SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airlock, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty, and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information at the Panamuseum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. This podcast is sponsored by the generous personal support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO and chairman of AMC Theatres. He is also president of our sister organization, the Pan Am Historical Foundation. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here, and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for, or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper. We are honored to have two special guests joining us later in this program: actor and motivational speaker Stephen Ford, the youngest son, of the 37th President of the United States, Gerald R. Ford and former First Lady Betty Ford, and Twee Williams, a baby lift adoptee, U.S. Army veteran, nonprofit leader, motivational speaker, and small business owner. They will both share their personal insights on this life-changing moment in history. On April 24th, 2025, the Pan Am Museum hosted an event in Garden City, New York, in partnership with the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum. At the heart of the evening were many adoptees in attendance, those who lived through the trauma, uncertainty, and life-altering change as infants and young children. Some of these adoptees, now adults, brought their families and loved ones. Representatives from the adoption agencies that helped carry out the evacuation, Holt International, Friends for All Children, Friends for Children of Vietnam, and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation were also present. Their dedication ensured thousands of children found safety, love, and a future. For several adoptees, the event marked the first time they met someone who may have been on the flight that brought them to the United States. For the adoptees, it was a chance to reclaim a missing piece of their story. For the flight attendants, it was a profound reminder of the impact of their courage and care. The bonds formed that night were emotional, healing, and enduring. A highlight of the evening was the premiere of a short documentary called Operation Babylift, a celebration of the human spirit, directed by filmmaker Dirk Braun. The film captures the global cooperation and moral courage that define the mission. Now an award-winning documentary short, it has been selected and shown at dozens of film festivals around the country. There is a link to this 13-minute film in the episode description, and we highly encourage you to watch. Before our interview with Steve Ford and Twee Williams, let's learn more about the history of Operation Baby Lift. Operation Babylift was directed by U.S. President Gerald R. Ford in the final days of South Vietnam, shortly before the country fell in 1975. The operation was a mass evacuation of over 3,000 war orphans from South Vietnam to the United States and other Western countries for adoption in April of 1975. Pan American World Airways sent two Boeing 747 jumbo jets, one chartered by Holt International and the other by American businessman Robert Macaulay to assist in the evacuation. On March 29, 1975, the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang fell to North Vietnamese forces, setting off a domino effect that brought into focus that Saigon was now at extreme risk of being overrun, and the country was close to defeat. Adoption agency Holt International, as well as service organizations including Friends of Children of Vietnam, Friends for All Children, Catholic Relief Services, International Social Services, International Orphans, and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation petitioned the Ford administration to help evacuate orphans in their various facilities throughout South Vietnam. On April 3, 1975, President Ford announced that the U.S. government would begin airlifting orphans out of Saigon on a series of 30-planned flights aboard Military Airlift Command C-5A Galaxy and C-141 Starlifter Cargo Aircraft operated by the 62nd Airlift Wing of the United States Air Force. Let's take a listen to President Ford's press conference in San Diego on April 3rd, 1975. This recording is courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. The United States has been doing and will continue to do its utmost to assist these people. I have directed that all available naval ships stand off into China to do whatever is necessary to assist. We have appealed to the United Nations to use its moral influence to permit these innocent people to leave, and we call on North Vietnam to permit the movement of refugees to the area of their choice. While I have been in California, I have been spending many hours on the refugee problem and our humanitarian efforts. I have directed that money from a $2 million Special Foreign Aid Children's Fund be made available to fly 2,000 South Vietnamese orphans to the United States as soon as possible. I have also directed American officials in Saigon to act immediately to cut red tape and other bureaucratic obstacles preventing these children from coming to the United States. I have directed that C-5A aircraft and other aircraft specially equipped to care for these orphans during the flight be sent to Saigon. I expect these flights to begin within the next 36 to 48 hours. These orphans will be flown to Travis Air Force Base in California and other bases on the West Coast and cared for in those locations. These 2,000 Vietnamese orphans are all in the process of being adopted by American families. This is the least we can do, and we will do much, much more.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

The next day, on April 4, 1975, Operation Babylift began with a C-5A galaxy plane loaded with children, military, and medical personnel taking off from Saigon around 4 p.m. local time. Twelve minutes after takeoff, at an altitude of 23,000 feet, a mechanical failure caused the locks of the rear loading ramp to fail, causing the door to explode open with a massive decompression. Control and trim cables to the rudder and elevators were severed, leaving only one aileron and wing spoilers operating. Two of the four hydraulic systems also failed. The pilots desperately tried to fly the crippled plane back to the airport for an emergency landing, however, were unable and tragically crashed in a rice paddy. According to the United States Defense Intelligence Agency, of the over 300 souls on board, 138 people were killed, including 78 children and 35 military staff from the Defense Attache Office and 11 U.S. Air Force personnel. Let's take a listen to a report from CBS News from April 4, 1975, when many Americans learn the devastating news. The clip is about two and a half minutes. Please be advised that the reporter speaks in graphic detail of the horror he saw at the crash site. Listener discretion is advised.

SPEAKER_05 10:39

From CBS News headquarters in New York, this is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

Good evening. In South Vietnam today, a ghastly chapter was added to the pathos of war that has gripped that country for the past 30 years. A huge C-5 Air Force cargo plane carrying 243 South Vietnamese orphans to the United States, the first in the government-ordered airlift, crashed in a rice paddy near Saigon just minutes after takeoff. More than half the children and as many as 40 of the 62 escorts and crew aboard were killed. Murray Thompson reports.

