held a press conference in The Pentagon to reaffirm that the statement was actually a mistake. Some even speculated that the statement was actually leaked by the opposition site to take advantage during the election, in which Brown replied to the reporter that "I'm not in a position to judge" and Rumsfeld also replied "He's not in a position to judge, he's exactly right I agree with him completely." Evacuation of Saigon One of the most important events during Brown's tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the evacuation of Saigon after North Vietnamese troops defeated South Vietnamese troops in battles fought during the 1975 Spring Offensive, occupied many South Vietnamese cities and marched towards Saigon, the capital city of South Vietnam. Brown advised the National Security Council by the end of March 1975 that the United States should immediately begin the evacuation of American citizens that were still left in Saigon and other South Vietnam cities. Brown eventually oversaw the military operations to evacuate U.S. citizens in Saigon. He organized the military's tactical airlift aircraft in coordination with Air Force Chief of Staff General David C. Jones to evacuate American citizens out of Saigon as soon as possible. The operations also used several commercial aircraft to accelerate the evacuation. The operations were focused on Tan Son Nhat Airport in Saigon, which was the only primary airport left in South Vietnam following Da Nang's fall to the North Vietnamese Army. One of Brown's messages to all military personnel involved in the operations was a message to not leave anyone behind. However, on 28 April 1975, Tan Son Nhat Airport came under heavy artillery fire and an attack from the North Vietnamese Air Force that eventually crippled the airport. Brown therefore briefed President Gerald Ford, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and the National Security Council on how to continue the evacuation following the attack on Tan Son Nhat Airport; his briefing took into account that there were no airports that were still under South Vietnamese jurisdiction. Brown and the Joint Chiefs of Staff came up with the idea of an evacuation that primarily involved helicopters. As a result, Operation Frequent Wind was initiated from 29 April to 30 April 1975. The operation managed to evacuate many people out of Saigon by flying them via helicopters to a nearby United States aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. A