than they were afraid for what was going to happen.

JS: That’s beautiful. What was your first impression of Vietnam once you arrived?

RM: When I first got there, I was nineteen years old and I had no idea what I was doing. I was scared to death. There was this war going on. I had traveled in Mexico, so I had some experience and I had been to India traveling in third world, economically undeveloped places and Vietnam certainly was economically undeveloped like Mexico or like India, in a sense, but the war aspect of it was profound, because there was signs of the war everywhere from the moment we landed in the airport, seeing the bunkers that the planes were sheltered in and there were guns and machine gun nests all over the place and driving through town all the banks were armed with machine guns behind sandbag walls. Every building had a flag on it. There were a lot of soldiers. Now I was there after the primary departure of the Americans.

JS: Oh

RM: The huge number of American soldiers that had been there in the late sixties and early seventies had left, but there was still an enormous American military presence there. I don’t know the numbers, but I’m sort of roughly guessing maybe there were 50 or 60 thousand

American soldiers there, which is a lot less than the 500 thousand that were there before, but there was still a lot there. And of course, the ones that were there, were all in Saigon where I was, so it felt like a lot of presence of soldiers there, so it was very scary when I first got there, but largely because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing and I had bitten off more than I could chew in trying to set up an adoption agency there. (unintelligible)

JS: {5:06} Can you describe an average day for you in Vietnam?

RM: No. (both laugh) It changed a lot over time. When I first got there, I was living with a

Caucasian American couple who were running a sort of like an orphanage. It was an orphanage with an emphasis on nursing care for sicker kids. They were hoping to be able to get an adoption license and start placing their kids for adoption, but they never got their license so they were never able to do that. So when I first got there, I started out living with them, helping them around the house. They had a big Vietnamese staff of course, but I helped out somewhat. I played with the kids, that kind of thing and spent my time going into town meeting government officials and the heads of the other voluntary agencies to try and learn about what was going on and figure out how I could be of most help to the problem of war orphans in Vietnam. That’s how it started. Then, as the work became wider known and we started getting in more money for adoptions we realized that for donations, I realized that we were going to be able to start taking in kids and doing adoptions. We had a license. And so I rented a house and we started bringing in kids and some other Americans came over to help with the kids and when the kids started coming then of course everything changed because there was the matter of running the house, hiring the staff, and running the house and taking care of all the kids. All the kids were sick.

They would have to go the hospital and that sort of thing. I was also traveling all around the country, visiting these different orphanages that we had contact with, both in terms of going there to help them by bringing them milk and supplies and that kind of thing and also in picking up the kids that they wanted to place for adoption. We would take those kids and bring them back to our house. So there was never really a typical day.

JS: Sounds really interesting. What were the demographics of you orphanage?

RM: I’m not sure what you mean.

JS: In terms of like… were the kids more Amer

RM: Amerasian

JS: Amerasian or full Vietnamese?

RM: Most of the kids were full Vietnamese. We had 30% Amerasians and the rest were full

Vietnamese. ?20%?

JS: And what about like age wise? Were they mostly babies?

RM: We would get in a lot of babies, but we also had a fair number of older kids, and I was closer to the older kids, because I could relate to them, play together, go watch a movie, fly kites, you know do stuff, play with them, and I became quite close with a lot of the older kids there and some of the older kids remember me from those days and I still know them now. When we were in Washington, there were two or three who were there, who I have known their whole life since they were this big (holds his hands about a foot apart)(laughter) so that is kind of cool, but the great majority in terms of numbers were babies, and the babies were primarily cared for by our nursing staff.

JS: In terms of gender?

RM: I don’t know really. I would sort of say 50 50, but I’m not sure, probably ?50?

JS: I have heard like a lot of babies were sick. Were most of your babies healthy or ill?

RM: It would vary, because sometimes we would get these epidemics of flu, that kind of thing, would come through and everybody was sick and that was a big problem because a lot of kids would die. We had a very large number of our kids die. Also, when we would go to visit the orphanages and ask them if they had any kids they wanted to place for adoption they would tend to give us very sick kids because they were not able to take care of them and the kids were dying, and so they would give us these kids and we would try to save their lives and sometimes we succeeded and sometimes we didn’t, but it did mean there were a lot of sick kids in our house, so

I wouldn’t say most of them were sick. Most of them were healthy, most of the time, and we worked really hard to try and keep the place healthy. We had full time doctors and nurses, and that kind of thing, so it was like a little hospital in a way, but there were a lot of sick kids.

JS: While researching orphanage conditions I found that some orphanages were underfunded and understaffed. What was your financial situation?

RM: Well, all of the Vietnamese orphanages were underfunded and understaffed. All of them.

Our situation was different because we were receiving donations from rich Americans who wanted to support our program and we did not expand beyond our financial ability to be able to maintain whatever it is that we were doing. So we were certainly not wealthy. We didn’t have air conditioners, for example. We felt like we couldn’t afford air conditioners. The electricity was expensive and the units themselves were expensive. It’s hot there, so not having air conditioners… most foreign voluntary agency people there lived with air conditioners. We had a

couple of cars, but we didn’t have a fleet of cars and drivers and all that stuff like the people from Catholic Relief Services or Holt or the big time agencies that had millions of dollars behind them. We didn’t have that, but we were fine.

JS: {10: 26} Can you tell me about the way Amerasians were treated by the public?

RM: I think it was different after the Americans left. We had a lot of Amerasians who came and lived with us, and of course we treated them the same way as we treated everybody else. I wasn’t exposed to a lot of Amerasians in the streets, because I think most of them were, at that time were very young, just because of the time they were born, and so we didn’t see them as much as after they grew up and years after the Americans left I think they became a lot more visible because they became teenagers and they didn’t have any family or jobs, and so you’d see them on the street, but when I was there, there were not a lot of Amerasians living on the street.

So I personally did not notice any profound maltreatment of the Amerasians, but again I just think it was because of the time that we were there. If people came to us with Amerasians, we could take them and bring them into our house and place them in families. We were much more likely to take kids… We could try to take Amerasian kids, especially half black kids. Anybody who came to us with a half black kid, we would take them right away, because of the problem of

?infanticide?

JS: Where did your part in Operation Babylift begin?

RM: We were running a relatively successful, efficient adoption program there that cared for

Vietnamese orphanages and Vietnamese orphans, and we would place a lot of those kids for

adoption, and the kids were going to the United States. Once or twice a week, we would have a flight of three or four kids per flight, sometimes more, who would fly out and go and be placed for adoption in the United States, and once things kind of got humming things started working along, and we could have continued like that for years longer had the Communists not come in to take over and we knew we had to leave, so when you say my role in Operation Babylift, we were in the middle of this crisis where we knew we were gonna have to leave the country and we had hundreds of children that were in our physical custody and our legal custody. We had no choice of what to do with these kids other than take them with us. They were like our own children.

