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The Saigon CIA station photograph

The Pulitzer-winning image of evacuees climbing a ladder to a helicopter during the fall of Saigon in 1975. John Kiriakou, who talked his way onto the roof in 2026, points out that the building most Americans take for the embassy was in fact an apartment block that secretly housed the CIA's Saigon station.

Kiriakou calls it “one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century” — dozens of people on a rooftop, climbing a bent ladder to a helicopter perched on a small hut, trying for the last flight out of Saigon. It won the Pulitzer Prize.[1][2]

The correction he offers concerns the building: “Many Americans think it was the American embassy. It wasn’t the American embassy. It was an apartment building that was secretly the CIA’s station in Saigon.”[2]

Visiting in 2026, he found it in ordinary use — “just a workingclass apartment building now” — and got to the roof by paying for it: “we bribed the security guard down on the first floor and he let us go up there and take pictures.”[2][3] What he found there had not been touched: “there’s an abandoned bar up there that looks like it was abandoned in 1975. People just left it the way it was the day the United States bugged out in 1975. It was an incredible thing to see.”[3]

See also

References

  1. John Kiriakou, 2026-08-1107:14 on YouTube · Transcript
  2. John Kiriakou, 2026-08-1107:44 on YouTube · Transcript
  3. John Kiriakou, 2026-08-1108:15 on YouTube · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.