As communist troops streamed into Saigon, a few remaining reporters kept photos and stories flowing

BANGKOK (AP) — They’d watched overnight as the bombardments grew closer, and observed through binoculars as the last U.S. Marines piled into a helicopter on the roof of the embassy to be whisked away from Saigon.

So when the reporters who had stayed behind heard the telltale squeak of the rubber sandals worn by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops in the stairs outside The Associated Press office, they weren’t surprised, and braced themselves for possible detention or arrest.

But when the two young soldiers who entered showed no signs of malice, the journalists just kept reporting.

Offering the men a Coke and day-old cake, Peter Arnett, George Esper and Matt Franjola started asking about their march into Saigon. As the men pointed out their route on a bureau map, photographer Sarah Errington emerged from the darkroom and snapped what would become an iconic picture, published around the world.

Fifty years later, Arnett recalled the message he fed into the teletype transmitter to AP headquarters in New York after the improbable scene had played out.

“In my 13 years of covering the Vietnam War, I never dreamed it would end as it did today,” he remembers writing.

The message never made it: after a day of carrying alerts and stories on the fall of Saigon and the end of a 20-year war that saw more than 58,000 Americans killed and many times that number of Vietnamese, the wire had been cut.

The fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 was the end of an era for the AP in Vietnam that began when it opened its first office there in 1950. Arnett left in May, and then Franjola was expelled, followed by Esper and a bureau wouldn't be reestablished until 1993.

The AP received five Pulitzer Prizes for its reporting of the war, including back-to-back-to-back wins by bureau chief Malcolm Browne in 1964, photo chief Horst Faas in 1965 and Arnett in 1966.

Four AP photographers were killed covering the war, and at least 16 other AP journalists were injured, some multiple times.

By 1975, the number of American forces in Vietnam had been drawn down to a handful, following the 1973 Paris Peace Accords in which U.S. President Richard Nixon agreed to a withdrawal, leaving the South Vietnamese to fend for themselves.

The AP’s bureau had shrunk as well, and as the North Vietnamese Army and its allied Viet Cong guerrilla force in the south pushed toward Saigon, most staff members were evacuated.

Arnett, Esper and Franjola volunteered to stay behind, anxious to see through to the end what they had committed so many years of their lives to covering.

“I saw it from the beginning, I wanted to see the end,” Esper said.

On April 30, 1975, Arnett watched through binoculars as a small group of U.S. Marines that had accidentally been left behind clambered aboard a Sea Knight helicopter from the roof of the embassy — the last American evacuees.

He called it in to Esper in the office, and the story was in newsrooms around the world before the helicopter had cleared the coast.

At 10:24 a.m., Arnett was writing a story about the looting of the U.S. Embassy when Esper heard on Saigon Radio that South Vietnam had surrendered and immediately filed an alert.

Out on the streets, Franjola, who died in 2015, was nearly sideswiped by a Jeep packed with men brandishing Russian rifles and wearing the black Viet Cong garb. Arnett then saw a convoy of Russian trucks loaded with North Vietnamese soldiers driving down the main street and scrambled back into the office.

“‘George,’ I shout, ‘Saigon has fallen. Call New York,’” Arnett said. “I check my watch. It’s 11:43 a.m.”

It was about 2:30 p.m. when the two NVA soldiers burst in, accompanied by Ky Nhan, a freelance photographer who worked for the AP, who announced himself as a longtime member of the Viet Cong.

“I have guaranteed the safety of the AP office,” Arnett recalled the photographer saying. “You have no reason to be concerned.”

As Arnett, Esper and Franjola pored over the map with the two NVA soldiers, they chatted through an interpreter about the attack on Saigon, which had been renamed Ho Chi Minh City as soon as it fell.

The young men showed the reporters photos of their families and girlfriends, telling them how much they missed them and wanted to get home.

“I was thinking in my own mind these are North Vietnamese, there are South Vietnamese, Americans — we’re all the same,” Esper said.

“People have girlfriends, they miss them, they have the same fears, the same loneliness, and in my head I’m tallying up the casualties, you know nearly 60,000 Americans dead, a million North Vietnamese fighters dead, 224,000 South Vietnamese military killed, and two million civilians killed. And that’s the way the war ended for me.”

Komor, the retired director of AP Corporate Archives, reported from New York.

Upon learning that he has won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, AP reporter Peter Arnett, center, accepts congratulations at the Saigon bureau from fellow Pulitzer winners Malcolm Browne, left, and Horst Faas. Browne shared the 1964 Pulitzer for International Reporting, and Faas won the 1965 Pulitzer for Photography. AP's Saigon bureau would eventually win five Pulitzers during the war. (AP Photo)

The last three staffers in The Associated Press' Saigon bureau, reporters Matt Franjola, left, Peter Arnett, rear, and George Esper, second from right, are joined by two North Vietnamese soldiers and a member of the Viet Cong on the day the government of South Vietnam surrendered, April 30, 1975. One of the soldiers is showing Esper the route of his final advance into the city. (AP Photo/Sarah Errington)

FILE- A U.S. Marine helicopter takes off from helipad on top of the American Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, April 30, 1975. (AP Photo/Phu)

Wounded Associated Press photographer Al Chang gives an account of the battle in which he was injured at Bien Hoa, to AP correspondent Peter Arnett in Saigon, Dec. 1965. Chang was wounded Dec. 18 in a fight with Viet Cong in which five paratroopers died. (AP PhotoAP Corporate Archives)

AP correspondent Peter Arnett and AP staff photographer Horst Faas eat while waiting for the arrival of the U.S. 1st Division in July 1965 in Cam Ranh Bay. Faas eats a French-made sausage sauerkraut meal from a can while Arnett has a C-ration. (AP Photo/AP Corporate Archives)

Wes Gallagher, center, general manager of the Associated Press, and Malcolm Browne, right, AP Saigon correspondent, speak with colleague Peter Arnett in Tan An, capital city of the Long An province in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, March 23, 1964. (AP Photo)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Vivek Ramaswamy has spent his campaign for Ohio governor focused on November's general election and finally gets the chance Tuesday to put the long primary season behind him, as the Trump-endorsed biotech entrepreneur positions for an expensive run against Dr. Amy Acton, the former state health director.