Legally they were our own children, and physically they were living in our house. Some people think well, you could have left them there or you could have given them back to the government or you could have put them back in an orphanage. Those kinds of scenarios were absolutely impossible. Had we tried to do that, we never ever could have done that. There was no one that would have taken these kids, so what created Operation Babylift was our need to take these kids with us to the United States and the whole story of Babylift is how we solved that problem. (faint singing in the background) Oh that sounds like my wife.

JS: That’s fine. Can you describe your interactions with Ed Daly?

RM: Sure, one second. Hello

Michelle Meador: Hi

RM: I’m being interviewed…

JS: Hello.

RM: about FCVN.

MM: Hi. (laughs)

JS: Hi. Nice to meet you. (laughing in background)

RM: That’s my wife Michelle.

JS: You have a lovely voice.

MM: (unintelligible)

RM: She sings in her church choir.

JS: Sounds great. (both talking at once)

MM: You’re not recording right? (both talking at once)

JS: Well…

RM: We are recording.

JS: Actually (both JS and MM laugh)

MM: Nice to meet you.

JS: You too.

MM: Can I get you something to drink or...

JS: Oh, no thank you.

MM: That’s okay, alright.

RM: So Ed Daly. Ed Daly, I had read about him in the newspapers because he had flown up to

Da Nang to evacuate some refugees and while he was up there, his plane was taken over by some

JS: Oh yeah. I read that. (both speaking at the same time)

RM: South Vietnamese soldiers. That was very big news for us and partly because of Ed Daly and partly because the fact that… what was going on with the refugees and the army evacuation and the whole world was falling apart around us, so I knew about him, but then I had heard about him… and so we were in the process of searching for airplanes that could take our kids out. The

American government, at that point, had not offered to take any of our kids, so but they had told us that if we could find a plane, we could fly our kids out, but we had to find our own plane, so I heard that Ed Daly was at the airport and that he might have a plane available. He did own his

own airline, so I went to the airport and that’s when I first met him and asked him if he would take our kids out.

JS: {15:22} How did you react when you heard the US Government was sponsoring Operation

Babylift?

RM: The scenario is that we met Ed Daly and he said that… there is a whole story and I’ll tell you the whole story, but just to move through it more quickly… I met him and he said that he would take our kids out. We spoke with the embassy about this. The people at AID (American

Agency for International Development), I told them we were going to fly our kids out with Ed

Daly. Unbeknownst to me, I didn’t really fully appreciate this, I can’t remember exactly when I learned the full story, but he had been planning to take out another orphanage called Friends For

All Children, and the American government talked them out of flying with him. They did not want their agency to put their kids on Ed Daly’s plane, so suddenly Ed Daly had this plane ready to take out a bunch of orphans and no orphans to put on the plane, so I just popped in his life at that perfect moment, and it’s like when I first got hired by FCVN. This might be interesting. I heard about this group, and who I in fact had heard about was this other agency, the one that became called Friends For All Children, although when I first became involved, or before I became involved, they were also called Friends of Children of Vietnam, so I wrote letters to

Friends of Children of Vietnam, who had an operation in Vietnam, and I had trouble getting a hold of them. They were headquartered in Colorado, so I hitchhiked out to Colorado and I called them from a gas station phone booth and said “I’m Ross Meador, I’ve been sending you these letters, I want to go to Vietnam, and ultimately they hired me, but what happened is the moment that I arrived, in fact, the agency in Vietnam Friends for All Children and the agency in the

United States Friends for All Children had a giant falling out, split, and so the people in America had this agency set up but nobody in Vietnam who was willing to work with them, so I came along and I was just in the right place at the right time, this agency that needed somebody to set up an orphanage in Vietnam. Two years later I meet Ed Daly. He has got an empty airplane and

I had all these kids ready to put on a plane, so it was enormously fortuitous. So we went to the embassy, told them that we wanted to fly with Ed Daly. They said “Don’t go with Ed Daly. He is a drunk. He is a fool. There is a rumor that the American government is gonna pay for the evacuation of all your kids”. That’s the first I heard about it. Why don’t you just hold off and let the American government take care of everything. That’s how I first heard about it. We flew with Ed Daly anyway. The American government was angry with us and they said “Well we are gonna bring in a C5A and you could have loaded your whole agency on it. President Ford is going to meet the plane, but instead we are going to give it to Rosemary Taylor’s group Friends for All Children because they listened to us when we told them not to fly with Ed Daly.”

Rosemary Taylor’s group got put onto the C5A and it crashed and they all died, so I mean

(singing) do do do do do do do do. (Jenna laughs) It was incredible circumstances the way things worked out.

JS: Speaking of the crash, how did you feel when heard about the crash?

RM: I was at the airport when it happened.

JS: Wow.

RM: I was loading kids onto a plane to Australia because the Australians were willing to take kids even before the Americans had signed up for it. So this was the very first American flight was the C5A and we were there loading kids onto a flight to Australia. Suddenly. . . you know we had a lot of kids, a lot of babies and it was very hot. There was no air conditioning. They were in this kind of a shed on cardboard boxes. It was horrible. They were thirsty and so we gotta get these kids into an air conditioned plane quick, and we loaded all our bags onto our plane and then they started taking all the bags off and we go “What the heck is going on here?”

Somebody said, “Oh, well they’re searching all the luggage for bombs because the C5A was blown up”. And I went “What?” In fact, I was very angry with the guy who told me this because

I thought, “That is a horrible rumor. It cannot possibly be true and how dare you even start to spread a story like that”, but very quickly we began to realize it was true. In fact, we began to see the smoke from the crash because it wasn’t that far from the airport. And we started seeing these helicopters going back and forth to evacuate and the injured people were flying in by helicopter to the airport and then getting taken off by ambulance to the hospital. So I mean I was there… I wasn’t at the crash sight, but I was almost at the crash sight, and so I was involved in all of that. So we ultimately got our kids on a flight to Australia and then learned more about the crash. We had understood that the plane had been shot down no one knew what had happened, so it was just like the horrible nightmare. We couldn’t believe that it was happening. It was horrible.

JS: {20:32} How did you feel after you knew your children were safe and they left?

RM: Well, there were lots of flights that took place over several weeks and the whole Babylift was a big saga. First there was the crash, and then shortly after the crash I went on a flight,

through Ed Daly’s flight and that was successful and we were the great heroes and it was wonderful that that happened. Then the Babylift started and, the official Babylift, and the plane crash. That was horrible, but a few days after the plane crash, I went to the United States on one of the Babylift flights escorting kids and we flew into San Francisco and then turned around and came back to Vietnam again and loaded kids on flights over the course of a couple of weeks, maybe three weeks, and then finally the very last of them left, maybe on the 26th or something like that of April, and I stayed behind. So how did I feel when I… (laughs) there was no really kind of single sigh like “ great they are all there”. Maybe the very last day when the very final flight took off, and the last of our kids were gone. That was a big moment that made me feel happy that they were all gone but at the same time I knew there was a lot of other kids and wondered if the other kids were going to get out and also the evacuation was not just the kids at that point. The whole evacuation of Vietnam was… There were a lot of adults that we were involved in evacuating as well, and I still had a lot of adults that I wanted to get out. So it was almost like it was continuing. The whole saga was continuing. Even though the babies were gone there were still a lot of adults I was trying to get onto planes, as I had been getting adults onto planes in fact through the Babylift. It was never really over until we took off from the roof of the embassy and then I knew that it really was over.

