March 1975 - March 14, 1975 (Friday)

March 14, 1975 (Friday)

• Vietnam War: After the fall of Ban Me Thuot, South Vietnam's President Thieu made the decision to abandon the northwestern half of the nation to the North Vietnamese invaders, withdrawing troops and ordering an evacuation, in hopes of consolidating a defense of the remaining provinces around Saigon, and possibly regrouping for a counterattack. "The strategy might have had a chance of success had it been made sooner," an observer noted later, but "the plan to retake certain strategic points and commence an orderly withdrawal from the Central Highlands was made too late." South Vietnam's defense would collapse so rapidly that the entire nation would be in North Vietnamese control within six weeks. *David Hall, who had been indicted on January 13 while still Governor of Oklahoma, was convicted of racketeering, extortion and perjury, and sentenced to three years in federal prison. He would be released after 19 months.
• Died: Susan Hayward, 57, American film actress, of brain cancer