SPEAKER_07 11:18

The orphans airlift was considered a victory over red tape. It took an order from President Ford to dispatch the C-5A to Saigon. Then the agreement of Vietnamese authorities to expedite passports and exit visas for the orphans. Some of those put aboard the plane had been born only weeks ago. Most seemed to be between the ages of two and eight. Some settled on the side of the plane. Others were scrapped to the floor, were terrified of the television lights than their first trip in an airplane. Wives of American officials being evacuated home with their own children agreed to act as chaperones to the orphans. Destination of the West Coast, and then onwards to American families who had already begun the abduction process. There were pieces of record scattered across a half a mile of rifle. Fire was slowly bringing itself out near the engines. It was like a combat operation. Helicopters hovered overhead. Body bags were used to remove corpses for identification purposes. A hand here, a head there, shirts, books, diapers. All too grotesque to describe further. Vietnamese soldiers stood guard and said nothing. Villagers watched from a nearby railroad crossing. Other helicopters came back to Tonson Air Base where the ill-fated trip had begun. American and Vietnamese volunteers removed some of the body bags and other bodies wrapped in white sheets. Scores of ambulances rushed survivors to a nearby hospital. Some of the chaperones were in a state of shock. Moments before, they had been happy to be leaving Saigon. The orphans were to be the first of 2,000 to be airlisted out of Vietnam. Many were mixed blood, the children of Vietnamese women and black American GIs. They would never have had a chance for happiness in Vietnam, where racial prejudice is as strong as in any other country. Now they have no chance at all.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Watching the news broadcast you just heard, businessman Robert Macaulay picked up the phone and called Pan Am to charter the second jumbo jet. Within hours of the tragedy, two Pan Am 747 aircraft were en route to Saigon to begin the evacuation. Both planes had volunteer crews as flying into South Vietnam was considered a war zone. Every space of the passenger compartments of the jumbo jets were used for the evacuation. Flight attendants, nurses, doctors, and airline personnel cared for the children throughout the long flights. Some of these children were in very, very poor health and required constant attention. The Pan Am planes arrived in the United States in the late hours of April 5th, 1975. President and Mrs. Ford traveled to San Francisco to meet the arriving Pan Am 747. The President and First Lady went on board the plane and helped move the children to waiting caregivers and medical personnel. Here's an excerpt from First Lady Betty Ford's press secretary, Sheila Weidenfeld's memoir titled First Lady's Lady with the Fords at the White House. Quote Mrs. Ford and the rest of us flew to San Francisco on Air Force One to be there when the first plane load of orphans arrived. It was an incredible scene. There were more than 300 children on board, and most were unsettled, and some had been very sick. It had been an exhausting trip, and the arrival was emotionally draining for all, passengers and observers. Since they had not released the list of yesterday's crash victims, there were prospective parents at the airport who did not know whether their adoptive children were alive or dead. I'll never forget the look on the face of one woman who was waiting nervously to find out. She got good news her child had arrived safely. She remained composed until she looked up and saw Mrs. Ford standing there. And then something made her crumble, and she began crying and crying and crying. End quote.

SPEAKER_06 16:58

Tonight, April 6th, reported by Tom Snyder from the NBC News Center in New York. Good evening. At San Francisco, doctors said today that 31 of the South Vietnamese orphans flown in last night are nearly dead tonight, suffering from shock and dehydration. The 47 babies are being treated at hospitals by teams of volunteer doctors. Some have chickenpox. Some are survivors of Friday's plane crash that nearly killed 200 people. Several planes came in last night. Several more are arriving today. President Ford was in San Francisco last night to greet one of them and to welcome more than 300 new residents of the United States. And Fred Briggs was at the airport for the arrival ceremonies there.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

The Pan Am 747 jet was chartered by Connecticut textile executive Robert McCartney. He paid for the jet, and more than 300 Vietnamese orphans were brought into San Francisco, including nearly 100 who survived last week's C-5 crash near Saigon. That, plus the fact that this was the largest airlift to date, brought President and Mrs. Ford here to meet the plane. The children who had been injured in the C-5 disaster were the first to be evacuated from the plane. Ambulances took them to Veteran Army Hospital in the city. Then the president himself boarded the plane. He brought two orphans off the plane and carried them to buses. And like earlier airlifts, the children in these buses were taken to the Army's presidio in San Francisco for processing. Later, they will be transported to the people around the country who have adopted them. Fred Briggs, NBC News, San Francisco.

SPEAKER_06 18:33

Nearly all of the orphans now arriving in this country have already been adopted. The children arriving on the West Coast are traveling from there to all parts of the United States. Of those who arrived at Seattle last night, 56 were on the way to New York City, and 76 other children were heading for Chicago. And Bob Jameson has that part of the rescue story.

SPEAKER_05 19:04

Most parents had waited at the airport six anxious hours to see their new children, and to end their fears they might never arrive with a punch and the other. In all, 159 orphans and 69 adult escorts made the trip from Seattle to Chicago. And it hardly seemed like a journey for children from war to new homes in a strange land. The orphans settled into the airline seats like experienced travelers. Well behaved and unafraid of their surroundings and the strangers who were accompanying them. The jet's first-class galley held diapers and formula, not steaks and martinis, and airline meals, unfamiliar to the young Vietnamese, an easy adjustment for orphans who must now overcome jet lag, language barriers, and the emotional upheaval that comes with leaving an orphanage or a foster home for a new country, a new family. Yet these orphans were not unlike any other child their age. What's your name? How old are you? And how old are you? And as the plane neared Chicago, a peace of sorts settled over the youngsters for the first time. Peace for seven-month-old Lee Van Minen, who today began a new life in the Midwest as the adopted son of Mr. and Mrs. John Gillis of Appleton, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

