announcer: history tv is featuring c-span's original series on first ladies on sundays at 8:00 p.m. this is american history tv. all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. each week, american history tv's real america brings you archival films that help to tell the story of the 20th century. up next from 40 years ago, a may 26, 1975 nbc news special report on the fall of saigon. it documents the capture of the capital of south vietnam by north vietnamese communist forces a month earlier and details events in the months following the end of the vietnam

war. anchor: we delay the start of "the tonight show starring johnny carson" to bring you the following nbc news special report. reporter: at 12:00 noon on april 30, a north vietnamese tank broke the gate of the presidential palace in saigon. a communist soldier ran the revolution's flag across the empty lawn. the shooting on this day the communists won was not in a battle but a celebration. saigon had already surrendered.

[gunfire] tonight, nbc news presents the first full report on saigon's first month as a communist city. announcer: nbc news presents a special report. communist saigon. here is nbc news correspondent john hart. john: good evening. it's been almost a month now since the communists won the war in vietnam, and during that time, they have allowed us only bits and pieces of information on what has been going on there since saigon surrendered. but now, we are beginning to know a little more. since last saturday, 82 newsmen, foreigners in vietnam, flew out with the stories and films that had been piling up there during the communist takeover. nbc's jim laurie was one of them, and he brought out with him the film that we're going to be seeing tonight. jim is in hong kong with nbc's jack perkins, and they're going to take us through the events of that last month in vietnam beginning with the surrender. gentlemen? jack: jim, i don't know if you call it the fall of saigon or the liberation of saigon, but whatever it is, you witnessed pieces of history. we are happy to have the privilege of looking at that film and finally getting a sight of what was going on. there, for the last 3.5 weeks, starting, i guess, with the day the last americans left, the day that everything suddenly turned