Original subtitles

I would remind you that Scripture tells us...

that blessed are the peacemakers.

I want to underscore the word "makers. "

And it takes a lot of doing...

to make peace.

It takes a good deal of hard work...

building like a mighty cathedral...

stone by stone, block by block.

And I sometimes wonder...

why we Americans enjoy...

punishing ourselves so much...

with our own criticism.

This is a pretty good land.

I'm not saying you never had it so good.

But that is a fact, isn't it?

I think the most significant aspect...

has been the suppression of political activity...

to force the people to go underground...

and to understand politics...

only as revolutionary struggle and not a political struggle.

In other words, you can only have a chance...

to change a regime only by revolution...

and not by an electoral process or a democratic process.

One of the most important things concerning Ho Chi Minh...

is the fact that he spent so long- years- out of his country...

and that, nevertheless, he has the touch and feel...

of the peasantry of his country, of the village...

for village life in Vietnam...

is the essential of the life of the nation.

I would just give you one anecdote to show you that connection.

When he, for the first time, met a press-

gave a press conference in Hanoi...

in 1945...

where he came for the first time as a leader of his nation...

in front of the public...

he said to the people there...

"I can't tell you what you have to do...

but I can show it to you. "

Put his thumb on the table...

and said...

"If everywhere where you put your thumb...

"on the sacred earth of Vietnam...

"there is a plant growing, then we will succeed.

If not, not. "

Now, this is, again, one of the points where Ho...

on one hand, is a Marxist economist...

who knows the importance of the basic production...

and, on the other hand, a Confucian scholar...

because what you have to have in mind to understand that idea...

of the thumb on the earth...

is a simple Chinese proverb.

"A thumb square...

"of planting rice...

"is more precious...

than a thumb square of gold. "

We are now in a very interesting place about Ho Chi Minh...

because, in this place...

which is now a locksmith, a key maker...

was 14 years ago...

the place where he founded...

and edited le Paria...

the first newspaper he edited.

And in this very place...

the life of Ho Chi Minh changed, in my opinion.

Where Ho Chi Minh, who came in 1917 in Paris...

as a peasant, an Asian peasant...

became really revolutionary...

and an internationalist.

He was born in a poor and little village...

at Kim Lien near Vinh...

a now-destroyed city of Central Vietnam.

He was the son of a very poor man...

but the man was a mandarin, a literate man...

and this man was condemned by the French...

because his nationalism.

And all the life of Ho Chi Minh was directed by...

this very injustice...

made to his father...

by the French colonizers.

In this family, they were nationalists...

since the very beginning.

He left Vietnam, went on a boat...

landed at New York, at London...

at Le Havre and, after that, in Paris...

where he became, first, a socialist...

after that, a communist.

Went on over to the White House, and it came back...

with the very tight, round hand of Franklin Roosevelt.

"I want no French returned to Indochina.

F.D.R."

And I remember the excitement I felt...

that this was probably the first...

clear U.S. Policy...

towards a Southeast Asian state.

The thing that I think we failed to recognize...

is that Ho Chi Minh...

communist or whatnot...

is considered by the people of Vietnam -

and I'm speaking now of millions in South Vietnam -

as the George Washington of his country.

He's the man that they think threw off the French...

the colonialists.

Just as we had our...

1776...

they had theirs in the 1940s.

He also led an underground movement...

against the Japanese, who had occupied Vietnam...

and the whole Indochina peninsula during World War II.

And whether we like him or not...

whether we like...

the particular economic system, the social system that he might develop or not...

we must remember that he is, indeed...

considered by many-

the peasants, the small people...

the little people in South Vietnam and North Vietnam-

as the George Washington of his country.

General Gracey was the principal British officer...

responsible for accepting the surrender of the Japanese...

in French Indochina south of the 16th parallel.

And that was his mission.

But after he arrived in Saigon...

with his troops...

he found that the French were without means...

of maintaining law and order...

and so he-as I understand it and as I recall it-

he took the weapons...

that he derived from the Japanese...

and turned them over to French...

military officers and men.

If this had not been done...

in all probability...

the French could not have recaptured their control at Saigon.

I met Ho Chi Minh for the first time...

in Hanoi at the end of'45.

Sent there by d'Argenlieu, a high commissioner...

sent by de Gaulle in Saigon.

Wanted me to contact the Viet Minh leader for the first time.

I said to him, "I am sent to you by the high commissioner...

"in the name of General de Gaulle...

"to tell you...

that we want Vietnam to join us in the French union. "

Looked at me and he said, "The French union?

"What's that?

Is it a circle, or is it a square?"

That was a test...

because there is a Chinese proverb-

a lot of Chinese proverbs-

which identify heaven and intelligence...

with the circle...

and earth and solidity with the square.

Is it an idea, or is it a fact? Is it somewhere?

So I answered, and I think it's one of the occasions...

where Ho Chi Minh has been just a little surprised.

I answered, "I don't know. " He said, "But what are you doing here?"

I said, "I came to ask you because we have to build it together. "

Towards the end of November of 1946...

when the admiral commanding the French fleet...

in the Bay of Tonkin...

in his words, decided to teach the Vietnamese government a hard lesson...

the fleet stood off of Haiphong and shelled the city...

until between 6,000 and 10,000 were killed.

He said, "I have no army. " That's not true now.

"I have no army. " 1945.

"I have no finance.

"I have no diplomacy.

"I have no public instruction.

"I have just hatred...

"and I will not disarm it...

until you give me confidence in you. "

Now, this is the thing on which I would insist...

because it's still alive in his memory, as in mine.

For every time Ho Chi Minh has trusted us...

we betrayed him.

Here you had a country...

which was not just divided...

at the 17th parallel.

You had fought the Indochina war...

and all the best and most talented Vietnamese of a generation...

had faced, in 1946 and 1947...

the alternative of the French...

or the Viet Minh.

The best of a generation-

the kind of young men who would join up the day after Pearl Harbor in this country.

Are you going to fight to kick out the French, or are you going to be a French puppet?

