"They are All My Family:" Heroism in Saigon's fall
Forty years ago, Saigon fell to communist North Vietnam. Images of South Vietnamese escaping on American helicopters are seared into history. There are tales of tragedy, but also heroism.
In the spring of 1975, John Riordan was the assistant manager of the Saigon branch of First National City Bank, now known as Citibank.
With communist North Vietnamese forces bearing down on Saigon, Riordan, author of new book "They Are All My Family," was about to become a hero, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.
First though, on April 3, he received an urgent call from his bosses in New York.
"'John, close that bank, and take the staff and all their family -- immediate family -- to a plane we have coming in tomorrow at Tan Son Nhat airport, it's a chartered Pan Am 747,'" Riordan recalled.
The problem with that plan was that the staff was Vietnamese. And unlike Americans, they couldn't just get on a plane and evacuate. So Riordan left without the staff. It was a scary time for those left behind, two bank workers told "60 Minutes'" Lesley Stahl.
Cuc Pham-Vo told Stahl she felt abandoned.
"I was crying so much. I was worried about my kids, my husband. And he said, 'No worry, I will be there for you,'" Chi Vu told Stahl.
Riordan went to Hong Kong, where he and his bank bosses tried desperately to find a way to get the Vietnamese employees out.
"We had been working ... on all kinds of plans to get helicopters in there, another plane in there, a ship with a landing pad on it," Riordan said. "And they all failed."
The Citibank brass finally gave up. And they told Riordan and his colleagues not to re-enter Vietnam. That night, Riordan's immediate supervisor, Mike McTighe asked him to dinner.
"Mike leaned into me and he said, 'You know, John, one of us has to go back.' And I just kind of pushed the steak away and said with some tears in my eyes at that moment, 'You're right, I know it,'" Riordan said.
Riordan said the staff was counting on them.
So despite Citibank's orders, he returned. There was no plan, but there was plenty of will. Life under communist rule would likely be very rough for those who worked closely with Americans, those like the Citibank employees.
Riordan had gathered them and their families at two villas. A CIA operative told him the only way out was U.S. military cargo planes evacuating Americans and their immediate families.
He said the CIA told him to take the 106 people and treat them as his family, not at once, but in small groups.
"It was the only straw that was, you know, offered to me at the time," Riordan said.
And so began 15 treks to the airport, with the Vietnamese employees in tow. Riordan lied on government paperwork, making long lists of sons and daughters he didn't really have. All of them Vietnamese.
"I only had one wife in all of those applications," he said, laughing. "The rest of them... were just children."
Remarkably, Riordan and his new giant family were never stopped. Never really questioned. All of them got out -- and just in time. Days later, North Vietnamese troops rolled in, and Saigon fell.
Each of the 106 was relocated to the United States, where they lived their lives and grew their families. In 2013, "60 Minutes" organized a reunion for Riordan and the people he rescued.
They still call him "papa," and he still refers to them as his family. But there is one thing Riordan does not want to be called: hero.
"I'm just me," he said.