All language subtitles for VIETNAM WAR - Before During After - 2 - Documentary [2015]_Subtitles01.ENG

♪ When logic and proportion ♪

♪ Have fallen sloppy dead ♪

♪ And the White Knight
is talking backwards ♪

♪ And the Red Queen's off with her head ♪

♪ Remember what the dormouse said ♪

♪ Feed your head ♪

♪ Feed your head ♪

(helicopter blades whirring)

(explosion)

♪ War, huh, yeah ♪

♪ What is it good for ♪

♪ Absolutely nothing ♪

♪ Uh ha haa ha ♪

- [Narrator] The fear of
encroaching Communism drew America

into the conflict of the Vietnam war.

♪ War, huh, yeah ♪

- Fear scares the hell out of everybody,

and who pays for it?

- If they were so gung ho about attacking

the North Vietnamese, they
made some serious mistakes.

♪ I said war, huh, yeah ♪

- [Narrator] At first, the 400
special forces were just sent

as advisors to the Vietnamese,

but these numbers was soon to escalate.

- The word adviser needs to
be taken with a grain of salt.

Pilots were flying missions, helicopters,

large amounts of military
equipment were being supplied

by the United States.

- We did the only anti-coverage
in America going on then.

You couldn't come out against the war.

Kids were beaten up by
cops in every town and city

in America for coming out against the war.

♪ The thought of war blows my mind ♪

- [Narrator] Public opinion,
which had supported the war

at first, turned when
endless battles were shown

nightly on television
without any sign of success.

- Because of the exposure,

the American public became suddenly aware

of how self-destructive this war was.

- I was aghast at the number
of people who really had

no concept at all of
what the war was about

in a fighting sense.

♪ It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker ♪

- [Narrator] The age of
Aquarius brings civil descent,

peace marches, the death of a president,

and a North Vietnamese leader
who is playing a patient game.

- When you put young men in
harm's way, they do bad things.

- Were there any Americans who thought

the Americans were gonna win the war?

So what are you doing in the jungle?

♪ Good God y'all ♪

(explosion)

♪ What is it good for ♪

♪ Say it, say it, say it, say it ♪

♪ War, good God y'all ♪

(weapons firing)

♪ What is it good for ♪

- From Dallas, Texas, the
flash apparently official,

President Kennedy died at
1:00 PM Central Standard Time.

Vice President Lyndon
Johnson has left the hospital

in Dallas, but we do not know
to where he has proceeded.

Presumably he will be taking
the oath of office shortly,

and become the 36th president
of the United States.

- [Narrator] Lyndon
Johnson has made his way

to the presidential plane.

There, he takes the oath of office,

ensuring that presidential
power is unbroken.

♪ This is the end ♪

The first milestone of his
presidency was the signing

of the new Civil Rights
Act of 1964 into law.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident is used

by Johnson to launch into the war.

He has kept things low key till now,

in order to be reelected.

As an ex-Navy man, he is
keen to take up the challenge

to finish the war, and
retaliates with air attacks.

(jet engine roaring)

- The determination of
all Americans to carry out

our full commitment to the
people and to the government

of South Vietnam will be
redoubled by this outrage.

- [Narrator] America has misinterpreted

Hồ Chí Minh's intentions,
and instead of supporting him

earlier against the
French, they opposed him.

Hồ Chí Minh was a nationalist,
but with no other support,

he had to turn to the Russians,

into the arms of the Communists.

- He wasn't a screaming,
nationalist fanatic,

didn't come across as a fanatic at all.

- He wasn't a communist.

He was a nationalist.

I mean, he was a great hero
to his country, you know?

- I mean, they called him
Uncle Hồ, and he looked

like your uncle, and
it was, he was smiling,

and he looked like a lovely guy.

- [Johnson] The vast Mekong
River can provide food,

and water, and power on a scale
to dwarf even our own TVA.

- [Narrator] Johnson was in
the mindset that if he went

in with force, Hồ Chí
Minh would capitulate.