Contests on the ballots also will set the stage for Ohio's third competitive U.S. Senate race in the last four years, as well as a handful of U.S. House races that are expected to be closely fought in the fall.

Every statewide executive office is open this year due to term limits, but the governor's race has captured the bulk of the attention so far.

Ramaswamy, a 2024 GOP primary presidential candidate, swept onto the state's political scene early last year as a mad shuffle was taking place. Then-Sen. JD Vance was ascending to the vice presidency and front-running gubernatorial candidate Jon Husted was being appointed to replace him in Washington.

That opened a window of opportunity at the top of Republicans' statewide ticket.

Though he is a newcomer in state politics, Ramaswamy's national profile, tech industry connections and proximity to Trump landed him the Ohio Republican Party's endorsement. With it, he cleared a prospective field that included the sitting state attorney general, state treasurer and lieutenant governor.

But Democrats also saw opportunity with the open governors seat, even as the state, a former bellwether, has tipped convincingly toward Republicans during the Trump era. The president’s lagging approval ratings on the economy and dissatisfaction over the war in Iran are contributing to a competitive contest.

Acton, a physician and public health expert, emerged as their choice. She became a household name across Ohio in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic as she stood alongside Republican Gov. Mike DeWine during daily coronavirus broadcasts. Her comforting presence during the crisis made her a beloved figure with many Ohioans.

But the administration's aggressive actions — including shuttering businesses, closing schools and canceling an election — also earned Acton plenty of enemies and made her the occasional target of people upset about pandemic policies, with some armed protesters showing up outside her home.

Ramaswamy's campaign has sought to capitalize on the lingering anger over pandemic restrictions with attacks on Acton's role early in the crisis. Ramaswamy was advising the lieutenant governor at the time — Husted — on virus-related economic issues and he founded a company that profited off its role developing vaccines.

Acton is unopposed in the Democratic primary, while Ramaswamy faces a long-shot challenge from Casey Putsch. The engineer and car designer is a YouTube provocateur who has trolled Ramaswamy incessantly over his Indian heritage and Hindu faith and painted him as an out-of-touch billionaire “tech bro.”

Husted is unopposed in the GOP primary for Senate, a special election to fill the remainder of the six-year Senate term Vance won in 2022. Husted's likely opponent will be Democrat Sherrod Brown, a former three-term senator who lost a reelection bid against Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024, a contest where spending hit $500 million. Brown faces a minor primary challenge from first-time candidate Ron Kincaid.

Early voting began April 7 under some new election laws, including citizenship checks and elimination of the four-day grace period for receiving mailed ballots. There have been no reports so far of any widespread problems for voters related to the changes.

In the wake of a new round of redistricting that slightly favored Republicans, the state also has numerous partisan congressional primaries.

The most heated GOP primary is in the Toledo area’s 9th District for the chance to take on Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in Congress.

The five-way contest includes former state Rep. Derek Merrin, whom Kaptur defeated by less than a percentage point in 2024, as well as an Air National Guard veteran, a healthcare industry worker, a sitting state representative and the former deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Madison Sheahan.

In Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman's Cincinnati-area district, which his party considers a “must-hold,” the three-way Republican primary includes Eric Conroy, a CIA and Air Force veteran who has been endorsed by Trump, Vance and Moreno.

Landsman also faces a primary challenge from Damon Lynch IV, the grandson of a prominent civil rights leader. Lynch has criticized Landsman for his initial vote against a war powers resolution on the war in Iran, which Landsman later followed up with a favorable vote.

In the Akron area's 13th District, five Republicans including business owner Neil Patel, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate, are vying for the opportunity to face Democratic U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes.

As a Trump-backed national effort to remake congressional maps in Republicans' favor was underway, Ohio Democrats took a could-have-been-worse approach and passed the map they were given unanimously.

Now party candidates are crowding congressional primaries across the state for the chance to take on sitting Republican representatives, who hold 10 of Ohio's 15 seats.

The newly redrawn 7th District in the Cleveland area has attracted eight Democrats hoping to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller, a former senior Trump adviser, in November. Among them is former Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2014.

In northeast Ohio's 14th District, former state Supreme Court Justice William O'Neill is among three Democrats seeking to take on Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce. Joyce also has two primary challengers.

Meanwhile six Democrats are on the ballot in the Dayton-area 10th District of Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Turner. There are seven in GOP U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli's 6th District along the Ohio River and five in the 5th District of Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Latta.

Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown speaks during a campaign event ahead of primary elections at the Paladin Brewery in Austintown, Ohio, Thursday, April, 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Phil Long)

FILE - Amy Acton, Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio, gestures as she speaks with a reporter in Columbus, Ohio April 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to supporters before the Warren County Republicans Lincoln Day Dinner at the Great Wolf Lodge in Mason, Ohio, Friday, April 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)