Annotated Transcript Of Episode 9
ANNOTATED TRANSCRIPT BURNS EPISODE 9 A Disrespectful Loyalty (May 1970-March 1973)
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MINUTES 1-10
1
00:00:01,566 --> 00:00:03,000 ANNOUNCER: MAJOR SUPPORT FOR "THE VIETNAM WAR"
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,500 WAS PROVIDED BY MEMBERS OF THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY,
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00:00:06,500 --> 00:00:10,466 INCLUDING JONATHAN AND JEANNIE LAVINE,
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00:00:10,466 --> 00:00:13,366 DIANE AND HAL BRIERLEY,
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00:00:13,366 --> 00:00:15,766 AMY AND DAVID ABRAMS,
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00:00:15,766 --> 00:00:18,266 JOHN AND CATHERINE DEBS,
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00:00:18,266 --> 00:00:21,166 THE FULLERTON FAMILY CHARITABLE FUND,
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00:00:21,166 --> 00:00:23,233 THE MONTRONE FAMILY,
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00:00:23,233 --> 00:00:25,566 LYNDA AND STEWART RESNICK,
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00:00:25,566 --> 00:00:28,333 THE PERRY AND DONNA GOLKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION,
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00:00:28,333 --> 00:00:29,333 THE LYNCH FOUNDATION,
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00:00:29,333 --> 00:00:32,200 THE ROGER AND ROSEMARY ENRICO FOUNDATION,
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00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:35,633 AND BY THESE ADDITIONAL FUNDERS.
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00:00:35,633 --> 00:00:37,533 MAJOR FUNDING WAS ALSO PROVIDED
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00:00:37,533 --> 00:00:39,266 BY DAVID H. KOCH...
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00:00:41,566 --> 00:00:43,766 THE BLAVATNIK FAMILY FOUNDATION...
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00:00:46,100 --> 00:00:48,533 THE PARK FOUNDATION,
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00:00:48,533 --> 00:00:50,700 THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES,
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00:00:50,700 --> 00:00:52,900 THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS,
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00:00:52,900 --> 00:00:55,566 THE JOHN S. AND JAMES L. KNIGHT FOUNDATION,
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00:00:55,566 --> 00:00:58,333 THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION,
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00:00:58,333 --> 00:01:01,000 THE ARTHUR VINING DAVIS FOUNDATIONS,
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00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,200 THE FORD FOUNDATION JUSTFILMS,
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00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:04,400 BY THE CORPORATION
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00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:05,633 FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING,
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00:01:05,633 --> 00:01:07,600 AND BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU.
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00:01:07,600 --> 00:01:08,733 THANK YOU.
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00:01:13,266 --> 00:01:15,400 ANNOUNCER: BANK OF AMERICA PROUDLY SUPPORTS
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00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:20,300 KEN BURNS' AND LYNN NOVICK'S FILM "THE VIETNAM WAR"
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00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:22,700 BECAUSE FOSTERING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
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00:01:22,700 --> 00:01:25,300 AND CIVIL DISCOURSE AROUND IMPORTANT ISSUES
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00:01:25,300 --> 00:01:27,600 FURTHERS PROGRESS, EQUALITY,
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00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:29,600 AND A MORE CONNECTED SOCIETY.
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00:01:34,066 --> 00:01:38,100 GO TO BANKOFAMERICA.COM/ BETTERCONNECTED TO LEARN MORE.
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00:01:42,366 --> 00:01:44,800 CROWD (chanting): No more war! No more war!
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00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:48,466 No more war! No more war!
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00:01:48,466 --> 00:01:50,133 No more war! No more war!
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00:01:50,133 --> 00:01:51,566 ("Get Together" by the Youngbloods playing)
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00:01:51,566 --> 00:01:54,966 No more war! No more war! (VIDEO SHOWING PROTESTS ON BOTH SIDES PF THE ISSUE)
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00:01:54,966 --> 00:01:57,833 No more war! No more war!
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00:01:57,833 --> 00:01:59,066 No more war!
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00:01:59,066 --> 00:02:02,800 CROWD (chanting): U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
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00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:06,033 YOUNGBLOODS: ♪ Love is but a song to sing
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00:02:06,033 --> 00:02:09,766 ♪ Fear's the way we die
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00:02:09,766 --> 00:02:11,766 (crowds shouting, clamoring)
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00:02:14,533 --> 00:02:17,933 ♪ You can make the mountains ring ♪
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00:02:17,933 --> 00:02:20,866 ♪ Or make the angels cry
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00:02:23,533 --> 00:02:25,133 (shouting continues)
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00:02:25,133 --> 00:02:27,400 ♪ Come on, people, now
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00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:29,033 ♪ Smile on your brother
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00:02:29,033 --> 00:02:30,866 ♪ Everybody get together
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00:02:30,866 --> 00:02:34,766 ♪ Try to love one another right now ♪
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00:02:38,033 --> 00:02:40,033 KARL MARLANTES: My brother picked me up
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00:02:40,033 --> 00:02:43,200 at Travis Air Force Base.
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00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:45,400 And I remember he had a Valiant,
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00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:47,366 an old beat-up Valiant.
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00:02:47,366 --> 00:02:48,766 And we met inside the terminal.
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00:02:48,766 --> 00:02:50,466 And I was so happy to see him.
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00:02:50,466 --> 00:02:51,766 I just love my brother.
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00:02:51,766 --> 00:02:53,300 (crowd shouting in distance)
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00:02:53,300 --> 00:02:55,400 He said, "Now, I don't want you to get upset,
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00:02:55,400 --> 00:02:57,266 "but we're probably gonna get some trouble
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00:02:57,266 --> 00:03:00,833 when we go outside."
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00:03:00,833 --> 00:03:03,333 And I went, "Trouble? I just got back from Vietnam.
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00:03:03,333 --> 00:03:04,866 What are you talking about?"
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00:03:04,866 --> 00:03:06,933 I mean, I knew that there was unrest.
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00:03:06,933 --> 00:03:08,800 YOUNGBLOODS: ♪ If you hear the song I sing
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00:03:08,800 --> 00:03:12,533 MARLANTES: But when we got in his car to drive away from the terminal,
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00:03:12,533 --> 00:03:16,500 we had to wind our way through protesters
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00:03:16,500 --> 00:03:19,900 that were pounding on the car with the ends of their signs
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00:03:19,900 --> 00:03:22,066 and were snarling at me
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00:03:22,066 --> 00:03:25,466 and pounding on the window and shouting obscenities at me.
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00:03:26,633 --> 00:03:29,200 That was my welcome home to America.[1]
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00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:31,000 (shouting continues)
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00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:32,833 I was just stunned.
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00:03:32,833 --> 00:03:34,266 YOUNGBLOODS: ♪ Come on, people, now
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00:03:34,266 --> 00:03:36,733 I have never felt...
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00:03:36,733 --> 00:03:40,333 any anger toward people that were war protesters.
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00:03:40,333 --> 00:03:43,900 It's a legitimate political stance.
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00:03:43,900 --> 00:03:48,133 For people that descended into that, I...
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00:03:48,133 --> 00:03:51,833 I-I think that they were really wrong.
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00:03:51,833 --> 00:03:54,266 YOUNGBLOODS: ♪ Try to love one another right now ♪
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00:03:54,266 --> 00:03:57,866 It was this-this heartbreak of why are you doing this?
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00:03:57,866 --> 00:04:00,566 I mean, you don't know who I am.
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00:04:00,566 --> 00:04:03,500 And it happened over and over. THE VIETNAM WAR
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00:04:03,500 --> 00:04:05,500 YOUNGBLOODS: ♪ Everybody get together
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00:04:05,500 --> 00:04:09,233 ♪ Try to love one another right now ♪
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00:04:09,233 --> 00:04:11,800 ♪ Right now
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00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:15,700 ♪ Right now.
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00:04:21,933 --> 00:04:23,300 (siren wailing)
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00:04:23,300 --> 00:04:25,466 NARRATOR: In the spring of 1970,
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00:04:25,466 --> 00:04:28,833 despite the uproar over the invasion of Cambodia
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00:04:28,833 --> 00:04:31,900 and the killing of four students at Kent State,
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00:04:31,900 --> 00:04:34,733 President Nixon's hold on what he called
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00:04:34,733 --> 00:04:38,633 "the great silent majority" seemed secure.
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00:04:38,633 --> 00:04:42,333 A Gallup poll showed that most Americans
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00:04:42,333 --> 00:04:45,133 blamed the students, not the National Guardsmen,
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00:04:45,133 --> 00:04:46,333 for what had happened.
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00:04:46,333 --> 00:04:49,500 (shouting, clamoring)
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00:04:49,500 --> 00:04:52,800 At an antiwar demonstration in Manhattan, [2]
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00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:55,833 hundreds of construction workers in hard hats
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00:04:55,833 --> 00:04:58,200 attacked protestors,
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00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:01,066 sending 70 to the hospital.
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00:05:03,900 --> 00:05:06,800 And when workers marched on City Hall
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00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:08,800 a few days later,
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00:05:08,800 --> 00:05:12,000 Nixon wrote the President of their Union
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00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:14,000 to say how pleased he was
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00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:15,600 "to see the tremendous outpouring
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00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:17,900 "of support for our country
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00:05:17,900 --> 00:05:22,600 demonstrated in your orderly and most heartening rally."
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00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:24,466 REPORTER: How do you feel about the construction workers
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00:05:24,466 --> 00:05:26,400 who attacked the, uh, demonstrators last Friday?
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00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:28,666 WORKER: Don't say attacked. Don't say attacked.
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00:05:28,666 --> 00:05:30,300 They were provoked.
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00:05:30,300 --> 00:05:32,233 They were provoked, man.
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00:05:32,233 --> 00:05:33,633 We work for a living.
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00:05:33,633 --> 00:05:35,800 Every day we get up, we're out there in the cold,
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00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:36,900 the rain, the snow, right?
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00:05:36,900 --> 00:05:38,966 We got to have these dirty s...
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00:05:38,966 --> 00:05:41,266 Forget about it, I don't want to talk about it, man.
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00:05:41,266 --> 00:05:43,633 Anybody that can take a Viet Cong flag and fly it
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00:05:43,633 --> 00:05:46,966 and wave it and bring it up this avenue
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00:05:46,966 --> 00:05:49,933 and get away with it-- and get away with it--
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00:05:49,933 --> 00:05:52,233 that's unpatriotic to me.
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00:05:52,233 --> 00:05:56,833 NARRATOR: When American troops withdrew from Cambodia
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00:05:56,833 --> 00:05:58,500 at the end of June,
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00:05:58,500 --> 00:06:00,833 the White House reported that they had killed
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00:06:00,833 --> 00:06:04,766 11,349 enemy troops,
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00:06:04,766 --> 00:06:07,366 captured 22,000 weapons
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00:06:07,366 --> 00:06:14,100 and had destroyed 11,688 bunkers and buildings.
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00:06:14,100 --> 00:06:17,266 But after so many years of fighting,
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00:06:17,266 --> 00:06:20,766 more and more Americans were tired of the war,
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00:06:20,766 --> 00:06:23,233 wanted to get out of Southeast Asia,
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00:06:23,233 --> 00:06:28,200 and did not want the President to expand the conflict further.
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00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:31,200 Among their representatives in Congress,
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00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:34,866 antiwar sentiment had steadily grown.
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00:06:34,866 --> 00:06:37,900 As the President searched for a face-saving way
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00:06:37,900 --> 00:06:40,800 to end the war, he continued to withdraw troops.
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00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:42,466 CROWD (chanting): U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
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00:06:42,466 --> 00:06:46,333 But even as American casualty figures fell,
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00:06:46,333 --> 00:06:50,100 the gulf between Americans at home widened,
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00:06:50,100 --> 00:06:52,766 tearing communities, neighborhoods,
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00:06:52,766 --> 00:06:55,233 even families apart.
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00:06:55,233 --> 00:06:58,400 CROWD (chanting): No more war! No more war! (Note Communist Flag in Video)
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00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:00,166 Nixon was convinced--
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00:07:00,166 --> 00:07:02,466 just as Lyndon Johnson had been--
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00:07:02,466 --> 00:07:04,966 that the antiwar movement was somehow
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00:07:04,966 --> 00:07:07,100 being directed from Hanoi,
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00:07:07,100 --> 00:07:09,900 Beijing and Moscow. [3]
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00:07:09,900 --> 00:07:12,433 "Within the iron gates of the White House
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00:07:12,433 --> 00:07:15,033 a siege mentality was settling in,"
152
00:07:15,033 --> 00:07:17,733 a Nixon aide remembered.
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00:07:17,733 --> 00:07:21,233 "It was now us against them.
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00:07:21,233 --> 00:07:24,500 "Gradually, as we drew the circle closer around us,
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00:07:24,500 --> 00:07:28,166 the ranks of them began to swell."
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00:07:28,166 --> 00:07:31,533 (crowd chattering)
157
00:07:31,533 --> 00:07:35,000 PHIL GIOIA: ARMY I think the Vietnam War drove a stake
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00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,500 right into the heart of America.
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00:07:38,500 --> 00:07:40,433 It polarized the country
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00:07:40,433 --> 00:07:43,033 as it had probably never been polarized
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00:07:43,033 --> 00:07:44,733 since before the Civil War.
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00:07:44,733 --> 00:07:47,100 And, unfortunately, we've never moved
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00:07:47,100 --> 00:07:49,066 really far away from that.
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00:07:49,066 --> 00:07:51,766 And we never recovered. EPISODE NINE - A DISRESPECTFUL LOYALTY - (MAY 1970 - MARCH 1973)
165
00:07:51,766 --> 00:07:53,700 CROWD: No more war! No more war!
166
00:07:53,700 --> 00:07:55,866 CROWD: U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
167
00:07:55,866 --> 00:07:57,800 CROWD: No more war! No more war!
168
00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:00,633 No more war! No more war! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
169
00:08:00,633 --> 00:08:03,300 U.S.A.! U.S.A.! No more war! No more war!
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00:08:03,300 --> 00:08:07,166 No more war! No more war! No more war!
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00:08:07,166 --> 00:08:10,066 (chanting stops)
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00:08:10,066 --> 00:08:12,533 ♪
173
00:08:14,166 --> 00:08:15,900 DAVID FROST: Thank you very much, indeed,
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00:08:15,900 --> 00:08:17,966 and welcome to this, uh, special,
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00:08:17,966 --> 00:08:20,433 very special edition of The David Frost Show.
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00:08:20,433 --> 00:08:24,400 The Vice President himself wanted to debate with students,
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00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:28,266 and we suggested a format in which he might like to do so.
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00:08:28,266 --> 00:08:30,800 Welcome Eva Jefferson from Northwestern,
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00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:33,500 who testified before the Scranton Commission
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00:08:33,500 --> 00:08:36,600 on Campus Unrest and is majoring in political science.
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00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:38,166 FROST: Is that right? JEFFERSON: Right.
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00:08:38,166 --> 00:08:40,166 NARRATOR: Eva Jefferson,
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00:08:40,166 --> 00:08:42,700 whose father had served in Vietnam,
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00:08:42,700 --> 00:08:44,600 was now the student body president
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00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:47,000 at Northwestern University.
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00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:48,700 After Kent State,
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00:08:48,700 --> 00:08:51,800 she had forcefully stopped angry protestors
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00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:55,633 from burning down the ROTC building at her school,
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00:08:55,633 --> 00:08:59,633 and later testified before a presidential commission
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00:08:59,633 --> 00:09:03,700 looking into the causes of student unrest.
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00:09:03,700 --> 00:09:06,600 She had warned then that some students
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00:09:06,600 --> 00:09:08,533 were becoming so frustrated
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00:09:08,533 --> 00:09:10,533 that they felt they had no choice
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00:09:10,533 --> 00:09:13,866 but to engage in violence.
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00:09:13,866 --> 00:09:16,233 And right now it's a privilege to welcome
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00:09:16,233 --> 00:09:18,033 the Vice President of the United States,
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00:09:18,033 --> 00:09:20,300 Spiro T. Agnew.
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00:09:20,300 --> 00:09:23,800 (audience applauding)
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00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:25,300 AGNEW: Let me
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00:09:25,300 --> 00:09:28,333 take brief exception to one thing you've said,
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00:09:28,333 --> 00:09:29,666 that the only way to get the attention
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00:09:29,666 --> 00:09:31,766 of the society is to bomb buildings.
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00:09:31,766 --> 00:09:33,700 JEFFERSON: What I attempted to do
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00:09:33,700 --> 00:09:35,666 before the Scranton Committee was to explain
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00:09:35,666 --> 00:09:38,333 what could motivate someone to blow up a building.
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00:09:38,333 --> 00:09:41,233 I did not say I endorse this, and if you read my testimony
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00:09:41,233 --> 00:09:43,800 quite carefully, you'll know that I didn't.
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00:09:43,800 --> 00:09:46,666 And it's this type of-of just picking up on what,
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00:09:46,666 --> 00:09:49,566 allegedly, I said instead of really studying what I said
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00:09:49,566 --> 00:09:51,133 that-that really disturbs me.
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00:09:51,133 --> 00:09:52,800 (quietly): May I respond? Because you're making people
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00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:55,066 afraid of their own children.
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00:09:55,066 --> 00:09:57,166 Yet they're your children, they're my parents' children,
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00:09:57,166 --> 00:09:58,466 they're the children of this country.
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00:09:58,466 --> 00:10:00,566 Yet you're making people afraid of them.
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00:10:00,566 --> 00:10:02,600 And I think this is the greatest disservice.
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00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:05,300 There's an honest difference of agreement on issues,
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00:10:05,300 --> 00:10:07,866 but-but when you make people afraid of each other,
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00:10:07,866 --> 00:10:10,833 you-you isolate people, and maybe this is your goal,
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00:10:10,833 --> 00:10:12,133 but I think this is...
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00:10:12,133 --> 00:10:14,100 this could only have a disastrous effect
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00:10:14,100 --> 00:10:16,333 on the country. (applause)
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00:10:16,333 --> 00:10:19,266 AGNEW: Let me say first that isolating people
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00:10:19,266 --> 00:10:20,500 is not my goal.
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00:10:20,500 --> 00:10:23,500 If that were true I wouldn't be here tonight.
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00:10:23,500 --> 00:10:25,533 And let me take exception to that
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00:10:25,533 --> 00:10:28,500 oft-repeated rationale that, uh,
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00:10:28,500 --> 00:10:30,933 violence is the only way to get results.
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00:10:30,933 --> 00:10:33,533 JEFFERSON: I was trying to explain to you the rationale of some students
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00:10:33,533 --> 00:10:34,800 who are openly revolutionary.
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00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:37,166 You're not listening to what I'm saying.
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00:10:37,166 --> 00:10:39,633 I'm-I'm really distressed. AGNEW: Just what are... what are you advocating?
MINUTES 10-20
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00:10:39,633 --> 00:10:41,600 EVA JEFFERSON PATERSON: They were trying to politically
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00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:44,000 benefit from making us out to be
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00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,633 these scary, horrible, violent people.
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00:10:47,633 --> 00:10:50,300 We weren't. We were against the war.
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00:10:50,300 --> 00:10:51,766 We thought the war was wrong.
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00:10:51,766 --> 00:10:53,233 We thought we were lied to.
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00:10:53,233 --> 00:10:54,833 And we were in the streets.
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00:10:54,833 --> 00:10:58,800 America has always had a rich tradition of protests.
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00:10:58,800 --> 00:11:02,466 We were founded by protesting England.
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00:11:02,466 --> 00:11:04,800 So to make people afraid of their kids,
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00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:06,966 I think, was wrong, but that's what they were about.
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00:11:06,966 --> 00:11:09,133 They were fearmongers.
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00:11:21,666 --> 00:11:24,366 BAO NINH: NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY From 1970 on, our enemy on the battlefield was the Army of South Vietnam. They were Vietnamese. That's the tragedy. The tragedy of the war is that Vietnamese killed each other. American firepower.[4] Vietnamese flesh and blood.
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00:11:51,433 --> 00:11:54,000 PHAN QUANG TUE: SAIGON It was fratricide.
247
00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:56,500 You can say, "Well, but-but they are communist."
248
00:11:56,500 --> 00:11:58,833 Okay, they're communist.
249
00:11:58,833 --> 00:12:01,700 "They are the worst Vietnamese in the entire world.
250
00:12:01,700 --> 00:12:03,633 We were the good Vietnamese."
251
00:12:03,633 --> 00:12:06,500 But let's face Vietnamese killing Vietnamese.
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00:12:06,500 --> 00:12:08,633 How-how do you deny that?
253
00:12:11,700 --> 00:12:13,500 If you don't call that fratricide,
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00:12:13,500 --> 00:12:17,233 what do you call that?
255
00:12:17,233 --> 00:12:18,766 What do you... how do we...
256
00:12:18,766 --> 00:12:20,700 I explain that to-to my children?
257
00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:27,600 NARRATOR: The Cambodian incursion had
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00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:30,966 at least temporarily reduced the flow of North Vietnamese
259
00:12:30,966 --> 00:12:34,800 men and supplies through that country,
260
00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:36,866 but they were still streaming down
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00:12:36,866 --> 00:12:39,700 the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
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00:12:39,700 --> 00:12:42,533 The White House wanted them stopped.
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00:12:42,533 --> 00:12:46,200 But this time, South Vietnamese troops
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00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:48,900 would have to try to do the job alone.
265
00:12:48,900 --> 00:12:53,866 By the end of 1970, both houses of Congress
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00:12:53,866 --> 00:12:56,733 had barred all U.S. ground personnel,
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00:12:56,733 --> 00:12:59,900 even advisors and special forces,
268
00:12:59,900 --> 00:13:01,966 from crossing the border.[5]
269
00:13:01,966 --> 00:13:05,866 On February 8, 1971,
270
00:13:05,866 --> 00:13:10,300 17,000 ARVN troops began moving into Laos
271
00:13:10,300 --> 00:13:13,166 to destroy the enemy's jungle bases
272
00:13:13,166 --> 00:13:16,933 and to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail.[6]
273
00:13:16,933 --> 00:13:21,433 The Americans could only provide air support.