In the end, over 3,000 infants and children were evacuated and sent to adoptive families. A good majority of the children were of U.S. service members and most were orphans. But with the chaos of war and language barriers, there were a small number that may have had parents who were still alive, so the program had some controversy afterwards. In President Ford's autobiography, he wrote, Everyone suffers in a war, but no one suffers more than the children, and the airlift was the least we could do. Operation Baby Left to remind us what's possible when compassion overcomes fear, when courage takes flight, and when people come together to serve others. Thank you to President Ford, Pan Ann, and to all the adoption agencies and military personnel involved. Thank you to all the wonderful people that became adoptive parents. Thousands of precious children were given not just the gift of life, but the promise of hope. Now on to our interview with President Ford's son Steve Ford and Adoptee Twee Williams. Steve Ford has enjoyed a remarkable acting career spanning over 40 years with appearances in more than 800 hours of film and television productions. He has worked on over 25 films in numerous guest lead roles in television. Early in his career, Steve spent six years playing Andy Richards on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless. You may have also seen Steve in blockbuster films like Transformers and Blackhawk Down. His other notable film credits include Contact with Jodie Foster, Armageddon with Bruce Willis, the cult classic Starship Troopers, and Eraser with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Heat with Al Pacino, Carrie 2, and When Harry Met Sally as Meg Ryan's boyfriend. In television, Steve has made guest appearances in popular shows such as Suddenly Susan, Jag, Flipper, Walker Texas Ranger, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Baywatch, The Cape, Columbo, Murder She Wrote, and Happy Days. He also hosted a full season of the primetime series Secret Service for NBC. Before becoming an actor in 1980, he worked on the professional rodeo circuit as a team roper and continues to rope in his spare time. Steve currently serves on the board of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. He is also a highly sought-after motivational speaker for corporate events, sharing inspiring experiences from his family's time in the White House and his years in Hollywood. Steve speaks candidly about his successful battle with alcoholism. He shares inspiring stories of character and leadership that contributed to the Ford family's success, encouraging audiences to rethink their own lives. Steve is the third and youngest son of President and Mrs. Gerald R. Ford. Twee Williams was born in Ho Chi Minh City in 1970. Five years later, her family managed to get her on the first flight of Operation Babylift, the C-5A Galaxy. Her mom walked her up the steps of that plane and then left the airport in tears. She wanted Tweed to have a chance of a better life away from their war-torn country. Tragically, that plane crashed shortly after takeoff, and her mom was told that Twee had died in the crash. Unbeknownst to her mom, Twee had been taken off of the plane at the last moment, right before takeoff, because it was too full. The next day she was put on one of the Pan Am 747s and eventually made it to Portland, Oregon, where she was adopted. As she became an adult, she wanted to serve the country that gave her a second chance by joining the United States Army as a tank mechanic. After serving for eight years, Twee returned to her adoptive hometown of Portland, Oregon, and started her own business, a construction and roofing company called Acme High Performance. She is also a missionary with one challenge and a coach of soccer, track, and lacrosse, spending her time traveling the world, using sports to bridge the gap with traumatized people in refugee camps in third world countries, and helps these kids process trauma by using sports as a way to create friendships and smiles. Twee is on the board of the nonprofit Breaking Boundaries, which takes kids from the U.S. to community service projects in third world countries. She is also an ambassador of the U.S. Amputee Football Federation, which brings amputee soccer to those around the world. Like Steve Ford, Twi is also a motivational speaker, encouraging people to make a difference in their communities that will leave a lasting legacy for generations to come. Well, first I'd like to thank both of you, Steve Ford and Twee Williams. It's a great honor to have both of you on the Pan Am podcast.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Great to be here. It's good to be here, Tom. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to see Twee again, too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

I've met both of you in person. I've known Twee for three years now. We worked together on the 47th anniversary celebration at the Pan Am Museum of Operation Baby Lift. Um, and then we worked together on the 50th anniversary. And then, Steve, we met uh in Grand Rapids uh last month at the event at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, uh, which was also a fantastic event. And it's just a great honor to know both of you.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Well, it's a we're really thrilled to speak for dad. He's been gone since 2006, but he would be thrilled today and very proud of the celebrations, the 50th anniversary of Operation Baby Lift. And what I say all the time is the ripple effect of all the good that came out of that 50 years ago when they launched that mission to save these babies, these orphans, and now most of them are 50 years old or older, and you see the results of their lives, and they're lawyers, doctors, teachers, homemakers, they're changing the world. And and that would put a big smile on dad's face to see that ripple effect 50 years later. I often think, how do you judge a public servant? And you look at the things they did and how long do they carry on? And Operation Baby Lift is still carrying on today in a in a fantastic way.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

And one of those fantastic ways is the new friendship between you and Twee. Let's talk about that. Let's start from the beginning. Steve, we were doing a film. We hired a filmmaker, uh, both the Pan Am Museum and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library Museum and the Gerard R. Ford Presidential Foundation to tell the story of Operation Babylift. And Dirk Braun, the filmmaker, was at your ranch. And why don't you take us back to that day?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Well, we were at the the ranch, um, and and Dirk was here to sort of, I guess I was going to be the voice of dad. Uh, here we are 50 years later. And he put together some things that he wanted me to say and introduce part of the film. And um Dirk had said to me yesterday we interviewed some of the the orphans that and stewardesses that were on the Pan Am flight. And he had heard that there was somebody who wanted to come down and and see what we were doing in my ranch and and say thanks to dad for what he did 50 years earlier. And I said, Yeah, send her down. It sounds great. And so we were actually I'm gonna give Twee a hard time right now because we were filming this intro that was really tough for me. I was struggling with the words, and um and up drives this car, and out of the car gets Twee, and you know, she kind of interrupted our whole shot and we had to do it over, but she got out of the car, and I was standing there, and I just looked at her, and and it just uh the the empathy, the love for what she's done with her life, and I hadn't met her before, and I walked over and gave her a big hug, and that was the start of a great friendship. And um, so yeah, she and I text all the time, and um, yeah, she's on top of our Christmas card list now.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Twee, what were you thinking when you were driving to uh Steve's place, going to meet the son of the president of the United States that ordered your evacuation from Vietnam?