So the most talented people of a generation all signed up...

and the Viet Minh won this war...

and it was an enormously popular national war.

At the end of it, they came up with a dynamic society which had won a war...

which was tested, which was tough...

which had brought up to the top the very best of a generation.

There are some similarities...

between the French...

effort in the Indochina war in Vietnam...

and the Americans.

The Americans are just so much more powerful than the French were.

They have so much more artillery.

They have so much more air power. They have so many more men.

They have so much more wealth than the French ever had.

So that they're not going to be any Dien Bien Phus...

in the American presence there.

In Washington, the U.S. Secretary of Defense-

The equipment which we have sent to Indochina...

is highly technical...

so we are sending technicians...

as a temporary training force.

We are sending planes, but no pilots.

We are not sending combat troops.

We have seen no reason for the abandonment...

of the so-called Navarre Plan.

That plan, as you may recall, broadly speaking...

was a two-year plan...

and contemplated a very substantial buildup of local forces...

and their training and equipment.

The French moved in to Dien Bien Phu in 1953-

in January of 1953.

Parachute battalion came into the area.

The idea was- There were two aspects of it.

One, to control the piece of ground and then to prevent the Viet Minh...

from sweeping on into Laos.

I do not expect that there is going to be a communist victory...

in Indochina.

By that, I don't mean that there may not be local affairs...

where one side or the other will win victories.

But in terms of a communist domination of Indochina...

that I do not accept as a probability.

The French generals did not believe...

that artillery could be brought to bear in sufficient quantity...

so, correspondingly, they were not active...

in their patrolling outside of their particular perimeter.

The feature was to keep the focus on the area...

not to cause the quick rush of the battle position...

but to build the particular battle position.

The French miscalculated -

as, I think, did we -

in the degree of sophistication of the weaponry...

that was deployed on the high ground.

We didn't think they could get these pieces up there...

but they did somehow.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu...

is a significant phenomenon in military history...

and from all of the standpoints that one views a war.

It achieved a particular political objective...

in the full Clausewitzian sense of the term.

It represented a tremendous logistical effort...

on the part of the North Vietnamese...

or of General Giap...

to move the artillery pieces...

which changed the balance of this particular battle significantly.

Forces of aggression seem to be concentrating just at one point...

at Dien Bien Phu...

where the resistance is extremely gallant...

against overwhelming odds.

The French had begun the war as a colonial war.

They try many times to change this very nature of the war-

trying to change it in a civil war...

a war between the right and the left in Vietnam...

and, after that, an international war...

a crusade against communism.

It was clear that the French were in deep trouble in Dien Bien Phu.

And then Admiral Radford thought that if we went in with air...

we could knock 'em out.

Senator Morton, as you know from my letter to you...

we are very interested in a meeting-

It was called by Mr. Secretary Dulles and Admiral Radford...

in which you played a part...

and in which eight members of the congress of the United States were present-

five senators and two representatives.

I wonder if you could give us your best recollection of who was at that meeting-

Senator Morton, sound one, take one.

There was a meeting - I've forgotten the exact date.

This can be easily ascertained.

I assume that the records have been kept.

The burden of it was...

Admiral Radford's feeling...

that we should really move in...

and bring active support to the French.

Specifically, air support from carrier base -

from carriers.

Carriers were available in the nearby area.

How many missions could have been mounted? I don't know.

I didn't get into the military details.

And it was felt that the artillery...

that they had on the high ground...

could be destroyed by air attack.

They fail always because they were always seen by the Vietnamese...

as a foreign power...

trying to get back its colonial power.

That is why they lost the war at Dien Bien Phu.

Dien Bien Phu has fallen.

I join with you in paying tribute...

to the gallant defenders.

May it be given us to play a worthy part...

to defend the values for which they gave their lives.

The defense of Dien Bien Phu of 57 days and nights...

will go down in history as one of the most heroic of all time.

The defenders, composed of French and native forces...

inflicted staggering losses on the enemy.

In Giap's treatment, Giap's writing about this...

it appears that he was well ready-

in Dien Bien Phu, he was ready-

if he had chosen to assault and did not-

some eight weeks before the final movement took place.

I would submit that the reason for this...

is that Giap and Ho Chi Minh understood the political nature...

of this particular battle...

and they wanted the politics...

the public opinion in France...

and in the rest of the world, among the other powers...

to build, to give this a great deal more importance than it had militarily.

I think the American people this fall...

when they elect a congress -

all of the congressmen, one-third of the senate -

regardless of whether they're gonna vote Democrat or Republican...

should ask those senators and congressmen...

"Mister, if we send you to Washington...

"are you going to continue...

"sending American money...

"to nations which, in turn...

"shift the sinews of economic and military strength...

to Red China, which is running the war in Indochina?"

Keeping in mind that if we lose Indochina, Mr. Jenkins...

we will lose the Pacific...

and we'll be an island in a communist sea?

Situation in the area as we found it...

was that it was subject to the so-called domino theory.

That meant that if one nation went, then another nation would go, and so on.

We're trying to change that so it won't be the case.

That's the whole theory of collective security.

Agreement between the commander-in-chief...

of the French union forces in Indochina...

and of the commander-in-chief of the People's Army of Vietnam...

on the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam...

signed at Geneva, July 20, 1954.

"Article 14:

"Pending the general elections, which will bring about the unification of Vietnam...

"the conduct of civil administration in each regrouping zone...

"shall be in the hands of the party whose forces are to be regrouped there...

"in virtue of the present agreement.

"Article 16:

"With effect from the date of entry into force of the present agreement...

"the introduction into Vietnam of any troop reinforcements...

"and additional military personnel...

"is prohibited.

"Article 18:

"With effect from the date of entry into force of the present agreement...

"the establishment of new military bases...

is prohibited throughout Vietnam territory. "

We support the objectives that are involved in this thing...

because it was done in the Eisenhower administration...

in 1954.