274
00:13:21,433 --> 00:13:25,500 Nixon and his National Security Advisor,
275
00:13:25,500 --> 00:13:28,700 Henry Kissinger, believed that a successful operation
276
00:13:28,700 --> 00:13:30,933 would boost morale in Saigon
277
00:13:30,933 --> 00:13:34,433 and prove to Hanoi and the American public
278
00:13:34,433 --> 00:13:38,433 that the ARVN could fight and win on their own,
279
00:13:38,433 --> 00:13:42,500 that Vietnamization could work.
280
00:13:42,500 --> 00:13:46,700 Their target was the North Vietnamese logistics hub,
281
00:13:46,700 --> 00:13:50,066 the abandoned town of Tchepone.
282
00:13:50,066 --> 00:13:52,233 U.S. intelligence
283
00:13:52,233 --> 00:13:54,066 believed there were no more
284
00:13:54,066 --> 00:13:58,600 than 22,000 North Vietnamese troops in the area.
285
00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:02,800 But there would eventually turn out to be 60,000,
286
00:14:02,800 --> 00:14:06,633 and their commanders knew there was only one route
287
00:14:06,633 --> 00:14:09,833 the ARVN was likely to take.
288
00:14:09,833 --> 00:14:12,833 Harry Hue, who had been fighting the communists
289
00:14:12,833 --> 00:14:16,366 for eight years, was in the invasion force.
290
00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:19,366 HUE (speaking English): SOUTH VIETNAMESE ARMY Before I went to Laos, I'm feeling, I go that time and no come back. That is the mission, mission impossible. I told my advisor, Major David Wiseman then, "Dave, if something happen to me, please take care of my wife and my children."
291
00:14:43,666 --> 00:14:46,666 (explosion)
292
00:14:46,666 --> 00:14:50,400 NARRATOR: Although individual ARVN units fought bravely,
293
00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:52,866 the invasion was a failure.
294
00:15:10,533 --> 00:15:14,300 Almost half of the 17,000 South Vietnamese
295
00:15:14,300 --> 00:15:15,833 who entered Laos
296
00:15:15,833 --> 00:15:18,966 would be killed, wounded or captured.
297
00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:24,033 HUE: My battalion finally was surrounded. I was wounded three times. You know how much my battalion survived? About 55 soldiers and men. And when we go there, you know how much? About 600.
298
00:15:55,866 --> 00:15:58,466 BAO NINH: We ate the same rice, drank the same water. We shared the same culture, the same music. We were cowardly in the same way. We were brave in the same way. No difference. It was a civil war.
299
00:16:20,133 --> 00:16:21,866 NARRATOR: In late March,
300
00:16:21,866 --> 00:16:23,700 as the surviving ARVN forces
301
00:16:23,700 --> 00:16:25,366 straggled back across the border
302
00:16:25,366 --> 00:16:27,633 into South Vietnam,
303
00:16:27,633 --> 00:16:31,566 crowds of weeping women, children and old men--
304
00:16:31,566 --> 00:16:34,700 dressed in white, the color of mourning--
305
00:16:34,700 --> 00:16:38,300 begged for news of the soldiers who were missing.
306
00:16:38,300 --> 00:16:42,700 In Vietnam, the dead must receive proper burial
307
00:16:42,700 --> 00:16:46,633 so that their restless souls can have peace,
308
00:16:46,633 --> 00:16:48,733 and their families needed to know
309
00:16:48,733 --> 00:16:50,400 the time of their deaths
310
00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:53,366 so that they could honor them each year.[7]
311
00:16:55,900 --> 00:16:58,000 Even before the invasion was over,
312
00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:00,533 President Nixon had told an aide,
313
00:17:00,533 --> 00:17:02,766 "We must claim victory,
314
00:17:02,766 --> 00:17:05,233 whatever the outcome." HENRY KISSINGER: NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Now that I've seen the operation, this South Vietnamese army is not as good as we all thought - we knew that they weren't that good. PRESIDENT NIXON: Henry, I've become completely fatalistic about the goddamn thing. I don't think they're up to a real bang. KISSINGER: That's what worries me. NIXON: I don't think they're up to it. I'd rather have them get out, and then we're going to get the hell out and hope and pray that nothing happens before 1972. Let's face it. And if my re-election is important, let's remember, I've got to get this off our plate.[8]
315
00:17:39,633 --> 00:17:41,866 NIXON: Consequently, tonight, April 7, 1971.
316
00:17:41,866 --> 00:17:46,166 I can report that Vietnamization has succeeded.
317
00:17:46,166 --> 00:17:48,466 Because of the increased strength
318
00:17:48,466 --> 00:17:49,933 of the South Vietnamese,
319
00:17:49,933 --> 00:17:52,566 because of the success of the Cambodian operation,
320
00:17:52,566 --> 00:17:53,866 because of the achievements
321
00:17:53,866 --> 00:17:56,900 of the South Vietnamese operation in Laos,
322
00:17:56,900 --> 00:17:58,533 I am announcing an increase
323
00:17:58,533 --> 00:18:00,966 in the rate of American withdrawals.
324
00:18:00,966 --> 00:18:03,466 We have it in our power to leave Vietnam
325
00:18:03,466 --> 00:18:05,700 in a way that offers a brave people
326
00:18:05,700 --> 00:18:08,466 a realistic hope of freedom.
327
00:18:08,466 --> 00:18:09,866 We have it in our power
328
00:18:09,866 --> 00:18:12,133 to prove to our friends in the world
329
00:18:12,133 --> 00:18:15,000 that America's sense of responsibility
330
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,466 remains the world's greatest single hope of peace.
331
00:18:18,466 --> 00:18:22,933 And generations in the future
332
00:18:22,933 --> 00:18:26,433 will look back at this difficult,
333
00:18:26,433 --> 00:18:30,200 trying time in America's history,
334
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:32,800 and they will be proud
335
00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:36,100 that we demonstrated
336
00:18:36,100 --> 00:18:38,766 that we had the courage
337
00:18:38,766 --> 00:18:42,200 and the character of a great people.
338
00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:43,200 OPERATOR: Dr. Kissinger, sir.
339
00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:44,766 NIXON: Yeah.
340
00:18:44,766 --> 00:18:45,766 KISSINGER: Mr. President?
341
00:18:45,766 --> 00:18:47,066 NIXON: Yeah. Hi, Henry.
342
00:18:47,066 --> 00:18:48,400 KISSINGER: This was the best speech you've delivered
343
00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:49,600 since you've been in office.
344
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:50,700 NIXON: Yeah.
345
00:18:50,700 --> 00:18:53,166 I'll tell you one thing, this was, uh...
346
00:18:53,166 --> 00:18:55,300 This little speech was a work of art.
347
00:18:55,300 --> 00:18:58,033 I mean, I-I know a little something about speechwriting.
348
00:18:58,033 --> 00:19:00,333 And it was no act, because no actor could do it.
349
00:19:00,333 --> 00:19:02,433 No actor in Hollywood could have done that that well.
350
00:19:02,433 --> 00:19:03,900 KISSINGER: It's the best...
351
00:19:03,900 --> 00:19:05,400 NIXON: I thought that was done well, didn't you think?
352
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:06,533 KISSINGER: First of all, no actor could have written it,
353
00:19:06,533 --> 00:19:07,833 to begin with.
354
00:19:07,833 --> 00:19:09,566 You couldn't have done it unless you had meant it.
355
00:19:09,566 --> 00:19:10,900 NIXON: Yeah.
356
00:19:10,900 --> 00:19:13,266 And if it doesn't work, I don't care.
357
00:19:13,266 --> 00:19:15,533 I mean, right now, if it doesn't work...
358
00:19:15,533 --> 00:19:16,633 Then let me say, though,
359
00:19:16,633 --> 00:19:18,000 I'm going to find out soon,
360
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:19,333 and then I'm going to turn right
361
00:19:19,333 --> 00:19:21,033 so goddamn hard it'll make your head spin.
362
00:19:21,033 --> 00:19:22,700 We'll bomb those bastards right out of the...
363
00:19:22,700 --> 00:19:25,633 off the earth. I really mean it.
364
00:19:25,633 --> 00:19:28,633 ("We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by the Animals playing)
365
00:19:32,833 --> 00:19:37,233 ♪ In this dirty old part of the city ♪
366
00:19:37,233 --> 00:19:41,700 ♪ Where the sun refuse to shine ♪
367
00:19:41,700 --> 00:19:44,866 ♪ People tell me there ain't no use in trying ♪
368
00:19:49,666 --> 00:19:51,466 REPORTER: Do you belong to the same generation
369
00:19:51,466 --> 00:19:52,733 that is protesting at home?
370
00:19:52,733 --> 00:19:54,000 Do you feel as if you belong
371
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:55,700 to those people? SOLDIER: Very much.
372
00:19:55,700 --> 00:19:57,000 REPORTER: You do? SOLDIER: Very much.
373
00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:59,366 I wish they'd get us out of here, I really do.[9]
374
00:19:59,366 --> 00:20:02,566 ♪ We gotta get out of this place ♪
375
00:20:02,566 --> 00:20:06,533 ♪ If it's the last thing we ever do ♪
376
00:20:06,533 --> 00:20:09,766 ♪ We gotta get out of this place ♪
377
00:20:09,766 --> 00:20:11,500 ♪ Girl, there's a better life
378
00:20:11,500 --> 00:20:14,766 JAMES GILLAM: ARMY Almost all of us were draftees.
379
00:20:14,766 --> 00:20:17,766 None of us cared a damn about the war.
380
00:20:17,766 --> 00:20:20,466 We just didn't want to get blown up.
381
00:20:20,466 --> 00:20:22,666 We just didn't want to die in the jungle,
382
00:20:22,666 --> 00:20:25,166 holding your guts in.
383
00:20:25,166 --> 00:20:30,733 So the idea is do six months, maybe eight months,
384
00:20:30,733 --> 00:20:36,066 get an R&R, take a deep breath and try to finish up,
385
00:20:36,066 --> 00:20:39,900 try to do something that would get you sent to base camp.
386
00:20:39,900 --> 00:20:43,766 Just don't die because you're not gonna win.
MINUTES 20-30
387
00:20:43,766 --> 00:20:45,933 ANIMALS: ♪ We gotta get out of this place ♪
388
00:20:45,933 --> 00:20:49,433 ♪ If it's the last thing we ever do ♪
389
00:20:49,433 --> 00:20:51,700 REPORTER: Chess is the most serious contest
390
00:20:51,700 --> 00:20:53,500 Glen Hindley will engage in,
391
00:20:53,500 --> 00:20:56,400 for he has not fired a shot in his nine months
392
00:20:56,400 --> 00:20:58,000 in the field with Charlie Company.[10]
393
00:20:58,000 --> 00:20:59,766 HINDLEY: Well, I haven't shot anybody yet.
394
00:20:59,766 --> 00:21:01,633 I don't plan on it.
395
00:21:01,633 --> 00:21:03,700 I haven't fired my gun since I been here,
396
00:21:03,700 --> 00:21:05,833 and I like it that way.
397
00:21:05,833 --> 00:21:08,033 REPORTER: How can you get away with that?
398
00:21:08,033 --> 00:21:09,633 Just don't fire it.
399
00:21:09,633 --> 00:21:11,033 I plan to go across the...
400
00:21:11,033 --> 00:21:12,400 across country when I get back
401
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:14,366 because I'll see the people I know over here,
402
00:21:14,366 --> 00:21:16,666 plus I'll be able to talk to a lot of other people,
403
00:21:16,666 --> 00:21:18,833 maybe convince them that killing for peace
404
00:21:18,833 --> 00:21:20,166 just doesn't make sense.
405
00:21:20,166 --> 00:21:23,266 ANIMALS: ♪ We gotta get out of this place ♪
406
00:21:23,266 --> 00:21:28,466 ♪ If it's the last thing we ever do ♪
407
00:21:28,466 --> 00:21:30,366 ♪ We gotta get out of this place. ♪
408
00:21:30,366 --> 00:21:32,533 NARRATOR: "The morale, discipline, and battleworthiness
409
00:21:32,533 --> 00:21:36,533 of the U.S. Armed Forces," a retired Marine colonel wrote
410
00:21:36,533 --> 00:21:38,933 in the spring of 1971,
411
00:21:38,933 --> 00:21:42,266 "are lower and worse than at any time,
412
00:21:42,266 --> 00:21:46,566 possibly in the history of the United States."
413
00:21:46,566 --> 00:21:48,800 An official report had found
414
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:51,900 that one out of four enlisted men in Vietnam
415
00:21:51,900 --> 00:21:54,800 had used marijuana regularly--
416
00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:57,500 but almost never in combat.
417
00:21:57,500 --> 00:21:59,866 SOLDIER: There's, uh, drugs everywhere.
418
00:21:59,866 --> 00:22:01,266 Really, you could, uh...
419
00:22:01,266 --> 00:22:03,833 Well, within... within ten minutes in country,
420
00:22:03,833 --> 00:22:06,100 I-I had people approaching me selling scag.
421
00:22:06,100 --> 00:22:07,433 INTERVIEWER: What's scag?
422
00:22:07,433 --> 00:22:08,666 It's heroin.
423
00:22:08,666 --> 00:22:11,700 NARRATOR: Heroin was cheap,
424
00:22:11,700 --> 00:22:14,366 pure, and everywhere.
425
00:22:14,366 --> 00:22:17,033 The Pentagon would eventually acknowledge
426
00:22:17,033 --> 00:22:20,833 that 40,000 American troops had been addicted to it.
427
00:22:20,833 --> 00:22:24,166 ANIMALS: ♪ We gotta get out of this place ♪
428
00:22:24,166 --> 00:22:27,700 ♪ If it's the last thing we ever do ♪
429
00:22:27,700 --> 00:22:30,000 ♪ We gotta get out of this place ♪
430
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,400 ♪ Girl, there's a better life
431
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:34,633 (coughs)
432
00:22:34,633 --> 00:22:37,200 ♪ For me and you
433
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,200 ♪ Ooh, baby
434
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:43,100 "The rearguard of a once 500,000-man army,"
435
00:22:43,100 --> 00:22:44,466 an officer wrote,
436
00:22:44,466 --> 00:22:48,333 "is numbly extricating itself from a nightmare war
437
00:22:48,333 --> 00:22:51,566 "the armed forces feel they had foisted on them
438
00:22:51,566 --> 00:22:55,066 "by bright civilians who are now back on campus
439
00:22:55,066 --> 00:22:59,800 writing books about the folly of it all."
440
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:02,600 Even General Creighton Abrams,
441
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,833 commander of military operations in Vietnam,
442
00:23:05,833 --> 00:23:07,766 now admitted privately,
443
00:23:07,766 --> 00:23:11,100 "I need to get this army home to save it."
444
00:23:11,100 --> 00:23:12,633 ANIMALS: ♪ I know it, too, baby
445
00:23:12,633 --> 00:23:14,566 ♪ Oh, yeah.
446
00:23:22,566 --> 00:23:25,100 LIZ TROTTA: The telegrams and letters coming into this courthouse
447
00:23:25,100 --> 00:23:27,366 are from all parts of the country.
448
00:23:27,366 --> 00:23:30,300 From Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a man writes,
449
00:23:30,300 --> 00:23:32,933 "Congratulations to the Calley jurors.
450
00:23:32,933 --> 00:23:35,233 "A courageous and fair decision.
451
00:23:35,233 --> 00:23:37,366 Justice still exists."
452
00:23:37,366 --> 00:23:42,333 NARRATOR: On March 29, 1971,
453
00:23:42,333 --> 00:23:44,266 at Fort Benning, Georgia,
454
00:23:44,266 --> 00:23:47,400 a military court found Lieutenant William Calley--
455
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:49,733 and only Lieutenant Calley--
456
00:23:49,733 --> 00:23:52,400 guilty of murdering Vietnamese civilians
457
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,333 at My Lai back in 1968.
458
00:23:58,266 --> 00:24:02,733 He was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.
459
00:24:02,733 --> 00:24:05,466 The commander of Calley's division,
460
00:24:05,466 --> 00:24:07,633 General Samuel Koster,
461
00:24:07,633 --> 00:24:10,533 who had watched some of the slaughter from a helicopter
462
00:24:10,533 --> 00:24:13,533 and done nothing to stop it, was now the superintendent
463
00:24:13,533 --> 00:24:16,866 of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
464
00:24:16,866 --> 00:24:20,766 He (Koster) was forced to resign.
465
00:24:20,766 --> 00:24:23,933 The other 23 officers and men
466
00:24:23,933 --> 00:24:26,300 who had been indicted were either acquitted
467
00:24:26,300 --> 00:24:29,066 or had their cases dismissed.
468
00:24:29,066 --> 00:24:32,600 The Calley verdict proved as controversial
469
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:34,900 as the war itself.
470
00:24:34,900 --> 00:24:37,066 TROTTA: A lady in Cheyenne, Wyoming, says,
471
00:24:37,066 --> 00:24:39,433 "What the jury has done to Lieutenant Calley
472
00:24:39,433 --> 00:24:41,566 "is a disgrace to this nation.
473
00:24:41,566 --> 00:24:43,533 "The enemy is the enemy,
474
00:24:43,533 --> 00:24:46,333 the enemy is the enemy."
475
00:24:46,333 --> 00:24:48,700 From Bellefontaine, Ohio, a doctor says,
476
00:24:48,700 --> 00:24:51,466 "Let us not condemn Lieutenant Calley
477
00:24:51,466 --> 00:24:53,800 "when it is the character of the war
478
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,533 which is at fault for such slaughters as My Lai."
479
00:24:56,533 --> 00:24:59,866 What is your initial reaction to this verdict, sir?
480
00:24:59,866 --> 00:25:02,200 MAN: I thought he would be found not guilty.
481
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:04,166 'Cause you send in a man into combat,
482
00:25:04,166 --> 00:25:06,566 you train him to be a... a killer,
483
00:25:06,566 --> 00:25:08,833 and then, when he does, why then,
484
00:25:08,833 --> 00:25:10,666 uh, you prosecute him?
485
00:25:12,566 --> 00:25:16,333 NARRATOR: Some believed everyone involved should have gone to jail;
486
00:25:16,333 --> 00:25:19,500 others believed that Calley had been made a scapegoat
487
00:25:19,500 --> 00:25:23,466 for the criminal misdeeds of his superiors.
488
00:25:23,466 --> 00:25:27,433 And still others felt a systemic failure of leadership
489
00:25:27,433 --> 00:25:29,800 had occurred in a chain of command
490
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,433 that stretched all the way up to the Commander in Chief.[11]
491
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:38,866 According to a Gallup poll,
492
00:25:38,866 --> 00:25:44,100 79% of the American public disagreed with the verdict.
493
00:25:44,100 --> 00:25:47,500 Nixon decided to intervene.
494
00:25:49,866 --> 00:25:53,233 Calley spent just three days behind bars.
495
00:25:54,533 --> 00:25:57,200 The President ordered him transferred
496
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,433 from federal prison to house arrest
497
00:25:59,433 --> 00:26:01,766 at Fort Benning, pending appeal.
498
00:26:01,766 --> 00:26:03,866 MAN: Okay, I'm gonna walk back from each side.
499
00:26:03,866 --> 00:26:06,066 NARRATOR: Captain Aubrey Daniel,
500
00:26:06,066 --> 00:26:08,700 who had successfully prosecuted Calley,
501
00:26:08,700 --> 00:26:11,966 wrote Nixon, accusing him of compromising
502
00:26:11,966 --> 00:26:14,633 "such a fundamental moral principle
503
00:26:14,633 --> 00:26:17,133 "as the inherent unlawfulness
504
00:26:17,133 --> 00:26:20,333 of the murder of innocent persons."
505
00:26:20,333 --> 00:26:22,833 A military appeals court
506
00:26:22,833 --> 00:26:26,733 eventually reduced Calley's term to 20 years,
507
00:26:26,733 --> 00:26:29,733 the Secretary of the Army cut it to ten,
508
00:26:29,733 --> 00:26:32,300 and after just three and a half years
509
00:26:32,300 --> 00:26:35,233 under house arrest, he was paroled.
510
00:26:39,466 --> 00:26:41,800 TIM O'BRIEN: Who's responsible?
511
00:26:44,066 --> 00:26:48,466 The human beings who did this...
512
00:26:48,466 --> 00:26:52,000 These are war crimes.
513
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,966 The individual human beings who put a rifle muzzle
514
00:26:55,966 --> 00:26:57,133 up against a baby's head
515
00:26:57,133 --> 00:27:00,633 and shot the brains out of that baby--
516
00:27:00,633 --> 00:27:03,533 nothing happened to them.
517
00:27:03,533 --> 00:27:05,800 Nothing!
518
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,000 HAL KUSHNER: And we walked up the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
519
00:27:19,166 --> 00:27:22,033 And they said we walked 900 kilometers--
520
00:27:22,033 --> 00:27:27,833 540 miles in 57 days.
521
00:27:27,833 --> 00:27:31,700 And we met all these people going both ways.
522
00:27:31,700 --> 00:27:35,300 We met civilians coming south.
523
00:27:35,300 --> 00:27:38,133 We met soldiers going north and south.
524
00:27:38,133 --> 00:27:41,366 We met people humping artillery rounds.
525
00:27:41,366 --> 00:27:42,733 We met a...
526
00:27:42,733 --> 00:27:44,700 I remember a whole unit,
527
00:27:44,700 --> 00:27:46,633 a company-size unit, of women.
528
00:27:49,033 --> 00:27:52,100 On the way, in one of these villages,
529
00:27:52,100 --> 00:27:55,533 I stole a uniform.