SPEAKER_09 31:02

Well, to be honest, I was only learning about what President Ford did to make this happen, you know, in the process of seeing the document or recording the documentary. Um you know, I growing up kind of pushed my Vietnamese side away and didn't really, you know, get into what actually happened or the history of it until recently when I started connecting with others. And so when we were filming this, Dirk was telling us the history of what President Ford did, and I was like, I never even knew that. And then he was telling us, Oh, yeah, we're gonna go, I'm gonna go tomorrow and and meet with Steve Ford and his son and have them record. And I was I was like, Well, is are any of us gonna go down there and just thank him? You know, because I thought we've never had the chance to thank someone for saving our lives. We it just was you know, in our in my head, it was just it just happened, you know, like it just appeared, nobody really did anything. So to find out that someone actually spearheaded it and that I could have the opportunity to actually thank his son was like kind of surreal. And so I literally had to change my plane ticket, get a rental car, drive four hours, stay overnight in a hotel, and then the next morning, and it was Dirk's fault that I interrupted the um filming because I was like, Dirk, what time do you want me there? And he told me the time, and I was like, I was like, Are you sure you don't want me there earlier? He he was very adamant coming exactly this time, so I didn't blame her. So I I pulled up, and I think anybody who meets Steve can see right away that he is just a genuinely caring, nice man. And I got out of the car and he gave me a big hug and he had tears in his eyes, and then I started crying, and then we started talking to each other like we've known each other forever. Um and Dirk's like, stop talking, I need to film this. And we're like, No, we're not gonna stop talking. We just kept talking, and um, you know, I think there's there's everybody has those moments in their life where they meet someone and it's instant friendship. And that's I think what happened with Steve and I. We were just instantly connected and instantly each other, probably for hours at a time. So it's just been it's been wonderful getting to know Steve, you know, just as a person, not even as you know, a president's son, just as a person, he's just a wonderful person. And so but the opportunity to just thank him for what his father did, uh you know, there's those commercials that say priceless. It it is priceless. You you can't you can't put an emotion on it because it's just so huge. And I just I'm just so thankful that I had that opportunity and I I you know if if I had a bucket list and and had known that I needed to have something on a bucket list, this would have been it.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Tom, let me just say I I dad would be so proud, so impressed with what Twee has done with her life, her opportunity. I mean, that's that's what it gave her was an opportunity to one save her life and do something with it. And uh, you know, nobody's life is perfect. You have ups and downs, but the way she has navigated this to where she is today and the good she is doing. Um, yeah, that my dad would just be thrilled with that. He he he would know that that the mission he helped launch to save those babies was well worth it. And and Twee is just one of thousands that have taken that opportunity and and made America better today because they they came here and became part of our country, and dad would love that.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

And how does that make you feel, Steve?

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Well, I again, you know, dad sitting around the the dinner table used to talk about a politician is worried about the next election, a statesman is worried about the next generation, and TWI is part of that next generation. She got here a different way, and um he, you know, this wasn't easy when he went to Congress. The Vietnam War was an ugly, ugly war. America was tired of it. We we'd lost over 50,000 brave American soldiers. And once he saw that there were these orphans there, these children, not all of them babies, obviously, that had been fathered by U.S. servicemen, he he felt we were responsible. You know, you break it, you fix it. And um, he had a great empathy for the story of these children. And I let me just take a moment to give a little background to that. My dad was as a baby, was born into a very violent his father, his biological father was very abusive and violent. Um, thank God he had a wonderful mother, a strong woman. Um, she was his mother uh was beat the first time on her honeymoon night. Wow, and the the beatings continued, and about nine months later, dad was born. His original name was Leslie King. It was not Gerald R. Ford, it was Leslie King. And within weeks of dad being born, one night he came at dad's mother, she was holding dad with a butcher knife. And thank God someone intervened. And and dad's mom fled in the middle of the night from Omaha, Nebraska, across the bridge to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Hid out for several days until her father came down from I think the Chicago area on the train to pick her up, take her back home. She filed for a divorce. Here she was, a single woman, 1913, with a baby. That didn't happen. You know, that they would have said, Well, what'd you do to make them beat you? You know, that was the mentality for a woman to get a divorce in 1913. She got a divorce, moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, met a man named Gerald R. Ford Sr., and he married her and took dad under his wing, gave him his name. And and and dad's stepfather was the one that invested in his life, made sure he had the right church pastor, the right football coach, the right teacher, whatever. And it proved to me, and I say this often, that it is love, not blood, that raises kids because his stepfather was not a blood relative. He chose to love my dad and invest in his life. And so I think that history gave dad a special empathy for these children that had been left in Vietnam. And that's part of the origin of where his heart and his empathy came. So he went and fought with Congress to try to get money. They weren't going to give him money. Much of Operation Baby Lift was privatized in that Pan Am came in, people put up money. One man actually mortgaged his house to pay for one of the Pan Am 747s. So it was a government effort, but it was also a private effort. And um that's what he fought for, what we see today with Twee and thousands of others that have done wonderful things with their lives.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

And Twee, how does it make you feel after all these years? This story is finally getting the attention it deserves.