Johnson offers Hồ Chí Minh
a vast development program

for Vietnam if they pull back.

- [Johnson] And we remain
ready with this purpose

for unconditional discussions.

(audience applause)

- [Narrator] Hồ Chí
Minh calculates that he

and General Giáp will
eventually rid Vietnam

of this American influence in the south.

- President Johnson, for
all his great virtues,

wasn't very strong foreign policy.

He believed that
overwhelming force worked.

He was a great Texan wheeler dealer.

He figured that have
he waved the big stick,

he could negotiate with Hồ Chí Minh.

Hồ Chí Minh didn't want
to negotiate with anyone.

- In my view, on reflection
of course, is that

we may have picked her
on the side when it came

to Hồ Chí Minh in
particular, and General Giáp.

We were stuck with it,

and then all these murderous
bombing runs began.

- [Narrator] Johnson retaliates

with Operation Rolling Thunder.

(explosions)

- The Americans, not being
able politically to invade

North Vietnam, tried to
bomb it into a car park.

♪ All the leaves are brown ♪

♪ And the sky is gray ♪

- [Narrator] President
Johnson is advised that

the U.S. air field at Da
Nang is vulnerable to attack

from the North Vietnamese,

and the South Vietnamese army lacks

the strength to defend it.

♪ I'd be safe and warm ♪

- [Johnson] I have asked
the commanding general,

General Westmoreland,
what more he needs to meet

this mounting aggression.

♪ On such a winter's day ♪

♪ Stopped into a church ♪

- [Narrator] General Westmoreland requests

a few battalions to protect the air field.

This is the first of many
requests for further troops,

and by the end of the year,

numbers of us troops
would rise to 200,000.

♪ I began to pray ♪

- It escalated and escalated.

LBJ escalated, and then everybody
was escalating, you know?

- Suddenly, everyone
in America is affected.

- [Narrator] The bombing campaign

and increasing troops does little to stop

the North Vietnamese army
moving personnel and supplies

through Laos and into South Vietnam.

American B-52 planes are sent in to bomb

North Vietnam for the first time.

These continuous, devastating,
air raids would last

for three years, and include

the heavy deployments of agent orange.

- Agent orange was actually
used on American highways

to keep the weeds down off
the side of the expressways,

but it was used in massive
amounts in Vietnam,

and it was dioxin, which causes
cancer and birth defects.

♪ And the sky is gray ♪

- [Narrator] As more and
more U.S. troops are sent

to Vietnam, the stark
reality of the war hits

home in America.

- [Reporter] Anti-war
demonstrators protest

U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

- [Narrator] Public support
for the war begins to slide,

as anti-war demonstrations
increase in the U.S.

- [Reporter] The estimated
125,000 Manhattan marchers

include students, housewives,
beatnik poets, doctors,

businessmen, teachers, priests, and nuns.

Make up and costumes where bizarre.

- [Narrator] In a major war effort,

the ground offensive,
Operation Cedar Falls begins.

30,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese
troops are sent to destroy

Viet Cong operations, and
supply sites near Saigon.

Protests, rallies, and
marches against the war

in Vietnam continued to increase.

Veterans from World War I,
World War II, and Korea stage

a protest in New York City.

Muhammad Ali was world
champion from 1964 until 1967,

when he was stripped of his titles.

He caused a sensation when
he refused to be inducted

into the Army.

- You my enemy.

My enemies are white
people, not Viet Congs,

or Chinese, or Japanese.

That's all, no comment on
boxing, religion, induction,

no comments on the weather or nothing.

- He refused to step forward.

He was sentenced to five years in jail.

They took, they stripped his title.

While he was waiting for
the Supreme Court to decide

his fate, he spent his
time going to colleges,

talking to all over the country.

He gave young people the guts
to come out against the war.

♪ You know I caught my old
lady messin' 'round town ♪

- [Narrator] Other artist
activists, such as Joan Baez,

Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan
had joined what was to become

an international movement
against the Vietnam War.