We were not signers...

of the so-called Class "B" Treaty or Convention at Geneva, Switzerland...

but we did make a formal and solemn pledge...

that we were going to safeguard...

the independence and the freedom...

of Vietnam.

Now, we can renege, if we like...

but what will happen to our credibility in the world...

if we take that course?

Every day someone jumps up and shouts and says...

"Tell us what is happening in Vietnam and why are we in Vietnam...

and how did you get us into Vietnam?"

Well, I didn't get you into Vietnam.

You've been in Vietnam 10 years.

Saigon was in a state of civil war.

The rebel Binh Xuyen movement tried to incite the people to overthrow the government.

In 36 hours' nonstop fighting, 500 were killed, more than a thousand wounded.

Vietnam Premier Diem was still in office...

when we received these pictures.

Unfortunately, the West does not agree about Saigon.

General Ely, on-the-spot commander for France...

is instructed to oppose Diem.

Malcolm MacDonald has flown there reportedly to do the same.

Whereas America stands behind Premier Diem.

Meanwhile, Saigon suffers the agonies of civil war.

In Cannes is the absentee Emperor Bao Dai.

First reported deposed, Bao Dai may stage a comeback.

As it is, Vietnam seems ripe for communist invasion.

Diem, I said before, was the man of the hour. Why?

Once colonialism came to an end...

through the victory of the Viet Minh against the French at Dien Bien Phu...

and through the agreement in Geneva...

this trend in Vietnamese history...

which favored the communists exclusively...

could be broken.

Since colonialism, the creator of communism, so to speak...

was now dead...

there was a chance that other forces...

might be able to compete with Ho Chi Minh.

However, under certain conditions.

They had to be as nationalistic as Ho Chi Minh.

They had to be free of the taint of collaboration with the French.

They had to be the opposite of puppets...

of colonialism.

Now, Diem was precisely that man.

A lot of it was rather skillfully done in public relations, I think.

There's no doubt about that.

There was sort of a cult of the little fellow in the sharkskin suit...

and the little mandarin who's going to stop the Reds.

There was a great many articles along this line-

sort of Ngo Dinh Diem, our man in Saigon.

You have exemplified, in your corner of the world...

patriotism of the highest order.

You have brought to your great task of organizing your country...

the greatest of courage, the greatest of statesmanship -

qualities that have aroused our admiration...

and make us, indeed, glad to welcome you.

I thank you very much.

Apart of my involvement with Vietnam was to be active...

in founding the so-called American Friends of Vietnam...

a private organization dedicated to the promotion...

of understanding, the spread of information...

and support of Diem.

I was, in fact, more or less running the organization...

as chairman of the executive committee.

The American Friends of Vietnam was a lobby group...

set up, I think, about 1955...

really to lobby for the Ngo Dinh Diem regime...

in this country.

I think the particularly interesting thing about it was so much of it...

and so many of its more distinguished names were liberal names.

People like Max Lerner and Arthur Schlesinger...

Senator John F. Kennedy.

People like that.

This gave, of course, the Diem government a very good liberal umbrella.

I mean, the sensitivities and the sensibilities...

of many liberal people who might otherwise have been dubious about that regime...

were eased off.

The Diem regime got, right from the start, I think, the benefit of the doubt.

It is understand the plan...

that the interest of the Vietnam...

are identical with the interest...

of the people of the free world.

It is on this plan -

It is on this plan...

that your and our fight...

is one and the same.

We do - We'll continue to fight communism.

It is not- It may be repeated here -

There is no two Vietnams.

There is only one Vietnam...

temporarily divided in Geneva in '54...

between a free zone, which is North Vietnam...

and an occupied zone, occupied by the French -

but the French had still, after Geneva, the jurisdiction over South Vietnam...

because they could not hand it over to a regime which did not exist.

It is not even mentioned in the Geneva agreement.

The regime of Saigon is only a temporary one...

in waiting for election.

The refusal was amply justified...

if only because the kind of election...

envisaged by the Geneva agreement of 1954-

a free election -

could not have been held.

Anyone who thinks that a free election...

was possible in communist North Vietnam...

knows little of how communists operate...

and could have fallen into a Moscow-Peiping trap.

The United States could not agree today...

any more than in 1956...

to legitimizing communist control...

of all Vietnam by a device of a communist-style election.

You all have sat with me...

on the Foreign Relations Committee in 1956...

when our intelligence forces brought in their reports warning...

that if the election called for by the Geneva accords...

for July 1956 were held...

Ho Chi Minh would be elected president in South Vietnam...

by at least 80% of the vote.

And our country that boasts about believing in self-determination...

used its power and its prestige and its influence...

really to get our first puppet government under Diem...

not to cooperate in holding those elections.

That's just a matter of historic record.

As you know, when Ngo Dinh Diem and Nhu...

were finally killed in 1963...

some 50,000 to 60,000-

the precise number is not readily available -

but some 50,000 to 60,000 political prisoners...

were released from prisons in South Vietnam subsequent to this.

Uh, elements of the rotating governments...

that followed the death of Diem and Nhu...

have indicated that most of those people...

were not Vietcong sympathizers in any way, shape or form...

which would indicate that all political...

activity that was antithetical to Diem and Nhu...

was met either with murder in the south or imprisonment.

And from 1958...

we see the existence, confirmed by some American experts...

and some broadcasts from -

of a National Front for Liberation of South Vietnam.

It was, in fact, a consolidation of all the forces...

who, for years, were struggling against the Diem regime...

and it was not, as it has been said too much and too often...

the political arm of Hanoi.

The National Front for Liberation included the former remnants...

of this political religious sects, Cao Dai and Hao...

Binh Xuyen too, the former Viet Minh...

and the democratic party, the radical socialist party...

and various other elements who are united in the common aim...

to overthrow the regime, to create the coalition government...

democratic regime in the south...

in order to be able to discuss with the north the provision of Geneva.

That means the end of the occupation regime in the south...

and peaceful reunification between the two parts of Vietnam.

Uh, the Front is not what you would call a puppet of Hanoi.