SPEAKER_09 39:37

Yeah, I think uh you know, one of the other adoptees said um this is getting lost in history. And in my opinion, it's one of the most significant um humanitarian efforts, you know, at the at the end of any war. Um because President Ford didn't just save us 30, you know, 3500 kids, he saved a whole bunch of more people. There's thousands and thousands of people that can can attribute their lives and being able to be in America because of President Ford. And then if you look at the next generation or the next generation after that, because it's 50 years ago, you know, so you can have great grandkids that are now affected because President Ford allowed all of us to come here and and have good lives, and and he didn't just allow us to come in, he made sure that there were sponsors for people and that there were adoptive tools for kids, and and he didn't he went the extra mile to make sure that we had good stars. And so when you look at someone who did so much I keep saying there's no words for it, but there really isn't because you can't just say, Oh, that was a great job. It wasn't a great job, he impacted so many lives, so many lives. You you can you can look at maybe you know, I was looking at the numbers one time, and it was like 10,000 people, and and 3,500 of us um adoptees, and then there was another 12,000 of something else, and I think the amount total was like 50,000 people, and then you have the grandkids of 50,000 people, and then you have the people that those people affected because you know they're they're doctors, they're lawyers, they're moms, dads, school teachers, then how many people did those people you know affect? And so the thing you're looking at exponentially in one movement of what President Ford did, he saved countless lives, you know, and so I I think we we forget that one life, you know, President Ford's life, affected thousands more, and those thousands more affect thousands more, and it's this ripple effect downtime that creates community and creates what America is.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

But you know, Tom, uh and I I I was looking at there were besides Operation Baby Lift, there was one called Operation Uh Eagle Pole, there was Operation Frequent Wind, which was about 40,000 very loyal uh people that worked with us at the embassy and the military, and and then there was another one, Operation New Life, and that was over a hundred thousand, I think. And so tweez, right? I mean, the ripple effect. But then you think about you know, dad just launched this thing, he he got it going, he was at the White House, but there were these people that risked their life, you know, that that flew those Pan Am flights in, the stewardesses, the military that were on the front lines, they were the ones that potentially were gonna die because of this. Trying to rescue these people, these babies. So uh, yes, dad got it started, but there were a lot of other people that that pulled on the rope too.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Twee, let's talk about your life for a moment. You were supposed to be on that first plane that tragically crashed, and by the grace of God, you were taken off at the very last second. Tell us a little bit about your journey and where you went to and and talk about your adoptive parents and growing up. In your community, and also how you reconnected with your family back in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_09 44:05

So, yeah, so my my family was a little different where my mom was still alive, and she actually walked me up the steps of that plane and left the airport. Um, and after it crashed, she was told that I died. But at the last minute, it was they decided it was overfull, and so they pulled me off and put me on the plane the next day. So I um flew into Portland um and my foster parents picked me up at the airport and ended up adopting me, so I never had to be shuffled around, thankfully. Um so I grew up in southwest Portland. My parents um later had two kids, Michelle and Becky, um, my younger sisters. Um and I grew up in, especially back in the 70s, Portland was the the part of Portland that I grew up was southwest Portland, and it was pretty much white. Uh there was there was not any kind of ethnicity there at all during that time. But I had a wonderful group of friends that I've had since kindergarten, and they're still my friends, and I never felt different. Um, I I'm I think I'm one of those rare people that just grew up being me. Um there was no black, there was no white, there was no Asian, it was just Twee and all her friends. I was I I think in many ways I was privileged in that upbringing. So after I finished high school, I decided to spend some time in the army. Um I really wanted to give back to the country that took me in. Um I I very much love America. I love the privileges that I I got, and I wanted to just take a pause in life and do that. So I went into the army as a tank mechanic uh and uh master fitness trainer, which meant I was in charge of being in fitness, spent eight years in the army. During that time, I became a born-again Christian, decided to spend some time in uh Kenya doing sports ministry. Um so I basically traveled all over Kenya, like all over Africa, um, using soccer as a way to reach traumatized kids in refugee camps and things like that. So having come from trauma, um, I was really able to connect to those kids. So I did that for many. Well, I actually am still doing that. Um, I just am here in the US doing that now. And um left there, came back home, um, opened a construction company, which I still have. We do all kinds of construction. Um, I opened a nonprofit, which takes kids from the US to uh Kenya to do community service projects and see how it is to get out of their own world and do something for other people. I coach soccer track in lacrosse. I I have a really good life. I I I love what I do, I love you know the community that I've built around me and uh just being able to connect with other adoptees over the last few years and and meeting some of the flight attendants that were actually on my flight. It's been amazing. It's been an amazing life. It really has.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Steve, I rarely editorialize on this program. However, I'm going to now. I am in awe of your parents, both of them. In preparation for this episode, I watched the 2020 interview with your mom about her addiction problems. And I realized that, you know, Gerald Ford and Betty Ford, your parents, touched so many people in so many ways and healed a nation. Your mom was very outspoken and independent on several different issues. I was just in doing that research and and listening to a lot of their interviews, trying to figure out what am I gonna ask you? And as a son, how do you feel looking back at all the things your parents have accomplished, all the lives that they've touched, like Twees, all the people that you know had alcohol problems or prescription drug problems, your father pardoning Richard Nixon and healing the nation? Ted Kennedy said it best. You know, he criticized him at the time, but over time, history has come to the conclusion that that was the best thing to heal the nation. How does that make you feel as a son that your parents accomplished all these different things, made this country a better place?