In April, 1967, Martin
Luther King Jr. makes

a powerful speech.

Previously, he had not
been vocal about Vietnam

in order not to upset President Johnson,

as the civil rights
legislation was going through

during his presidency.

He speaks out against
U.S. policy in Vietnam,

calling America the greatest purveyor

of violence in the world.

He publicly denounces their
military presence in Vietnam,

and proposes a merger of the anti-war

and civil rights movement.

- The promises of the great
society have been shot down

on the battle field of Vietnam.

The pursuit of this
widened wall has narrowed

the promised dimensions of
its domestic welfare programs,

making the poor white and Negro
bear the heaviest burdens,

both at the front and at home.

♪ Hey Joe, where you goin'
with that gun in your hand ♪

- [Narrator] In June, 1967,

the first Monterey Pop
Festival takes place,

showcasing many artists
who've been expressing

their anti-Vietnam feelings.

When Jimmy Hendrix takes to the stage,

many young men in the
audience already have

their draft papers.

♪ You know I caught her messin'
'round with another man ♪

- You had Ravi Shankar on one side,

and then you have The Who
smashing up guitars on the other,

and Jimi Hendrix, somewhere in the middle.

And that would certainly have
been a kind of rallying cry

for, you know, increasing
anti-Vietnam sentiment.

- [Narrator] There had
been various incidents

of burning draft cards,
but this was brought

into intense focus when it was acted out

in the musical Hair in New
York, in October, 1967.

- People in colleges were
pretty well organized

by this time, because they'd
been fighting for civil rights,

so they knew how to protest,

and this essentially divides the country,

that the younger generation
know how to cause trouble,

know how to, if necessary,
avoid the draft,

and flee to Canada, whereas
the older people remember

World War II, and remember being right.

- [Narrator] 1967, the summer of love, had

a bloody underbelly.

Young American boys are sent to fight

their counterparts in Vietnam.

This will be brought to a
terrifying conflagration

with the shock of the Tet Offensive

(explosion)

♪ Tell me what's goin' on ♪

♪ What's goin' on ♪

Secretary of Defense,
Robert McNamara, visits

General Westmoreland to assess
the situation on the ground.

Their advice to President
Johnson is taken up,

and troop numbers are eventually increased

to more than 500,000.

(explosion)

As more and more U.S.
troops enter Vietnam,

the siege of Khe Sanh begins,
and the Marines are cut off.

(explosion)

- The United States have begun to suspect

that the North Vietnamese
strategy was to lure

the Americans into a remote outpost.

The Americans thought
that they could win there

if they built up enough forces,

and win a conventional battle
against the North Vietnamese,

and so they built up the
large base of Khe Sanh.

They expected that the
attack would come there,

and indeed it built up all
through December and January.

(explosions)

- [Narrator] However,
this was a distraction

from the main event.

On the night of January 30th,
the Vietnamese new year,

some 80,000 Viet Cong attack
36 capitals, 64 towns,

and four American bases.

Around 4,000 Viet Cong attack Saigon,

occupy the grounds of the U.S. embassy,

and hit General
Westmoreland's headquarters.

This was known as the Tet Offensive.

Americans have to engage
intense force to recover

from the sudden onslaught.

(weapons firing)

- The Americans think they're
in control of the country.

Then comes the Tet Offensive.

Tet is the Vietnamese lunar new year.

The Americans say that there's no chance

that Viet Congs will
attack them during the Tet.

It would be like starting the
offensive on Christmas day.

It wouldn't happen.

However, again, nobody read
the Vietnamese history books.

The Vietnamese won one
of the greatest victories

against the Chinese attacking on Tet.

- The Tet Offensive was essentially led

by the Southern Vietnamese communists,

the Viet Cong, backed
by the North Vietnamese,

but it was a Viet Cong-inspired uprising.

- Dozens and dozens of cities came

under near simultaneous attack

by mostly NLF Southern
guerillas who had been moved

into position, largely
unknown to the U.S. forces.

- Suddenly, in every town
and city in South Vietnam,

there are explosions going off.