The two organizations -

and I do stress they are two organizations -

work very closely together.

Many of their aims are parallel aims...

but their ideas do not always coincide...

and, indeed, sometimes their policies are in conflict.

A land reform was a total failure.

They were sporadic attempts to try and deal with land...

but they never had any real support from Diem.

What he did was that he gave...

to the 1,200,000 tenants...

some land.

Actually, didn't give it to them.

He sanctioned the fact that the Viet Minh had given it to them.

But he made them pay for it now.

The downhill trend of the Diem regime...

is best described...

by the increase of corruption...

by the increase of the influence...

of a near psychopath like his brother Nhu...

and his wife, Madame Nhu...

both of whom had a drive for power...

which I can only describe as pathological.

I had, once, dinner with them...

and Nhu told me, "You see...

"we could have an opposition in Vietnam...

"if I led it...

"but since I'm the only intelligent man in South Vietnam...

"all my mental capacity...

"goes into leading my brother...

"to rule South Vietnam.

I have nothing left to organize an opposition. "

Now, this kind of conceit is, of course, pathological.

However, this man gained more and more influence over Diem...

together with his wife.

This is the kind of psychology you had in a turbulent, changing Asia.

This old, sort of mandarin idea that I am-

I have this almost divine right to rule.

How can you challenge what I say, because I'm incorruptible?

Staley bought this strategic hamlet from Nhu.

Nhu brought it out as a new little goodie - no pun intended -

but came up with the strategic hamlet...

and this amounted to the same old approach of forced relocation...

the living behind bars...

the total regimentation of the social and the fabric of the society.

One of the more significant things about the strategic hamlet...

is that they were physically and literally demolished by the Vietcong...

after Diem and Nhu were killed.

Every stick was taken down and every piece of wire.

The enemy took this off to make use of it...

and told the people, "Return to your ancestral homes. "

And at that time they began to take effective control over the countryside.

Diem was corrupted on vanity and power...

Nhu on his own ego...

Madame Nhu, certainly, on power.

She was the one who really understood what they were doing the most.

She was the most realistic one.

She had no illusions about them. She was a smart, strong, dynamic woman.

No illusions about herself. And she tended to set policy.

She knew what they wanted.

She didn't worry about what the Americans were saying-

be nice, or do this nice, popular thing.

The important thing to her was the survival of the family.

Anybody who got in the way of the survival of the family was a threat.

In this affair, I do not think that we should worry too much...

because we have the same faith.

Whatever happens in my country, we shall not feel it alone.

You, also -You will feel it.

The base of Diem was his army, which was American-supported...

and American aid coming through...

and the police force...

and, generally, an increasingly police-state technique.

But there was no dissent. They controlled the legislature, which was a rubber stamp.

About the question of a horrible stamp...

I have repeatedly said...

"But what's wrong to have a stamp the laws we approve?"

A major policy paper issued by the State Department...

in December of 1961...

stated flatly- and I quote...

"The years 1956 to 1960...

"produced something close to an economic miracle...

"in South Vietnam.

"It is a report of progress over a few brief years...

equaled by few young countries. "

It has been said by Confucius, wonderfully well -

He said, "Never have laws too precise...

"because the precision of the law gives a possibility to get around it.

"Have laws that are built by governments...

"which are reliable, which know you...

which are close to you. "

And this is how, in the organization of the Vietnamese society...

the village was so essential.

And I think that this has been the great mistake of Ngo Dinh Diem -

to replace the leader of the village...

who was the expression of the country...

the expression, as they say...

of the wind and the water...

of the locality.

He replaced that by appointed village chiefs.

Now, when the Vietcong assassinated village chiefs...

they were not at all village chiefs...

but people who were not belonging there...

and it was a scandal to a village to have them there.

And so when the Vietcong assassinated so many of those people -

and I am not a man who likes to hear...

that people have been assassinated -

And some of them might have been very good people.

The majority might have been acceptable...

if they had been the expression of the village.

But at the very point where the Vietnamese nation...

the Vietnamese earth...

arises and speaks to the government...

through the - not chiefs -

through the representatives of the village...

the elders of the village...

at that very point where the life of the country is...

Ngo Dinh Diem put, simply...

a wet blanket of functionaries.

Just at the point where was...

the life of the country...

he brought the extinguishing methods...

of a government which was not a government for the Vietnamese.

One of the very significant events...

toward the end of the Diem regime...

which indicated the degree of decay...

particularly in the morale of the army...

was the Battle of Ap Bac.

It indicated that, militarily...

the Diem regime...

was unable to handle the insurrection...

and it brought about discussions in Washington...

which eventually led to the decision...

to put in our own troops...

and not only our equipment.

The vice-president's journey represented a great public service.

There are members from both parties here today to greet him.

There were members of both parties in his group...

going around the world.

This was an American effort to indicate our great concern...

for the cause of freedom in insignificant and important countries...

around the world.

We visited in several countries...

where the population...

would add up to more than three-quarters of a billion people.

We didn't see all of those people, but we saw a good many of them...

as well as their leaders.

We never heard a hostile voice and we never shook a hostile hand.

When Vice-President Johnson...

which was also part of the '61 arrangement -

When he came to Vietnam, he announced...

a series of things that the United States was going to do.

And this is when we made a fundamental change in our policy.

I can remember Bernard Fall in 1962...

interviewing Pham Van Dong, the prime minister...

of North Vietnam...

and talking about the American aid.

And Pham Van Dong was saying...

"Poor Diem. Poor Diem. He is unpopular.

"And because he is unpopular...

"the Americans must give him aid.

"And because the Americans give him aid...

"he becomes less popular.

"And because he becomes less popular, the Americans must give him more aid.

And because they give him more aid, he becomes even less popular. "

Bernard Fall interrupted and said, "That sounds like a vicious circle. "

Pham Van Dong paused and said, "No, not a vicious circle.

A downward spiral. "

I'm Roger Hillsman.

I was Director of Intelligence and Research in the State Department...

under John F. Kennedy...

and then Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs...

under Kennedy and, for a while, under President Johnson.