SPEAKER_01 49:11

First of all, it makes me very proud to um look back on their public service, both of them. Um, and you mentioned mom. Uh, we used to joke around the dinner table that that mom's legacy within weeks of moving into the White House, and you got to remember this dad was the first man to become president of the United States without going through a general election. He was never on Nixon's ticket, so the American people could never vote for him. Uh, he'd been a congressman for 24 years. Uh, Nixon's vice president had to resign, Spiro Agnew. Dad was appointed vice president. And so when Nixon finally resigned because of Watergate, America got the first president they'd ever had that they had not elected. It and it'll never happen again, um, hopefully. And and what makes America so great is usually when you have countries that get a new president without an election, usually there are troops in the streets. Not America. We we knew how to transfer power peacefully. But um I used to we used to joke with dad at the dinner table that you know mom's legacy might outlive his uh with what she did for breast cancer and alcoholism and drug addiction. Two weeks after, two or three weeks after dad became president, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Uh, and she was told she had to have a mastectomy. Now, back in 1974, women didn't talk about breast cancer. You you literally, this sounds crazy today, but you literally couldn't say the word breast on TV. And so, you know, you always hushed it up, and so but my parents felt so strongly that I'll never forget the moment they were on front of the press holding hands, saying we're gonna take the shame off of this disease. And mother was very vocal about her breast cancer, and and it didn't go over well. A lot of people were very mad at her for bringing this closet disease out, you know. And then later, what she did for alcoholism with the Betty Ford Center, her own addiction, and um healing people that or or trying to heal people that way through good 12-step program and the grace of grant um and I too, I listen, I went through my own alcoholism over 30 years ago. And Tom, Tom, you would think I would know better. My mother was Betty Ford, right? I shouldn't have been an alcoholic, right? Um, but you know, um, it doesn't care who your parents are, and um, everybody thinks I went to the Betty Ford Center or something for treatment, and you know, it's not like we have a family wing where you get a discount or something, you know. Uh actually, I I I did it through outpatient, but that what mom did and dad, I think both of them will have a good history as far as what history writes about them. And it makes me very proud to see what they did. And you know, even with Operation Baby Lift, before I met Twee, I would be given speeches or something around the country, and afterwards the convention is over, and I'd see somebody walk down the aisle, and I'd go, Yep, yep, they they look like they could have been born in Vietnam. Yep, they're about the right age, you know. This they might be it might have happened 20 years ago, so they would have been about 30, and they would walk down the aisle and pull me aside and say I was one of the babies that was on Operation Baby Lift, or my family got extracted during one of those missions. So I've met a lot of these folks over the years, but you know, what made it so special with Twee was I really got to spend time with her. And it it didn't just it it we got to talk, we got to share our faith. You know, I too. Um the grace of God saved me from alcoholism. Twee and I share the same faith. I've been to Africa, you know, working with churches over there to help kids, their parents had died of AIDS. So there were some common bonds between Twee and I that I think helped foster our relationship and will continue to foster it. Twee, what do you think about that? Which part?

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Let's start with uh you developing this close friendship with President Ford's son, Steve.

SPEAKER_09 54:06

Well, you know, I have a friend that uh needed a new heart recently. And he went on the transplant list one day and two days later got a heart. Like you don't hear of things like that. It usually takes a long time. So when you when you think about the strings of President Ford, Operation Babylift, um Steve, and then everybody in between, it's like that. It's like it doesn't happen. It really doesn't happen. And so in my mind, they're miracles. Like getting a heart in two days doesn't happen. Like it's unheard of. And sitting there and being able to talk about something that was so pivotal in your life, and find out that your memories actually did happen. And you you when you've thought for 50 years or been told for 50 years that those things didn't happen. It's impossible that that that that was a memory, and then to find out, yeah, it actually is a memory, it I think it it mends a part of yourself that has been lost for a long time because you know, we came from Vietnam, everything's different here, different families, having to figure out, you know, for like for me, who is half Vietnamese and half black, and don't look like either of them. And then I grew up in a white home, you know, there's a lot of trying to figure out who I am. And so the more I get to know what happened, the more that the stories come out, more that I hear, you know, from the flight attendants, the pilots, all these other people, their part of the story that intersects with my part of the story, that intersects with Steve's part of the story. It's it's crazy. It's like this will be becoming finished and beautiful and beyond imagining. It just amazing.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

Tom, I when I listen to Tweed talk, and it made me think, you know, back in 1974, April 1974, her mother walks her up the plane, puts her on the plane, her father's a uh Marine, African-American Marine. Um that plane was supposed to take Tweed. And at the last minute, in my mind, you know, it was like the grace of God, an angel took her off that plane for that second flight, which was the first Pan Am flight. And I'm thinking at that time I was 18 years old, I was just out of high school, right? And and I hadn't gone through my alcoholism. I had a lot of mistakes to make and screw-ups to do. And listen, I worked in the TV and film business as an actor for 30-some years. I saw a lot of scripts, I saw a lot of stories and things. And I said to Twee a couple months ago, I said, Can you imagine that you and I are sitting here, and we had her at the uh at Dad's museum. How God put this whole story together of you sitting at the President Gerald R. Ford Museum, me, her being pulled off the plane, all this. It's like a mosaic that you couldn't write that in a script. And I think Twee and I both look at it as God always writes a much better script than we could ever, ever imagine. And I think that creates a lot of the bond that we have of wow, this is this is this is just too good.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Yeah. Imagine yourself at 16, your dad's a congressman, well known, but he he's a congressman in in the house, minority leader. And who would have thought two years later he would be president of the United States and you would have this legacy that would form from that? Um, what an incredible story. One of the things I'm very proud of is this film we all worked on together. This film is reaching people and sharing this story in a way that we've been trying to share for many years. And with this vehicle, we're able to share the story of Twee, your story, Steve, and your your father's story, and all the other adoptees. To date of this recording, we have three film festivals that it's going to be shown at. It was shown at the Panam Museum at our event, it was shown at the Gerald R. Ford uh museum, uh, the event that we were all at. What do you guys think of this film that's out there?