There's gunfire.

The Viet Cong even send a suicide squad

into the American embassy,
and they hold it for hours.

This is on American television.

The Americans see their own
embassy occupied by the enemy.

- The fact that the Viet Cong had entered

the American embassy in
Saigon, and caused a great deal

of damage, shattered public
opinion and American faith

in winning the war, if
the war was ever winnable.

- Well, they can't believe
what they're seeing.

They're being told that
they're winning this war,

and it doesn't seem that they are.

(explosion)

- [Narrator] The battle for
Huế was the response to Tet,

to endeavor to take back the territory

that had been lost to the Viet Cong.

It's regarded as one of the
bloodiest and longest battles

of the Vietnam War, ending in March, 1968.

- [Reporter] Fighting is violent,

and if ever a Marine had to
rely on his own quickness

and toughness, this was it.

(weapon firing)

House to house, street to
street, for three long weeks.

(weapons firing)

- Massive retaliation was taken,

and the Viet Cong were
swept out of the cities,

and largely annihilated.

And this is again, was part
of Hồ Chí Minh's strategy,

because he realized that

eventually he was going to win the war,

and he didn't want these
annoying southerners,

many of whom were,

the Viet Cong weren't
necessarily Communists,

they were just nationalists.

He wanted to get rid of them,

and this was a wonderful way to do it.

- This meant that the
North Vietnamese forces,

which had not even appeared
in many parts of the south,

for instance, the Mekong
Delta by that time,

now began to play a much
bigger role in the war,

and it became necessary for
the Communist forces to have

North Vietnamese reinforcements to keep up

their level of activity.

(weapons exploding)

- [Reporter] After the first day,

Marines own just two blocks of the city,

two blocks, and the price is dear.

- Militarily, it was a defeat for them,

but in political and
public relations terms,

it was a huge success, and
badly damaged American morale,

particularly at home, and
the tide of war changed.

- [Reporter] On the
north side of the river,

the enemy's position begins to crumble.

Marines, along with the
South Vietnamese army marine

and ranger units, move
into the Imperial Palace.

(weapons firing)

- The great strategist was Hồ Chí Minh,

because he realized fighting Americans,

it wasn't about what
actually happened in Vietnam.

It was what happened
on the television sets

in the United States.

So if he could get the war
on the news every night,

he knew that America would
tire of it sooner or later,

and he'd get his way.

(weapons exploding)

- [Reporter] Finally, the job is finished,

25 days of heavy fighting,
enemy losses in the thousands,

and each Marine knows he's been a part

of a historic battle, knows he rates

the traditional, "Well done."

- [Narrator] Although America
did win back their territory,

this was a huge turning point in the war,

as America loses its
appearance of invincibility.

- Vietnam was the first television war.

It was on the nightly news in America,

and it was on the news here in the UK,

and so had a phenomenal impact.

- It was in American
living rooms every evening.

♪ It's getting near dawn ♪

- Now CIA men and MPS have
gone into the embassy,

and are trying to get the snipers out.

- This is the main Vietnamese
language radio station

in Saigon, and right now-

- It went on and on and on,

and of course the people in America knew

that their sons were going,

and there were shots of
the body bags coming home,

and it's terribly demoralizing.

America has this great
sort of culture of winning,

and they believed that with their wealth,

their technical expertise,
and their manpower,

that they could do anything.

- [Reporter] The smoke turned on us again,

and out of it, in the briefest
lull in the crossfire,

soldiers came running
out, carrying children.

- Every time you went around the corner,

you see a palm leaf move,

and you think, "Christ, it's an ambush."

Every time you see a junk, you think,

"Oh, it's full of explosives."

I mean,

this is how American television
had weaned me in to Vietnam.

(weapons firing)

So I went out there convinced

I was either gonna be killed,

or I was gonna fail in the story.

My very first story of
Vietnam, Apocalypse Now,

the scene where they're
on that little boat,

big machine gun up there.