530
00:27:57,100 --> 00:27:58,933 Just khaki pants and khaki shirt.
531
00:27:58,933 --> 00:28:00,266 And I stole it.
532
00:28:00,266 --> 00:28:03,833 And I folded it up and I put it in my pack.
533
00:28:03,833 --> 00:28:07,166 NARRATOR: By early 1971,
534
00:28:07,166 --> 00:28:09,166 army doctor Hal Kushner
535
00:28:09,166 --> 00:28:11,033 had been a prisoner of the Viet Cong
536
00:28:11,033 --> 00:28:14,366 in South Vietnam for more than three years.
537
00:28:16,333 --> 00:28:20,133 He had survived ill treatment and a host of illnesses,
538
00:28:20,133 --> 00:28:23,600 and he had buried 13 of his fellow captives,
539
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:25,533 who had died of starvation
540
00:28:25,533 --> 00:28:29,166 and sickness and despair.
541
00:28:29,166 --> 00:28:33,066 Now, he and the other survivors from his camp
542
00:28:33,066 --> 00:28:36,700 were being moved all the way to North Vietnam.
543
00:28:39,133 --> 00:28:40,833 Kushner and his companions
544
00:28:40,833 --> 00:28:43,266 eventually reached the city of Vinh,
545
00:28:43,266 --> 00:28:46,066 where they boarded a train to Hanoi.
546
00:28:46,066 --> 00:28:48,200 KUSHNER: And I put on this fresh uniform,
547
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:50,066 and when I got off the train
548
00:28:50,066 --> 00:28:53,800 I was met with this officer in a jeep.
549
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:55,500 And he just looked at me and he said,
550
00:28:55,500 --> 00:28:56,700 "You're an officer, aren't you?
551
00:28:56,700 --> 00:28:58,933 You come here."
552
00:28:58,933 --> 00:29:01,366 And he just... I felt very proud that I looked good
553
00:29:01,366 --> 00:29:03,266 when I came off that train.
554
00:29:09,666 --> 00:29:13,066 NARRATOR: Kushner joined hundreds of American captives
555
00:29:13,066 --> 00:29:15,700 who were scattered among five prisons
556
00:29:15,700 --> 00:29:18,900 in and around Hanoi.
557
00:29:18,900 --> 00:29:21,566 KUSHNER: We hadn't been there long when the word came down
558
00:29:21,566 --> 00:29:24,466 from the American senior ranking officer
559
00:29:24,466 --> 00:29:28,866 that nobody would go home unless everybody went home.
560
00:29:28,866 --> 00:29:31,933 That nobody would cooperate with the Vietnamese.
561
00:29:31,933 --> 00:29:33,866 (indistinct voice on radio)
562
00:29:37,233 --> 00:29:40,833 But we heard him on the camp radio once...
563
00:29:40,833 --> 00:29:42,833 (radio transmission continuing)
564
00:29:42,833 --> 00:29:45,766 ...telling us that we should cooperate.
565
00:29:48,033 --> 00:29:50,933 And it was obvious, from his voice and his inflection,
566
00:29:50,933 --> 00:29:53,066 that he had been tortured and beaten
567
00:29:53,066 --> 00:29:56,066 and was being made to say that.
568
00:29:56,066 --> 00:29:58,233 And that's what they did.
569
00:29:58,233 --> 00:30:02,733 NARRATOR: Eventually, Kushner, like most of the prisoners,
570
00:30:02,733 --> 00:30:05,533 would be forced to record a statement
571
00:30:05,533 --> 00:30:07,466 against the war.
MINUTES 30-40
572
00:30:08,700 --> 00:30:10,233 (light clicks on)
573
00:30:13,033 --> 00:30:15,566 KUSHNER (on recording): I have followed the course of the antiwar movement with great interest and enthusiasm. You, the veterans of this Vietnam War, know better than any other Americans what a tragic waste this has been. As a POW, I am truly grateful for your efforts on my behalf. Wishing you good luck and continued success, I am gratefully, Hal Kushner, M.D.
574
00:30:41,833 --> 00:30:43,500 KUSHNER: They wanted propaganda statements
-
-
Propaganda Leaflet
575
00:30:43,500 --> 00:30:45,166 to say the war was criminal,
576
00:30:45,166 --> 00:30:47,766 to say that we were criminals.
577
00:30:47,766 --> 00:30:50,066 And they used our weakness against us.
578
00:30:50,066 --> 00:30:51,566 (light clicks off)
579
00:30:51,566 --> 00:30:54,566 ("Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones playing)
580
00:30:54,566 --> 00:30:58,500 CROWD (chanting): No more war! No more war! No more war!
581
00:30:58,500 --> 00:31:02,433 No more war! No more war!
582
00:31:02,433 --> 00:31:04,533 JOHN MUSGRAVE: The first time in our history
583
00:31:04,533 --> 00:31:07,100 that veterans[12] came home from a war and said--
584
00:31:07,100 --> 00:31:08,633 while the war is still going on--
585
00:31:08,633 --> 00:31:11,733 and said, "This war's got to stop."
586
00:31:11,733 --> 00:31:14,700 And the American people
587
00:31:14,700 --> 00:31:17,133 might not listen to a bunch of long-haired hippie kids.
588
00:31:17,133 --> 00:31:19,066 What do they know?
589
00:31:19,066 --> 00:31:21,933 But the working class, the great "silent majority"--
590
00:31:21,933 --> 00:31:24,466 Richard Nixon always talked about his "silent majority"
591
00:31:24,466 --> 00:31:27,066 that would back him by being silent--
592
00:31:27,066 --> 00:31:29,666 we were their kids.[13]
593
00:31:29,666 --> 00:31:32,400 And it finally dawned on me--
594
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,566 and this was a long, painful process--
595
00:31:34,566 --> 00:31:37,533 that... that I wasn't helping anybody
596
00:31:37,533 --> 00:31:40,733 by keeping my mouth shut.
597
00:31:40,733 --> 00:31:44,000 NARRATOR: Less than three weeks after Lieutenant Calley
598
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:46,766 was found guilty, some 2,000 members
599
00:31:46,766 --> 00:31:48,800 of an organization called
600
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,366 Vietnam Veterans Against the War
601
00:31:51,366 --> 00:31:56,166 and their followers descended upon Washington, D.C.
602
00:31:56,166 --> 00:32:00,200 MICK JAGGER: ♪ Ooh, storm is threatening
603
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,866 ♪ My very life today
604
00:32:03,866 --> 00:32:08,900 ♪ If I don't get some shelter
605
00:32:08,900 --> 00:32:12,400 ♪ Oh, yeah, I'm gonna fade away ♪
606
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:16,000 ♪ War, children
607
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,533 ♪ It's just a shot away
608
00:32:18,533 --> 00:32:20,633 ♪ It's just a shot away ♪
609
00:32:20,633 --> 00:32:24,133 ♪ War, children
610
00:32:24,133 --> 00:32:26,066 ♪ It's just a shot away
611
00:32:26,066 --> 00:32:29,733 ♪ It's just a shot away. ♪
612
00:32:29,733 --> 00:32:33,266 RON FERRIZZI: VVAW was a-a... it was great therapy.
613
00:32:33,266 --> 00:32:35,466 We were working it out ourselves.
614
00:32:35,466 --> 00:32:37,833 Vets taking care of vets.
615
00:32:37,833 --> 00:32:39,633 We were generals in our own right.
616
00:32:39,633 --> 00:32:41,200 And we didn't join anything.
617
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:42,866 We became something.
618
00:32:42,866 --> 00:32:45,066 MUSGRAVE: And that, yes, I was a Marine,
619
00:32:45,066 --> 00:32:46,900 but I was first and foremost
620
00:32:46,900 --> 00:32:49,266 a citizen of the United States of America.
621
00:32:49,266 --> 00:32:53,133 And being a citizen, I had certain responsibilities.
622
00:32:53,133 --> 00:32:56,233 And the largest of those responsibilities
623
00:32:56,233 --> 00:32:59,633 is standing up to your government and saying "no"
624
00:32:59,633 --> 00:33:01,833 when it's doing something that you think
625
00:33:01,833 --> 00:33:04,633 is not in this nation's best interest.
626
00:33:04,633 --> 00:33:09,966 That is the most important job that every citizen has.
627
00:33:09,966 --> 00:33:13,733 ROLLING STONES: ♪ Rape, murder
628
00:33:13,733 --> 00:33:16,966 MUSGRAVE: I served my country as honorably,
629
00:33:16,966 --> 00:33:20,166 when I was in Vietnam Veterans Against the War,
630
00:33:20,166 --> 00:33:23,866 as I did as a United States Marine.
631
00:33:23,866 --> 00:33:27,300 And, in fact, I conducted myself as a Marine
632
00:33:27,300 --> 00:33:30,100 the whole time I was in VVAW.
633
00:33:30,100 --> 00:33:31,733 I... My-my whole life,
634
00:33:31,733 --> 00:33:34,566 I conduct myself as a Marine.
635
00:33:34,566 --> 00:33:38,000 NARRATOR: Navy Lieutenant John Kerry,
636
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:41,333 who had commanded a swift boat in the Mekong Delta
637
00:33:41,333 --> 00:33:43,966 and was one of the organization's leaders,
638
00:33:43,966 --> 00:33:45,400 was invited to address
639
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:47,633 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
640
00:33:47,633 --> 00:33:50,700 still chaired by J. William Fulbright.
641
00:33:50,700 --> 00:33:52,200 FULBRIGHT: Thank you.
642
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,666 MUSGRAVE: I went up for the presentation.
643
00:33:55,666 --> 00:33:57,966 And it was standing room only.
644
00:33:57,966 --> 00:34:01,933 And I was crammed up against the wall in the very back.
645
00:34:01,933 --> 00:34:05,066 And when John...
646
00:34:05,066 --> 00:34:07,966 gave that presentation... (gavel bangs)
647
00:34:07,966 --> 00:34:10,566 ...I felt like he was speaking for all of us.[14]
648
00:34:10,566 --> 00:34:14,033 KERRY: We could come back to this country and we could be quiet.
649
00:34:14,033 --> 00:34:15,666 We could hold our silence.
650
00:34:15,666 --> 00:34:19,233 We could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel,
651
00:34:19,233 --> 00:34:22,166 because of what threatens this country,
652
00:34:22,166 --> 00:34:24,100 we have to speak out.
653
00:34:24,100 --> 00:34:26,033 Millions of men who have been
654
00:34:26,033 --> 00:34:29,199 taught to deal and to trade in violence
655
00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:31,600 and who were given the chance to die
656
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:33,900 for the biggest nothing in history,
657
00:34:33,900 --> 00:34:37,633 men who have returned with a sense of anger
658
00:34:37,633 --> 00:34:39,133 and a sense of betrayal
659
00:34:39,133 --> 00:34:41,533 which no one has yet grasped.
660
00:34:41,533 --> 00:34:44,266 We rationalized destroying villages
661
00:34:44,266 --> 00:34:45,900 in order to save them.
662
00:34:45,900 --> 00:34:48,066 We saw America lose her sense of morality,
663
00:34:48,066 --> 00:34:51,133 as she accepted very coolly a My Lai
664
00:34:51,133 --> 00:34:53,633 and refused to give up the image of American soldiers
665
00:34:53,633 --> 00:34:56,366 that hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
666
00:34:56,366 --> 00:34:59,033 We learnt the meaning of free-fire zones,
667
00:34:59,033 --> 00:35:01,700 shoot anything that moves,[15]
668
00:35:01,700 --> 00:35:03,966 and we watched while America placed a cheapness
669
00:35:03,966 --> 00:35:06,233 on the lives of Orientals.
670
00:35:06,233 --> 00:35:10,233 We watched the United States' falsification of body counts--
671
00:35:10,233 --> 00:35:13,766 in fact, the glorification of body counts.
672
00:35:13,766 --> 00:35:16,433 We watched while men charged up hills
673
00:35:16,433 --> 00:35:19,666 because a general said that hill has to be taken.
674
00:35:19,666 --> 00:35:22,500 And after losing one platoon or two platoons,
675
00:35:22,500 --> 00:35:23,966 they marched away
676
00:35:23,966 --> 00:35:25,966 to leave the hill for the reoccupation
677
00:35:25,966 --> 00:35:28,933 of the North Vietnamese.
678
00:35:28,933 --> 00:35:31,600 And we are asking Americans to think about that.
679
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:33,866 Because how do you ask a man
680
00:35:33,866 --> 00:35:36,700 to be the last man to die in Vietnam?
681
00:35:36,700 --> 00:35:41,366 How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
682
00:35:41,366 --> 00:35:44,500 And so, when, 30 years from now,
683
00:35:44,500 --> 00:35:47,300 our brothers go down the street without a leg,
684
00:35:47,300 --> 00:35:49,966 without an arm or a face,
685
00:35:49,966 --> 00:35:52,700 and small boys ask why,
686
00:35:52,700 --> 00:35:55,533 we will be able to say "Vietnam"
687
00:35:55,533 --> 00:35:59,200 and not mean a filthy, obscene memory
688
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:04,666 but mean instead the place where America finally turned
689
00:36:04,666 --> 00:36:09,466 and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.
690
00:36:09,466 --> 00:36:11,300 Thank you.
691
00:36:11,300 --> 00:36:13,233 (cheers and applause)
692
00:36:17,733 --> 00:36:20,733 MUSGRAVE: I thought, "I have never heard
693
00:36:20,733 --> 00:36:23,733 "so... such an incredible speech
694
00:36:23,733 --> 00:36:26,266 that says exactly what I'm feeling."
695
00:36:26,266 --> 00:36:29,766 You know? It was extraordinary.
696
00:36:29,766 --> 00:36:32,233 Extraordinary.
697
00:36:32,233 --> 00:36:35,900 NARRATOR: But some veterans remembered a different part
698
00:36:35,900 --> 00:36:37,833 of Kerry's testimony,
699
00:36:37,833 --> 00:36:41,500 testimony in which he repeated accounts of atrocities
700
00:36:41,500 --> 00:36:45,400 he had heard from other American veterans.
701
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,666 KERRY: They told the stories of times
702
00:36:48,666 --> 00:36:53,733 that they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads,
703
00:36:53,733 --> 00:36:57,533 taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals
704
00:36:57,533 --> 00:36:59,333 and turned up the power,
705
00:36:59,333 --> 00:37:02,866 cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
706
00:37:02,866 --> 00:37:05,533 randomly shot at civilians,
707
00:37:05,533 --> 00:37:09,866 razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan...
708
00:37:09,866 --> 00:37:12,400 GIOIA: What I saw in Vietnam was not the soldier
709
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:14,400 that Mr. Kerry or his colleagues
710
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,533 were describing at that time.
711
00:37:16,533 --> 00:37:19,066 There was no widespread atrocity.
712
00:37:19,066 --> 00:37:20,733 There was... there were a couple of units
713
00:37:20,733 --> 00:37:23,333 that went right off the rails, and we can talk about that.
714
00:37:23,333 --> 00:37:26,133 But they were not out-of-control animals,
715
00:37:26,133 --> 00:37:28,266 which was the way they were portrayed.
716
00:37:28,266 --> 00:37:31,933 And what was even worse was they were alluding to the fact
717
00:37:31,933 --> 00:37:33,333 that you would take ordinary kids
718
00:37:33,333 --> 00:37:35,933 and turn them into these savages,
719
00:37:35,933 --> 00:37:37,533 war criminals, and the...
720
00:37:37,533 --> 00:37:39,000 that the military was doing that.
721
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,600 And it didn't. Didn't happen that way.
722
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,066 I'm still very angry about that.[16]
723
00:37:44,066 --> 00:37:46,000 ROLLING STONES: ♪ War, children
724
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:47,533 NARRATOR: The next day,
725
00:37:47,533 --> 00:37:50,800 700 Vietnam Veterans Against the War
726
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:53,066 gathered at the Capitol.
727
00:37:53,066 --> 00:37:56,066 MUSGRAVE: We originally intended to put our medals in a body bag
728
00:37:56,066 --> 00:37:59,033 and have them delivered to Congress.
729
00:37:59,033 --> 00:38:02,500 But the Nixon administration erected
730
00:38:02,500 --> 00:38:08,100 this big wire and wood fence on the steps of our Capitol
731
00:38:08,100 --> 00:38:11,766 to keep us out.
732
00:38:11,766 --> 00:38:13,766 To keep out the young men and women
733
00:38:13,766 --> 00:38:16,433 who were fighting that war.
734
00:38:16,433 --> 00:38:18,900 And all that did was piss us off
735
00:38:18,900 --> 00:38:22,900 and give us the greatest photo opportunity
736
00:38:22,900 --> 00:38:25,733 that we could ever have.[17]
737
00:38:25,733 --> 00:38:26,900 Silver Star. STEVE SHAW: Purple Heart.
738
00:38:26,900 --> 00:38:29,133 MAN: Bronze Star.
739
00:38:29,133 --> 00:38:30,966 Cross of Gallantry. SACHS: Distinguished Flying Cross.
740
00:38:30,966 --> 00:38:32,433 And everything else! (cheering)
741
00:38:32,433 --> 00:38:34,233 FERRIZZI: I don't want these ... medals, man!
742
00:38:34,233 --> 00:38:37,566 The Silver Star, the third highest medal in the country,
743
00:38:37,566 --> 00:38:39,166 it doesn't mean anything!
744
00:38:39,166 --> 00:38:41,500 Bob Smeal died for these medals!
745
00:38:41,500 --> 00:38:44,033 Lieutenant Panamaroff died so I got a medal!
746
00:38:44,033 --> 00:38:46,466 Sergeant Johns died so I got a medal!
747
00:38:46,466 --> 00:38:48,466 I got a Silver Star, a Purple Heart,
748
00:38:48,466 --> 00:38:50,866 Army Commendation Medal, eight Air Medals,
749
00:38:50,866 --> 00:38:52,333 National Defense,
750
00:38:52,333 --> 00:38:53,500 and the rest of this garbage!
751
00:38:53,500 --> 00:38:55,366 It doesn't mean a thing![18]
752
00:38:55,366 --> 00:38:56,866 (cheering)
753
00:38:56,866 --> 00:39:00,600 JAGGER: ♪ Mm, the flood is threatening
754
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:02,133 ♪ My very life
755
00:39:02,133 --> 00:39:04,333 FERRIZZI: Throwing my medals back was probably harder
756
00:39:04,333 --> 00:39:05,733 than going to the war.
757
00:39:05,733 --> 00:39:08,400 Was actually harder than going and serving in Vietnam.
758
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:12,933 JAGGER: ♪ Or I'm gonna fade away
759
00:39:12,933 --> 00:39:15,433 FERRIZZI: If this medal is so important, let's make it important.
760
00:39:15,433 --> 00:39:17,166 Here it is. You can have it back.
761
00:39:17,166 --> 00:39:19,300 End the war in Vietnam.
762
00:39:19,300 --> 00:39:20,933 What else is there?
763
00:39:20,933 --> 00:39:22,300 I... There was nothing else.
764
00:39:22,300 --> 00:39:23,833 I wouldn't put 'em on my wall for my son.
765
00:39:23,833 --> 00:39:26,100 I never want... that was the last thing in the world
766
00:39:26,100 --> 00:39:28,800 I would ever want my son to revere.
767
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,133 (indistinct shouting)
768
00:39:31,133 --> 00:39:34,066 TOM VALLELY: MARINES It was a difficult decision for me.
769
00:39:34,066 --> 00:39:39,066 I did it out of a disrespectful loyalty.
770
00:39:39,066 --> 00:39:43,033 I was proud of my military service.
771
00:39:43,033 --> 00:39:45,366 And I wanted to say, "You know, I don't think
772
00:39:45,366 --> 00:39:48,166 you guys know that much," the American military.
773
00:39:48,166 --> 00:39:51,300 "You know, I think you should think again
774
00:39:51,300 --> 00:39:52,766 "about this enterprise.
775
00:39:52,766 --> 00:39:55,233 And here you go, pal."[19]
776
00:39:55,233 --> 00:39:57,100 BAGWELL: Tim Bagwell from Sacramento, California,
777
00:39:57,100 --> 00:40:00,100 still on active duty, and I say get the hell out.
778
00:40:00,100 --> 00:40:01,166 (cheering)
779
00:40:01,166 --> 00:40:03,800 ("Gimme Shelter" continues)
780
00:40:13,366 --> 00:40:15,833 MUSGRAVE: When we threw our medals away,
781
00:40:15,833 --> 00:40:17,433 that got their attention,
782
00:40:17,433 --> 00:40:20,100 because America values those things.
783
00:40:20,100 --> 00:40:21,533 So do we.
784
00:40:21,533 --> 00:40:23,933 That's why it was so important.
MINUTES 40-50
785
00:40:23,933 --> 00:40:27,066 NARRATOR: The police had been ordered not to arrest
786
00:40:27,066 --> 00:40:29,666 any of the veterans, because,
787
00:40:29,666 --> 00:40:32,266 Pat Buchanan, a White House aide, wrote,
788
00:40:32,266 --> 00:40:35,733 they were "being received in a far more sympathetic fashion
789
00:40:35,733 --> 00:40:37,933 "than other demonstrators.
790
00:40:37,933 --> 00:40:41,600 The 'crazies' will be in town soon enough," he continued,
791
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:43,766 "and if we want a confrontation,
792
00:40:43,766 --> 00:40:45,833 let's have it with them."
793
00:40:45,833 --> 00:40:48,233 He was right.
794
00:40:48,233 --> 00:40:50,566 In the days immediately following
795
00:40:50,566 --> 00:40:52,033 the veterans' protest,
796
00:40:52,033 --> 00:40:54,100 other groups of antiwar activists
797
00:40:54,100 --> 00:40:57,233 moved into the capital.