The most dramatic was one day in Saigon...

when a Buddhist parade started off...

with a sort of a hypnotic chant...

the yellow-robed priests...

marching along.

And then there stepped forward a very frail old man in his 70s...

who turned out to be this priest Quang Duc.

And he assumed the lotus posture.

Another priest stepped forward and poured gasoline over him.

But I don't think anything really gives the flavor or the fever of that time...

more than to point out that when this monk burned himself...

Ngo Dinh Diem really believed that American television networks had staged this.

They had paid the Buddhists to stage this burning for their own benefit.

I mean, after all, the Americans were Diem's allies.

And then suddenly, a towering flame.

And the priests and the nuns in the audience...

moaned and prostrated themselves towards this burning figure.

And he sat there, unflinching...

and the smell of gasoline and of burning flesh in the air...

for 10 minutes.

The political effects of this were enormous.

It was so dramatic.

It hit the headlines all over the world.

It had enormous political consequences...

outside of Vietnam and inside of Vietnam.

Uh, people thought they saw...

the face of Buddha in the clouds that night.

People have spoken very much about...

the monks who burned themselves.

But those monks who burned themselves...

burned themselves because they were incited to do it.

The American idea, which was "sink or swim with Ngo Dinh Diem"-

as my colleague Homer Bigart had coined the phrase-

I think the idea of that was, well, that he had become an expendable man.

American policy had always been that he was the only man we had.

Johnson had called him the Winston Churchill of Southeast Asia...

which is a unique tribute to Mr. Churchill.

So I think with this, they had changed the American policy view -

that they were expendable.

What happened was, of course, the coup did take place...

on that day in November, and they were murdered.

It had taken place in an atmosphere...

where the Americans, who had, in a sense created this regime...

who had given it what little sustenance it had...

whose invention Ngo Dinh Diem had really always been...

had withdrawn.

Because, after all, the V.C. Were about to take his cities without even a fight.

The V.C. Were running rampant over the countryside.

The strategic hamlet program was really finished. It didn't exist.

And it was not so much that the Americans had aided the coup...

or created it...

but as they had given all their aid to Diem...

they had moved back and they had said, "No.

We just support the anticommunist effort. "

It wasn't that they were on the side of the others, but they made it very clear...

that they would stand aside.

And with that, they spelled the final end to that regime.

We've gone in on the assumption -

this is the myth -

that a friendly government has asked us to come in...

and prevent a takeover.

Well, what friendly government?

That government has changed half a dozen times since that time.

It changes from week to week. No one knows just what the government is.

I am very much impressed by the military and economic...

and the social programs instituted by General Khan.

I appreciated, also, the opportunity to talk with the Chief of State...

General Minh.

In other words, you cannot defeat the communists...

without the support of the people.

And to have this support...

you must bring justice to the people.

In other words...

equality and freedom.

How do you achieve this now?

Justice. Justice.

Banish corruption.

Give to the people...

a higher standard of living...

and make them feel free.

Would Kennedy have done what Johnson has done?

There were two things that he very, very much wished to avoid.

One was making this an American war.

As he used to say, "It's their war- the South Vietnamese.

"We can give them aid. We can even give them advisers.

But they must win it or lose it. "

And I think he was fully prepared to let them lose it...

rather than make it an American war.

He felt that if we put Americans in there, with their white faces...

it would drive nationalism into the arms of communism.

The second thing he wished to avoid was internationalizing the war, as we called it.

By this we meant bombing the north or attacking the north.

First and foremost because it would not work.

And here 30-some odd months of bombing has shown that his judgment was right.

I think that, uh, there's great danger in this country, uh...

because of the fact that so much of our economy...

is geared, uh, in the military area.

There is grave danger of, uh...

a military-industrial alliance of a kind...

uh...

actually affecting policy.

Now, uh, Vietnam is a case in point.

Uh, not the only place, because we're spending $50 billion a year...

outside of Vietnam...

for our military.

And, uh, I do think that, uh...

having dropped more bombs on Vietnam...

than were dropped by all the Allied powers in World War II, in tonnage...

on that small country-

I mean, to me, it's just, how silly can you get?

Present...

arms!

I think communist aggression must result in communist disaster.

And I don't think you're gonna get that at the conference table.

The world is watching us in Vietnam...

to see if we'll put our money where our mouth is.

It's just that simple.

And I just wish that, uh, uh...

we would decide to win the war...

and that we would step out and close the port of Haiphong...

and hit every military, remunerative target over there.

I think you're, uh, a better chance to bring the communists to the conference table...

than if we do not hurt them.

However, American instinct makes us want to jump in with both feet...

and get an unpleasant job over with as soon as possible.

But traditional Oriental patience...

makes them willing to carry on the struggle...

into generation after generation, if necessary.

We're fighting a war over there...

with a commodity...

most precious to us...

and held far more cheaply by the enemy-

the lives of men.

I don't think it's necessary to have an invasion of North Vietnam.

It would be just exactly what the enemy wants.

He'd like us to put down 100,000 men in the field, and they'd put down 100,000.

They're willing to lose half of theirs, and ours is a precious commodity.

I wouldn't trade one dead American for 50 dead Chinamen.

We must fight the war from our strength, not the enemy's.

We must fight it at least cost to ourselves...

and at greatest cost to the enemy.

We must change the currency of this game from men to material.

What's that?

What is the greatest single problem we're facing in Vietnam?

Well, it's the despicable communist enemy.

No question about it.

And the sooner we smash him, as we should have done in Korea -

If we'd done it in Korea, in our first test of arms with communism...

we wouldn't be confronted, I don't think, with the situation we have in Vietnam.

Do you have respect for the Vietcong? Do you think they're a good soldier?

Well, there's no question about it. They're willing to die readily, as all Orientals are.

And their leaders will sacrifice them, and we won't sacrifice ours.

The only solution I see...

is to use our strength - our air and naval power-

in the most humane possible m - manner- manner possible...

to destroy North Vietnamese capability to wage war...

against the free people of South Vietnam.