SPEAKER_01 59:41

Well, I would say, and and it's online. You can go watch it online. So I don't, you know, there's been thousands of people that have seen it that way. I listen, I've I've worked small parts on big movies. I made a career, um, spent seven, eight years on a soap opera, The Young and the Restless, and then moved into movies like playing Meg Ryan's boyfriend and when Harry Met Sally, or movies like Blackhawk Down, Contact with Jodie Foster, Heat, uh, some Schwarzenegger movies, stuff like that. Starship Troopers, can't forget that. Starship Troopers Arnegdon. Yeah, I played a lot of military roles, and a lot of those movies are great movies, they have a long shelf life. They, you know, when Harry met Sally makes people kind of rethink romance, you know, and it it it's gonna do that for another 20-30 years. Blackhawk Down, important movie, but in my mind, this movie and it's only 11, 12 minutes, whatever it is. Um, in my mind is the most important movie I ever worked on. Wow. And will will affect more people than I think any other movie I worked on. So that's that's what I think of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

Wow. Twee. That's a hard act to follow.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:06

Yeah. Um every time I watch it, I think, whoa. Like that's an amazing story. And if it wasn't my story, it would still be an amazing, you know, it's it's not, it's not, you know, you know, as they say, it's not about me. The story is amazing. It's just it's a it's a story of war, but then it's a story of hope, and it's a story of endurance, and a story that ends with a future. It just doesn't it just doesn't end. You know, we keep talking about the ripple effect, the ripple effect will continue for generations and generations. It's not, it's not really, it's it's not gonna end. And so having everything kind of encapsulated in a 13-minute film and being able to just show someone, okay, this is what Operation Baby Lift was. That's that's an amazing thing. I mean, Dirk did such a good job on just explaining, you know, from the beginning what it did and what the what the impact has been. And and I I don't think there's one thing on that I would change. It's just so well done.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

Steve, let's switch gears for a moment. What was it like being an 18-year-old living in the White House, and your father is president of the United States and your mother is first lady?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

Um well, it's good government housing. Um I'll give you that. Um first of all, it was so quick for us. Um, most people who move to the White House, it comes after a year and a half of campaigning, and you almost get a chance to get ready for it, and there's anticipation. And for us, it literally happened in a matter of days. So there was no getting ready for it. I was 18 years old. I just graduated from high school about uh two months before, and um the the biggest change right away was all of a sudden I had 10 Secret Service guys following me around, which at 18 years old is not really the group you hope to hang out with. Um, but I was supposed to go to Duke University, I was set to go to college in a couple weeks, been accepted, and that just changed my life. So I walked into dad's office, which was the Oval Office. I said, Dad, I'm not ready to go to college right now. I want to take a year off. And he's, you know, what well, what are you gonna do? And I said, I always wanted, had a dream to go out west and be a cowboy, and he wasn't too impressed with that answer. Um, but thank God my my parents let me take off, and I headed to Montana and Utah and started working on ranches and cowboying and rodeoing, and fell in love with the West and changed my plans, went back to college, studied agriculture, and then um eventually somehow became an actor. So that that's sort of a strange twist, but it was it was different. Living in the White House was like living in a museum, you know, everything was from Jefferson or Lincoln, or you know, you put your I remember putting my feet up on the table one day. I was sitting on the couch, and my mother was like, No, that's President Lincoln's table. And uh so it was like living in a museum. And as an 18-year-old kid, that I don't think I appreciated at the moment the history that I was seeing around me because of my age. Um, and even something like Operation Baby Lift. I'm I'm not sure I was fully engaged or aware at that time uh of what dad was doing. And so it's been beautiful to go back and reread that and rehear the interviews and the stories, and even talking to dad before he passed away. Um, for years, when I was in my 30s and 40s, we played a lot of golf together and a little four hour trip around the golf course. We discussed a lot of things and got to catch up on some of the things he went through when he was president. So, as a son, that was a beautiful moment or moments for me to get to know.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Twee, what is uh your message to people listening on why the story of Operation Baby Lift is important and should be told and should be preserved and appreciated by future generations?

SPEAKER_09 1:06:19

I think, like I said, there's not been something like this ever, except this one time. And um, you know, with the climate of things right now, I think we're forgetting that immigrants created America. This this country was created by people who wanted a better life and came here and and did that. If we want to continue to be a country that has new ideas and and grows, we've got to allow that. I don't want to say anything bad about anybody or anything, but immigrants are are the backbone of this country and we need to remember that. And I think Operation Baby Lived and the legacy of that allows people to see that long term immigrants are creating something beautiful here and they're affecting lives, they're they're touching lives, they're changing lives. I mean, you know, if you took out one one of us that is now a doctor, like uh you know, Michael is a doctor, he's an ER doctor. If we took away Michael and all the lives he's saved over the years, being an ER doctor, that's a lot of lives affected just by Michael. Um, what about those that are teachers? Or I've been a coach for 30 years all over the world, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:01

I think that's a very good point. And uh, you know, perhaps you're right. Today's climate, uh, and I don't want to get into current events, but you know, maybe that's why three years ago, when we were trying to get attention for this story, we weren't quite successful, and probably because the 47th anniversary didn't have the ring of it as 50th anniversary. But, you know, perhaps the times today, this story resonates, and Gerald Ford's legacy resonates more because what's going on today? Which brings me to my next question, Steve. Recently you gave the eulogy for President Carter, and you were, in a sense, giving a message from your dad and President Carter to five presidents in front of you. Can you tell us a little bit about what was going through your mind when you were reading the words of your father and the message that hit a little differently due to the current political climate?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:06

First of all, as a son, to carry out the um the wishes of your dad after he's passed away, that was a big honor for me. Uh, I don't care what level you do that on as a son when your dad asks you to do something after he passes away. It's a it's an honor. Um dad and Jimmy Carter had a unique relationship. First of all, they were on most things politically opposite. They fought a hard campaign in 1976. It was a rough and tumble campaign. But years later, on a trip, uh, it was a flight. Uh, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt had been had been killed, massacred, um, assassinated. And President Reagan sent dad, President Carter, and President Nixon to the uh Sadat funeral in Egypt, and they all rode over on Air Force One. And dad joked, um he says, uh, any more than just one president on Air Force One is one too many. And he said it it was kind of awkward and crowded on that first leg over. But after the funeral, President Nixon went on to some business in Europe, and and dad and Carter got to fly home, just the two of them. And it was on that flight that they struck up a relationship. Um, they got to talk about family and friends and their faith, and they found out they they shared a lot of things too, and they committed to support each other, and that that's how that friendship got started. It grew. Mom and uh Mrs. Carter became great friends. Uh, they advocated on Capitol Hill for addiction and and mental illness together. I mean, it was a really cool thing they did. So I look at dad's eulogy, and I again I just read his words. He wrote a great eulogy. I was trying not to drop the blog ball as we tried to get across the finish line there. I hope, because I from that pulpit, tell me, trust me, it was a scary view to look down and see five living presidents and first ladies in the Supreme Court and the Congress. And I hope that dad's eulogy for his good friend Jimmy Carter was a civics lesson for all of us. Um yeah, I I hope that's I hope that's the way it way it comes out.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:01