798
00:40:57,233 --> 00:41:01,066 The most radical called itself the May Day Tribe
799
00:41:01,066 --> 00:41:04,133 and threatened to close the city down.
800
00:41:04,133 --> 00:41:07,466 For three days, they staged hit-and-run raids
801
00:41:07,466 --> 00:41:09,333 throughout Washington--
802
00:41:09,333 --> 00:41:11,866 blocking bridges and traffic circles,
803
00:41:11,866 --> 00:41:13,300 smashing windows,
804
00:41:13,300 --> 00:41:15,800 hurling rocks, burning cars.
805
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:16,866 (sirens wailing)
806
00:41:16,866 --> 00:41:18,266 RENNIE DAVIS: MAY DAY TRIBE If Richard Nixon thought
807
00:41:18,266 --> 00:41:21,666 that this week was something, wait until the next round.
808
00:41:21,666 --> 00:41:24,333 This is only a warm-up of what is going to come.
809
00:41:24,333 --> 00:41:27,166 This is going to continue until the war ends.
810
00:41:27,166 --> 00:41:29,500 NARRATOR: Some 12,000 were arrested--
811
00:41:29,500 --> 00:41:32,066 7,000 on a single day,
812
00:41:32,066 --> 00:41:35,633 the largest number of arrests in 24 hours
813
00:41:35,633 --> 00:41:38,133 in United States history.
814
00:41:38,133 --> 00:41:41,600 BILL ZIMMERMAN: I realized, coming away from Washington,
815
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,000 that our whole strategy was wrong
816
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:47,733 and that we were becoming more and more militant
817
00:41:47,733 --> 00:41:50,600 at a time when more and more Americans
818
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:52,200 were opposing the war
819
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:54,733 but were turned off by our militancy.
820
00:41:54,733 --> 00:41:57,733 So we were doing exactly the wrong thing.
821
00:41:57,733 --> 00:42:01,366 NARRATOR: The White House was initially pleased.
822
00:42:01,366 --> 00:42:04,566 Public sympathy for the veterans was largely forgotten
823
00:42:04,566 --> 00:42:08,600 in the face of days of battle in the streets.
824
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,733 Polls showed that most Americans approved
825
00:42:11,733 --> 00:42:13,533 of the arrests.
826
00:42:16,366 --> 00:42:19,500 But those same polls also showed
827
00:42:19,500 --> 00:42:22,300 that most Americans no longer believed
828
00:42:22,300 --> 00:42:26,066 they were being told the truth about Vietnam.
829
00:42:31,033 --> 00:42:33,833 MUSGRAVE: When I got home, my... so my dad's pissed off.
830
00:42:33,833 --> 00:42:37,566 'Cause he's-he's a true believer, you know?
831
00:42:39,133 --> 00:42:41,400 He was already receiving threats
832
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:44,533 because I'd thrown away their medals.
833
00:42:46,300 --> 00:42:49,366 And that pissed my dad off then.
834
00:42:49,366 --> 00:42:52,100 And you would've thought I hadn't done anything wrong.
835
00:42:52,100 --> 00:42:55,166 Because then somebody outside the family was messing with me.
836
00:42:55,166 --> 00:42:57,300 And he said, "Son, don't worry.
837
00:42:57,300 --> 00:42:59,300 "Those were your medals. You paid for 'em.
838
00:42:59,300 --> 00:43:00,700 "You can do anything you want with 'em.
839
00:43:00,700 --> 00:43:02,933 "They want to jack with us, they'll face us both.
840
00:43:02,933 --> 00:43:04,666 We'll-we'll take 'em on in the driveway."
841
00:43:04,666 --> 00:43:07,333 You know? "Yo, Dad."
842
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:10,533 (applause)
843
00:43:12,266 --> 00:43:14,800 (band playing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls")
844
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,800 NARRATOR: On June 12, 1971,
845
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:20,133 Richard Nixon's daughter, Tricia,
846
00:43:20,133 --> 00:43:24,833 married Edward Cox in the White House Rose Garden.
847
00:43:24,833 --> 00:43:28,433 The country watched it all on television.
848
00:43:31,866 --> 00:43:35,133 The wedding was still news the next day.
849
00:43:35,133 --> 00:43:38,733 But another story on the front page of the New York Times
850
00:43:38,733 --> 00:43:41,566 caught the President's attention.
851
00:43:41,566 --> 00:43:44,766 The article, by Neil Sheehan,[20]
852
00:43:44,766 --> 00:43:47,566 was the first report of what came to be called
853
00:43:47,566 --> 00:43:49,433 the Pentagon Papers,[21]
854
00:43:49,433 --> 00:43:53,033 7,000 pages of highly classified documents
855
00:43:53,033 --> 00:43:55,100 and historical narrative,
856
00:43:55,100 --> 00:43:57,433 compiled secretly at the orders
857
00:43:57,433 --> 00:44:01,366 of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
858
00:44:01,366 --> 00:44:04,700 He had hoped a study of the decision-making process
859
00:44:04,700 --> 00:44:08,300 that had led the United States to become so deeply involved
860
00:44:08,300 --> 00:44:11,633 in Vietnam would help future policymakers
861
00:44:11,633 --> 00:44:14,233 avoid similar errors.
862
00:44:15,866 --> 00:44:18,000 SHEEHAN: I thought I knew a great deal.
863
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,133 I thought I knew most of what was worth knowing
864
00:44:20,133 --> 00:44:21,466 about the war.
865
00:44:21,466 --> 00:44:25,333 And, suddenly, I didn't.
866
00:44:25,333 --> 00:44:28,400 It wasn't a reporter's version of an event.
867
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:30,333 It was their version of an event.
868
00:44:30,333 --> 00:44:32,666 It was their telegrams, their orders,
869
00:44:32,666 --> 00:44:34,500 their memoranda, et cetera. MCNAMARA (On screen script) The solution lies in girding, openly, for a longer war
870
00:44:48,900 --> 00:44:52,100 NARRATOR: The documents proved[22] that American Presidents
871
00:44:52,100 --> 00:44:53,966 and their closest advisors
872
00:44:53,966 --> 00:44:56,033 had steered the United States
873
00:44:56,033 --> 00:44:58,833 toward deeper involvement in Vietnam,
874
00:44:58,833 --> 00:45:03,300 despite their own grave doubts about the chances for victory.
KENNEDY: (on screen titles) We would be almost certain to get mired down in an inconclusive struggle. It would be a mistake for the U.S. to commit itself.
875
00:45:12,166 --> 00:45:14,766 They had known that the Saigon government
876
00:45:14,766 --> 00:45:17,166 was weak and incompetent...
KENNEDY(On screen text) There is graft and corruption in the Vietnamese administration of our aid. The "heart of the army is not in the war".
877
00:45:24,633 --> 00:45:28,566 ...that the enemy was disciplined and resilient...
McNAMARA: Hanoi's determination appears as firm as ever.
878
00:45:34,666 --> 00:45:38,433 ...and that the bombing of the North wasn't working.
JOHNSON: (on screen text) no sign that the bombing has reduced Hanoi's will to resist.
879
00:45:45,933 --> 00:45:50,100 Yet, they had routinely lied about all these things
880
00:45:50,100 --> 00:45:52,566 to Congress and the American people.
MCNAMARA: (On screen script) The prognosis is bad. Success ia a mere possibility. The odds are less than even. We have failed consistently since 1961 to make a dent in the problem.
881
00:46:16,833 --> 00:46:18,600 (sighs)
882
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,633 ROBERT GARD: PENTAGON I certainly don't endorse
883
00:46:21,633 --> 00:46:26,600 anyone releasing top-secret material to the press.
884
00:46:28,300 --> 00:46:32,333 Um, on the other hand, uh...
885
00:46:32,333 --> 00:46:35,566 I was very concerned
886
00:46:35,566 --> 00:46:38,100 about the fact that the, uh,
887
00:46:38,100 --> 00:46:43,400 government was not being up front with the American people
888
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:47,166 in certain respects with the Vietnam War.
889
00:46:47,166 --> 00:46:50,433 NARRATOR: Two copies of the report had been stored
890
00:46:50,433 --> 00:46:53,800 at the RAND Corporation, a California think tank,
891
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:55,866 where Daniel Ellsberg,
892
00:46:55,866 --> 00:47:00,666 one of the study's 36 authors, worked as an analyst.
893
00:47:00,666 --> 00:47:03,800 Ellsberg had once supported the war.
894
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:05,800 He'd served in the Pentagon,
895
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:08,300 and spent two years working for the State Department
896
00:47:08,300 --> 00:47:10,533 in Vietnam.
897
00:47:10,533 --> 00:47:15,033 But he had come to see the war as profoundly immoral,[23]
898
00:47:15,033 --> 00:47:17,633 and hoped that if Americans understood
899
00:47:17,633 --> 00:47:22,066 how administration after administration had misled them
900
00:47:22,066 --> 00:47:24,700 about what was being done in their name,
901
00:47:24,700 --> 00:47:27,333 they might help bring it to an end.
902
00:47:27,333 --> 00:47:31,166 He and Anthony Russo, another RAND employee,
903
00:47:31,166 --> 00:47:34,666 secretly copied most of the report.
904
00:47:34,666 --> 00:47:38,900 Ellsberg offered it to three leading antiwar senators,
905
00:47:38,900 --> 00:47:42,833 hoping they would be willing to reveal its contents.
906
00:47:42,833 --> 00:47:45,566 None dared do it.
907
00:47:45,566 --> 00:47:49,166 Meanwhile, Neil Sheehan of theNew York Times,
908
00:47:49,166 --> 00:47:53,300 who had been reporting on Vietnam since 1962,
909
00:47:53,300 --> 00:47:57,100 and had already secretly read some of the documents,
910
00:47:57,100 --> 00:48:01,166 asked Ellsberg to show him the whole report.
911
00:48:01,166 --> 00:48:04,366 SHEEHAN: At that point, I was very passionate about the war.
912
00:48:04,366 --> 00:48:07,900 I felt that it was really wrong,
913
00:48:07,900 --> 00:48:09,900 because we were getting a lot of Americans
914
00:48:09,900 --> 00:48:12,233 and a lot of Vietnamese killed for no purpose.
915
00:48:12,233 --> 00:48:16,066 We were gonna lose this war.
916
00:48:16,066 --> 00:48:20,366 And so I vowed to myself when I saw this material[24]
917
00:48:20,366 --> 00:48:22,233 that this is never gonna go back
918
00:48:22,233 --> 00:48:23,900 into a government safe again.
919
00:48:23,900 --> 00:48:25,733 The American public had paid for it
920
00:48:25,733 --> 00:48:28,500 with the lives of their sons and with their treasure,
921
00:48:28,500 --> 00:48:30,300 and it's gonna be published.
922
00:48:30,300 --> 00:48:31,966 NIXON: That piece in theTimes
923
00:48:31,966 --> 00:48:33,300 is, of course,
924
00:48:33,300 --> 00:48:36,433 a massive security leak from the Pentagon, you know.
925
00:48:36,433 --> 00:48:38,233 ROGERS: Yeah.
926
00:48:38,233 --> 00:48:41,300 NIXON: It all relates, of course, to everything up until we came in.
927
00:48:41,300 --> 00:48:43,033 ROGERS: Yeah.
928
00:48:43,033 --> 00:48:45,566 NIXON: And it's, uh, it's ver... it's hard on Johnson,
929
00:48:45,566 --> 00:48:49,000 it's hard on Kennedy, it's hard on Lodge.
930
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,500 NARRATOR: At first, Nixon was not unduly disturbed
931
00:48:52,500 --> 00:48:54,933 by the newspaper's revelations.
932
00:48:54,933 --> 00:48:58,566 They reflected badly on his Democratic predecessors,
933
00:48:58,566 --> 00:49:01,100 not on him.
934
00:49:01,100 --> 00:49:04,400 But Henry Kissinger quickly convinced Nixon
935
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:06,300 that if the Times were permitted
936
00:49:06,300 --> 00:49:10,133 to reveal the classified secrets of earlier Presidents,
937
00:49:10,133 --> 00:49:15,233 it was only a matter of time until someone leaked his own.[25]
938
00:49:15,233 --> 00:49:19,200 The Justice Department obtained a temporary court order
939
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,866 forbidding the Times from publishing further installments
940
00:49:22,866 --> 00:49:26,066 on the grounds of national security.
941
00:49:26,066 --> 00:49:29,866 But soon, both the Boston Globe
942
00:49:29,866 --> 00:49:33,733 and the Washington Post were also printing excerpts.
943
00:49:35,366 --> 00:49:38,000 On June 30, 1971,
944
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:40,700 the United States Supreme Court,
945
00:49:40,700 --> 00:49:42,966 citing the First Amendment,
946
00:49:42,966 --> 00:49:46,633 ruled six to three that the Times had the right
947
00:49:46,633 --> 00:49:50,233 to publish the stolen documents.
948
00:49:50,233 --> 00:49:52,433 SHEEHAN: And I went down into the basement
949
00:49:52,433 --> 00:49:54,833 to wait for the presses to start to roll,
950
00:49:54,833 --> 00:49:57,533 and they had these huge round reams of paper.
951
00:49:57,533 --> 00:49:58,733 (whirring)
952
00:49:58,733 --> 00:50:00,333 And, finally, the presses started to roll.
953
00:50:00,333 --> 00:50:04,866 And it was just an exquisite moment of vindication
954
00:50:04,866 --> 00:50:07,100 of the freedom of the press in this country
955
00:50:07,100 --> 00:50:08,800 and how important it is.
956
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:10,866 (rhythmic rattling)
MINUTES 50-60
957
00:50:10,866 --> 00:50:13,633 KARL MARLANTES: MARINES: That changed
958
00:50:13,633 --> 00:50:15,633 our whole attitude toward government.
959
00:50:15,633 --> 00:50:18,100 Up until then, the president wouldn't lie.
960
00:50:18,100 --> 00:50:20,333 After then, they always lie.
961
00:50:20,333 --> 00:50:22,900 NARRATOR: The day the presses began to roll again,
962
00:50:22,900 --> 00:50:26,333 Nixon ordered attorney general John Mitchell
963
00:50:26,333 --> 00:50:30,000 to try to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, who had just
964
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:32,300 been indicted by a federal grand jury
965
00:50:32,300 --> 00:50:34,566 for theft and conspiracy
966
00:50:34,566 --> 00:50:38,533 under the Espionage Act of 1917.
NIXON: Don't you agree that we have to pursue the Ellsberg case?
JOHN MITCHELL: (Attorney General) No question about it. No question about it. The is the one sanction we have, is to get back at the individuals.
NIXON: Let's get the son of a bitch into jail.
HENRY KISSINGER: (National Security Advisor) We've got to get him, we've got to get him.
NIXON: Don't worry about his trial. Just get everything out. Try him in the press. Try him in the press. Everything, John, that there is on the investigation, get it out, leak it out. We want to destroy him in the press. Is that clear?
MITCHELL: Yes.
967
00:51:13,466 --> 00:51:17,766 NARRATOR: Nixon feared Ellsberg possessed more classified documents
968
00:51:17,766 --> 00:51:20,300 that would show that he himself had lied
969
00:51:20,300 --> 00:51:24,166 about the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos,
970
00:51:24,166 --> 00:51:27,000 and he believed that Ellsberg had had help
971
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,566 and wanted to know the names of his co-conspirators.
972
00:51:30,566 --> 00:51:33,000 The President created a private,
973
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:36,400 clandestine investigative unit within the White House.
974
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:39,400 It came to be called "The Plumbers."
975
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:43,033 John Ehrlichman, one of Nixon's closest aides,
976
00:51:43,033 --> 00:51:46,500 eventually ordered them to burglarize the office
977
00:51:46,500 --> 00:51:49,533 of Ellsberg's Los Angeles psychiatrist
978
00:51:49,533 --> 00:51:51,600 in search of material
979
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:55,333 with which he could be blackmailed into silence.
980
00:51:55,333 --> 00:51:59,633 Nixon may have privately feared something else as well.
981
00:51:59,633 --> 00:52:02,600 He was told that the safe at another think tank,
982
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:06,333 the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.,
983
00:52:06,333 --> 00:52:10,500 contained files that might reveal the secret role
984
00:52:10,500 --> 00:52:14,466 his campaign had played in torpedoing the peace talks
985
00:52:14,466 --> 00:52:17,766 on the eve of his election three years earlier,
986
00:52:17,766 --> 00:52:22,466 which President Johnson had then considered treason.
987
00:52:22,466 --> 00:52:26,333 Nixon wanted his "plumbers" to break into Brookings,
988
00:52:26,333 --> 00:52:30,766 crack the safe, and remove the files.
989
00:52:30,766 --> 00:52:33,066 None of it was legal.
990
00:52:33,066 --> 00:52:36,200 Nixon did not care.
NIXON: Well, I mean, I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.
July 1, 1971 NIXON: Did they get the Brookings Institute raided last night? HALDEMAN (Chief of Staff) No. NIXON: Get it done. I want it done. I want the Brookings Institute safe cleaned out. Bob, get on the Brookings thing right away. I've got to get that safe cracked over there.
991
00:53:06,900 --> 00:53:11,266 NARRATOR: The Brookings break-in would never take place.
992
00:53:11,266 --> 00:53:13,833 The burglars would be unable
993
00:53:13,833 --> 00:53:17,033 to find Ellsberg's file in his doctor's office.
994
00:53:17,033 --> 00:53:20,566 But Nixon's obsession with his enemies
995
00:53:20,566 --> 00:53:24,300 would be the undoing of his Presidency.
996
00:53:25,666 --> 00:53:29,133 ("Embryonic Journey" by Jefferson Airplane playing)
997
00:53:33,100 --> 00:53:35,066 MONTREAL (laughter and chatter)
998
00:53:41,566 --> 00:53:43,500 (indistinct voice of man speaking French over microphone)
999
00:53:44,933 --> 00:53:47,300 JACK TODD: Once a month, I have a dream
1000
00:53:47,300 --> 00:53:51,933 that I'm... I'm back... I'm back in basic training.
1001
00:53:51,933 --> 00:53:53,466 But I'm the age I am now,
1002
00:53:53,466 --> 00:53:55,766 which is way too old to be in the military.
1003
00:53:55,766 --> 00:53:58,233 But, you know, somehow I've gotten a waiver,
1004
00:53:58,233 --> 00:53:59,933 and I'm going through all the training,
1005
00:53:59,933 --> 00:54:02,166 and there's some major war going on.
1006
00:54:02,166 --> 00:54:05,400 And I'm going to get there, and I'm going to be a hero
1007
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:10,800 and vindicate myself and be taken back by my country.
1008
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:12,733 (car horn honks)
1009
00:54:12,733 --> 00:54:17,100 NARRATOR: Jack Todd had crossed into Canada in early 1970,
1010
00:54:17,100 --> 00:54:18,933 rather than take part
1011
00:54:18,933 --> 00:54:21,566 in what he believed to be a dishonorable war.
1012
00:54:23,966 --> 00:54:27,900 He found himself living in a strange underground world
1013
00:54:27,900 --> 00:54:30,066 of deserters and draft evaders
1014
00:54:30,066 --> 00:54:34,466 and the disaffected Canadians who gathered around them.
1015
00:54:34,466 --> 00:54:38,633 In 1971, he was living in Montreal,
1016
00:54:38,633 --> 00:54:40,766 restless and often depressed,
1017
00:54:40,766 --> 00:54:44,400 increasingly alienated from his country,
1018
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:47,633 but also anxious always for news from home,
1019
00:54:47,633 --> 00:54:50,533 and eager to know how his boyhood friends
1020
00:54:50,533 --> 00:54:53,600 from Scottsbluff, Nebraska, were doing.
1021
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:56,300 One, named Ron Bales,
1022
00:54:56,300 --> 00:54:59,466 had lived just down the street.
1023
00:54:59,466 --> 00:55:04,400 And, uh... my mother sent me a letter, um,
1024
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:06,666 and I remember taking the clipping out of it.
1025
00:55:06,666 --> 00:55:10,266 I had walked up to Mount Royal in Montreal to read the letter.
1026
00:55:10,266 --> 00:55:13,233 And the clipping was from the Scottsbluff Star-Herald,
1027
00:55:13,233 --> 00:55:16,000 and it was about Ron being killed in Vietnam.
1028
00:55:19,233 --> 00:55:22,300 Why? Why?
1029
00:55:22,300 --> 00:55:26,466 It was long after we knew how wrong the war was,
1030
00:55:26,466 --> 00:55:30,533 and guys like Ron were still dying, you know.
1031
00:55:32,366 --> 00:55:34,300 Why?
1032
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:38,033 CHET HUNTLEY: The government today restricted the use
1033
00:55:38,033 --> 00:55:40,633 of the weed killer 2,4,5-T on the ground
1034
00:55:40,633 --> 00:55:42,566 that the chemical has caused birth defects
1035
00:55:42,566 --> 00:55:45,100 in some laboratory animals.
1036
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:51,800 NARRATOR: Since 1962, American and South Vietnamese forces
1037
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:55,200 had sprayed some 20 million gallons of herbicides
1038
00:55:55,200 --> 00:55:59,533 over roughly one quarter of South Vietnam.
1039
00:55:59,533 --> 00:56:02,866 The idea had been to reduce casualties
1040
00:56:02,866 --> 00:56:06,433 by clearing areas around U.S. installations,
1041
00:56:06,433 --> 00:56:10,733 and to deny the enemy crops and forest cover.
1042
00:56:10,733 --> 00:56:14,900 The most frequently used defoliant was Agent Orange,
1043
00:56:14,900 --> 00:56:17,900 which contained 2,4,5-T.
1044
00:56:17,900 --> 00:56:20,066 When environmentalists convinced
1045
00:56:20,066 --> 00:56:23,233 the Nixon administration to ban the weed killer
1046
00:56:23,233 --> 00:56:24,966 on American farms,
1047
00:56:24,966 --> 00:56:27,866 the Pentagon had reluctantly agreed
1048
00:56:27,866 --> 00:56:31,633 to stop using Agent Orange in Vietnam.
