cover image They Are All My Family: A Daring Rescue in the Chaos of Saigon’s Fall

They Are All My Family: A Daring Rescue in the Chaos of Saigon’s Fall

John P. Riordan, with Monique Brinson Demery. PublicAffairs, $25.99 (228p) ISBN 978-1-61039-503-8

Timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the April 1975 end of the Republic of Vietnam (and event known in the U.S. as “The Fall of Saigon”), this breezily written memoir, filled with reconstructed dialogue, relates how Riordan, a former assistant manager of Citibank’s Saigon branch, successfully rescued 105 South Vietnamese Citibank employees and their families before the Communist takeover. Riordan had served as an Army officer in Vietnam in 1968, working for the Studies and Observation Group (SOG), a covert special-operations unit, though he downplays his role as a minor one: “a noncombatant in charge of the medical supplies for interdiction missions.” His real story begins on Apr. 18, 1975, when he disobeys his bank superiors’ orders and flies from Hong Kong to Saigon. The heart of the book details Riordan’s relentless efforts to get his former coworkers and their families on evacuation flights, making it out four days before the “revolutionary flag went up over Saigon’s presidential palace.” Riordan focuses on a tiny slice of the big story: an elite bank manager and his well-off employees who feared for their lives and fortunes in the face of the imminent takeover. B&w photos. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners. [em](Apr.) [/em]