So I think the sooner that we hit everything we can and hurt 'em over there...

we got a better chance to win that war...

and that's exactly what we should do, in my opinion.

So, the harbor at Haiphong...

and the entire capacity to receive outside help - close it.

The power system that fuels every war-making facility...

the transportation system - rails, rolling stock, bridges, yards -

eliminate 'em.

Every factory and every industrial installation...

beginning with the biggest and the best...

and never ending, so long as there are two bricks still stuck together.

Yeah!

And, if necessary, the irrigation system, on which food production largely depends.

We must be willing to continue our bombing...

until we've destroyed every work of man in North Vietnam...

if this is what it takes to win the war.

Then there was a little crisis there.

The military thought that there was a great infiltration.

Secretary McNamara went out, came back and said, "No, there wasn't a crisis at that time. "

But I thought it was very significant...

that President Johnson then appointed a committee...

to prepare a list of targets in the north...

in case he should decide to bomb the north.

The more I thought about this, the more I became convinced...

that if there were a crisis, he would escalate the war.

This is part of the steady escalation...

that's taken place during the last five years.

First we sent in only advisers.

Then it developed these advisers were also in combat.

Then we sent in the marines...

and the first thing was said was they were only there to defend.

The next thing was that they were to shoot back if attacked.

And now there is an admission that we're all in.

Some others are eager to enlarge the conflict.

They call upon us to supply American boys...

to do the job that Asian boys should do.

They ask us to take reckless action...

which might risk the lives of millions...

and engulf much of Asia...

and certainly threaten the peace of the entire world.

A second deliberate attack...

was made during darkness...

by an undetermined number...

of North Vietnamese P.T. Boats...

on the U.S.S. Maddox and the U.S.S. C. Turner Joy...

while the two destroyers were cruising in company...

on routine patrol duty...

in the Tonkin Gulf...

in international waters...

some 65 miles from the nearest point of land.

They put out that propaganda, but they got caught...

because we were able to disclose within two days...

that if they would check upon the log of the Maddox, for example...

they would find she was only 11 to 13 miles...

from the bombing of those islands.

And, of course, that's coverage.

And the North Vietnamese knew that it was coverage.

Do our naval vessels afford any cover for these-

those operations?

Our naval vessels afford no cover whatsoever.

Now, the sad fact is, history will record...

that the United States was an aggressor in Tonkin Bay.

We were violating the rights of North Vietna -

They had no right to proceed on the second day...

to, ourselves, bomb...

uh, North Vietnam -

the areas where her torpedo boats were kept.

But we had a duty- That wasn't self-defense.

Bombing North Vietnam was not within the right of the president...

to act in self-defense of the republic.

My duties on board the seaplane tender were...

nuclear weapons officer.

On August 4...

there was an alleged attack upon the U.S.S. Maddox...

and Turner Joy...

two of our destroyers...

in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Destroyer personnel indicated at first that they were under attack...

and later indicated uncertainty as to whether or not they were under attack.

Large numbers of torpedoes...

were supposed to have been fired.

The ship was, uh...

reporting itself as continuously maneuvering to avoid torpedo attack...

and yet there was also indicated in these messages...

doubt as to whether or not they were under attack at all.

And I have a feeling, therefore, that this harassment attack...

and this attack with 20 or more torpedoes upon two of our destroyers...

was designed to force us out, in a way...

lest we precipitate a greater struggle.

I have a feeling that they've misread America once again.

In the course of our conversation...

this chief petty officer told me that he was a sonar man...

on board the U.S.S. Maddox...

and that he had been in sonar- the sonar room -

during the attack.

He told me that, in his estimation...

there were no torpedoes fired at the ship or otherwise...

during that alleged attack...

and furthermore, he constantly repeated this -

uh, sent this information to the commanding officer on the bridge.

The North Vietnamese...

have no submarines.

What is the purpose of that movement?

This is purely precautionary...

so that the fleet will be prepared for all eventualities.

What sort of eventualities, General?

- Well, possible submarine attack. - By whom?

By anyone.

Well, you always contended that in the first incident they were having-

I am contending that having the Maddox and the Joy there...

constituted...

in view of the knowledge as to what the South Vietnamese boats were up to...

an act of constructive aggression on our part.

The Vietnamese situation...

as I noted on my visit back home last week and this week...

has taken on some real spirit and real interest.

I thought perhaps a statement by the joint senate-house Republican leadership...

would be timely and quite in order at this moment.

As a result of what we have done in South Vietnam...

not only has the psychology changed there...

but also it has had a most beneficial effect...

in my opinion...

among other free Asian countries...

who looked at South Vietnam as a test.

Okay, today-

today's the day.

It's the big one. This is the one we've been waiting for.

This is the one you've all been saying to yourselves...

"What this company needs is a good fight. "

By the grace of God, we're gonna get it.

From there we're gonna "S" and "D"- search and destroy, the thing you guys like.

Okay.

Some of you, I know this is gonna be a shock to you...

but it's a switch for ol' Alpha Troop-

we're ridin' in, and we're not ridin� in on one of those dusty ol' A.P.C. 's.

We're goin' in first-class. T.W.A. - Teeny-Weeny Airlines.

Well, search and destroy is an attempt to...

as the first word would indicate...

to find the enemy...

to search out where he would be...

and then to destroy him in his habitat.

Okay!

West of the stream and east of the road. Roger.

How much rice do you think is actually in there?

Oh, geez, I don't know. About...

20 tons, 10 tons.

How far back does it go?

It's about 30 by 15.

Anyways, about 12 feet deep.

Come on.

How do you destroy this much rice?

The demo man usually blows it up.

- You gonna blow it up? - If they can't get it out, they'll blow it up.

It's, uh, unmilled rice.

Oh, look at that.

Here's all the detachment consists of- two double-rotored Chinook helicopters.

The Chinook usually are cargo or troop carriers.

But not these- they're gunships.