1049
00:56:31,633 --> 00:56:36,466 The ecological damage defoliants did was obvious.[26]
1050
00:56:36,466 --> 00:56:40,566 The damage done to soldiers and civilians
1051
00:56:40,566 --> 00:56:44,700 would be the subject of angry debate for decades.[27]
1052
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:51,000 (crowd shouting in Vietnamese)
1053
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:53,766 TED KOPPEL: Opposition to the Saigon government
1054
00:56:53,766 --> 00:56:56,200 is not just Viet Cong.
1055
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:57,800 TUE: How many governments
1056
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:00,900 actually care for the Vietnamese people?
1057
00:57:00,900 --> 00:57:04,833 KOPPEL: The student antiwar, anti-American movement
1058
00:57:04,833 --> 00:57:07,366 is larger than its small demonstrations indicate.
1059
00:57:07,366 --> 00:57:10,133 TUE: You don't need military aid...
1060
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:14,700 ...to promote democracy in Vietnam.
1061
00:57:14,700 --> 00:57:18,066 To return to the Vietnamese people
1062
00:57:18,066 --> 00:57:20,500 their right that...
1063
00:57:20,500 --> 00:57:22,766 their right to speak freely.
1064
00:57:22,766 --> 00:57:25,600 You don't need even one penny.
1065
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,800 You don't need to consult the White House,
1066
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:31,833 you don't need to care about the American media,
1067
00:57:31,833 --> 00:57:34,433 you don't need French, you don't need Chinese,
1068
00:57:34,433 --> 00:57:36,100 you don't need Americans.
1069
00:57:36,100 --> 00:57:40,666 If you really care for Vietnam then you turn back inside.[28]
1070
00:57:40,666 --> 00:57:44,233 NARRATOR: South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu
1071
00:57:44,233 --> 00:57:46,300 was campaigning for reelection.
1072
00:57:46,300 --> 00:57:48,733 The Americans had insisted on it
1073
00:57:48,733 --> 00:57:51,500 and urged him not to rig the race,
1074
00:57:51,500 --> 00:57:54,533 for fear it would resemble too closely
1075
00:57:54,533 --> 00:57:57,066 the fraudulent communist "elections"
1076
00:57:57,066 --> 00:58:00,633 routinely denounced by the United States.
1077
00:58:00,633 --> 00:58:02,300 But Thieu made sure
1078
00:58:02,300 --> 00:58:05,300 no serious candidates ran against him,
1079
00:58:05,300 --> 00:58:09,166 and claimed to have won 94% of the vote.
1080
00:58:09,166 --> 00:58:13,000 It became known as "the one-man election,"
1081
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:14,266 and added to the ranks
1082
00:58:14,266 --> 00:58:17,366 of what was called the "Third Force":
1083
00:58:17,366 --> 00:58:21,233 South Vietnamese hoping for a negotiated settlement
1084
00:58:21,233 --> 00:58:23,400 and an end to the bloodshed.
NIXON: From a political standpoint, our major goal is to get our ground forces the hell out of there long before the elections.
1085
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:42,366 NARRATOR: By the middle of 1971,
1086
00:58:42,366 --> 00:58:45,400 Nixon and Kissinger were looking for a way
1087
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:48,900 to get all U.S. troops out of Vietnam
1088
00:58:48,900 --> 00:58:51,500 before his re-election campaign began
1089
00:58:51,500 --> 00:58:53,500 the following year,
1090
00:58:53,500 --> 00:58:55,933 but to do so without causing
1091
00:58:55,933 --> 00:58:58,866 Saigon to fall too soon.
KISSINGER: The only problem is to prevent the collapse in '72. If it's got to go to the Communists, it'd be better to have it happen in the first six months of the new term than have it go on and on and on. I'm being very cold blooded about it. NIXON: I know exactly what we're up to. KISSINGER: But on the other hand, if Cambodai, Laos, and Vietnam go down the drain in September '72, then they'll say you went into these, you spoiled so many lives, just to wind up where you could've been in the first year. NIXON: Yeah.
1092
00:59:35,833 --> 00:59:38,333 NARRATOR: At the secret talks in Paris,
1093
00:59:38,333 --> 00:59:41,433 Kissinger had offered his North Vietnamese counterpart,
1094
00:59:41,433 --> 00:59:44,733 Le Duc Tho, the most significant concessions
1095
00:59:44,733 --> 00:59:47,800 the United States had yet made:
1096
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:51,433 North Vietnam could keep its troops in the South--
1097
00:59:51,433 --> 00:59:53,433 tens of thousands of them.
1098
00:59:53,433 --> 00:59:57,933 And in exchange for the release of American prisoners of war,
1099
00:59:57,933 --> 00:59:59,633 all American troops
1100
00:59:59,633 --> 01:00:02,900 would be withdrawn within seven months.
1101
01:00:05,100 --> 01:00:08,566 Le Duc Tho countered with a new offer of his own:
1102
01:00:08,566 --> 01:00:10,866 Hanoi would release the prisoners
1103
01:00:10,866 --> 01:00:14,766 simultaneously with the departure of U.S. forces.
1104
01:00:14,766 --> 01:00:18,033 But he still insisted that Washington remove 1105
01:00:18,033 --> 01:00:21,600 President Thieu from power.[29]
1106
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:24,500 Kissinger was encouraged that the North Vietnamese
1107
01:00:24,500 --> 01:00:28,433 seemed, for the first time, to be negotiating seriously.[30]
1108
01:00:28,433 --> 01:00:33,300 He could almost "taste peace," he told a friend.
1109
01:00:33,300 --> 01:00:34,966 Thieu knew nothing
1110
01:00:34,966 --> 01:00:38,200 about the new American concessions to Hanoi.
1111
01:00:38,200 --> 01:00:42,000 He was worried about something else.
MINUTES 60-70
1112
01:00:45,133 --> 01:00:47,166 ANNOUNCER: NBC News interrupts regular programming
1113
01:00:47,166 --> 01:00:49,066 to bring you a special report.
1114
01:00:49,066 --> 01:00:51,633 NIXON: The announcement I shall now read is being issued
1115
01:00:51,633 --> 01:00:56,333 simultaneously in Peking and in the United States.
1116
01:00:56,333 --> 01:00:58,133 NARRATOR: Richard Nixon,
1117
01:00:58,133 --> 01:01:01,400 famous for the ferocity of his anticommunism,
1118
01:01:01,400 --> 01:01:04,033 astonished the world by announcing
1119
01:01:04,033 --> 01:01:07,666 that he was planning to restore relations with China
1120
01:01:07,666 --> 01:01:11,133 that had been severed for more than two decades.
1121
01:01:11,133 --> 01:01:14,866 The United States had gone to war in Vietnam
1122
01:01:14,866 --> 01:01:18,000 in part to block Chinese expansionism.
1123
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:22,233 What would Nixon's visit mean for Thieu's future
1124
01:01:22,233 --> 01:01:24,566 or for that of his country?
1125
01:01:24,566 --> 01:01:27,833 Thieu was afraid he knew.
1126
01:01:27,833 --> 01:01:30,600 "America has been looking for a new mistress,"
1127
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:32,000 he told an aide,
1128
01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:34,833 "and now Nixon has discovered China.
1129
01:01:34,833 --> 01:01:38,666 "He does not want to have the old mistress around.
1130
01:01:38,666 --> 01:01:42,400 Vietnam has become old and ugly."
1131
01:01:54,033 --> 01:01:57,633 KUSHNER: I believe it was in the fall of 1971.
1132
01:02:00,233 --> 01:02:04,533 And they called us out and they hung a bed sheet
1133
01:02:04,533 --> 01:02:09,300 and they had a projector and they showed us
1134
01:02:09,300 --> 01:02:12,866 color and black and white movies
1135
01:02:12,866 --> 01:02:16,266 of these protests in Washington.
1136
01:02:16,266 --> 01:02:18,200 (shouting)
1137
01:02:20,966 --> 01:02:23,000 And in the same film
1138
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:25,333 it showed John Kerry.
1139
01:02:25,333 --> 01:02:27,566 And I remember he was very articulate,
1140
01:02:27,566 --> 01:02:29,833 very, very well spoken,
1141
01:02:29,833 --> 01:02:32,900 very fluent
1142
01:02:32,900 --> 01:02:35,600 and a good spokesman
1143
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:37,100 for his cause.
1144
01:02:37,100 --> 01:02:39,300 Someone has to die so that President Nixon
1145
01:02:39,300 --> 01:02:41,933 won't be-- and these are his words--
1146
01:02:41,933 --> 01:02:45,766 KERRY: "the first President to lose a war."
1147
01:02:45,766 --> 01:02:47,033 KUSHNER: And I remember very well,
1148
01:02:47,033 --> 01:02:49,666 he's sitting with his fatigue jacket
1149
01:02:49,666 --> 01:02:51,366 and long hair
1150
01:02:51,366 --> 01:02:53,533 and testifying about atrocities
1151
01:02:53,533 --> 01:02:55,566 and war crimes that...
1152
01:02:55,566 --> 01:02:57,666 we perpetrated.
1153
01:02:57,666 --> 01:03:00,800 KERRY: Cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
1154
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:03,166 randomly shot at civilians...
1155
01:03:03,166 --> 01:03:05,233 KUSHNER: But I was shocked by what he said.
1156
01:03:05,233 --> 01:03:07,066 And I didn't believe it.
1157
01:03:07,066 --> 01:03:10,433 I didn't believe it at all.
1158
01:03:12,200 --> 01:03:15,166 I mean, I'm sophisticated to know, and I knew then,
1159
01:03:15,166 --> 01:03:17,766 that bad things happen in war and they happen on both sides,
1160
01:03:17,766 --> 01:03:21,500 and I had seen the evidence of the other side too, also.
1161
01:03:21,500 --> 01:03:22,900 And I knew it.
1162
01:03:22,900 --> 01:03:25,266 And... but still, to hear the testimony
1163
01:03:25,266 --> 01:03:30,333 and to hear it used as a weapon
1164
01:03:30,333 --> 01:03:32,966 against our further prosecution of this war
1165
01:03:32,966 --> 01:03:37,900 that we were suffering for was very powerful indeed.
1166
01:03:37,900 --> 01:03:40,633 NARRATOR: A few months later
1167
01:03:40,633 --> 01:03:43,833 Kushner got an even bigger shock.
1168
01:03:43,833 --> 01:03:46,233 VALERIE KUSHNER (on recording): My son has no father.
1169
01:03:46,233 --> 01:03:49,933 This Christmas Day we celebrate the birth of a son to Mary
1170
01:03:49,933 --> 01:03:52,600 and this Christmas Day some other mother's son
1171
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:54,966 will die in Vietnam.
1172
01:03:54,966 --> 01:03:57,633 That death takes away all that was taught to us
1173
01:03:57,633 --> 01:04:00,300 by Christ's birth.
1174
01:04:00,300 --> 01:04:02,766 KUSHNER: The whole time I was in the South
1175
01:04:02,766 --> 01:04:05,200 I never got one letter, one bit of information.
1176
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:07,333 When I got to North Vietnam I got no letter,
1177
01:04:07,333 --> 01:04:09,866 no bit of information, nothing.
1178
01:04:09,866 --> 01:04:15,600 Then, I think it may have been Christmas of '71,
1179
01:04:15,600 --> 01:04:20,166 my wife wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times.
1180
01:04:20,166 --> 01:04:23,733 She had become politically active.
1181
01:04:23,733 --> 01:04:26,133 NARRATOR: The families of POWs
1182
01:04:26,133 --> 01:04:29,900 overwhelmingly supported the Nixon administration.
1183
01:04:29,900 --> 01:04:32,900 Valerie Kushner did not,
1184
01:04:32,900 --> 01:04:34,633 and the North Vietnamese were quick
1185
01:04:34,633 --> 01:04:37,966 to exploit her antiwar views.
1186
01:04:37,966 --> 01:04:39,900 They broadcast a message
1187
01:04:39,900 --> 01:04:42,866 they had permitted her husband to record for her.
1188
01:04:42,866 --> 01:04:45,666 It was the first time she had heard his voice
1189
01:04:45,666 --> 01:04:47,600 in four years.
1190
01:04:49,933 --> 01:04:52,800 KUSHNER (on recording): I received the glasses, Val,
1191
01:04:52,800 --> 01:04:55,600 and my eyes have improved considerably.
1192
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:58,333 Please let me know about Brother John.
1193
01:04:58,333 --> 01:05:00,900 He or she is almost four now,
1194
01:05:00,900 --> 01:05:03,633 and he or she is old enough to understand
1195
01:05:03,633 --> 01:05:07,166 where Daddy is and that I love him or her
1196
01:05:07,166 --> 01:05:10,533 immeasurably despite our never meeting.
1197
01:05:10,533 --> 01:05:14,266 I calculate that T-Bird is now in second grade,
1198
01:05:14,266 --> 01:05:16,400 and I know she is doing well.
1199
01:05:16,400 --> 01:05:18,300 She is a grown-up lady now
1200
01:05:18,300 --> 01:05:22,233 and I hope you have plans for piano or ballet lessons soon.
1201
01:05:22,233 --> 01:05:24,866 Happy eighth birthday, dear T-Bird,
1202
01:05:24,866 --> 01:05:26,500 and Merry Christmas.
1203
01:05:26,500 --> 01:05:28,833 When I left you I promised to come home
1204
01:05:28,833 --> 01:05:30,466 before you were five.
1205
01:05:30,466 --> 01:05:34,300 I didn't fulfill that promise, but when I do return,
1206
01:05:34,300 --> 01:05:36,966 I will never leave you again.
1207
01:05:36,966 --> 01:05:39,766 VALERIE KUSHNER: His optimism about the whole situation amazes me.
1208
01:05:39,766 --> 01:05:41,166 I'm just very happy
1209
01:05:41,166 --> 01:05:43,633 that he can't see this morning's newspaper.
1210
01:05:43,633 --> 01:05:46,700 Because I-I don't have the same optimism
1211
01:05:46,700 --> 01:05:48,466 or the same confidence in this government
1212
01:05:48,466 --> 01:05:51,266 that he seems to have.
1213
01:05:55,166 --> 01:06:00,833 NARRATOR: President Nixon's visit to China in February of 1972
1214
01:06:00,833 --> 01:06:03,466 not only alarmed President Thieu,
1215
01:06:03,466 --> 01:06:06,433 it worried Hanoi as well.
1216
01:06:06,433 --> 01:06:09,666 The North Vietnamese remembered how Ho Chi Minh
1217
01:06:09,666 --> 01:06:12,666 had felt betrayed in 1954
1218
01:06:12,666 --> 01:06:15,366 when Moscow and Beijing had compelled them
1219
01:06:15,366 --> 01:06:19,600 to sign the Geneva Accords, dividing Vietnam in two.
1220
01:06:19,600 --> 01:06:22,800 Now, they were concerned that warmer relations
1221
01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:25,166 between the United States and China
1222
01:06:25,166 --> 01:06:29,133 might soon mean less support from Beijing.
1223
01:06:29,133 --> 01:06:33,100 Nixon was also planning to travel to Moscow
1224
01:06:33,100 --> 01:06:36,666 to meet with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev,
1225
01:06:36,666 --> 01:06:38,566 seeking to ease tensions
1226
01:06:38,566 --> 01:06:42,400 with North Vietnam's other communist patron.
1227
01:06:42,400 --> 01:06:47,200 Before that summit took place, First Secretary Le Duan,
1228
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:50,166 the man who headed the Politburo in Hanoi,
1229
01:06:50,166 --> 01:06:53,566 decided to undertake a new kind of offensive.[31]
1230
01:06:53,566 --> 01:06:57,366 It would be conventional warfare this time,
1231
01:06:57,366 --> 01:07:01,400 and on a scale he had never before attempted.
1232
01:07:01,400 --> 01:07:04,333 Le Duan had several goals in mind:
1233
01:07:04,333 --> 01:07:06,766 to strengthen his hand at the peace talks
1234
01:07:06,766 --> 01:07:09,300 by altering the military balance of power
1235
01:07:09,300 --> 01:07:10,966 in South Vietnam,
1236
01:07:10,966 --> 01:07:14,466 to show that the ARVN could not stand on their own,
1237
01:07:14,466 --> 01:07:18,266 and to convince the Soviets and the Chinese
1238
01:07:18,266 --> 01:07:22,133 his revolution was still worth supporting.
1239
01:07:26,333 --> 01:07:30,366 The assault began on March 30, 1972.[32]
1240
01:07:30,366 --> 01:07:33,900 14 North Vietnamese infantry divisions--
1241
01:07:33,900 --> 01:07:36,633 more than 120,000 men--
1242
01:07:36,633 --> 01:07:39,266 now, for the first time,
1243
01:07:39,266 --> 01:07:43,233 supported by hundreds of Soviet and Chinese-made tanks
1244
01:07:43,233 --> 01:07:48,400 and other armored vehicles, attacked on three fronts:
1245
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:52,166 across the demilitarized zone,
1246
01:07:52,166 --> 01:07:56,600 in the Central Highlands
1247
01:07:56,600 --> 01:08:01,233 and west of Saigon.
1248
01:08:01,233 --> 01:08:06,366 Americans would call it "The Easter Offensive."
1249
01:08:06,366 --> 01:08:09,266 To the South Vietnamese,
1250
01:08:09,266 --> 01:08:12,933 it would be remembered as "The Summer of Flames."
1251
01:08:12,933 --> 01:08:16,100 REPORTER: The South Vietnamese Army knew this day was coming:
1252
01:08:16,100 --> 01:08:17,466 the day without Americans.
1253
01:08:17,466 --> 01:08:18,899 It was to be the big test,
1254
01:08:18,899 --> 01:08:20,233 both for them
1255
01:08:20,233 --> 01:08:23,266 and for President Nixon's Vietnamization program.
1256
01:08:23,266 --> 01:08:26,300 The results in so far are not encouraging.
1257
01:08:26,300 --> 01:08:29,366 Whole battalions of the government's third division
1258
01:08:29,366 --> 01:08:31,766 joined the refugees on the road south.
1259
01:08:31,766 --> 01:08:35,700 They had been outnumbered, overpowered, overwhelmed.
1260
01:08:35,700 --> 01:08:38,000 NARRATOR: An entire ARVN regiment
1261
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:40,300 surrendered at Camp Carroll.
1262
01:08:40,300 --> 01:08:42,100 North Vietnamese troops
1263
01:08:42,100 --> 01:08:45,033 then swiftly overran Quang Tri Province,
1264
01:08:45,033 --> 01:08:50,100 driving tens of thousands of terrified refugees southward.[33]
1265
01:08:50,100 --> 01:08:53,666 They nearly cut South Vietnam in half
1266
01:08:53,666 --> 01:08:56,500 through the Central Highlands
1267
01:08:56,500 --> 01:09:00,866 and drove toward Saigon, hoping to seize large areas
1268
01:09:00,866 --> 01:09:03,899 along the Cambodian border.
1269
01:09:03,899 --> 01:09:06,800 It looked as if it were going to be
1270
01:09:06,800 --> 01:09:09,566 a total defeat for the ARVN.
1271
01:09:09,566 --> 01:09:13,600 There were only 60,000 U.S. military personnel
1272
01:09:13,600 --> 01:09:15,666 left in South Vietnam,
1273
01:09:15,666 --> 01:09:18,666 and very few of them were combat troops.
1274
01:09:21,233 --> 01:09:24,433 Suddenly, the survival of everything Nixon and Kissinger
1275
01:09:24,433 --> 01:09:26,833 had worked for was in peril.
1276
01:09:26,833 --> 01:09:31,166 They had to do something-- and fast.
HENRY KISSINGER: And I think we shouldn't panic now. In a way it was a godsend. We should give them a tremendous punishment.
NIXON: Let's don't talk about if the ARVN collapses. We's playing a much bigger game. We're playing a Russian game, a Chinese game, an election game. And we're not gonna have the ARVN collapse.[34]
1277
01:09:53,300 --> 01:09:56,833 NARRATOR: Nixon ordered up Operation Linebacker--
1278
01:09:56,833 --> 01:09:59,433 massive air attacks
1279
01:09:59,433 --> 01:10:00,833 on the advancing North Vietnamese.
1280
01:10:02,633 --> 01:10:04,833 "The bastards have never been bombed
1281
01:10:04,833 --> 01:10:07,766 "like they're going to be this time," he said.[35]
1282
01:10:11,466 --> 01:10:14,766 The most crucial battle of the Easter Offensive
1283
01:10:14,766 --> 01:10:16,600 was fought at An Loc,
1284
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:19,266 a city that commanded Route 13,
1285
01:10:19,266 --> 01:10:22,600 a paved highway that led directly to Saigon,
1286
01:10:22,600 --> 01:10:24,900 just 60 miles away.
1287
01:10:27,866 --> 01:10:30,300 North Vietnamese artillery fire
1288
01:10:30,300 --> 01:10:32,333 and a massive infantry and armor attack
1289
01:10:32,333 --> 01:10:34,533 drove the city's ARVN defenders
1290
01:10:34,533 --> 01:10:38,933 into an area less than a mile square.
1291
01:10:38,933 --> 01:10:44,300 Repeated efforts to reinforce and resupply them failed.
1292
01:10:44,300 --> 01:10:47,700 The ARVN bravely held out.
MINUTES 70-80
1293
01:10:47,700 --> 01:10:50,233 JAMES WILLBANKS: ARMY ADVISOR The number one thing we did
1294
01:10:50,233 --> 01:10:52,933 was coordinate the air strikes.
1295
01:10:52,933 --> 01:10:55,400 General Hollingsworth went to General Abrams
1296
01:10:55,400 --> 01:10:57,600 and begged for all the B-52s he could get,
1297
01:10:57,600 --> 01:10:59,566 and on the 10th and 11th of May,
1298
01:10:59,566 --> 01:11:05,333 he planned a B-52 strike every 50 minutes for 24 hours.