Well, that was my first story,

River Marine Patrol, it was called,

and I was absolutely terrified,

I mean, really quite terrified.

(helicopters roaring)
(explosions)

Patrols like these in the
Mekong Delta are convinced

that they're winning
their war against the VC.

They've put a success there,
as evidence of their success,

the number of VC dead, and
the number of VC defectors,

but they have, nonetheless,
the substantial backing

of thousands of well-armed
and well-trained troops,

plus barrack ships,
helicopters, and gunships,

and the river Marine force.

The problem with TV is that when there was

big things happening in Vietnam,

your bosses wanted daily news.

(weapons firing)

- Television journalists
would go to a battlefield,

but they would have to
leave the battlefield

by a certain time to get
back to Saigon Airport,

and ship their film to Hong Kong.

- There were no satellites, of course.

We're shooting film.

Usually if you're doing a feature story,

you just get it to New York,
then they would develop it,

and edit it with your narration.

Now, it's sort of hard.
I think for journalists,

TV journalists today to relate to the fact

that we were writing our narrations

without ever having seen the
film that we were narrating.

You just watched what you were covering.

You watched what your
camera man was filming.

You wrote to what you
thought he had filmed,

and then you laid down the
narration, and off it went.

- The fire spreads, the people
leave, and in no time at all,

that area is charred, and
ruined, and destroyed.

You couldn't go too far,

so my area of operations tended to be done

in the Mekong, which, as it turns out,

was a pretty dangerous place to be anyway.

(weapons firing)

- [Reporter] For one moment
they panicked, and rightly so.

The mortar hit right in the
middle of them down there.

- After six in the evening,
there was nothing to do.

That's when we all got into trouble.

And now, I mean, there was
nothing like 24 hours news.

And I remember when a
satellite first came up,

it was Charles Collingwood who said to me,

"Our glory days are over.

We're gonna have to
work for a living now."

- [Narrator] The journalists working

out of Saigon all seemed to have

a huge affection for the city.

It is their retreat from the war,

a short helicopter ride away.

Nothing could be more
of a contrast to the war

than their cocktail
hour back at the hotels.

- We stayed at a hotel in Lạm Sơn Square,

which is bang next to
the Congress Building,

the safest part of town.

That little center seemed to be protected.

Saigon was a fantastic place to be.

- Not a very exciting atmosphere.

Didn't seem to be in
great danger at that time.

There were French restaurants.

There were, there was an old
French residual community there

who were very attached to Vietnam,

who had Vietnamese wives, a lot of them.

- It was French, you know,
the wide streets, the plazas,

the squares, the trees, the
flowers, and the restaurants.

You could go to war in the
most horrific circumstances,

and see some rather dreadful things,

and then you'd come back
and got into Saigon,

cross the road, and have
the most superb French meal

with quite excellent French wine.

(weapons exploding)

- [Narrator] The American public
has no escape from the war.

General Westmoreland's requests
for more troops had required

students to be drafted.

This results in an
increase in demonstrations,

as the public feel helpless
against this distance struggle.

The Hồ Chí Minh Trail was developed

from earlier footpaths used for trading.

It started just south of Hanoi,

and due to the mountain range Trong Song,

the trail dropped into Laos and Cambodia,

and then into South
Vietnam, west of Đà Lạt.

At first, it took several
months to reach the south.

However, the volume of
traffic expanded gradually,

from carrying loads on
soldiers' backs or in carts,

to improvements being made
to accommodate heavy trucks.

Dotted along the routes
were fuel storage tanks,

and field hospitals.

The trail was covered by
the heavy jungle canopy,

and therefore hidden
from U.S. bombing raids,

until the bombing became so
intense, destroying the jungle,

and using agent orange to defoliate.

Even so, the determination

of the North Vietnamese would just make

another path around to
join the trail again.

This trail was supplying
several hundred thousand troops

in the south against the U.S.

- My unit was trying to
achieve a workable interdiction

of the Hồ Chí Minh Trail where
it came into South Vietnam,

north of Saigon.

- They armed Hồ Chí Minh
trail with a supply trail

that ramped down through Laos,

and laterally through Cambodia.

- The Hồ Chí Minh Trail was,
in fact, a series of trails,

some of them big enough
to take vehicles down

as they carried the stuff.

It was weapons, food,
medicine, that sort of thing

for the fighters in the south,

either North Vietnamese or Viet Cong.

(explosion)

So the bulk of the people
we fought in firefights were

either North Vietnamese coming
down the trail, or Viet Cong.

- The great story of
the war, the best story

of the war was never told,

because the best story of the
war was the Hồ Chí Minh Trail.

How the guys got from North Vietnam,

from Hanoi, to a large
extent, into South Vietnam,

and when they got to South Vietnam,

managed to fight is superhuman.

- A year of my life was spent
either ambushing people,

or trying to avoid being ambushed by them.

That was it.

It was ambush warfare,

and that's what the nature
of the firefights were.

- The fantasy, the
journalistic fantasy was to go

down the trail with the North Vietnamese,

but it never happened.

- [Reporter] For years now,

the Viet Cong have been
strong in the Delta.

It's where they've always raised
taxes, food, and recruits,

and recently, they've
even been enrolling boys

of 14 and 15, but the Americans say

that since the Tet Offensive,

Viet Cong tactics have
become much more aggressive.

- Pressure came down from
the top levels to inflate

the body count, and
sometimes this was done

with false reporting of the number

of Communists killed
in particular actions,

but also including civilian
casualties in the body count.

- [Reporter] The Americans
thought they'd succeeded

in keeping at least the main waterways

of the delta clear of Viet Cong,

but now they find that they
are not safe, even there.

- The person who first realized

Hồ Chí Minh's strategy
was Robert McNamara,

that the Communists were controlling

the action in the battlefield.

They could attack, and run away at will,

so they could control how
many people they were losing,

what their casualties were,

and all they were doing was
keeping their casualties

down to below their birth rate,

which meant, essentially,
they could fight forever.

And of course the Americans
were going to fight forever.

Eventually they'd go home.

- The NLF also were
able to keep recruiting

amongst people who were disillusioned,

or disgusted by the
distraction and the casualties

inflicted on the Vietnamese
rural population.

- It was the kind of place
where you had, you know,

brothers fighting for the
ARVN, the South Vietnamese army

run by the South Vietnamese
American puppets,

and then you had his
brother in the Viet Cong,

and the Americans could never
understand what was going on.

They didn't understand the language.

They didn't understand the culture.

They didn't understand
how that was possible.

I mean, there weren't any, can you imagine

the second world war, you have one a GI,

and his brother is with the Nazis?

Unimaginable,

but this is what was going
on through the whole war.

(weapons exploding)

- [Narrator] President Johnson continues

this huge U.S. bombing
campaign of Rolling Thunder,

targeting the Hồ Chí Minh
Trail in the mainland.

The tonnage of ordnance would surpass

all that was dropped in World War II.

♪ In this dirty old part of the city ♪

- Make no mistake about it,
I don't want a man in here

to go back home thinking otherwise.

We are going to win.

♪ You'll be dead before
your time is due, I know ♪

- There's another aspect to the war

in Vietnam, which is race.

This for the first time,
there was a major commitment

of mixed race units.

A lot of young black Americans
wanted to prove their status

in America as a sign of
their manhood, if you will.

He wanted to get young
black men into the Army,

so they could supply proper
medical assistance to them,

give them education, and
get them out of the ghettos,

and improve their lot.

As the war started to go badly,

the black guys said, "Well, hold up.

Why are we dying over here,

when the enemies back home in America?"

♪ We gotta get out of this place ♪

♪ If it's the last thing we ever do ♪

- [Narrator] In the
early years of the war,

the black and Latino
soldiers were professionals

in mostly mixed race units.

By the end of 1968,

draftees account for over
30% of American troops.

Amongst these are many black
soldiers who were growing

more and more disaffected
in what they call

the white man's war, when there
were so many racial issues

to deal with back home.

As the casualty rates increased,

conscription was now to
include college students,

who had previously been exempt.

This meant that although the
majority of us soldiers were

still volunteers, their
numbers now included

middle-class white Americans
who were forced to defer

their university education.

♪ We gotta get out of this place ♪

♪ If it's the last thing we ever do ♪

- When I first went out there in '68,

the majority of the infantry men,

they were all working class Americans,

but when the Americans abandon
this avoidance of the draft,

and suddenly in Vietnam
we saw the arrival,

not of the officer class,

but of white, middle-class
kids in the ranks.

- These are young men
who have to go and fight,

and the draft comes here to say

you may have to fight against your will,

and then the whole idea of
the draft dodger comes in.

- Well, it wasn't the fact so much

that they were university students.

It was the middle class.

The middle class was getting drafted,

not a chance, forget it,

which is why there hasn't
been a draft since then.

World Aar II draft was, I mean,

everybody believed in the war.

- You suddenly had middle-class
kids being drafted in

to do the same job, and they
were writing letters home,

and their parents were
appealing to their congressmen,

and that's when it all started to change.

♪ Watched his hair been
turnin' grey, yeah ♪

- Giant protests were not only,

not even so much the
soldiers as their mothers,

because, "What the hell is
my boy doing in Vietnam?

He should be doing his graduate work now."

Well, you could get a
student deferment for awhile,

but the middle class was getting drafted,

which you can make a
coherent theory saying

that that's why we lost the war.

♪ If it's the last thing we ever do ♪

- They're only going
there for a year tour,

whereas the Vietnamese fighters
are there all the time.

So every time you send a fresh
young guy who's just come

out of college, they have to start again

with a new guy, who knows nothing.

- All the challenges have been met.

The enemy is not beaten,
but he knows that he has met

his master in the field.

- [Narrator] President Johnson
was under tremendous pressure

over the lack of victory in Vietnam.

The battle of Huế had been the response

to the Tet Offensive, as
U.S. forces managed to regain

the territories that had been lost,

but all their claims of victory
were like dust in the hand,

because this amounted to only a stalemate.

In addition, at home, despite
all his efforts to pass

the Civil Rights Act through
Congress to become law,

the lack of improvement for
the black situation caused

the black power movement
to be active against him.

The democratic party
splits into many factions.

Johnson does badly in the
New Hampshire primary,

and ends his bid for reelection.

The nation is stunned.

- With America's sons
in the fields far away,

with America's future under
challenge right here at home,

with our hopes, and the world's hopes

for peace in the balance every day,

I do not believe that I
should devote an hour or a day

of my time to any
personal partisan causes,

or to any duties other
than the awesome duties

of this office, the
presidency of your country.

Accordingly, I shall not seek,

and I will not accept the
nomination of my party

for another term as your president.

- The famous CBS anchor, Walter Cronkite,

he hadn't been in Vietnam since 1965.

He went back, saw what he had to see,

and said on American television,

"We're not winning.

We can't win."

And at this point, President Johnson says,

"If I've lost Walter, I've
lost the American public,"

and he resigned.

- [Narrator] A strike in Memphis causes

Martin Luther king Jr. to
return to his home town.

After his March had been
interrupted with civil unrest,

he gave his "I came to
the mountaintop" speech.

- I've looked over,

and I've seen the promised land.

I may not get there with you,

but I want you to know tonight

that we as a people will
get to the promised land.

(crowd cheering)

So I'm happy tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man.

Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord.

- [Narrator] At his motel the next day,

preparing to leave for another meeting,

Martin Luther king Jr. is
shot in the head, and dies.

That April sees the beginning
of riots in many U.S. cities.

♪ Like a bird on a wire ♪

♪ Like a drunk in a midnight choir ♪

For Hồ Chí Minh and General Giáp,

unification of Vietnam was non-negotiable.

Peace talks were just another
tactic to slow down the war.

In 1966, Hồ Chí Minh stated

that North Vietnam was willing to make war

for the next 20 years,

but if the Americans want to make peace,

we shall make peace, and
invite them to afternoon tea.

In May, 1968, the first
peace talks begin in Paris,

but end in stalemate.

This process of meeting in
peace talks would continue

for more than four years.

Now that President
Johnson's not in the running

for reelection, Robert Kennedy is

the most promising candidate

for the democratic
presidential nomination.

On June 5th, Robert Kennedy
wins the California primary

at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles.

- My thanks to all of you,

and now it's on to Chicago,
and let's win there.

(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] Leaving the
hotel through the kitchen,

he is shot three times,
and dies later in hospital.

♪ And if I ever been unkind ♪

- Robert Kennedy was the
great white liberal hope,

and he turned against the war in Vietnam,

and as his brother had got them in there

in the first place, it only seemed apt.

- He was a threat to Lyndon Johnson,

but Lyndon Johnson about that time decided

that he would not run in November,

and Hubert Humphrey then had to run

for president of the democratic party,

and of course, Nixon's against him.

- Let me tell you what
those four years have done

to America, the longest war
that America has ever had

in it's history, the worst
crime wave we've ever had

in our history, the highest
taxes we've ever had

in our history, the highest
rate in the cost of living

that we've had in a generation,
and the lowest respect

for the United States of
America in our history.

(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] As the squabbling

for the presidential election continues,

violent conflict breaks out,

particularly in Newark and Detroit.

In Chicago, a huge anti-war protest

outside the Democratic
National Convention leads

to ugly clashes with police.

(crowd clamoring)

Hubert Humphrey gains the
democratic nomination,

but loses to Nixon by a
majority vote of less than 1%.

- Along comes President Nixon,

who promises peace with honor,

and to get the boys out of there.

Everything's gonna be all night.

- I decided in my mind, I
was in Vietnam at the time,

that I would vote for Nixon,

because he, rather than Hubert
Humphrey would end the war,

and he would find some way to extricate

the United States out of that mess.

- Unfortunately, that's
not what he gave America.

He pulled some of the people out.

He expanded the war
into Cambodia and Laos.

- However, less than
two months into office,

President Nixon orders the
secret bombing of Cambodia,

ostensibly to destroy
the Hồ Chí Minh Trail,

and the supply enclaves
just over the border.

This covert bombing of
over half a million tons

of ordnance would actually
stretch across the whole

of Cambodia, and was carried
out without the knowledge

of Congress, or the U.S. public.

- We will aid Cambodia.

Cambodia is the Nixon
doctrine in its purest form.

In Cambodia, what we are doing is helping

the Cambodians to help themselves.

♪ All along the watchtower ♪

♪ Princes kept the view ♪

- As part of Nixon's
strategy of reducing soldiers

on the ground, and attacking
the Vietnamese Communists,

while trying to negotiate peace in Paris,

he launched an illegal bombing

against the Viet Cong camps in Cambodia,

and even followed up
with an illegal invasion.

- Richard Nixon gave the order
for the strategic bombing

of Cambodia, using U.S. B-52,

high altitude bombing aircraft,

and the escalation of the
bombing of Cambodia occurred

from March, 1969.

- The war then spilled
over from South Vietnam.

We'd learned later there had been

secret American bombing going on,

with the South Vietnamese forces,

and Americans moved into
Cambodia to try and wipe out

the Vietnamese Communist sanctuary areas

in the eastern part of Cambodia,

which bordered on South Vietnam.

(weapons exploding)

- [Narrator] Hồ Chí Minh dies.

General Giáp carries on
the strategy of the war.

The age of Aquarius ends
with students being shot down

by the Ohio National Guard.

South Vietnam has lost its U.S. support,

and fights a desperate war
alone against the norm.

Nixon's secret war crimes
are brought to light

in the Pentagon Papers,
in the Washington Post,

with the New York Times.

General Giáp still stands
strong for the north,

as the war in Vietnam rages on

(Jimi Hendrix All Along the
Watchtower continues to play)