JS: In the play Children of the April Rain, your character helps a crippled boy escape to safety.

Can you tell me more about your relationship?

RM: Well, there was a kid who had a bad leg and we were close especially during the last days there. He had gotten kicked off of the Ed Daly flight, and so I wanted to take care of him and make sure that he got someplace. So we ended up sending him to Australia, and I lost touch with

him for a very long time but then he contacted me out of the blue and in fact we then went to

Vietnam together later, and so I have kind of renewed my friendship with him. He was older too. I mean I was only 19-20 years old. These kids, some of them were 14-15 years old. That’s really not that different, especially at this end of my life. We are the same age. Really, I mean not exactly.

JS: Yeah

RM: but I’m 61, somebody who is 56 there is not really a significant age difference between me and somebody who is 56 you know what I mean? I feel like we’ve both had our lives and our wives and our kids and our jobs and careers and all that stuff and so it doesn’t feel like they are children exactly. It feels like they are contemporaries and we have all been through this experience.

JS: Is there any child whose story really stands out to you?

RM: The ones that stand out to me are the ones that I am closest to in many ways and who I have a lot of experiences with afterwards in terms of them going back to Vietnam and being involved in this search or connection with their home country and with their birth parents. So for example, there’s a few interesting stories. One of them that I’ll show you some slides of is a guy named Rick. He came up to me. The adoptees when they started turning around 20ish years old, they began getting together and they formed a group called the Vietnamese Adoptee Network

(VAN) and we started having reunions for them. The original reunions were when the kids were in high school, maybe even in junior high and the parents really were the primary organizers of

that and then they kind of all got together and suddenly met all these people that were just like them, a profound experience for them. And they began organizing their own reunions without the need to have their parents there however and the workers like me, but at one of these reunions, a number of years ago, probably 20 years now, a kid came up to me and he said, “I’m not sure who, where I came from. I don’t really know anything about my background but I do have this one piece of paper. It’s the only piece of paper that my adopted mother gave to me that connects me with Vietnam. It’s got a lot of Vietnamese writing on it and I don’t really know what it means, but would you look at it, and see if you can tell me something about where I come from?” And so I said to him, “Of course I’ll look at it” but my heart broke for this kid and

I thought, “I’m not going to be able to tell him where he came from and oh God” But he showed me, pulled out his piece of paper that he kept for his whole lifetime and opened it up and I looked at it and there was a picture of him on this paper and I looked at his picture and I looked at him. (unintelligible) I took this picture.

JS: {26:25}(laughs) Wow.

RM: I know who you are. (Jenna laughs) You were one were one of the kids from my agency, and I lived with you for a year and I’ve got pictures of you.

JS: Wow.

RM: And I know exactly who you are and I know your whole story. So we became really close.

JS: That’s beautiful (talking at the same time)

RM: Right. It was wonderful. We’ve been back to Vietnam together and he is still a good friend. I got a Christmas card from him not too long ago. So he is a great guy, so I mean that was an amazing story. Another somewhat similar story: there was another kid who I’ve known very well throughout her life. Her parents named me her Godfather and also her parents were in the administration of our organization, so I had other opportunities to get to know her, but I have known her really quite well through her whole life and we were very close in Vietnam and continued to be close afterwards, and I visited her in Colorado as she was growing up. So anyway we went back to Vietnam together, and she had a picture. I wonder if… Oh here it is.

Here is the picture. (stands up and walks to a frames newspaper article on the wall) This picture right here. The only connection she had with knowing where she came from was this picture.

Here is her, this is our Vietnamese social worker who worked for us, and here are these two smiling nuns, and you can’t really see in this picture very well, but she had this terrified look on her face, because she is being taken away, she’s probably five, and she is being taken away from these nuns, who she knows, and going off with this other lady, she had no idea where she is going or why. And I love this picture because everybody is smiling (unintelligible). So anyway, excuse me, she had that picture, and I didn’t know where she came from, but we went back to

Vietnam together and we went up to an orphanage in Da Nang and showed them that picture and we said, “Do you know where this is? Who are these nuns or do you anything about this?” and they said, “I know it’s not us because of the habits that the nuns are wearing, because each convent or whatever wears their own colors in a way. I think this one is up in Hue, which is a town two hours farther North from De Nang. Here is an address. Go up and see the sisters in

Hue. I think maybe they’ll know who this is. So we go up to Hue, very interesting kind of bizarre convent because the nuns weren’t allowed to come outside or meet directly with

anybody, so when we met with them they open this big wooden window cover and there were bars on the windows and the nuns were on the other side of the bars, and we spoke with them through the bars, so you know, kind of weird, and they looked at the picture. They were very friendly, very nice to us and said, “That’s not us, but I do know who this is. This is another convent that’s way up in the North jungle halfway to the DMZ, another two-hour drive North, very close to the North Korean border, of course there was no border at that point, but that was the direction it was. ?All the way? deep into the jungle. And we can have one of our student nuns, who hasn’t yet gotten locked behind the bars, she will lead you up there. So she got on a little motorcycle, and we followed this little nun, she’s a teenager your age probably, who took us deep into the jungle up these little dirt roads, up and down through the mud puddles and everything. And we finally get to this place in the jungle, looked kind of like a school or maybe a convent or something and we weren’t really sure quite what it was, but we pulled up. And there were a few kids there, small place, but you could see it was some kind of institution. And somebody came out - “Who the heck are you?” - and the little nun who was with us, or student nun, spoke with them and explained who we were and we said we’ve got this picture and we wondered whether or not you know anything about this. They were kind of looking at it and talking. They’re speaking Vietnamese. I don’t really know, fully know what’s going on. And then I notice this little old nun comes out. She must have been 110 years old. (Jenna laughs)

She was slowly coming out of here. And she’s ?kinda like?, “What’s going on?” and you see them conversing “Oh, show me the picture”. And she looked at the picture and she goes, “That’s me” (Jenna laughs) “That’s me. I’m right there. That’s Sister Angela next to her and you. Oh I remember you. Yes. Have you met your brother and sister?” (Jenna laughs) and she goes, “I

have a brother and sister?” “Yes” And the whole story comes out about her mother and all these kids and where they live and she’s got these brothers and another sister and… It was just…

JS: All in Vietnam?

RM: All in Vietnam. I don’t think she has ever been able to find actually the mother and the other siblings, but I think if she… if she went to Vietnam and stayed there long enough and searched long and hard enough she probably could find them eventually, but the mother had several children from different fathers and so maybe she was like a working girl. It wasn’t an altogether cheery mom kind of thing, but still nevertheless it was very cool, very cool. And so those are the stories that are most profound for me. It’s very neat.