The prisoners that we've captured are - that have been captured...

say that this is the most feared weapon outside the B-52s.

That is because of the amount of ammunition we carry...

the various types of weapons in the amount of time we can stay on station.

At the present time we have on this...

a 140-millimeter grenade launcher, two 20-millimeter cannons...

five 50-caliber machine guns...

and two rocket launcher pods consisting of 192.75 rockets.

Uh, we usually carry inside two additional M60 machine guns...

and ammunition for them.

Occasionally, the crew rat-holes a few things they don't tell us about until they're airborne.

If we work at it, we can unload in about 20-25 minutes.

But we are in danger of burning out barrels, which we frequently do.

I was amazed, when I came to this outfit...

how accurate the 50-calibers were.

I figured they would be no more than aerial spray weapons.

But they can actually walk those weapons right down a tree line.

Now, the 20-millimeter is, of course, very, very accurate and has quite a range.

We can start firing this machine 4,000 meters away, which is a considerable distance.

The one I fly is known as "Birth Control. "

You look like you enjoy your work. Why?

Well, I been doin' it for 36 months since I been in the service.

It's the type of work I enjoy- outside, moving around.

But this particular operation, the cedar falls, why are you enjoying this?

Well, I think were benefiting by clearing all this area.

This is the first time we've got a push on like this and haven't walked off and left it.

They're completely going right ahead and pushing on forward...

instead of walking off.

- Where did you find these people? - They live in the village of Dong Lien...

between here and the railroad to the west.

Why'd you bring 'em in here?

We've had so much trouble when we've moved through this area. Been a lot of civilians killed as a result of this.

As we made our pass through here we picked these people up...

and moved 'em with us into here so that we could make a careful sweep...

and probe each and every hut, looking for tunnels and caves, possible V.C. Hiding places.

We found a few caves...

and blew 'em, picked up some weapons, killed a few V.C.

We're now gonna sweep back through, go to the railroad and move back to the west.

- What's gonna happen to the people tonight? - Well, we're gonna keep 'em right here.

We've got some chow for 'em, some water. We'll feed 'em.

You'd be surprised how they can take care of themselves with a minimum of resources.

They take care of these children here during the night.

They'll huddle real close together. They'll keep warm.

How long are you gonna hold on to these people?

Well, around noon tomorrow, as we move back out to the west...

then these people'll be released to go back to their own huts...

to cultivate their rice, harvest their rice...

continue their normal activity.

Uh- Uh-

You got some V.C. Suspects out of this group, didn't you?

Uh, yes, we just heli-lifted five suspects out of here, back to battalion rear C. P...

to be further interrogated.

How did you select them?

These chieu hoi people- Vietnamese interpreters we have with us-

they've been in this area two or three years, they know these people...

and from talking to 'em they get ideas that maybe these people know more than they're telling us.

We take 'em back to get a little higher echelon of interrogation...

down at Hoi Yen or Dinh Banh.

Some of these people come back to us, even...

and we'll put 'em with our companies to sweep these riverbanks.

It's hard to know just who a V.C. Is unless he's carrying a weapon...

or a cartridge belt or some grenades or somethin'.

A person just walkin' along, you don't know if he�s a V.C. Or not. Might be in this crowd.

But then, some of these people that have operated with the V. C...

and if they defect and come over, we can use these people as scouts.

They go along riverbanks with us, and they look just like anybody else.

But when they have a weapon, then they're free game.

How did this man get killed?

He threw grenades at the marines.

Instead of just one, he threw three, and a marine spotted him...

and started shooting at him...

and that's how he got it.

Those two big holes by his eye and throat were done by 30.06 sniper rifles.

All the rest of the holes are done by this new type of rifle we got, the M16.

How about all these people who are standing behind me over there?

- Do you think any of them know this man? - Yes, they do.

But they wouldn't admit it...

because they're afraid that we will take them back to C.P. For questioning...

and detain them...

under this R.V.N. Program...

where they teach them propaganda for three months - they hold 'em for three months.

That's why they won't admit they know this man here.

We've put over three million of them into what I would call a concentration camp.

They call it a refugee center.

It's got barbed wire around it. They can't get out of it.

We've taken these people from the graves of their ancestors...

from their rice paddies...

and we say, "Oh, well, we've pacified X-million people. "

Yeah, we've pacified some more people by putting them in these camps.

I'll wind this up in a hurry.

I know many people have said we've killed innocent people.

Our bombs have killed civilians and babies and mothers...

and I suppose there is truth to that.

There have been people that have been killed.

But your government has not bombed civilians.

Your government has not bombed open cities.

Your government has sent its bombers in after targets - military targets...

that have been placed in an area surrounded by civilians.

Try a sweep-around?

The unfortunate thing is, the enemy is quite frequently located...

in areas that have people who are not part of the military structure...

in an immediate sense.

They may be sympathizers. They may be supporting through their efforts, their work.

But what occurs when you engage in a search and destroy...

is the destruction- the needless destruction-

of innocent human- innocent civilians.

Now, you might say that they're all part of the entire communist apparatus.

But the feature is that if we are going to prevent this war from degenerating...

into a genocidal activity...

then our attempt would be to rehabilitate...

or to wean those folks away from the communists, rather than to destroy them.

This is what search and destroy becomes in a very practical sense.

They are the subject of our constant concern...

because they're such a magnificent...

group of fighting men.

Their morale is extremely high.

They always have a smile.

I was at a very kind of sobering thing last night -

a memorial service for four men in the 2nd Squadron...

who were killed the other day, one of them being a medic.

And the place was just packed.

We sang three hymns and had a nice prayer.

I turned around and looked at their faces...

and they were - I was just proud.

My feeling for America just soared because of their-

the way they looked.

They looked determined and, and reverent at the same time.

But still, they're a bloody good bunch of killers.

When a captive is taken by...

the United States or free world forces...

he is, following interrogation...

uh, turned over to the Vietnamese authorities.

These prisoners are not being mistreated.

They are being handled in accordance...

with the provisions...

of the Geneva Conventions.

