First Draft of History: The AP reports the Fall of Saigon and End of the Vietnam War

Original Associated Press Broadcast Wire Bulletin, Urgent and Story on the Surrender of South Vietnam. (4 partial sheets). These are four sheets neatly torn from the continuous paper feed for the AP wire service machine consisting of: 1) The initial four word Associated Press BULLETIN that moved on the wire on April 29, 1975 at 10:27 PM Eastern Daylight time and the additional one-sentence “Take 2” that moved a minute later (with a sports score in between). The copy starts with the AP’s number for the item (APB454 | 375) followed by the five single quotation marks that triggered a bell on the wire service printer to ring times (an alert to the newsroom of a bulletin) and then the story, datelined Saigon: “South Vietnam has surrendered.” That is followed by a sports score and then the addition to the bulletin (APB456 | 379): “The unconditional surrender to the Viet Cong was announced by President Duong Van ‘‘Big’’ Minh.” 2) The AP URGENT story on the surrender that replaced the bulleti