JS: {31:56} I know more than 3000 kids were airlifted out of the country. Do you think there was more the US government could have done?

RM: That number… You read different numbers

JS: Yeah (speaking at the same time)

RM: And I don’t know what the real number is. 27 hundred is the number that I hear most often. Doesn’t matter, something in that ballpark for sure. Is there more that the US government could have done? Well they certainly could have started the effort sooner and it would not have been so chaotic had they started it sooner. The French gave French citizenship automatically to all of their mixed half French half Vietnamese kids when the French were there during their war.

And the Americans did not do that. A lot of the kids that have come to the United States have still had terrible citizenship problems. I know one guy, Mike Frayly, I know more stories about him too, but Mike is a great guy. We traveled to Vietnam together. He joined the Navy and spent six years in the US Navy, and after he got out of the navy he wanted to go… I think he had been stationed in Europe… and he wanted to go back to Europe and so he went to get his plane ticket or something. I’m not sure what he was doing and they said, “Well where is your passport?” and he showed them his navy ID card that he had been using, because when you are in the navy you don’t need to have a passport. You just need to have some kind of military ID.

They show (unintelligible) “No, no, no. You gotta go get a passport”. So he goes to look for his passport, but he finds out he is not an American citizen and they wouldn’t give him a passport.

They said, “You gotta apply for a passport. Where is your birth certificate?” “Well I don’t have a birth certificate”. “Where’s your parents, where is your” “I have no idea. I’m a Vietnamese war orphan. I don’t have anything” and they said, “Well sorry you can’t have a passport. In fact maybe you need to be deported”. (both laugh)

JS: That must have been some ?point? (both speaking at the same time)

RM: No, no, no. wait, wait, wait, wait. So it took him like five years to finally get a passport.

And there is just no excuse for that kind of thing, so that’s something that could have been done.

So I mean there was a lot that could have been done to make it easier, but which is not to say they didn’t do anything. They did a lot of things. They were great for us and helped us in many ways a lot but since you asked, yeah, as a matter of fact there were a few more things.

JS: {34:12} What do you think made Operation Babylift successful or unsuccessful?

RM: It depends on what you mean by successful. I think it was on many levels it was very, very successful and it was successful because the American government supplied all the planes for us so we were able to get the kids to the airport and get on the planes and get them out, so that was a huge, huge benefit. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to afford to hire the planes. We couldn’t have been able to get enough private planes over there, so that was huge.

And the other part of it was us, to be perfectly modest about it. We worked incredibly hard and organized this whole thing of all these kids and managed to keep all these kids alive and healthy.

There were clearly screw-ups on all sides. And some of the people lost their name and lost their birth date and lost their paperwork and things like that happened a lot inevitably, but the vast majority managed to come over and were placed in good families, so it was (coughs) hugely successful in that respect. In terms of things about it that were not successful, had we had more time and were able to be more organized we could have done a much better job at keeping track of where the kids came from. That’s my biggest regret…. is that we lost of where a lot of kids came from. And our attitude at that time was that these kids are American kids who belong in some family in Iowa and it just happens to be this quirk of fate that they were born in Vietnam, but God always intended for them to grow up in this family in Iowa, and that was our attitude.

And we would say, “When are you going home?” to one of these kids and “Oh, you got a letter from home” when they’d get a letter from their adoptive parents. Our total focus was that. Here is your mom. Here is your dad, here’s your… this is where you live… you live… But the truth is…. no. Home is Vietnam. That is where they are from, and a lot of these kids grew up in this little white family in Iowa and they’re not altogether comfortable with this whole thing they have been put through. And I totally understand that. And they say, “I’m Vietnamese and I don’t know anything about who my mom was”. Whose fault is that? Well maybe it’s my fault, and I

feel bad about that, because I should have kept better track of all that stuff. I should have done a better job at getting the records from the orphanages. We didn’t take any records from them.

They just gave us a kid. “What’s this one’s name?” “Min.” “Okay great.” And we’d take the kids and…. ‘cause they live in America. They’re an American kid. They look Vietnamese, they speak Vietnamese, but really this is an American kid. Really their mom is in Iowa. So, you can probably understand where I’m coming from. And so that is an issue that you think about right now and that you will think about your entire life. I have three adopted brothers. It’s part of my world. I understand this whole thing as much as I can being on the other side, not being adopted myself. It’s hard to be adopted. It’s not right. I mean that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

(talking in the background) You’re supposed to grow up with your biological parents. Some biological parents are awful and some are wonderful but not having your biological parents, that’s a hard thing. You’re not being dealt the full hand in this game. I’m sorry that happens to everybody. Some people like you are extraordinarily lucky to be able to be adopted into a wonderful family (crinkling in the background) that loves you and takes care of you and has financial resources and all that stuff. Who knows what your story is, but for a lot of these kids in

Vietnam had they stayed in Vietnam, if they were of mixed race, undoubtedly they would have had a hard time because you can go over and see the mixed race kids… most of them are street people, homeless. Even the Vietnamese kids, they wound up in the orphanages because their parents had actually died, or usually one of the parents had died, sometimes both, but the other parent that was left was so poor he couldn’t possibly take care of his eight children, so he takes two or three of them off to the orphanage and tries to keep the rest or something like that. That is a common story. They would have grown up in an extremely poor environment. Well, is it bad to be poor? Does that mean your life is less worthy because you are really poor? If you

starve to death, if you have some injury or sickness that cannot be cared for? It’s not good but this whole thing of sort of playing God and deciding well you’re a rich American and you’re a poor Vietnamese and therefore the rich American, your life is better or more valuable and more worthy. I dunno, maybe the kids who grow up in Iowa maybe they would be just as well off being a poor fisherman or trash collector or scrap paper collector living in rags and sleeping on the street. Maybe that’s not such a bad life maybe? I mean, I don’t know. I wrestle with this, because I feel responsible for a lot of this and I don’t know what the answer is for sure.

JS: {40:25} It’s funny. (speaking at the same time)

RM: It’s weird talking about this with you because you’re not a totally impartial observer of all this. You have to carry this and figure this out for yourself. In many ways that will make you a rich, more full, more complex person and that’s a great thing for you to think about these things that most kids don’t even think about, but it’s also a burden for you. And I’m sorry for this burden that you have to go through. It’s complicated.

JS: It’s funny that you mentioned like playing God. Did you ever feel like you were playing

God?