1299
01:11:16,000 --> 01:11:17,333 NARRATOR: In the end,
1300
01:11:17,333 --> 01:11:21,733 American airpower made the difference.
1301
01:11:27,266 --> 01:11:30,033 The North Vietnamese and their armored columns,
1302
01:11:30,033 --> 01:11:31,600 massed in the open,
1303
01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:35,533 proved easy targets for American pilots.
1304
01:11:35,533 --> 01:11:39,600 "This," one American advisor said,
1305
01:11:39,600 --> 01:11:43,566 "was the kind of war we came to fight."
1306
01:11:54,166 --> 01:11:57,133 PHAM LUC: NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY The Vietnam War was a meat grinder. Most young men were given just three months of training. They weren'y even taught to handle a gun properly. And they were sent to the front. They knew nothing of war, and still they were sacrificed. They hadn't thought about love yet, or anything else. They just grew up, and were sent into battle.
1307
01:12:35,566 --> 01:12:37,400 (explosion)
1308
01:12:37,400 --> 01:12:40,766 NARRATOR: The North Vietnamese suffered 10,000 casualties
1309
01:12:40,766 --> 01:12:42,600 at An Loc alone
1310
01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:46,833 and lost most of their tanks and heavy artillery.
1311
01:12:46,833 --> 01:12:48,333 (explosions continue)
1312
01:12:50,133 --> 01:12:52,666 WILLBANKS: The bottom line was that all the air power
1313
01:12:52,666 --> 01:12:54,300 in the world would not make a difference
1314
01:12:54,300 --> 01:12:55,733 if the ARVN hadn't stood and fought. 1315
01:12:55,733 --> 01:12:57,266 (people shouting)
1316
01:12:57,266 --> 01:13:00,800 They had held Kon Tum, they had held An Loc,
1317
01:13:00,800 --> 01:13:02,566 they had re-taken Quang Tri.
1318
01:13:02,566 --> 01:13:04,733 They had taken the best that the North Vietnamese
1319
01:13:04,733 --> 01:13:06,466 had to throw at them.
1320
01:13:06,466 --> 01:13:09,800 So I thought if we continue to maintain that support,
1321
01:13:09,800 --> 01:13:11,100 perhaps they had a chance.
1322
01:13:11,100 --> 01:13:15,133 DUONG VAN MAI ELLIOTT: The Easter Offensive, to me,
1323
01:13:15,133 --> 01:13:18,466 showed that the South Vietnamese could fight,
1324
01:13:18,466 --> 01:13:21,533 but only up to a certain point.
1325
01:13:21,533 --> 01:13:24,300 So, my question would be,
1326
01:13:24,300 --> 01:13:26,366 what would happen when the Americans left
1327
01:13:26,366 --> 01:13:29,033 with their B-52s, you know?
1328
01:13:29,033 --> 01:13:30,633 (protestors chanting)
1329
01:13:30,633 --> 01:13:33,800 NARRATOR: Americans may have approved of the renewed use
1330
01:13:33,800 --> 01:13:37,166 of American air power to stop the communist advance
1331
01:13:37,166 --> 01:13:38,633 into the South,
1332
01:13:38,633 --> 01:13:43,233 but Nixon had also ordered American planes to resume
1333
01:13:43,233 --> 01:13:46,566 sustained bombing of North Vietnam,
1334
01:13:46,566 --> 01:13:50,233 which had been halted since the Johnson administration.
1335
01:13:50,233 --> 01:13:54,066 Some saw the new bombing, which vastly exceeded
1336
01:13:54,066 --> 01:13:56,166 all previous campaigns,
1337
01:13:56,166 --> 01:14:01,066 as evidence that a war Nixon had promised was winding down
1338
01:14:01,066 --> 01:14:03,933 was once again being escalated.[36]
1339
01:14:03,933 --> 01:14:07,366 (plane soaring)
1340
01:14:07,366 --> 01:14:08,900 LESLIE GELB: The bombing campaign
1341
01:14:08,900 --> 01:14:10,466 was much more extensive
1342
01:14:10,466 --> 01:14:15,033 than the bombing campaign under Lyndon Johnson.
1343
01:14:15,033 --> 01:14:16,200 And from a standpoint
1344
01:14:16,200 --> 01:14:18,833 of pressuring them to make concessions
1345
01:14:18,833 --> 01:14:20,766 at the negotiating table,
1346
01:14:20,766 --> 01:14:23,233 historically, that's how you did it.
1347
01:14:23,233 --> 01:14:25,566 Only it didn't work with these guys.
1348
01:14:25,566 --> 01:14:27,566 (bombs exploding)
1349
01:14:27,566 --> 01:14:29,233 They took the pounding.
1350
01:14:31,300 --> 01:14:33,100 (men yelling in Vietnamese)
1351
01:14:36,366 --> 01:14:40,066 NARRATOR: Le Minh Khue, who had served four years
1352
01:14:40,066 --> 01:14:43,466 as a Youth Volunteer on the Ho Chi Minh trail,
1353
01:14:43,466 --> 01:14:46,100 was now back home in North Vietnam.
1354
01:14:47,400 --> 01:14:50,600 LE MINH KHUE: NORTH VIETNAM The American bombings were horrific for me. Later on I visited America, and people pointed out a man who had been a pilot, and bombed Vietnam. I stared at him and thought, "He looks like such a normal person. So how, back then, could he have dropped bombs on so many people?"[37]
1355
01:15:28,300 --> 01:15:31,300 NARRATOR: Among the thousands of South Vietnamese
1356
01:15:31,300 --> 01:15:34,100 who lost their lives in the Easter Offensive
1357
01:15:34,100 --> 01:15:37,366 was the brother of Phan Quang Tue.
What is the picture of a bombed out Cathedral at 1:15 in North Vietnam or in Tay Ninh, South Vietnam?
1358
01:15:37,366 --> 01:15:40,000 PHAN QUANG TUE: I had a brother, Tuan.
1359
01:15:40,000 --> 01:15:44,133 And we were raised together.
1360
01:15:44,133 --> 01:15:47,933 He would have been now 67.
1361
01:15:47,933 --> 01:15:50,766 When his plane was shot down
1362
01:15:50,766 --> 01:15:54,866 and later on they weren't able to recover him,
1363
01:15:54,866 --> 01:15:57,533 his body, so he disappeared,
1364
01:15:57,533 --> 01:16:02,100 he was missing in action, he was 26 years old.
1365
01:16:02,100 --> 01:16:05,566 He has his full life ahead of him.
1366
01:16:05,566 --> 01:16:08,566 (voice breaking): Tuan never had a chance to live his life.
1367
01:16:10,666 --> 01:16:14,400 And I can never overcome the feeling,
1368
01:16:14,400 --> 01:16:18,600 as to himself
1369
01:16:18,600 --> 01:16:20,933 and his generation,
1370
01:16:20,933 --> 01:16:24,166 sacrifice their lives for what?
1371
01:16:26,033 --> 01:16:30,500 And the frustrating thing is that even Vietnamese themself
1372
01:16:30,500 --> 01:16:32,433 do not seem to value that loss.
1373
01:16:38,766 --> 01:16:41,800 NIXON: There's only one way to stop the killing.
1374
01:16:41,800 --> 01:16:45,533 That is to keep the weapons of war out of the hands
1375
01:16:45,533 --> 01:16:51,366 of the international outlaws of North Vietnam.
1376
01:16:51,366 --> 01:16:52,733 Throughout the war in Vietnam,
1377
01:16:52,733 --> 01:16:55,500 the United States has exercised a degree of restraint
1378
01:16:55,500 --> 01:16:57,733 unprecedented in the annals of war...
1379
01:16:57,733 --> 01:16:59,333 (planes flying overhead)
1380
01:16:59,333 --> 01:17:02,300 NARRATOR: Le Duan's Easter Offensive, like Tet,
1381
01:17:02,300 --> 01:17:04,633 had been a great gamble.
1382
01:17:04,633 --> 01:17:07,500 So was Nixon's next move.
1383
01:17:07,500 --> 01:17:10,633 The massive North Vietnamese assault had failed,
1384
01:17:10,633 --> 01:17:12,133 the President said,
1385
01:17:12,133 --> 01:17:15,266 but it could never have been mounted in the first place
1386
01:17:15,266 --> 01:17:17,866 without weapons and supplies provided by China
1387
01:17:17,866 --> 01:17:20,533 and the Soviet Union.
1388
01:17:20,533 --> 01:17:24,800 Accordingly, he ordered 11,000 mines laid
1389
01:17:24,800 --> 01:17:28,366 in North Vietnamese waters to block further access
1390
01:17:28,366 --> 01:17:30,133 to Haiphong harbor.
1391
01:17:30,133 --> 01:17:33,966 It was something the Joint Chiefs had been asking for
1392
01:17:33,966 --> 01:17:35,900 for years.
1393
01:17:35,900 --> 01:17:38,133 The scheduled summit with the Soviets
1394
01:17:38,133 --> 01:17:39,966 was just two weeks away,
1395
01:17:39,966 --> 01:17:42,200 and some advisors had urged the President
1396
01:17:42,200 --> 01:17:45,233 not to take any action that directly threatened
1397
01:17:45,233 --> 01:17:49,100 Soviet ships, for fear they would cancel it.
1398
01:17:49,100 --> 01:17:51,800 Nixon thought he had to take the risk.
1399
01:17:51,800 --> 01:17:55,900 And so he spoke directly to Moscow.
1400
01:17:55,900 --> 01:17:59,433 NIXON: Let us not slide back toward the dark shadows
1401
01:17:59,433 --> 01:18:02,433 of a previous age.
1402
01:18:02,433 --> 01:18:07,200 We do not ask you to sacrifice your principles
1403
01:18:07,200 --> 01:18:09,300 or your friends,
1404
01:18:09,300 --> 01:18:12,766 but neither should you permit Hanoi's intransigence
1405
01:18:12,766 --> 01:18:15,466 to blot out the prospects we together
1406
01:18:15,466 --> 01:18:16,833 have so patiently prepared.
1407
01:18:19,666 --> 01:18:22,500 NARRATOR: Nixon's gamble paid off.
1408
01:18:22,500 --> 01:18:24,166 The Soviets and the Chinese denounced
1409
01:18:24,166 --> 01:18:29,766 the President's action, but then did nothing.
1410
01:18:29,766 --> 01:18:34,933 On May 26, the United States and the Soviet Union signed
1411
01:18:34,933 --> 01:18:38,966 an historic Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
1412
01:18:38,966 --> 01:18:42,200 the first agreement to limit nuclear armaments
1413
01:18:42,200 --> 01:18:44,666 since the Cold War began.
1414
01:18:44,666 --> 01:18:47,866 For the Soviet Union, for China,
1415
01:18:47,866 --> 01:18:50,333 as well as for the United States,
1416
01:18:50,333 --> 01:18:54,766 Vietnam's significance was steadily receding. RICHARD NIXON: Let's be perfectly cold-blooded about it. Because I look at the tide of history out there, South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway. We also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important. It's terribly important this year. HENRY KISSINGER: If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it's the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. So we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which -- after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74 no one will give a damn.
1417
01:19:31,533 --> 01:19:33,300 NIXON: I know.
1418
01:19:57,166 --> 01:19:59,100 (camera shutter clicks)
MINUTES 80-90
1419
01:20:01,300 --> 01:20:05,966 NARRATOR: On the morning of June 8, 1972,
1420
01:20:05,966 --> 01:20:10,466 Nick Ut, a 21-year-old South Vietnamese photographer
1421
01:20:10,466 --> 01:20:12,800 working for the Associated Press,
1422
01:20:12,800 --> 01:20:16,333 was accompanying ARVN troops on Highway One,
1423
01:20:16,333 --> 01:20:18,900 moving toward a village called Trang Bang,
1424
01:20:18,900 --> 01:20:21,766 to dislodge North Vietnamese forces
1425
01:20:21,766 --> 01:20:25,666 that had occupied it during the Easter Offensive.
1426
01:20:25,666 --> 01:20:29,000 Ut was beginning to put his cameras away,
1427
01:20:29,000 --> 01:20:31,033 ready to return to Saigon,
1428
01:20:31,033 --> 01:20:35,866 when he saw a South Vietnamese fighter suddenly dip down
1429
01:20:35,866 --> 01:20:38,000 toward the fleeing refugees,
1430
01:20:38,000 --> 01:20:40,933 whom the pilot mistook for the enemy.
1431
01:20:40,933 --> 01:20:45,266 (explosions)
1432
01:20:45,266 --> 01:20:50,066 (camera shutter clicking)
1433
01:20:54,233 --> 01:20:57,466 NICK UT: PHOTOGRAPHER (speaking English): Napalm, they're very slow. They go like this before they come down. And bomb, napalm explosion, you know? I took a lot of pictures of the bomb. I said, "Oh, my God, it's a good picture." I see smoke and people running. I said. "Oh, my God, people still there." In the black smoke, I saw the girl put here arms like this. I said, "Oh, my God, what happened? The girl, she's naked." I don't know what happened to her. I took a lot of pictures of the girl when she was naked, running.
1434
01:21:31,766 --> 01:21:33,300 She said, "Too hot, too hot." (speaking Vietnamese) Nong qua, Nong qua. "Please help me. Please help me. Please Help me." She said that. Her back, her skin kept coming off. All her skin keep coming off." I know she be die. I have water. Me and BBC London. We brought her water, help her. I borrow one of the rain coats of a south Vietnamese soldier. I cover her body. Then her uncle, he running, he looked for me, he said, "Can anyone help pull my, all children to the hospital?"
1435
01:22:04,366 --> 01:22:09,533 NARRATOR: Ut drove the badly burned girl, Kim Phuc,
1436
01:22:09,533 --> 01:22:11,866 and several other injured children
1437
01:22:11,866 --> 01:22:14,200 to a hospital in Saigon.
1438
01:22:14,200 --> 01:22:18,666 She had been burned over 30% of her body.
1439
01:22:18,666 --> 01:22:22,000 Then, Ut raced to the AP darkroom
1440
01:22:22,000 --> 01:22:25,400 to find out what he had caught on film. NICK UT: I kept thinking, "Oh, my God, I know I have a good picture." I worry. I want to see my film, you know? I want to look my picture, first. I saw the picture, I said, "I have!" I know I have a good picture.
1441
01:22:42,666 --> 01:22:45,633 NARRATOR: His photo editor in Saigon told him
1442
01:22:45,633 --> 01:22:48,700 they could not send the picture out on the wire,
1443
01:22:48,700 --> 01:22:51,166 because the girl was naked.
1444
01:22:51,166 --> 01:22:53,633 But then Ut's boss,
1445
01:22:53,633 --> 01:22:57,400 the legendary combat photographer Horst Faas,
1446
01:22:57,400 --> 01:22:59,333 saw the pictures.
1447
01:22:59,800 --> 01:23:01,533 UT: He looked at all the pictures. "I want to send picture right away." He yelled at an editor, "I want write caption picture right away." Just send directly to AP New York headquarters.
1448
01:23:11,333 --> 01:23:15,366 NARRATOR: Nick Ut's photograph appeared
1449
01:23:15,366 --> 01:23:18,266 on front pages around the world
1450
01:23:18,266 --> 01:23:22,300 and won the Pulitzer Prize.
1451
01:23:22,300 --> 01:23:25,300 For many Americans,
1452
01:23:25,300 --> 01:23:28,700 even many of those who had supported the war,
1453
01:23:28,700 --> 01:23:33,300 the image seemed to signal that enough was enough.
1454
01:23:36,900 --> 01:23:39,366 Kim Phuc would survive.
1455
01:23:39,366 --> 01:23:44,733 She eventually left Vietnam and settled outside Toronto.[38]
1456
01:23:50,233 --> 01:23:54,466 (cheers and applause) July, 1972 Democratic National Convention, Miami
1457
01:23:54,466 --> 01:23:56,533 (rhythmic clapping)
1458
01:24:00,133 --> 01:24:04,300 I introduce Valerie Kushner of Virginia
1459
01:24:04,300 --> 01:24:07,066 to second the nomination of George McGovern.
1460
01:24:07,066 --> 01:24:09,366 (applause and cheering)
1461
01:24:09,366 --> 01:24:13,066 VALERIE KUSHNER: Mr. Chairman, Democrats,
1462
01:24:13,066 --> 01:24:17,633 my participation in this convention is a tribute
1463
01:24:17,633 --> 01:24:20,933 to the reforms instituted by the Democratic Party,
1464
01:24:20,933 --> 01:24:24,966 for I am a woman, and I am under 30.
1465
01:24:24,966 --> 01:24:28,700 But I also represent an even smaller minority:
1466
01:24:28,700 --> 01:24:31,533 the wives of Americans who are missing
1467
01:24:31,533 --> 01:24:34,066 or imprisoned in Southeast Asia.
1468
01:24:34,066 --> 01:24:37,700 (cheers and applause)
1469
01:24:37,700 --> 01:24:40,466 NARRATOR: Valerie Kushner,
1470
01:24:40,466 --> 01:24:43,966 hoping to get her husband, Hal, home as soon as possible,
1471
01:24:43,966 --> 01:24:47,000 had become an ardent supporter of the candidacy
1472
01:24:47,000 --> 01:24:50,700 of Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.
1473
01:24:50,700 --> 01:24:54,800 A decorated bomber pilot in World War II,
1474
01:24:54,800 --> 01:24:57,600 McGovern had called for an early end
1475
01:24:57,600 --> 01:24:59,000 to the bombing of the North,
1476
01:24:59,000 --> 01:25:02,266 a halt to Congressional funding for the war,
1477
01:25:02,266 --> 01:25:04,266 and immediate withdrawal
1478
01:25:04,266 --> 01:25:08,933 from Vietnam once the POWs were released.
1479
01:25:08,933 --> 01:25:12,433 VALERIE KUSHNER: I knew that he would bring my husband home.
1480
01:25:12,433 --> 01:25:15,066 (applause)
1481
01:25:16,600 --> 01:25:21,366 But even more important, he will bring America home.
1482
01:25:21,366 --> 01:25:24,433 (applause and cheering)
1483
01:25:24,433 --> 01:25:27,633 And it is for that reason
1484
01:25:27,633 --> 01:25:30,000 that I am proud to second the nomination
1485
01:25:30,000 --> 01:25:34,833 of our next President, Senator George S. McGovern.
1486
01:25:34,833 --> 01:25:37,766 (applause and cheering)
1487
01:25:40,300 --> 01:25:42,566 NARRATOR: By the time her candidate
1488
01:25:42,566 --> 01:25:45,066 finally accepted the nomination,
1489
01:25:45,066 --> 01:25:47,800 it was 2:48 in the morning.
1490
01:25:47,800 --> 01:25:50,833 Most Americans were asleep.
1491
01:25:50,833 --> 01:25:55,700 McGOVERN: During four administrations of both parties,
1492
01:25:55,700 --> 01:26:00,866 a terrible war has been charted behind closed doors.
1493
01:26:00,866 --> 01:26:03,000 (cheers and applause)
1494
01:26:03,000 --> 01:26:05,466 I want those doors opened,
1495
01:26:05,466 --> 01:26:08,566 and I want that war closed.
1496
01:26:08,566 --> 01:26:11,333 (raucous cheers and applause)
1497
01:26:11,333 --> 01:26:12,900 (static)
1498
01:26:12,900 --> 01:26:16,700 NARRATOR: McGovern's campaign quickly collapsed.
1499
01:26:16,700 --> 01:26:20,000 He botched the selection of his running mate,
1500
01:26:20,000 --> 01:26:23,366 and secretly asked an aide in Paris
1501
01:26:23,366 --> 01:26:26,800 to talk with the North Vietnamese about POWs,
1502
01:26:26,800 --> 01:26:32,000 and then denied he'd meddled in the peace process.
1503
01:26:32,000 --> 01:26:34,100 Organized labor,
1504
01:26:34,100 --> 01:26:37,266 traditionally the Democrats' most reliable ally,
1505
01:26:37,266 --> 01:26:40,200 refused to endorse the party's candidate
1506
01:26:40,200 --> 01:26:43,766 for the first time in 20 years.
1507
01:26:43,766 --> 01:26:49,600 McGovern's poll numbers eroded steadily over the summer.
1508
01:26:49,600 --> 01:26:52,633 Still, hoping to find material
1509
01:26:52,633 --> 01:26:55,566 that might be used to smear the opposition,
1510
01:26:55,566 --> 01:26:59,300 Nixon's aides[39] had already authorized the Plumbers
1511
01:26:59,300 --> 01:27:01,666 to make another break-in,
1512
01:27:01,666 --> 01:27:05,400 this time at Democratic National Headquarters
1513
01:27:05,400 --> 01:27:08,333 in the Washington, D.C., apartment complex
1514
01:27:08,333 --> 01:27:11,366 called the Watergate.
1515
01:27:11,366 --> 01:27:13,466 They had been caught.
1516
01:27:13,466 --> 01:27:16,200 JOHN CHANCELLOR: One of the most fascinating and exotic stories
1517
01:27:16,200 --> 01:27:18,000 ever to come out of Washington, D.C.,
1518
01:27:18,000 --> 01:27:20,033 is the talk of the Capitol today.
1519
01:27:20,033 --> 01:27:22,100 Five men were arrested early Saturday
1520
01:27:22,100 --> 01:27:25,000 while trying to install eavesdropping equipment
1521
01:27:25,000 --> 01:27:27,266 at the Democratic National Committee.
1522
01:27:27,266 --> 01:27:29,566 And it turns out that one of them has an office
1523
01:27:29,566 --> 01:27:31,933 in the headquarters of the Committee
1524
01:27:31,933 --> 01:27:33,766 for the Re-Election of the President.
