In the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War, as Saigon teetered on collapse, the U.S. launched Operation Babylift, a dramatic and deeply emotional effort to evacuate thousands of Vietnamese orphans to adoptive homes abroad. But behind the imagery of crying infants and overloaded aircraft lies a complex, ethically fraught story.
And somehow, Playboy Bunnies and Hugh Hefner's luxury jet were right in the middle of it.
In this episode of History Shorts, we unravel one of the war's strangest and most controversial chapters, where humanitarian impulse, Cold War urgency, celebrity culture, and the politics of race and adoption collided mid-air.
You'll learn:
What really motivated Operation Babylift, and who it left behind
How the Playboy empire got involved, and why its private plane became an evacuation vehicle
What went wrong in the first tragic flight, and how it shook public opinion
Why the operation sparked decades of debate about identity, trauma, and international adoption
This episode explores a moment where war met spectacle, and where the fate of thousands of children became entangled in a global crisis and an American myth.
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