RM: All the time. All the time. That’s a very uncomfortable role for me. I think I appreciate the discomfort or the gravity of the decisions now more than I did then. Then I was just a naïve, not very wise teenager, who didn’t have any exposure or experience with any of this stuff. My three adopted brothers are step brothers that I didn’t know until… They didn’t become part of my family until after all this was over. So I didn’t have any experience with adopted people at all

when I first went over there. I was not very culturally sensitive. I was not very wise in terms of appreciating the gravity of what was going on. We would take these kids and rip them up from one life and throw them into another life without a whole lot of thought. Certainly without ever considering that maybe it wasn’t a good idea. It was always a positive idea. I’m not saying it was not a good idea, but it’s something that people ought to think about. People who are in the professional adoption business, especially international adoption. It’s complicated, and I just don’t know. I don’t want to be somebody who says, “You are always better off ‘cause you’re rich”, because I don’t believe that’s true, but it’s complicated. Certainly with our kids we would tell the orphanages, “If this kid has a family, if there is relative that visits them in the orphanage, we don’t want them. We only will take kids that are truly orphans, that have no family of any kind”. And the great majority of them were. They would be left on the doorstep of the orphanage in a basket and they would do that because then they wouldn't be obligated to pay any money to the orphanage, because they wanted to sever their ties entirely. They didn’t want the nuns who probably knew them coming back and finding them in these little villages. They wanted to cut all ties. The great majority of our kids I think were a basket on the doorstep kind of thing. People who were in that sort of situation, obviously they are going to be adopted. I think you are much better off being adopted than growing up in one of those institutions, I think.

That’s kind of a value judgement. I really think from my experience, meeting people who have grown up in institutions as opposed to people who have grown up in families, I really think you are better off in a family. I think I can say that, but I don’t think I can say you are better off rich, growing up rich, than growing up poor. I’m not comfortable saying, “We are going to adopt you so you can be rich”, but I am comfortable saying, “We are gonna have you adopted because you can have parents and family to grow up with”. Is that right, this playing God thing? I’m

uncomfortable playing God. Even the things I am saying right now it’s like, “well I guess. I dunno”. But that’s sort of how I feel about it.

JS: So moving on to (Mr. Meador laughs) opinions about war in general. Are you familiar with

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolutions?

RM: Of course.

JS: Yes. It was largely supported in Congress as it passed, but as time went on the public was obviously very against. What do you think make the people change their mind?

RM: What year was The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? That was like

JS: I’m not sure. (speaking at the same time)

RM: Sixty-four maybe? sixty-five? It was quite a long time ago. When I was quite young, before I had a full appreciation of what this was. As I became aware of the world the Vietnam

War was always going on. As I was growing up, when I was your age, the Vietnam War was on

TV every night and it was big deal. I was gonna be drafted and would have to go there and kill

Vietnamese people, and I was always very, very uncomfortable with that, and always too a very much anti-war posture. That war divided our American culture into two camps. You were either for it or against it and there wasn’t much in the middle. I was always very much in the against camp. So what made people change their mind? What in the world made anybody ever think it was a good idea. (laughs) In some ways that’s a better question. What I think happened is that

we watched the news, watched the war on TV every night, it was the first war that was televised.

And we began to see the horrendous suffering that was going on over there and began to see that the Vietnamese kept saying, “Look we just want to run our own country. We just don’t want to have a foreign invader here. We are just trying to get rid of the Americans”. This whole communist taking over the world thing… that was really put upon them by the Western powers.

Without the Western powers it was just a civil war and and Ho Chi Minh in fact came to the

American government and said, “Help me. I’m just like George Washington. I’m trying to get rid of the British and have my own country”, but the Americans were the British so I think it was a horrible misunderstanding that was driven by Cold War paranoia and that as time went on people began realizing that it was a huge mistake. So many Americans were dying and so many

Vietnamese, even more were dying. Horrible suffering happened and it was not doing anybody any good. The communists, just because they took over South Vietnam doesn’t mean they are going to take over the world. It wasn’t a threat for us, in fact.

JS: In a previous oral history project interviewing a man who worked in a seed aid program, he commented, “I have to say my view on the Vietnam experience was very, very negative having been over there and talked to the people on the ground”. What is your opinion on this statement, since you were also there and talked to the people?

RM: He was from what? What group did you say? The seed… What was that?

JS: He worked in a seed aid program.

RM: What does that mean?

JS: The US government wanted to help Vietnam in other aspects other than just getting rid of the communists. They wanted to help them with food production

RM: Yeah.

JS: Because the South Vietnamese were buying a lot of rice from I think Cambodia

RM: Yeah, yeah.

JS: and other countries. They wanted them to be more self sustaining.

RM: Yeah, yeah (talking at the same time)

JS: So they sent scientists

RM: Yeah

JS: to help aid

RM: So he was there during the war time we are talking about?

JS: Yes.

RM: Not afterwards?

JS: Would you like me to read the quote again?

RM: Sure.

JS: Okay, “I have to say my view on the Vietnam experience was very, very negative having been over there and talked to the people on the ground”. What is you opinion on this statement?

RM: I’m not sure what he means by negative. (talking at the same time) The experience was negative. What is he talking about?

JS: He talked about how…

RM: His personal experience? Or he thinks the war was a bad thing?

JS: He think America shouldn’t… Yeah the war was a bad thing. What is your…

RM: Oh yeah. Oh it was horrible. It was a phenomenally stupid myopic tragedy. Horrible, horrible, horrible. One of the worst things… one of the worst disasters in (cell phone rings)

American history for sure. Right up there (cell phone rings) with the invasion of Iraq. It was a horrible, horrible horrible thing, on every level. So I completely, if that’s what he is talking about, I agree with him completely. Now having said that, there is a very large community of

Vietnamese people, here in Orange County, who are vehemently anti-communist and who would

excommunicate me for saying the things I’m saying right now because they believe that the war was absolutely a very, very good thing, that they were trying to save their country from the communists, that the communists came in and took over and horrible things have happened there since they’ve taken over. They would like to start the war up again to drive the communists out.

These are the Vietnamese folks who fought the war, so who am I to say it was a bad idea?

Nevertheless, (phone notification) in my opinion I think they too got somewhat brainwashed by this communist versus capitalist cold war mentality, that I don’t think has borne out in reality as time has gone on. I don’t think it has shown itself to not have been the global struggle that they thought that it was. I respect them a lot. I have a lot of Vietnamese friends here and I’ve got my little yellow flags and my little red flag pins. I am very careful about whether I wear the yellow flag or the red flag (both laugh) depending on where I’m going. I respect them and I am hesitant to say, “Oh, the war was a big waste” when they are the ones who were fighting it and believed in what they were doing, but my opinion personally is that it was a disaster and it should never have happened.

JS: {51:09} What were your thoughts on America leaving Vietnam, the mass exodus of the soldiers? Because I know you were an objector but I also know that American soldiers helped finance a lot of orphanages, so what are your thoughts?

RM: The reason the orphanages… I started to say the reason they existed but that’s not completely true but certainly the orphanages were… There were so many orphanages there because there were so many orphans there and there were so many orphans there because the

Americans were there killing all the Vietnamese people, creating orphans and making all the

Vietnamese women pregnant and then abandoning them. We were a big part of the problem.