1525
01:27:33,766 --> 01:27:37,066 (camera shutter clicking)
1526
01:27:41,866 --> 01:27:44,066 ("Barbarella" by Bob Crewe and Charles Fox playing)
1527
01:27:44,066 --> 01:27:49,700 ♪ It's a wonder, wonder woman ♪
1528
01:27:49,700 --> 01:27:55,300 ♪ You're so wild and wonderful ♪
1529
01:27:55,300 --> 01:28:00,366 ♪ 'Cause it seems whenever
1530
01:28:00,366 --> 01:28:02,933 ♪ We're together
1531
01:28:02,933 --> 01:28:04,700 ♪ The planets all...
1532
01:28:04,700 --> 01:28:08,266 JOHN MUSGRAVE: Barbarella-- Jane Fonda was...
1533
01:28:08,266 --> 01:28:12,433 was one of our major fantasies.
1534
01:28:12,433 --> 01:28:16,666 You know? I mean, major fantasies.
1535
01:28:16,666 --> 01:28:20,000 And, uh, we couldn't believe it
1536
01:28:20,000 --> 01:28:24,433 when that fantasy went to North Vietnam.
1537
01:28:24,433 --> 01:28:27,166 She was held to a different standard of conduct
1538
01:28:27,166 --> 01:28:31,133 by being our fantasy, you know, our dream girl.
1539
01:28:31,133 --> 01:28:34,766 It's like our dream girl betrayed us.
1540
01:28:34,766 --> 01:28:36,066 ("Where Have All the Flowers Gone" by Joan Baez playing)
1541
01:28:36,066 --> 01:28:38,233 ♪ Where have all the young men gone? ♪
1542
01:28:38,233 --> 01:28:42,533 ♪ They are all in uniform
1543
01:28:42,533 --> 01:28:48,166 ♪ When will they ever learn?
1544
01:28:48,166 --> 01:28:53,100 ♪ When will they ever learn? ♪
1545
01:28:53,100 --> 01:28:55,000 ♪ Where have all...
1546
01:28:55,000 --> 01:28:57,600 NARRATOR: Over the years, a steady stream
1547
01:28:57,600 --> 01:29:01,266 of Americans opposed to the war would visit Hanoi,
1548
01:29:01,266 --> 01:29:04,600 including the folk singer Joan Baez,
1549
01:29:04,600 --> 01:29:08,266 David Dellinger of the War Resisters League,
1550
01:29:08,266 --> 01:29:11,566 the writer Susan Sontag,
1551
01:29:11,566 --> 01:29:16,033 and Tom Hayden of the Indochina Peace Campaign.
1552
01:29:16,033 --> 01:29:19,266 But no visitor made more headlines
1553
01:29:19,266 --> 01:29:21,733 than the actress Jane Fonda.
1554
01:29:21,733 --> 01:29:25,166 During two weeks in the summer of 1972,
1555
01:29:25,166 --> 01:29:29,566 she broadcast at least ten times over Radio Hanoi,
1556
01:29:29,566 --> 01:29:32,033 denouncing American POWs
1557
01:29:32,033 --> 01:29:34,500 for having committed war crimes,
1558
01:29:34,500 --> 01:29:37,100 urging the North Vietnamese to hold out
1559
01:29:37,100 --> 01:29:40,566 against American imperialism.
1560
01:29:40,566 --> 01:29:43,966 Many Americans would never forgive her
1561
01:29:43,966 --> 01:29:47,333 for what she did and said.
1562
01:29:47,333 --> 01:29:49,866 FONDA: According to international law,
1563
01:29:49,866 --> 01:29:52,366 these men are war criminals.
1564
01:29:52,366 --> 01:29:53,966 That's according to law,
1565
01:29:53,966 --> 01:29:55,300 according to the Nuremberg principles,
1566
01:29:55,300 --> 01:29:57,800 according to the Geneva Accord, and others.
1567
01:29:57,800 --> 01:30:00,800 They should be tried in front of a court
1568
01:30:00,800 --> 01:30:03,333 and probably executed for what they did.
MINUTES 90-100
1569
01:30:03,333 --> 01:30:07,000 MUSGRAVE: She's taken a lot of heat for what she did.
1570
01:30:07,000 --> 01:30:09,666 And deservedly so.
1571
01:30:09,666 --> 01:30:13,266 She did some things that were terrible.
1572
01:30:13,266 --> 01:30:15,933 And-and, yes,
1573
01:30:15,933 --> 01:30:18,533 we have a right to be pissed off at her.
1574
01:30:18,533 --> 01:30:21,533 But, you know,
1575
01:30:21,533 --> 01:30:24,366 she wasn't the only one.
1576
01:30:24,366 --> 01:30:28,933 She's just the only one we fantasized about.
1577
01:30:29,966 --> 01:30:34,400 (cheers and applause) August 1972 Republican National Convention Miami
1578
01:30:39,166 --> 01:30:41,333 CROWD: Four more years!
1579
01:30:41,333 --> 01:30:44,266 Four more years! Four more years!
1580
01:30:44,266 --> 01:30:46,766 NIXON: We have brought over half a million men home,
1581
01:30:46,766 --> 01:30:48,766 and more will be coming home.
1582
01:30:48,766 --> 01:30:51,900 We have ended America's ground combat role.
1583
01:30:51,900 --> 01:30:54,500 No draftees are being sent to Vietnam.
1584
01:30:54,500 --> 01:30:57,500 We have reduced our casualties by 98%.
1585
01:30:57,500 --> 01:30:59,433 We've gone the extra mile.
1586
01:30:59,433 --> 01:31:02,300 In fact, we've gone tens of thousands of miles
1587
01:31:02,300 --> 01:31:04,800 trying to seek a negotiated settlement of the war.
1588
01:31:04,800 --> 01:31:06,566 (applause)
1589
01:31:06,566 --> 01:31:09,366 There are three things, however, that we have not
1590
01:31:09,366 --> 01:31:11,500 and that we will not offer.
1591
01:31:11,500 --> 01:31:14,700 We will never abandon our prisoners of war.
1592
01:31:14,700 --> 01:31:16,100 (cheers and applause)
1593
01:31:21,966 --> 01:31:23,700 And, second,
1594
01:31:23,700 --> 01:31:27,366 we will not join our enemies
1595
01:31:27,366 --> 01:31:30,966 in imposing a communist government on our ally,
1596
01:31:30,966 --> 01:31:33,433 the 17 million people of South Vietnam.
1597
01:31:33,433 --> 01:31:36,133 (cheers and applause)
1598
01:31:39,466 --> 01:31:41,466 And we will never stain the honor
1599
01:31:41,466 --> 01:31:43,633 of the United States of America.
1600
01:31:43,633 --> 01:31:45,566 (cheers) HENRY KISSINGER: Everything that we ever planned for is happening. The Russians are pressing them. The Chinese are pressing them. And I actually think we can settle it. But, and I also think that Thieu is right, that our terms will eventually destroy him. NIXON: Well, if they're that collapsible, maybe they just have to be collapsed. We've got to remember, we cannot -- we cannot keep this child sucking at the tit when the child is four years old.
1601
01:32:26,600 --> 01:32:29,866 NARRATOR: Back in Paris, Henry Kissinger was determined
1602
01:32:29,866 --> 01:32:34,400 to hammer out a peace agreement before Election Day.
1603
01:32:34,400 --> 01:32:37,766 Now Le Duc Tho made a key concession.
1604
01:32:37,766 --> 01:32:40,100 Hanoi no longer insisted
1605
01:32:40,100 --> 01:32:43,666 that President Thieu had to go.
1606
01:32:43,666 --> 01:32:46,500 JOHN NEGROPONTE: STATE DEPARTMENT There was somehow this compulsion
1607
01:32:46,500 --> 01:32:50,100 to come to some kind of an agreement.
1608
01:32:50,100 --> 01:32:53,100 I remember Le Duc Tho when he produced the draft agreement
1609
01:32:53,100 --> 01:32:59,366 in October 8 of '72 to Kissinger, saying,
1610
01:32:59,366 --> 01:33:00,833 "You're in a hurry, aren't you?
1611
01:33:00,833 --> 01:33:02,833 You want to do this quickly."
1612
01:33:02,833 --> 01:33:06,500 And-and the response was, "Yes."
1613
01:33:06,500 --> 01:33:10,033 NARRATOR: The two sides soon had a tentative deal,
1614
01:33:10,033 --> 01:33:12,033 a "cease-fire in place"
1615
01:33:12,033 --> 01:33:14,566 to be followed within 60 days
1616
01:33:14,566 --> 01:33:17,566 by a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops
1617
01:33:17,566 --> 01:33:21,166 and the return of all American POWs.
1618
01:33:21,166 --> 01:33:25,433 The United States stopped bombing the North.
1619
01:33:25,433 --> 01:33:31,000 No one had told President Thieu any of the terms.
1620
01:33:32,633 --> 01:33:36,433 The day before Kissinger was to arrive in Saigon to brief him,
1621
01:33:36,433 --> 01:33:40,166 Thieu was handed a document found in an enemy bunker
1622
01:33:40,166 --> 01:33:42,333 in Quang Tin Province.
1623
01:33:42,333 --> 01:33:46,800 It was entitled "General Instructions for Cease-Fire."
1624
01:33:46,800 --> 01:33:51,566 It meant that communist cadres in an isolated province
1625
01:33:51,566 --> 01:33:55,933 of his own country already knew more about what Kissinger
1626
01:33:55,933 --> 01:34:00,966 and Le Duc Tho had agreed to in Paris than he did.
1627
01:34:00,966 --> 01:34:04,466 NEGROPONTE: And imagine being given an agreement
1628
01:34:04,466 --> 01:34:09,933 concerning the fate of your own country and, uh,
1629
01:34:09,933 --> 01:34:11,700 being told that you really don't have
1630
01:34:11,700 --> 01:34:15,366 any input in the matter.
1631
01:34:15,366 --> 01:34:18,933 And, oh, by the way, we didn't even yet have
1632
01:34:18,933 --> 01:34:20,866 the Vietnamese translation,
1633
01:34:20,866 --> 01:34:22,700 because that hadn't been completed.
1634
01:34:22,700 --> 01:34:26,266 And we gave him the English version.
1635
01:34:26,266 --> 01:34:29,666 So, I mean, as a professional diplomat,
1636
01:34:29,666 --> 01:34:32,933 somebody who's been in this business all my life, uh,
1637
01:34:32,933 --> 01:34:35,700 I've got to tell you, that just an awful lot
1638
01:34:35,700 --> 01:34:38,500 of diplomatic rules were broken there.
1639
01:34:38,500 --> 01:34:42,366 NARRATOR: Thieu refused to accept the terms.
1640
01:34:42,366 --> 01:34:45,633 Allowing North Vietnamese troops to remain in the South
1641
01:34:45,633 --> 01:34:48,800 would be the death of his country.
1642
01:34:48,800 --> 01:34:53,066 Nonetheless, after Kissinger returned home
1643
01:34:53,066 --> 01:34:55,566 12 days before the election,
1644
01:34:55,566 --> 01:34:59,833 he told the press, "Peace is at hand."
1645
01:34:59,833 --> 01:35:02,366 ("Tail Dragger" by Link Wray playing)
1646
01:35:05,466 --> 01:35:08,500 On November 7, 1972,
1647
01:35:08,500 --> 01:35:11,666 Richard Nixon won a stunning victory.
1648
01:35:11,666 --> 01:35:16,500 He was reelected with more than 60% of the popular vote--
1649
01:35:16,500 --> 01:35:22,500 521 electoral votes to McGovern's 17.
1650
01:35:22,500 --> 01:35:26,300 He took every single state except Massachusetts
1651
01:35:26,300 --> 01:35:29,000 and the District of Columbia.
1652
01:35:29,000 --> 01:35:32,200 Now, the president resolved to rid himself
1653
01:35:32,200 --> 01:35:37,866 of Vietnam completely before his second inauguration.
1654
01:35:37,866 --> 01:35:40,733 To calm Thieu's fears of what was to come,
1655
01:35:40,733 --> 01:35:43,600 Nixon launched another massive airlift
1656
01:35:43,600 --> 01:35:46,533 of military equipment to South Vietnam.
1657
01:35:46,533 --> 01:35:49,633 "If we had given this aid to the North Vietnamese,"
1658
01:35:49,633 --> 01:35:51,533 one American general said,
1659
01:35:51,533 --> 01:35:55,866 "they could have fought us for the rest of the century."
1660
01:35:55,866 --> 01:35:59,866 The Paris peace talks resumed.
1661
01:35:59,866 --> 01:36:03,300 But then, Le Duc Tho suddenly announced
1662
01:36:03,300 --> 01:36:07,566 he needed to return to Hanoi for consultation.
1663
01:36:07,566 --> 01:36:09,500 NEGROPONTE: We could only conclude that maybe they were
1664
01:36:09,500 --> 01:36:11,066 having some doubts about whether
1665
01:36:11,066 --> 01:36:13,066 they wanted to go through with the agreement,
1666
01:36:13,066 --> 01:36:15,766 because we had sent so many supplies
1667
01:36:15,766 --> 01:36:18,966 to Saigon in the intervening weeks.
1668
01:36:18,966 --> 01:36:21,666 NARRATOR: There turned out to be dissension
1669
01:36:21,666 --> 01:36:24,300 on the communist side as well.
1670
01:36:24,300 --> 01:36:27,933 Hanoi, like Washington, had not bothered to consult
1671
01:36:27,933 --> 01:36:30,166 with its southern comrades.
1672
01:36:30,166 --> 01:36:32,966 It had dropped the two demands that meant the most
1673
01:36:32,966 --> 01:36:37,033 to the Viet Cong-- the removal of Thieu, and the release
1674
01:36:37,033 --> 01:36:40,266 of some 30,000 of their prisoners.
1675
01:36:40,266 --> 01:36:43,266 "Hanoi's message was clear,"
1676
01:36:43,266 --> 01:36:45,733 one bitter Viet Cong official said.
1677
01:36:45,733 --> 01:36:49,633 "It cared more about American prisoners of war
1678
01:36:49,633 --> 01:36:52,400 than it did for us."
1679
01:36:52,400 --> 01:36:55,966 Nixon ordered Kissinger to suspend the talks,
1680
01:36:55,966 --> 01:36:59,000 and then he resumed the bombing of North Vietnam
1681
01:36:59,000 --> 01:37:01,333 to further punish Hanoi,
1682
01:37:01,333 --> 01:37:04,266 and to signal to both Hanoi and Saigon
1683
01:37:04,266 --> 01:37:07,966 that the United States might use its airpower
1684
01:37:07,966 --> 01:37:10,233 to defend South Vietnam
1685
01:37:10,233 --> 01:37:14,633 even after a peace agreement was signed.[40]
1686
01:37:16,033 --> 01:37:17,966 On December 18,
1687
01:37:17,966 --> 01:37:21,433 Nixon unleashed round-the-clock air strikes
1688
01:37:21,433 --> 01:37:24,600 that flattened targets around Hanoi and Haiphong.
1689
01:37:24,600 --> 01:37:26,433 (explosions)
1690
01:37:26,433 --> 01:37:29,766 It would be remembered as the Christmas Bombing.
1691
01:37:29,766 --> 01:37:33,200 (bombs exploding, people shouting)
1692
01:37:33,200 --> 01:37:35,066 HAL KUSHNER: And all of a sudden,
1693
01:37:35,066 --> 01:37:37,166 around Christmastime,
1694
01:37:37,166 --> 01:37:39,566 we hear an Arc Light operation,
1695
01:37:39,566 --> 01:37:42,100 B-52s-- bom-bom-bom-bom-bom.
1696
01:37:42,100 --> 01:37:44,066 And it's all around, and it is just exploding.
1697
01:37:44,066 --> 01:37:48,966 And everyone knew they were B-52s.
1698
01:37:48,966 --> 01:37:51,300 And is... in the two years that I was there,
1699
01:37:51,300 --> 01:37:54,000 that was the first time I ever heard a bomb.
1700
01:37:54,000 --> 01:37:55,533 And it was close.
1701
01:37:55,533 --> 01:37:57,900 It was really close.
1702
01:37:57,900 --> 01:38:00,133 It was frightening, but we were still cheering.
1703
01:38:00,133 --> 01:38:03,966 I mean, we were cheering because something was happening.
1704
01:38:03,966 --> 01:38:06,300 (explosions) [Same often repeated air strike is pictured]
1705
01:38:06,300 --> 01:38:08,100 HUY DUC: NORTH VIETNAM I was ten years old at that time. I witnessed all of it. My village was shattered. No trees were left. Fish in the river were killed. Water buffaloes and people died. Six of my neighbors were killed, including a woman who was pregnant.[41]
1706
01:38:37,066 --> 01:38:38,533 NARRATOR: Around the world,
1707
01:38:38,533 --> 01:38:41,800 antiwar demonstrators returned to the streets.
1708
01:38:41,800 --> 01:38:45,000 The Prime Minister of Sweden compared the United States
1709
01:38:45,000 --> 01:38:46,733 to Nazi Germany.
1710
01:38:46,733 --> 01:38:48,966 The Pope called the bombing,
1711
01:38:48,966 --> 01:38:51,766 which killed more than 1,600 civilians,[42]
1712
01:38:51,766 --> 01:38:54,900 "the object of daily grief."
1713
01:38:54,900 --> 01:38:59,300 James Reston of the New York Times pronounced the raids
1714
01:38:59,300 --> 01:39:01,266 "war by tantrum."
1715
01:39:01,266 --> 01:39:05,800 Republican Senator William Saxbe of Ohio said
1716
01:39:05,800 --> 01:39:10,500 the President had taken leave of his senses.
1717
01:39:10,500 --> 01:39:12,133 (gunfire)
1718
01:39:12,133 --> 01:39:16,200 North Vietnam shot down 15 B-52s,
1719
01:39:16,200 --> 01:39:20,600 along with 11 other aircraft.
1720
01:39:20,600 --> 01:39:24,666 93 crewmen were reported missing.
1721
01:39:24,666 --> 01:39:29,500 45 new prisoners of war were locked up in Hanoi,
1722
01:39:29,500 --> 01:39:34,200 one of whom died in captivity.
1723
01:39:34,200 --> 01:39:39,200 Meanwhile, both the Chinese and the Soviets pressed Hanoi
1724
01:39:39,200 --> 01:39:41,733 to resume negotiations.
1725
01:39:41,733 --> 01:39:45,433 "The most important thing is to let the Americans leave,"
1726
01:39:45,433 --> 01:39:48,700 Zhou Enlai told a North Vietnamese official.
1727
01:39:48,700 --> 01:39:53,400 "The situation will change in six months or a year."
1728
01:39:55,500 --> 01:39:59,666 On December 26, Hanoi signaled its willingness
1729
01:39:59,666 --> 01:40:02,000 to return to Paris.
1730
01:40:02,000 --> 01:40:06,666 It would take just six days to reach a final agreement.
1731
01:40:06,666 --> 01:40:12,966 NEGROPONTE: We bombed them into accepting our concessions.
1732
01:40:12,966 --> 01:40:17,166 We bombed them into accepting our concessions.
1733
01:40:17,166 --> 01:40:21,000 And I stand by that statement, because, in effect,
1734
01:40:21,000 --> 01:40:27,366 what we did was to carry out this massive bombing campaign
1735
01:40:27,366 --> 01:40:32,333 in order to basically get back to pretty much exactly
1736
01:40:32,333 --> 01:40:35,966 where we were at the end of October in '72.
MINUTES 100-END
1737
01:40:37,933 --> 01:40:40,900 NARRATOR: President Thieu still balked at signing on.
1738
01:40:40,900 --> 01:40:43,266 Nixon was adamant.
1739
01:40:43,266 --> 01:40:46,366 Thieu had to go along with what Washington and Hanoi
1740
01:40:46,366 --> 01:40:48,033 had worked out.
1741
01:40:48,033 --> 01:40:50,833 But without informing Congress,
1742
01:40:50,833 --> 01:40:53,833 the president assured Thieu in writing
1743
01:40:53,833 --> 01:40:57,600 that the United States would "respond with full force"
1744
01:40:57,600 --> 01:41:01,400 if the North ever violated the agreement.
1745
01:41:01,400 --> 01:41:05,033 "The Americans really leave me no choice," Thieu said.
1746
01:41:05,033 --> 01:41:09,000 "Either sign or they will cut off aid.
1747
01:41:09,000 --> 01:41:13,200 "On the other hand, we have an absolute guarantee from Nixon
1748
01:41:13,200 --> 01:41:15,500 "to defend the country.
1749
01:41:15,500 --> 01:41:20,066 "I am going to agree to sign and hold him to his word.
1750
01:41:20,066 --> 01:41:23,766 He is an honest man and I am going to trust him."
1751
01:41:31,433 --> 01:41:35,633 On January 22, 1973,
1752
01:41:35,633 --> 01:41:39,633 at his ranch in the Hill Country of Texas,
1753
01:41:39,633 --> 01:41:42,666 Lyndon Baines Johnson,
1754
01:41:42,666 --> 01:41:45,366 the President who had committed the United States
1755
01:41:45,366 --> 01:41:48,333 to a ground war in Vietnam,
1756
01:41:48,333 --> 01:41:52,733 and had seen that war undercut his domestic social programs
1757
01:41:52,733 --> 01:41:55,766 and end his political career,
1758
01:41:55,766 --> 01:41:57,933 died of congestive heart failure.
1759
01:42:03,233 --> 01:42:08,166 The following evening, Richard Nixon spoke to the nation.
1760
01:42:08,166 --> 01:42:10,866 28 years after the United States
1761
01:42:10,866 --> 01:42:13,766 first became involved in Vietnam,
1762
01:42:13,766 --> 01:42:16,733 it was finally getting out.
