The Last Helicopter

A story of a young woman left behind and a young reporter coming of age in a world of war; a gripping memoir of Cambodia and Vietnam in the 1970s.

As brutal wars in Cambodia and Vietnam come to swift and cataclysmic ends, a young reporter plans a last minute rescue of a woman he loved. The rescue fails.

He is helicoptered out of the Cambodian capital days before its collapse and goes on to Vietnam in time to see the fall of Saigon. He vows somehow to return to keep his promise of rescue.
Meanwhile, his former lover, Sinan, is trapped in what she calls “my prison without walls” at one of the Khmer Rouge’s infamous commune work camps.

Drawn from recorded interviews with Soc Sinan and from the contemporaneous writings of Jim Laurie, The Last Helicopter captures the drama and tensions of the 1970s, while recalling places of grace and beauty now gone forever.

This audiobook is narrated by the author himself, a radio and television broadcaster for more than 50 years, and contains a unique audio preface.

Jim Laurie is an award-winning international broadcaster, writer, and media consultant, who has witnessed many defining moments in Asia’s history over the past 50 years. A recipient of Emmy, Peabody, and Overseas Press Club Awards, Jim roamed the world as a radio and television correspondent first for NBC News, 1972-1978, and then ABC News 1978-2000. He has produced and written documentary films on Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, and China, and interviewed noted world leaders over the past 45 years including China’s Deng Xiaoping, India’s Indira Gandhi, Cambodia’s Norodom Sihanouk, the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and the Dalai Lama of Tibet.