The image still haunts: desperate refugees on a Saigon rooftop, snaking up a ladder to a waiting helicopter and escape from the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975. The Vietnam War was over. Observing the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, James H. Willbanks of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth examines the decisions and events that precipitated the South Vietnam's final collapse. Director of the college’s department of military history, Willbanks discusses the Paris Peace Accords two years earlier, the “cease-fire war,” Richard Nixon’s resignation, the impact of declining U.S. support, and North Vietnam’s end-game offensive in 1975. Co-sponsored by the Command and General Staff College Foundation.