1763
01:42:16,733 --> 01:42:18,266 NIXON: I have asked for this radio
1764
01:42:18,266 --> 01:42:20,633 and television time tonight
1765
01:42:20,633 --> 01:42:24,200 for the purpose of announcing that we today
1766
01:42:24,200 --> 01:42:27,566 have concluded an agreement to end the war
1767
01:42:27,566 --> 01:42:31,733 and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.
1768
01:42:31,733 --> 01:42:35,233 A cease-fire, internationally supervised,
1769
01:42:35,233 --> 01:42:39,133 will begin at 7:00 p.m. this Saturday, January 27,
1770
01:42:39,133 --> 01:42:40,933 Washington time.
1771
01:42:40,933 --> 01:42:43,033 Within 60 days from this Saturday,
1772
01:42:43,033 --> 01:42:47,366 all Americans held prisoners of war throughout Indochina
1773
01:42:47,366 --> 01:42:49,800 will be released.
1774
01:42:51,566 --> 01:42:56,433 NARRATOR: American prisoners of war, 591 of them,
1775
01:42:56,433 --> 01:42:59,733 were to be released in batches of 40.
1776
01:42:59,733 --> 01:43:02,800 Those who had been in captivity the longest
1777
01:43:02,800 --> 01:43:05,466 were to come home first.
1778
01:43:05,466 --> 01:43:09,500 JOHN CHANCELLOR: Today the largest contingents of repatriated prisoners so far,
1779
01:43:09,500 --> 01:43:11,366 60 men, were flown from Clark
1780
01:43:11,366 --> 01:43:13,333 to Travis Air Force Base, California.
1781
01:43:13,333 --> 01:43:15,300 ROGER PETERSON: Today's most dramatic moment came
1782
01:43:15,300 --> 01:43:18,000 when Everett Alvarez made his happy trek down the ramp,
1783
01:43:18,000 --> 01:43:19,200 home at last.
1784
01:43:19,200 --> 01:43:20,633 For almost as long as most Americans
1785
01:43:20,633 --> 01:43:22,200 have been aware of Vietnam,
1786
01:43:22,200 --> 01:43:26,133 Lieutenant Commander Alvarez has been a prisoner in Hanoi.
1787
01:43:26,133 --> 01:43:29,133 He was shot down August 5, 1964, during the first raids flown
1788
01:43:29,133 --> 01:43:32,200 in retaliation for the Tonkin Gulf incident.
1789
01:43:32,200 --> 01:43:34,100 And finally, today, he was home.
1790
01:43:34,100 --> 01:43:36,566 ALVAREZ: For years and years,
1791
01:43:36,566 --> 01:43:42,833 we dreamed of this day, and we kept faith.
1792
01:43:42,833 --> 01:43:47,666 Faith in God, in our President,
1793
01:43:47,666 --> 01:43:49,333 and in our country.
1794
01:43:49,333 --> 01:43:52,466 ("America the Beautiful" by Ray Charles playing)
1795
01:43:54,200 --> 01:43:58,833 NARRATOR: Hal Kushner's turn came in mid-March.
1796
01:43:58,833 --> 01:44:01,433 CHARLES: ♪ Oh, beautiful
1797
01:44:01,433 --> 01:44:05,466 ♪ For heroes proved
1798
01:44:08,033 --> 01:44:11,933 ♪ In liberating strife
1799
01:44:11,933 --> 01:44:14,566 KUSHNER: And they... then they called our name.
1800
01:44:14,566 --> 01:44:17,200 And I walked out in the sunlight.
1801
01:44:17,200 --> 01:44:20,133 And the first thing I saw was a girl in a miniskirt.
1802
01:44:20,133 --> 01:44:22,933 She was a reporter for one of the news organizations.
1803
01:44:22,933 --> 01:44:24,966 I'd never seen a real-life miniskirt.
1804
01:44:24,966 --> 01:44:30,733 CHARLES: ♪ And mercy more than life
1805
01:44:30,733 --> 01:44:33,100 KUSHNER: And there was a table with the Vietnamese
1806
01:44:33,100 --> 01:44:35,233 and American authorities on one side,
1807
01:44:35,233 --> 01:44:37,833 and there was a Brigadier General, Air Force general
1808
01:44:37,833 --> 01:44:40,233 in Class A uniform.
1809
01:44:40,233 --> 01:44:43,433 And he looked magnificent.
1810
01:44:43,433 --> 01:44:46,333 And I looked at him...
1811
01:44:46,333 --> 01:44:48,166 (voice breaking): and he had breadth,
1812
01:44:48,166 --> 01:44:52,266 he had thickness that we didn't have.
1813
01:44:52,266 --> 01:44:55,500 And his hair was... he had on a garrison cap.
1814
01:44:55,500 --> 01:44:58,633 And his hair was plump and moist,
1815
01:44:58,633 --> 01:45:01,300 and our hair was like straw, you know.
1816
01:45:01,300 --> 01:45:03,600 It was dry and we were skinny.
1817
01:45:03,600 --> 01:45:04,600 (clears throat)
1818
01:45:05,933 --> 01:45:07,733 And I went out and I saluted,
1819
01:45:07,733 --> 01:45:10,500 which was a courtesy that had been denied us
1820
01:45:10,500 --> 01:45:13,333 for so many years.
1821
01:45:13,333 --> 01:45:15,833 And he saluted me, and he...
1822
01:45:15,833 --> 01:45:17,900 I shook hands with him and he hugged me,
1823
01:45:17,900 --> 01:45:19,433 he actually hugged me,
1824
01:45:19,433 --> 01:45:23,133 and he said, "Welcome home, Major.
1825
01:45:23,133 --> 01:45:24,833 We're glad to see you, doctor."
1826
01:45:24,833 --> 01:45:27,733 And the tears were streaming down his cheeks.
1827
01:45:27,733 --> 01:45:30,933 And it was just a-a powerful moment.
1828
01:45:30,933 --> 01:45:35,566 CHARLES: ♪ For purple mountains
1829
01:45:35,566 --> 01:45:37,033 ♪ Majesty
1830
01:45:37,033 --> 01:45:39,400 KUSHNER: And then this liaison officer they called
1831
01:45:39,400 --> 01:45:42,900 that came out and got me and escorted me on this C-141.
1832
01:45:42,900 --> 01:45:46,833 It was this beautiful white airplane with a flag.
1833
01:45:46,833 --> 01:45:50,233 (sighs)
1834
01:45:50,233 --> 01:45:55,400 An American flag on the tail and USAF.
1835
01:45:55,400 --> 01:45:57,933 CHARLES: ♪ America
1836
01:45:57,933 --> 01:45:59,366 ♪ You know
1837
01:45:59,366 --> 01:46:04,033 ♪ God done shed his grace on thee ♪
1838
01:46:04,033 --> 01:46:07,700 KUSHNER: And they had these real cute flight nurses on there.
1839
01:46:07,700 --> 01:46:09,733 They were all tall and blonde and, you know,
1840
01:46:09,733 --> 01:46:11,766 they-they were just gorgeous.
1841
01:46:11,766 --> 01:46:14,200 And we got on this thing and, and she said,
1842
01:46:14,200 --> 01:46:17,300 this nurse-- we sat in these seats and she said,
1843
01:46:17,300 --> 01:46:18,966 "We have anything you want, you know.
1844
01:46:18,966 --> 01:46:20,100 "Do... what do you want?"
1845
01:46:20,100 --> 01:46:22,266 And I-I wanted a Coke with crushed ice
1846
01:46:22,266 --> 01:46:24,500 and some chewing gum.
1847
01:46:24,500 --> 01:46:27,966 CHARLES: ♪ You know, I wish had somebody to help me sing this ♪
1848
01:46:27,966 --> 01:46:32,033 ♪ America
1849
01:46:32,033 --> 01:46:34,433 ♪ America ♪ America
1850
01:46:34,433 --> 01:46:35,866 ♪ I love you, America
1851
01:46:35,866 --> 01:46:38,600 ♪ God shed ♪ You see
1852
01:46:38,600 --> 01:46:40,866 ♪ My God, he done shed ♪ His grace
1853
01:46:40,866 --> 01:46:43,400 ♪ His grace on thee ♪ On thee
1854
01:46:43,400 --> 01:46:45,700 ♪ And you ought to love him for it ♪
1855
01:46:45,700 --> 01:46:50,233 ♪ 'Cause he, he, he, he crowned thy good ♪
1856
01:46:50,233 --> 01:46:52,066 ♪ He told me he would
1857
01:46:52,066 --> 01:46:55,700 ♪ With brotherhood
1858
01:46:55,700 --> 01:46:57,966 ♪ From sea
1859
01:46:57,966 --> 01:47:00,200 ♪ To shining
1860
01:47:00,200 --> 01:47:02,800 ♪ Shining sea ♪ Sea
1861
01:47:02,800 --> 01:47:04,766 ♪ Oh, Lord
1862
01:47:04,766 --> 01:47:06,000 ♪ Oh, Lord!
1863
01:47:06,000 --> 01:47:08,400 ♪ I thank you, Lord
1864
01:47:08,400 --> 01:47:13,933 ♪ Shining sea.
1865
01:47:20,533 --> 01:47:22,466 ("The Lord Is in This Place" by Fairport Convention playing)
1866
01:47:26,133 --> 01:47:29,400 NARRATOR: Within a few days of Hal Kushner's release,
1867
01:47:29,400 --> 01:47:34,400 the last American combat troops would leave Vietnam.
1868
01:47:34,400 --> 01:47:39,233 But they would leave behind many unanswered questions.
1869
01:47:39,233 --> 01:47:44,000 How long could the South Vietnamese government survive?
1870
01:47:44,000 --> 01:47:47,300 What was the value of American promises,
1871
01:47:47,300 --> 01:47:50,233 and American sacrifice?
1872
01:47:50,233 --> 01:47:54,333 And how long would it take for the wounds of war to heal?
1873
01:48:07,500 --> 01:48:09,433 ("What's Going On?" by Marvin Gaye playing)
1874
01:48:11,066 --> 01:48:13,000 (indistinct conversations) March 29, 1973 58,126 Americans and more than 2,000,000 Vietnamese have died.
1875
01:48:17,133 --> 01:48:19,766 ♪ Mother, mother
1876
01:48:19,766 --> 01:48:23,833 ♪ There's too many of you crying ♪
1877
01:48:26,733 --> 01:48:29,033 ♪ Brother, brother, brother
1878
01:48:29,033 --> 01:48:33,033 ♪ There's far too many of you dying ♪
1879
01:48:35,000 --> 01:48:38,133 ♪ You know we've got to find a way ♪
1880
01:48:39,933 --> 01:48:42,866 ♪ To bring some loving here today ♪
1881
01:48:42,866 --> 01:48:45,800 ♪ Yeah
1882
01:48:45,800 --> 01:48:47,400 ♪ Father, father
1883
01:48:49,266 --> 01:48:51,566 ♪ We don't need to escalate
1884
01:48:54,366 --> 01:48:58,633 ♪ You see, war is not the answer ♪
1885
01:48:58,633 --> 01:49:03,433 ♪ For only love can conquer hate ♪
1886
01:49:03,433 --> 01:49:06,300 ♪ You know we've got to find a way ♪
1887
01:49:08,366 --> 01:49:11,666 ♪ To bring some loving here today ♪
1888
01:49:11,666 --> 01:49:14,166 ♪ Oh
1889
01:49:14,166 --> 01:49:16,300 ♪ Picket lines ♪ Sister
1890
01:49:16,300 --> 01:49:18,700 ♪ And picket signs ♪ Sister
1891
01:49:18,700 --> 01:49:20,466 ♪ Don't punish me ♪ Sister
1892
01:49:20,466 --> 01:49:23,766 ♪ With brutality ♪ Sister
1893
01:49:23,766 --> 01:49:25,700 ♪ Talk to me ♪ Sister
1894
01:49:25,700 --> 01:49:27,733 ♪ So you can see ♪ Sister
1895
01:49:27,733 --> 01:49:30,300 ♪ Oh, what's going on ♪ What's going on
1896
01:49:30,300 --> 01:49:32,366 ♪ What's going on ♪ What's going on
1897
01:49:32,366 --> 01:49:34,733 ♪ Yeah, what's going on ♪ What's going on
1898
01:49:34,733 --> 01:49:37,000 ♪ Ah, what's going on ♪ What's going on
1899
01:49:37,000 --> 01:49:39,866 ♪ Ah ♪ Right on
1900
01:49:39,866 --> 01:49:41,533 ♪ Whoo! Right on, brother
1901
01:49:41,533 --> 01:49:43,000 (indistinct conversations)
1902
01:49:43,000 --> 01:49:44,933 (scatting)
1903
01:49:46,400 --> 01:49:48,600 MAN: Hey, man, what's your name? Whoo!
1904
01:49:48,600 --> 01:49:50,433 ♪ Right on, baby
1905
01:49:50,433 --> 01:49:52,300 Right on. ♪ Right on
1906
01:49:52,300 --> 01:49:55,233 (scatting)
1907
01:50:08,000 --> 01:50:09,333 Whoo! ♪ Whoo
1908
01:50:09,333 --> 01:50:12,200 ♪ Right on, baby
1909
01:50:12,200 --> 01:50:14,133 (scatting)
1910
01:50:26,466 --> 01:50:27,633 Whoo!
1911
01:50:27,633 --> 01:50:29,100 -♪ Right on, baby -(man whooping)
1912
01:50:29,100 --> 01:50:30,166 ♪ Come on
1913
01:50:30,166 --> 01:50:31,566 ♪ Right on
1914
01:50:31,566 --> 01:50:33,500 (singer scatting, man whooping)
1915
01:50:36,700 --> 01:50:39,800 ♪ Whoo! Right on
1916
01:50:39,800 --> 01:50:41,133 ♪ Go slow
1917
01:50:41,133 --> 01:50:43,066 (scatting)
1918
01:50:44,300 --> 01:50:45,300 (song fading out)
1919
01:50:53,700 --> 01:50:54,900 ANNOUNCER: LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FILM
1920
01:50:54,900 --> 01:50:57,766 AND FIND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AT PBS.ORG/VIETNAMWAR
1921
01:50:57,766 --> 01:51:01,766 AND JOIN THE CONVERSATION USING HASHTAG VIETNAMWARPBS.
1922
01:51:01,766 --> 01:51:03,233 "THE VIETNAM WAR" IS AVAILABLE
1923
01:51:03,233 --> 01:51:04,900 ON BLU-RAY AND DVD.
1924
01:51:04,900 --> 01:51:06,566 THE COMPANION BOOK, SOUNDTRACK,
1925
01:51:06,566 --> 01:51:07,966 AND ORIGINAL SCORE FROM THE FILM
1926
01:51:07,966 --> 01:51:09,100 ARE ALSO AVAILABLE.
1927
01:51:09,100 --> 01:51:11,200 TO ORDER, VISIT SHOPPBS.ORG
1928
01:51:11,200 --> 01:51:13,666 OR CALL 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
1929
01:51:13,666 --> 01:51:15,100 EPISODES OF THIS SERIES ALSO
1930
01:51:15,100 --> 01:51:16,200 AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
1931
01:51:16,200 --> 01:51:17,300 FROM iTUNES.
1932
01:51:20,566 --> 01:51:22,700 ANNOUNCER: BANK OF AMERICA PROUDLY SUPPORTS
1933
01:51:22,700 --> 01:51:27,600 KEN BURNS' AND LYNN NOVICK'S FILM "THE VIETNAM WAR"
1934
01:51:27,600 --> 01:51:30,000 BECAUSE FOSTERING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
1935
01:51:30,000 --> 01:51:32,600 AND CIVIL DISCOURSE AROUND IMPORTANT ISSUES
1936
01:51:32,600 --> 01:51:34,900 FURTHERS PROGRESS, EQUALITY,
1937
01:51:34,900 --> 01:51:36,900 AND A MORE CONNECTED SOCIETY.
1938
01:51:41,366 --> 01:51:45,400 GO TO BANKOFAMERICA.COM/ BETTERCONNECTED TO LEARN MORE.
1939
01:51:48,866 --> 01:51:50,300 ANNOUNCER: MAJOR SUPPORT FOR "THE VIETNAM WAR"
1940
01:51:50,300 --> 01:51:53,800 WAS PROVIDED BY MEMBERS OF THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY,
1941
01:51:53,800 --> 01:51:57,766 INCLUDING JONATHAN AND JEANNIE LAVINE,
1942
01:51:57,766 --> 01:52:00,733 DIANE AND HAL BRIERLEY,
1943
01:52:00,733 --> 01:52:03,133 AMY AND DAVID ABRAMS,
1944
01:52:03,133 --> 01:52:05,633 JOHN AND CATHERINE DEBS,
1945
01:52:05,633 --> 01:52:08,533 THE FULLERTON FAMILY CHARITABLE FUND,
1946
01:52:08,533 --> 01:52:10,600 THE MONTRONE FAMILY,
1947
01:52:10,600 --> 01:52:12,933 LYNDA AND STEWART RESNICK,
1948
01:52:12,933 --> 01:52:15,700 THE PERRY AND DONNA GOLKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION,
1949
01:52:15,700 --> 01:52:16,700 THE LYNCH FOUNDATION,
1950
01:52:16,700 --> 01:52:19,566 THE ROGER AND ROSEMARY ENRICO FOUNDATION,
1951
01:52:19,566 --> 01:52:23,000 AND BY THESE ADDITIONAL FUNDERS.
1952
01:52:23,000 --> 01:52:24,900 MAJOR FUNDING WAS ALSO PROVIDED
1953
01:52:24,900 --> 01:52:26,633 BY DAVID H. KOCH...
1954
01:52:28,933 --> 01:52:31,133 THE BLAVATNIK FAMILY FOUNDATION...
1955
01:52:33,466 --> 01:52:35,900 THE PARK FOUNDATION,
1956
01:52:35,900 --> 01:52:38,066 THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES,
1957
01:52:38,066 --> 01:52:40,266 THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS,
1958
01:52:40,266 --> 01:52:42,933 THE JOHN S. AND JAMES L. KNIGHT FOUNDATION,
1959
01:52:42,933 --> 01:52:45,700 THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION,
1960
01:52:45,700 --> 01:52:48,300 THE ARTHUR VINING DAVIS FOUNDATIONS,
1961
01:52:48,300 --> 01:52:50,500 THE FORD FOUNDATION JUSTFILMS,
1962
01:52:50,500 --> 01:52:51,700 BY THE CORPORATION
1963
01:52:51,700 --> 01:52:52,933 FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING,
1964
01:52:52,933 --> 01:52:54,900 AND BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU.
1965
01:52:54,900 --> 01:52:56,033 THANK YOU.
References
- ↑ See Protestors vs. Veterans
- ↑ see Charles Wiley
- ↑ See Foreign Influences in Peace Movements during the Vietnam War
- ↑ And Soviet arms.
- ↑ Since the enemy was there, why tie your own hands?
- ↑ See Operation El Paso
- ↑ The North Vietnamese had far more unaccounted losses during the war, but the mourning of their families is not considered relevant in this documentary
- ↑ Burns decided to cherry pick tape extracts rather than interviewing principal participants
- ↑ Video shows operational footage that is likely to be of a much earlier date in the war.
- ↑ 1st Cav C/2/7. I wonder how his fellow troopers felt about it?
- ↑ Johnson was President when My Lai occurred. Nixon was President when Calley was tried.
- ↑ VVAW was a very small number of the total
- ↑ now turned long-haired hippie, see video at 31:45
- ↑ All VVAW. Vietnam veterans as a whole despise Kerry and the untrue charges he cast upon us. It was primarily the actions of those veterans that led to Kerry's failed presidential bid in 2004.
- ↑ See Free Fire Zones
- ↑ A feeling seconded by many of Gioia's fellow veterans.
- ↑ They had purchased the medals they threw by the bucket from an Army-Navy Store. Kerry later admitted to having kept his medals, but that is a story for another time.
- ↑ Ferrizzi should ask Kerry why he kept his medals on the wall.
- ↑ Vallely still cites his Silver Star in his bios.
- ↑ See Neil Sheehan
- ↑ See Pentagon Papers
- ↑ The Pentagon Papers can be cherry-picked to support almost any viewpoint you wish to espouse, unlike the FRUS which is the State Department history, assembled by trained historians, under directives that have been followed since the Presidency of Andrew Johnson.
- ↑ About the time he married Barbara Marx' sister, Patricia.
- ↑ See Neil Sheehan
- ↑ Kissinger was more concerned with Ellsberg's role in and knowledge of the theories behind our nuclear strategy than about the Vietnam War. That was the leak that he feared.
- ↑ Despite rumors to the contrary, the defoliant only worked a single season.
- ↑ And still is debatable
- ↑ Why is Tue living in California?
- ↑ See Negotiations
- ↑ What planet was HAK living on?
- ↑ The planning came before the Nixon visit.
- ↑ Had Le Duan waited til after the 1972 elections, he would have tested out the theory that Kissinger would no longer care what happened to the South Vietnamese. He didn't wait.
- ↑ Note they didn't stay to welcome their Communist brethern.
- ↑ If it was winnable in 1972 with U.S. air support, it would be winnable in 1975, but Congress barred the air option in 1973.
- ↑ The pictures are unrelated to Linebacker I
- ↑ Linebacker was in response to a North Vietnamese invasion. Who should be held at fault?
- ↑ I am sure the Viet Cong who eviscerated the families of village leaders and the NVA who buried people alive at Hue looked like normal people, too.
- ↑ She was used as Communist propaganda and defected when the opportunity presented itself.
- ↑ Are we talking about John Dean? see Silent Coup.
- ↑ There would be no need to use airpower if an agreement, once signed, was respected by the signatories.
- ↑ Very few casualties for the tonnage of bombs dropped indicates that most of the bombs fell on military rather than civilian targets.
- ↑ Again, very few casualties for the tonnage of bombs dropped indicates that most of the bombs fell on military rather than civilian targets.
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