Fifty years ago today, on April 30, 1975, the world watched as helicopters fled the rooftop of the US embassy in Saigon and the Vietnamese flag was raised over the city — a moment widely described in the United States as “the fall of Saigon” but known across much of the world as its liberation. In this episode of Confronting Capitalism, recorded for the anniversary of that world-historic event, Catalyst editor Vivek Chibber speaks to Melissa Naschek to unpack the true history of the Vietnam War: the imperial motivations behind US intervention, the myth of South Vietnam as a sovereign nation, and how the Vietnamese people — not just the American antiwar movement — ultimately brought the war to an end. As Chibber argues, Vietnam’s victory was not just a military one but a moral and political defeat for empire, with lessons that remain vital for understanding US foreign policy today.

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