It’s also true that a lot of the GIs would help to support the orphanages. Good for them. I’m glad they did, but how much of that was just guilty conscience? Is that give some money to the orphanage so then you don’t feel so bad about the fact that you are the one who killed the mom?

It’s complicated. I certainly don’t think that it would be good for the American soldiers to still be there just because they gave some money to the orphanages. The net cost of the Americans being there (unintelligible) up the child welfare picture in Vietnam was a negative for sure. The fact that they left, things only got better after the Americans left for sure. In that respect….

(mumbling) The Americans leaving was a good thing. For the Americans to leave Vietnam, and for the military especially to leave Vietnam that was all a good thing. Now I’ve been back to

Vietnam a lot recently and going over there as a businessman these days it’s a different story entirely as the soldiers going over there to kill people, blow things up, and to spread agent orange everywhere, do all the horrible things that they did there was nothing good about that at all.

JS: In the aftermath of Operation Babylift and Vietnam in general some people have been critical about the Babylift saying it a publicity stunt or calling it an illegal abduction. What would you say to a person who believes Operation Babylift was an abduction?

RM: I’ve heard that before of course and people who say that don’t understand what really happened and I don’t blame them for not understanding what really happened but if they did learn the true story they would know that that could not possibly be true. What they don’t understand is that there were seven licensed adoption agencies that were in the process of doing adoptions from Vietnam for years before the Babylift. We started doing it roughly a year or so, a year and a half, before the Babylift, but Rosemary Taylor’s organization, the first Friends of

Children of Vietnam, they had been doing it for, I don’t remember when they started, but maybe

another ten years before, at least another for sure five or seven years before, they had been doing it. Just like people who were adopted out of China, people who were adopted out of Romania, people who are adopted out of Russia, people who were adopted out of Korea, international adoption goes on all over the world all the time. We were involved in international adoption and it was a good thing. When the communists took over, we had to leave, there was no question but that we as the agency had to leave. There is no way we could have stayed there, they would have kicked us out for sure and maybe killed us, we didn’t really know, but me as a young

American man staying behind could have been a pretty dangerous and reckless thing to do. The

Babylift was a matter of us transporting all of these kids that were already in the adoption pipeline, that all would have gone to the United States within the subsequent six months, but they all had to leave quickly because the Communists were coming to take over. That was the

Babylift. Babylift was not us running through the streets grabbing up children, stealing them out of the arms of their mom, or running through the parks and just scooping up kids, running through the market and scooping up kids and throwing them on an airplane. That’s not what was going on. These were kids that were… We were the legal guardians. They lived in my house. I fed them everyday. I couldn’t leave. There was no place to put them. I mean the idea that it was an abduction or whatever you were… That’s just so not what was happening. That does not reflect the reality of the situation.

JS: {56:13} What are your reactions to these cartoons? (hands him a packet of cartoons) Here is two and there there is one more on the other…

RM: Doonesbury. Okay. “All I can say is that being able to adopt Kim has made up both very, very happy” “Mrs. Rosenthal, aren’t you and your husband just trying to atone our collective national guilt through individual action?” “What, what an awful, cynical thing to say. How could you think that?” Sniff sob “Oh God” “Honey?” “That’s it fellas, thanks for coming”. (laughs)

This is just the way (unintelligible) and I totally understand this cartoon and I get where Garry

Trudeau is coming from in that I am sure that part of the motivation for some adoptive parents is to satisfy some kind of psychological need that they have to make them feel better about themselves. Some people adopt because, “Oh, this poor little child, my life is incomplete. I’m gonna adopt this little child. They need a parent and I need a child. The world is going to be wonderful because I’m adopting this kid”. People give birth for the same reason. But raising a kid, it’s more complicated than that. You know? (laughs) Raising a kid should not be done lightly. It’s not like getting a dog. I mean you can take the dog back to the pound if it doesn’t really work out. This is a little different. We would try very hard to screen the parents and sometimes these adoptions worked out and sometimes they didn’t work out. There were some situations where the kids ran away and the parents… It didn’t work out. The emotion of adoption is complicated and what motivated people, what motivated your parents to adopt you, or

anybody, not to personalize it on you but people are different and people do it for different reasons and I think the only good reason to adopt someone is because you want to raise a child in the same way you would want to raise a biological child and not that you would choose to adopt because you can’t have a biological child. I think bringing a kid biologically or by adoption is more or less the same in my view in terms of your responsibility to the kid and in terms of the attitude you should have toward the kid. It’s this person that I’m gonna raise in my family and with all the stuff that goes along with parenthood and being a child. You are at one end of that right now. Before long you’ll be at the other end of it with your little one. What do you do if they misbehave? Do you give them a time out? Or do you slap them across the face? All those things that go along with parenthood. It’s complicated. When adopting, to do it because you feel guilty, or to have a biological kid because you think it might improve your marriage or whatever, those are all bad reasons to have a kid. Alright. (laughs) I’ve given you more than you’ve asked for.

JS: No, detail is lovely.

RM: This is stuff I think about a lot and spend a lot of time thinking about throughout my life.

Okay, here we go. The kid says, “What’s this in my oatmeal?” “Don’t play with your food dear”

“Waah” “For Goodness sake, Kim they are just raisins” “Oh, I thought it was shrapnel”. (laughs)

I don’t know. We certainly had kids that would come to us, what they would do is when they heard a bang they would dive under the table because they were afraid of war sounds and they would very often take the food that we would give them and hide the food in their pocket.

They’d fill their pockets with rice, because they didn’t know if they would ever get food again. I

do think that kids are scarred by growing up in that war kind of environment. Maybe that’s what this cartoon is about?

“Yes we will be taking her home to Santa Monica this afternoon, and we have already decided to call her Kim” “Mrs. Rosenthal” Jewish name I like (unintelligible) (laughs) “Seeing how we have over a hundred thousand unadopted orphans in our own country, why did you choose to adopt a Vietnamese baby?” “We decided to adopt Kim because of the immediacy of her plight. It had nothing to do with her being Vietnamese. Of course, I won’t deny the glamour of it all”

“Yes let's not fool ourselves, gang. I’m a class act”. I do think that people adopt because of the

PR, the publicity that was coming out and it does feel like there was an immediate need to adopt these kids, which there was. Should you adopt a kid who is American as opposed to a kids who’s

Vietnamese, because Americans are more important, because we are more connected with the

Americans, because they are on my side of the ocean instead of the other side of the ocean? I don’t really think that way. I think they are all in one giant pool. There is giant pool of homeless kids out there, and they are all different sizes and shapes and colors and mixes. One of the nice things about adoption is you get to choose. If it’s biological you just take what you get.

One of my kids I’ll trade him in for one of you in a heartbeat. You know what I mean. I’m

kidding. In my personal opinion in the whole world of kids that would like to grow up in a home, you’re looking to raise a child, adopting one of those kids, in fact selecting one of those kids, I think I want a kid from this place, I think that’s okay. (flips to a picture I did not intend to discuss)

This picture here is a horrible heart breaking picture. It makes me cry.

