The Foreign Service Journal, April 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2015 45 While the war remained divisive for Americans, there was bipartisan support for assisting refugees in the years immedi- ately following it. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) had long been interested in refugee issues. According to Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Anne C. Richard, “He became the author and driving force behind the Refugee Act of 1980, which moved the country from an ad hoc program to bring refugees to the U.S. to a formal partnership between the government and private organizations with annual goals for refugee admissions.” Others, like Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), have also played an instrumental role in supporting humanitar- ian programs to reunite families and provide assistance for those who were released from re-education camps. With congressional refugee admission authorities and fund- ing, Julia Taft, Shep Lowman, Lionel Rosenblatt, Hank Cushing and other FSOs began implementing one of the largest refugee resettlement programs in the world, including approximately 140,000 refugees who arrived in 1975. Forty years later, they and other waves of refugees have made important contributions to America and other countries—far from the burden that many predicted. I remember my father recounting, in vivid detail, the story of howwe left Vietnam, saying that he wondered who the young Americans were who had helped to save our family and somany others. With the fall of Saigon inevitable, at-risk Vietnamese climb aboard a barge in Khanh Hoi Saigon Port on the afternoon of April 29, 1975. Joe Gettier, with the help of Mel Chatman and Bill Egan, and against the orders of the U.S. ambassador, left the embassy that day to save people, using barges pulled by tug boats. Nik Wheeler