Well, I can tell you, everybody that I've talked to said absolutely it was. You and Jason Carter uh stole the show, uh, if you will, on on that uh on that message.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:15

Well thank you. Uh dad wrote it. I just tried to deliver it. Um so that that yeah, uh listen, and back to Twee for a second. She and I were doing a radio interview, and I was in studio. She had called in for this interview, and in between during commercials, the radio host got her on the line between um uh segments and said, you know, I don't know that they'd come get you babies today. And I I thought about that, and I'm not gonna speculate on that, you know, current politics, but it made me very proud. How do I say this? That that dad had the the moral clarity and the compass to make that decision 50 years ago to go get those babies because we had an obligation.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:11

We what do you think of what Steve just said?

SPEAKER_09 1:13:17

Um well I I have to say I'm obviously thankful for that moral obligation that he took up, you know, he had a lot of opposite opposition and he still felt that this was the right thing to do, and he fought for it. And you know, there's not a lot of people just in general that would do that, let alone take on Congress to do that. And so, you know, I I you know I've lived my life trying to live a legacy, live a life that will leave a lasting legacy. Um, so you know, I've I've coached all over the world. I I have a lot of kids that I've mentored, um, you know, and I believe that if we don't do the right thing and invest in the next generation, then we will allow America to become morally corrupt. Um and in in some ways, because people don't have mentors and those that are breathing life into them, there's a lot of kids that are going the wrong way because they don't have any kind of a compass. And so I, you know, I'm thankful for all the people in my life that have um breathed into it and and guided me through the rough times and helped me to be the woman I am today. And so, you know, I I wouldn't be who I am without you know President Ford and you know, my friend Jody and my mentor Miriam, and you know, we can list all the people, you know, your your childhood friends that have always been there. I just had lunch with my friend Carla, who we've known each other since kindergarten, and you know, her mom was my brownie leader, and still, you know, it's it's all these people that build into your life that create the people you are, and if we are not building into the next group of people and and helping them build into the next group of people, then we become a nation that has no soul. And so uh, you know, I I I always encourage people to build into people around you because if if you don't do it, who's going to do it? If you don't help people to be better, help people to to live a life of moral goodness and those that are standing up for what they believe in, then we're just gonna become a nation that doesn't believe in anything. And that's when people get hurt, that's when the rights of others are not upheld, that's when you know unnecessary wars happen, unnecessarily unnecessary violence happens. Um we've got we we don't want to go there. We've got we've got to build into our next generation. We have to.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:45

I look back, and and my dad is his life is a product, his success, a product of people that came alongside of him and invested in his life. He had a stepfather that invested in him, Boy Scout leader, football coaches. His high school principal called him in. This is during the depression, basically, and and asked dad what he was going to do now that he was graduating from high school. And dad said, Well, we don't have any money. Uh we lost our house, can't go to college. And his high school principal said, Jerry, I want you to go one year, at least one year, the University of Michigan. And dad said, You know, I can't afford it, we don't have any money. And his high school principal said, We're gonna start a scholarship fund through the library here, and I'm gonna donate the first hundred dollars so you can go one year to the University of Michigan. And that high school principal changed dad's life because of that $100. Got him to Michigan, he figured out he played football there, was an all-American, played on two championship teams, got a got a degree, went on to Yale Law School. But if it weren't for that one principal at that critical moment that invested $100 in dad's life, we wouldn't be having this conversation today. And so that's a lesson for all of us is keep investing into those kids around you, your family, the kid down the street with no parent, whatever. That that's our future, and um it it's very important.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:34

And that principle was the stone that was thrown into the pond that caused the ripple effect that would eventually make Twee, you know, come to the United States. So I mean it's it's I just love this story. It's very inspirational. It's inspirational to talk to both of you, and I can't thank you enough for your time.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:57

Thank you, Tom. This is this is a lot of fun. It's good to see here Twee. And um she she's the star of this thing, she's the one that um took the opportunity and and made something really neat out of uh whatever dad did. And that's that's the blessing right there. Twee, any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_09 1:19:21

I just want to encourage people to build into others, build a legacy. Because you never know if your legacy is going to build a president for it. You know, that that principal didn't know when he gave that hundred dollars that he would build into my life, you know, and and my life hopefully has built into other lives, and those lives will build into other lives, and that is you know, I I think when you say I can die a happy person, knowing that I have left a legacy that we'll live on. I I think that's what any of us want is to build that legacy, and President Ford did that. So I I I can only say thank you. I've had a very blessed life because of that one principle built into someone else. Steve, any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:31

I I think um it's that that good that keeps moving through the world, and you know, it's one person helping the next person, and the next person, and Twee's doing it on her end. Somebody did it decades ago for for my dad, and somebody has done it for me, and you try to keep that wave of good things going. And uh, I think God has a big plan for a lot of our lives, and just got to listen and and and try to do your best every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:05

Well, it's been an honor to be able to tell both of your stories, and I thank you very much for coming on this program, and I thank you very much for your time.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:15

Thank you. Thanks, Tom.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:24

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