JS: Did you see a lot of that?

RM: Yup. I will show you in the slides. Yup. So this is now the people climbing over the gate and over the walls.

JS: Let’s save that for later.

RM: I’ve been there. I was one of them.

JS: Okay. Historian H. Bruce Franklin says, “The Vietnam War was just a mistake or a series of mistakes, made by well intentioned, fallible men governing a representative democracy”. What is you opinion on this?

RM: Yeah, I agree.

JS: Historian Guenter Lewy has said that the United States "cannot and should not be the world's policeman, but, it can be argued, the U.S. has a moral obligation to support nations in their endeavor to remain independent when we, and we alone, possess the means to do so” What are your reactions to this statement?

RM: Well, I think it’s a lot more complicated than that, but I generally I sort of support… The

Americans have a lot of resources and we can be a force of good in the world in a lot of circumstances. Usually I think that if we look at our history we have misused that power and in fact it has been exercised for far more selfish reasons than for altruistic reasons and it's because

America is not just one thing. It is all of it’s various people and all of these competing voices and so on. Why when we invaded Iraq, the only ministry that was well guarded and preserved was the oil ministry? It’s because we went into Iraq to steal all their oil, not save them from

Saddam Hussein. We wanted to steal all their oil. That’s what was really going on there or the justification for it. So why did we go to Vietnam? Was there some economic reason to do it?

There certainly was a lot of people that got really, really rich from the Vietnam War. Ed Daly was one of them, for example. So I’m sure that that was… even some of the (unintelligible) people talk about the military industrial complex, which was something that was well recognized and it pushed a lot of people to accelerate the war because there was so much money to be made from it. War is generally good for the economy, but to the extent that we really are looking and are able to help out another country in a way that is at least largely altruistic and can do it without hurting a lot of people along the way, then I tend to think that is a good thing. One

man’s terrorist is one man’s freedom fighter. You may decide whose side you’re on, but it’s going on today. Groups like ISIS and so on. I just don’t think there can be much argument that those are bad people and that the American does have power to be able to limit what they are doing. We ought to use our power to limit people like that, but should we use our power to limit people like Ho Chi Minh and his folks? I’m not sure Ho Chi Minh is really all that bad of a guy to tell you the truth. I think he was really like a founding father that was trying to first get rid of the French and then get rid of the Americans, who were there trying to colonize his country.

Yeah we were for sure. We were doing that. And that’s a bad thing and so I don’t think this whole thing about democracy and blah, blah, blah in Vietnam… I’m not sure how much that really applies and you know democracy is complicated. A lot of countries are not quite ready to have democracy. It doesn’t mean the leaders should be able to rape and pillage, but it does mean that a leader can be benevolent without being elected in a country where people don’t really elect their representatives. (unintelligible)

JS: Going back to the previous historian’s quote, can you tell me more about why you agree?

Would you like me to read the quote again?

RM: Yes.

JS: “The Vietnam War was just a mistake or a series of mistakes, made by well intentioned, fallible men who governed a representative democracy”. Can you explain more why you agree?

RM: I do think that a lot of people were well intentioned. I think that some people were not so well intentioned. They were just out making money, but I do think for the most part the government believed that it was important to fight communism. I think we felt like that was a

legitimate thing that communists were truly bad and were going to hurt the world and our country if we didn’t stop them. I think people really believed that. In retrospect, I’m not sure if I believe that anybody believes that anymore, but I think they did at the time. I understand why they believed that at the time and there certainly was a lot of mistakes for sure, lots and lots of mistakes, starting with the Gulf of Tonkin and going all the way through. I think there was a lot of mis… I don’t know if there were lies exactly but a lot of intentional misrepresentation about what was going on, like how well we were doing in the war, how many enemy communists we were killing, how quickly victory was going to be available to us, when in fact things were much worse than anybody ever acknowledged. I think the people were well intentioned for the most part and I think it was a series of mistakes. I think that there were at least misrepresentations by people in power, that caused a lot of the problems. People wanted to say, “Here we are really doing well”. You tell your boss that you are doing a good job, when in fact you are really not doing a good job. That just got carried away into, “We are doing a good job in our war. Let’s keep it up. A little bit more money” without really being in touch with the fact that what they were doing was destroying these people. Killing thousands of people and ruining this country. I don’t know if that answers your question.

JS: It was good. What role do you think the media played in the war?

RM: I think it played a huge role. One was that we were able to see it on TV for the first time and that was really a big deal. Every night you would turn on the TV. Every night the lead story was about Vietnam. Every day or at least once a week they would tell you about how many

Americans died and how many communists died. It was very present for us all the time, and so that presence I think led to the anti-war sentiment because people became to realize what was

going on and began to realize how many problems there were. I do think that the media did not, at least at first, didn’t challenge the misrepresentations that were going on. They would go to these press conferences in Vietnam and were fed a lot of stuff that was really not true and they would tend to report it without so much commentary, criticism or questioning of whether it was true or not? But as time went on the media began questioning more and toward the end I think the media became rather anti war in their bias and that helped bring the war to an end.

JS: Is there anything else that you want to talk about that we didn’t get to?

RM: Well, if I show you these slides… We’ll go over them quickly. There is more stuff that I can show you. (unintelligible) there talk about, but I can’t think of anything else in particular right now.

JS: Alright. I think that wraps it up for now except the slides.

RM: I have done a lot of interviews with a lot of people and you are really very thoughtful and very. (unintelligible)

JS: Thank you. My teacher will be very happy. (speaking at the same time)

RM: I absolutely mean that. I have been interviewed a lot about this and your questions are really getting at the heart of what’s the real issue. And so I’m really impressed on how you

(unintelligible)

JS: Aw, thank you. I’m going to stop this.

Interview Analysis

Reckless kidnapper or humanitarian liberator? Seldom it is that these two labels can be used to address the same person, but as a worker involved in Operation Babylift, Ross Meador

has been branded with both labels ever since he was evacuated from Vietnam. Operation

Babylift is the name of the mass evacuation of South Vietnamese orphans to the United States and other countries during the end of the Vietnam War. The Red Cross would call the operation illegal; they accuse Mr. Meador’s organization, Friends of Children of Vietnam, of not adhering to the laws established by the Geneva Convention. However, President Ford supported the evacuation, even personally welcoming the first plane to safety. Indeed, the duality of Mr.

