WOLFGANG J. LEHMANN PAPERS, 1973-79 (2002)

Wolfgang Lehmann had a long and distinguished career in the Foreign Service, but this collection focuses narrowly on the time he spent in South Vietnam (1973-1975), especially the closing months of the Vietnam War and the evacuation from Saigon in April 1975. During his last year in South Vietnam, Lehmann served as the deputy to Ambassador Graham Martin.

The collection does not contain Lehmann’s official files. Instead, it consists of materials created by or collected by Lehmann concerning the events in which he was involved. Most date from after the fall of Saigon, although one folder of declassified State Department cables concerns some aspects of the work of Martin and Lehmann, August 1974 to April 1975. In addition, the collection contains some maps, newspapers, and photographs from that period.

Two key documents are the transcripts of Lehmann’s oral history interviews. His 1989 interview concerns events from the entire time Lehmann served in Vietnam, while the 1982 interview focuses specifically on the last few weeks of the war and the final evacuation.

After leaving Vietnam, Lehmann delivered speeches and wrote “historical perspectives,” letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, and book reviews concerning events of that era. These are included in his collection, along with materials he collected about the evacuation. The latter documents were written by others directly involved in the same events.

Related Materials (June 2012)
The most important related Ford Library collection is the one titled “Saigon Embassy Files Kept by Ambassador Graham Martin: Copies made for the NSC.” Other materials on the closing weeks of the Vietnam War and the final evacuation appear in many Ford Library collections, especially the files of the NSC East Asian and Pacific Affairs Staff and the Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific.