Original subtitles

From a political standpoint,

we could've flushed it down the drain three years ago.

Blame Johnson and Kennedy.

This is essentially a political war,

because it's a war for men's minds.

And, uh, if we lose the minds

of these people,

we lose the minds of the officer corps and of the civil servants,

we will have lost the war.

There are increasing reports, uh,

in Saigon and in Huế, as well,

that students are talking of moving over to the Việt Cộng side.

While I can report, Mr. President,

definite progress and increasing strength in the government forces,

the progress is slow.

And it's very, very slow,

slower than we would like to see.

I think that the most urgent

is to decide not to be intoxicated anymore

by the propaganda, uh, plot

directed by the Communists.

Ngô Đình Nhu, who is a policeman,

only thing in his mind is torture and kill.

When the South Vietnamese came in our village,

they put a big Ngô Đình Diệm photo and a cross

right inside our temple, or our altar.

They made us bow to Ngô Đình Diệm,

and they talking about him as just like a god.

Like he is somebody that's so important to us.

We don't care. We just want to be peaceful.

We want to worship our ancestors, hang up the Buddhist flag.

But the next thing we know that, everybody's killed.

They killed the leaders in the village.

They killed the monks. They buried them alive.

So they killed

whoever they think that's Việt Cộng.

And so, more them doing that,

the more our family and 90% of the villagers,

yeah, we join the Việt Cộng, we stand up and we fight.

And so daytime, we praise the Ngô Đình Diệm.

The nighttime, we praise Hồ Chí Minh.

One Buddhist monk died

to figure out how could he help to save the people.

Only way he can do is to give himself up.

What have the Buddhist leaders done comparatively?

The only thing they have done,

they have, uh, barbecued one of their monks,

uh, whom they have intoxicated,

whom they have abused the confidence.

And even that barbecuing was done, uh,

not even with self-sufficient means.

Because they-- they used, uh, imported, uh, gasoline.

The heart of the matter is

that they've established a police state,

and that they're interfering with the liberties of the people,

and that you have resentments

born of that.

- Right, yeah. - Right?

President Diệm, from my standpoint,

was the person who rebuilt the country.

But at his side, Ngô Đinh Nhu brought about events

which made Diệm look bad.

Dissent began to brew from within the military ranks.

You have to assume

that Diệm has felt that there's going to be a coup against him

for probably the last couple of months.

They sent a convoy to Cha Tam Church to pick up Mr. President

and Mr. Advisor to bring them back.

Captain Nhung was Lieutenant General Dương Văn Minh's closest bodyguard.

Later, it was learned that while sitting in the armored vehicle,

he used a dagger blade

to stab Ngô Đình Nhu once, causing him to collapse on his seat.

He was about to stab once more, but he saw Ngô Đình Diệm on the side

slightly leaning toward him, so he stabbed him once instead.

He stabbed them one more time each,

then shot them with his pistol.

That is what's called a "mercy shot."

Treason does not pay.

And nobody can rule Vietnam,

can rule Vietnam with just money and puppets.

And all those whom some of the Americans intend to settle and to tutor,

for how long will they hold power

if they ever hold power?

I, uh, feel that we must bear

a good deal of responsibility for it,

beginning with our cable of early August

I was, uh, shocked by the death of Diệm and Nhu.

I met Diệm with Justice Douglas many years ago.

He was a... an extraordinary character.

While he... became increasingly difficult in the last months,

nevertheless, over a ten-year period, he held his country together,

maintained its independence under very adverse conditions.

He...

The way he was killed made it particularly... abhorrent.

When President Ngô Đình Diệm got assassinated, my father came home.

He said that, "It not gonna be a good time anymore."

"It can be a lot of chaos."

"Nobody can deal with Hồ Chí Minh,

can deal with the Communists, like President Ngô Đình Diệm."

I would like to have, for this period when everybody is asking me,

something in my own words.

I can say, "Well, here are-- here are the alternatives,

and here's our theory, and here's what we're basing it on."

I do think, Mr. President,

that it would be wise for you to say as little as possible.

The frank answer is, we don't know what's going on out there.

The signs I see coming through the cables

are-- are disturbing signs.

They fired at us. We responded immediately.

And we took out one of their boats, put the other two running.

We kept... We're putting our boats right there. We're not running--

Our instructions are to destroy--

That's right.

Now I want to leave an impression on the people we talk to over here

that we're gonna be firm as hell.

We oughtn't do anything

that the national interest doesn't require,

but we sure ought to always leave the impression

that if you shoot at us, you're going to get hit.

Mr. President, we, uh, just got a, uh, report

from the commander of that task force out there

that they have sighted two unidentified vessels

and three unidentified prop aircraft in the vicinity of the destroyers.

Uh, what else do we have out there?

We have ample forces to respond

not only to these attacks on the destroyers

but also to retaliate,

should you wish to do so, against targets on the land.

I think I might get, uh, Dean Rusk and Mac Bundy, have 'em come over here,

and we'll go over these retaliatory actions.

It's going to be difficult for us to, very long, prosecute effectively

a war that far away from home.

To the West, it's just a movie.

A John Wayne movie.

But to the village, it's real.

It's just so sad and suffering,

the people who have nothing to do with the politics.

Everybody killing everybody.