Meador’s actions coincide with the nature of history, in that they both have multiple facets to consider. For instance, the legacy of a battle that is a massive triumph for the victor will be different than the legacy of the same battle for the defeated. Oral history gives the intimate opinion of the common man. Moreover, it gives the average recipient a medium of information and culture that is more relatable to him/her. The artist, Anselm Kiefer, articulates this concept in his quote which states, “History is formed by the people, those who have power and those without power. Each one of us makes history” (Kiefer). In accordance with Kiefer’s point, the value of oral history is priceless, because it preserves a voice that speaks for thousands of people who are unable to record their own personal history, which is equally as valuable as the opinion of a leader or wealthy individual. Furthermore, this concept is proven by Mr. Meador’s interview; his insightful commentary about his experiences and the war in general is irreplaceable because his actions affected thousand of people. Mr. Meador’s account reinforces the views of historian H. Bruce Franklin, while at the same time refutes the commentary from the

Red Cross.

The interview began with Mr. Meador describing his childhood which he characterized as

“generally happy”, but “not at all exposed to foreign culture”. His first impression of Vietnam was fear, because he was a nineteen year old with no experience with war zones or with setting

up an orphanage. The conversation progressed to talk about the conditions of the orphanages, which were all “underfunded and understaffed”. The kids cared for at his orphanage were mostly babies and mostly healthy, but occasionally there would be epidemics of the flu and many of the kids would die. After discussing the overall atmosphere of war torn Vietnam, Mr. Meador described where his involvement in Operation Babylift began. Operation Babylift began because of the danger posed by the oncoming Communist army to an American organization, who had hundreds of children in their care, and his part in Operation Babylift was finding a solution to that problem. From there, the conversation transitioned to the shortcomings of Babylift and the stories of the children evacuated. The stories had hints of humor, hope, but also sorrow and loss.

Mr. Meador expressed his regret because in the chaos of evacuation his organization did not keep organized documents on each child, resulting in most of the war orphans having no idea where they came from. Subsequently, Mr. Meador addressed the opposition, who think the operation was an abduction, by explaining the kids who were evacuated were not scooped up from their unwilling mothers. He answered, “We were the legal guardians” and the kids were already in the process of being adopted. With that issue addressed, he made it clear that he was opposed to the

United States’ involvement in Vietnam, calling it a “phenomenally stupid myopic tragedy”.

Later he shared his reactions to a series of cartoons, which started a conversation about the reasons people adopt and the responsibilities all parents have to a child. He agreed with both historians H. Bruce Franklin and Guenter Lewy in their critical view of the United States involvement in Vietnam.

Historians have debated whether the intervention in Vietnam was a valiant effort or a waste of lives and resources. Some people argue that war in Vietnam was in the United States’ best interest because of the Domino Theory, while others argue that the United States should

never have involved themselves in the civil war of a small country halfway across the globe.

Historian H. Bruce Franklin identifies with the latter party and asserts, “The Vietnam War was just a mistake, or a series of mistakes, made by well intentioned, fallible men governing a representative democracy” (Franklin 3). This view is echoed by many, including Mr. Meador.

He concurs and furthers the statement by saying, “I think the people were well intentioned for the most part and I think it was a series of mistakes. I think that there were at least misrepresentations by people in power, that caused a lot of the problems” (Schissler 62). Their concurring opinions prove that their argument is supported by a wide array of people from different backgrounds. Franklin’s views have been influenced by his service in the military and his lack of first hand experience in Vietnam; on the other hand, Mr. Meador’s career as a lawyer and his first hand authentic witness to war has influenced his worldview. From this perspective, it is understood that the people of similar backgrounds are probable to have similar unfavorable opinions about the war. To summarize, their disapproving opinions about the United States’ involvement are parallel, even though they have different experiences; this fact shows that people with an array of experiences are led to this conclusion.

The outcome of Operation Babylift is debated among the adoption community and throughout the world, with many different factors to explore. On one hand, supporters see it as a laudable act of charity. They argue that the kids were saved from Communism and possible violence, therefore the evacuation was justifiable. However, the opposition says it was a publicity stunt to help the United States’ reputation or an abduction of children from their culture. The Red Cross was vocal about their dissent on the decision to relocate 2500+ children from South Vietnam. Their spokesman said, “Parties in the conflict are required to take all necessary measures to ascertain family ties of children under 12 years of age and certify them for

adoption. All these conditions do not appear to be being fulfilled in adoptions at present being carried out in various countries of the world, because children are being taken away from their cultural milieu” (Dispatches). The Red Cross’ concerns are understandable, but Mr. Meador disagrees with them. When asked what he would say to a person who believes Operation

Babylift was an abduction he responded, “The Babylift was a matter of us transporting all of these kids that were already in the adoption pipeline, that all would have gone to the United

States within the subsequent six months, but they all had to leave quickly because the

Communists were coming to take over. That was the Babylift. Babylift was not us running through the streets grabbing up children, stealing them out of the arms of their mom” (Schissler

54). The difference in opinion can be traced to the first hand involvement in the evacuation of the children by Mr. Meador and the detached information of the Red Cross. To Mr. Meador, he had real faces to put to the numbers; he himself scrambled to get his kids onto the planes because he believed they were in danger. This discrepancy of opinions could also be because of a lack of information. The Red Cross was speaking as the Babylift flights were in progress. This makes it unlikely that they were able to reach out to one of the organizations to question them about their children. Altogether, the conflicting platforms about the justifiability of Operation Babylift from the Red Cross and Mr. Meador are likely due to the difference in experience and a lack of communication.

This project has made me think about adoption in a new way. Prior to to my interview, I would have said adoption concerns three parties: the adoptee, the adoptive parents, and the biological parents. I had never thought about the people who take care of the children in the stage between the birth family and the adoptive family. After my talk with Mr. Meador I appreciate the people who take care of orphans, because without them many happy, loving

families would be missing a member of their family. Additionally, I never thought of adoption as an event that makes history. To me, it was a personal circumstance that goes unpublicized for most of one’s life. I wonder how the children’s lives are today and how the Babylift impacted their everyday life. Most of all I wonder what their opinions on the Vietnam War are. Do they resent it for taking them away from their homeland, or are they at peace with their life now? All in all, I am glad I embarked on this project because it genuinely interested me and I got the opportunity to converse with a man who had lived a life I would love to emulate.

Appendix 1 Ross Meador with several of the children he cared for.

Photographs © 1978 Ross Meador. Used with Permission. May not be copied, used, or reproduced without permission from the copyright holder.

Appendix 2

Children use makeshift toilets, which are in the same room as the kitchen at one of the orphanages Mr. Meador visited.

Photographs © 1978 Ross Meador. Used with Permission. May not be copied, used, or reproduced without permission from the copyright holder.

Appendix 3

Infants lie on the floor, because of overcrowding.

Photographs © 1978 Ross Meador. Used with Permission. May not be copied, used, or reproduced without permission from the copyright holder.

Appendix 4 A malnourished baby lies in a crib.

Photographs © 1978 Ross Meador. Used with Permission. May not be copied, used, or reproduced without permission from the copyright holder.

Appendix 5 President Ford welcomes infants from Operation Babylift to the United States.

Appendix 6 Soldiers sort through the wreckage of the C-5 that crashed shortly after takeoff.

Appendix 7 An advertisement to raise money to charter an airplane, after the crash.

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