The prisoners were, uh, executed in our outfit...

as a standard policy.

We were told by our C. O...

after our first battle...

that from then on we weren't gonna take any prisoners.

My name is John Toller.

I'm a sergeant in the U.S. Army Special Forces, known as the Green Berets.

I'm en route to Vietnam.

However, I'm deserting the army...

because I'm protesting the U.S. Involvement in the Vietnamese conflict.

Today your soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen...

are better educated than before...

are better informed...

have traditional American ingenuity and initiative...

are better physical specimens...

have high morale...

and understand what the war is all about.

As I mentioned before...

about changing the minds of the apathetic populace...

the key is the communication...

and most of the American soldiers I know can't communicate.

They don't really understand the Vietnamese way of life...

and its goal.

And the only way they can communicate is through money or with a gun.

So after a while they develop this kind of fear.

And so, a misunderstanding and a noncommunication -

They mistrust the Vietnamese...

and they kind of despise them.

Once we got to Vietnam, it was an entirely different story.

The officers started referring to the Vietnamese as "gooks. "

They even went so far as to say that the only good gook is a dead gook.

They said, "You can't trust 'em- You can't trust any of these slant-eyed bastards...

because none of them are no good. "

It looks like this beach has just about everything.

- Is there anything it lacks? - American girls!

Well, there are girls down at the other end of the beach, though.

They're off-limits to me.

They're gooks. You know, slant-eyed. They're no good.

Who needs girls?

Same slope.

I'm David Werfel...

professor of political science at the University of Missouri.

I'm a specialist in Southeast Asian politics.

I spent about seven years in Asia...

teaching, researching...

studying.

As a matter of fact, I've written particularly about the problem...

of corruption and fraud in elections.

Isn't it true, though, that the censorship now is going to be a little more rigorous...

as soon as the campaign starts?

No, sir, I don't think so.

But you have said, have you not, that the Vietnamese press...

should not criticize the candidates in the election?

Why is that, sir?

Well, it's our formal...

and present policy.

I don't think it's wise...

to allow people to use free press...

to, you know, issue...

critici - criticism of each other...

because it created more confusion, more division among the people.

The elections that were held in 1967...

for national office...

of course, in the first place, could be participated in...

only by people living in so-called secure areas...

which excluded at least a third of the population...

that were in areas so thoroughly under the control on the N.L. F...

that the government couldn't even pretend to regulate affairs there.

We should call to the attention of the people...

that the folks that are doing the most...

to keep us from having a fair and free election...

in Vietnam today...

are the Vietcong...

and the North Vietnamese themselves.

This is not to say...

that the campaign of the election in the south...

will go off without blemish.

This is only to say...

that an effort is being made...

and a strong effort...

with our very strong support and endorsement...

to conduct an open election...

in a nation...

that's under fire...

from guerrillas and from terrorists and from aggressors...

and from invaders.

And so, President Johnson...

being true to the origin of the elections in the first place...

was very much concerned...

about how the American people would interpret these elections...

and he saw that it was necessary to appoint...

an official observer team.

But, of course, most of the people had never been in Asia before.

Almost none of them had ever been in Vietnam before.

Very few of them even had any contacts in Vietnam.

So the theoretical opportunity to talk to anybody they wanted to...

simply could not be utilized.

In fact, most of those who talked to anyone except embassy people...

talked to those Vietnamese...

introduced to them...

by embassy people.

Voting officials, voters, everybody were on their good behavior...

because the American observers were there.

So, for them to have expected...

that they would see fraud with their own eyes...

was, uh, simply absurd.

Furthermore, they left Vietnam...

within 24 hours after the polls closed...

and in that period after the polls closed...

they did not speak to a single Vietnamese.

The possession of a clipped and stamped voting card, of course...

was a very important protection for the Vietnamese peasant.

It was almost as important as having his registration card.

And anyone in Vietnam...

who does not have an official government registration or identity card...

is in deep trouble.

He's immediately assumed to be a Vietcong...

is taken into the police station for questioning, or worse.

I saw even in Saigon, uh, in working-class districts...

where on election day, rather early in the afternoon...

the polling place ran out of vote - uh, ran out of, uh, ballots.

And there were people already lined up...

wanting to vote at this polling place.

When it was announced that they had run out of ballots...

the poor washer women and workmen were frightened to death -

"We've got to vote! We've got to vote! We've got to have our clipped voting card!"

So, uh, in balance...

we had a government elected...

with little more than a third of the vote...

hailed by the United States -

Johnson administration...

as being a popular and legitimate government...

nearly two-thirds of the people voting against it...

and even that 35%, of course, being to a considerable extent...

a result of fraud and, uh, intimidation.

It was bad enough for the generals to get away...

with double-voting and ballot box stuffing...

but to have the American observers say that they thought it was all fine and dandy...

made the Vietnamese very mad indeed.

There were efforts to protest election fraud.

There were student demonstrations.

And as a matter of fact, at one point it almost looked as if the election...

would be invalidated.

What I think we've come to, and what I think the tragedy of Vietnam...

clearly demonstrates...

is that we now find ourselves...

in a world in which the arrangements of power...

cannot yet be ignored...

but in which the instruments of power...

no longer work.

If this lesson has been taught us in Vietnam...

then the stubborn little guerrillas out there...

who sawed off the American giant at the knees and brought him down...

almost like David versus Goliath...

will have done a great service not only to their own cause...

whatever one may think about it...

but perhaps to the cause of world peace...

and perhaps most particularly to the colossus himself.

Maybe we needed to be brought up short.

Maybe what we've been doing in Vietnam all along...

is an exercise in what Senator Fulbright has called...

the arrogance of power.

We cannot retreat...

from anyplace...

and I can tell you that we don't intend to retreat.

We were asked by the State Department...

to prepare a letter and send it to Ho Chi Minh...

through a channel which had been opened and was available to us.

We were certain would deliver the letter directly to him.

It was a very conciliatory letter written in the State Department...

in consultation, word by word, with Secretary Bundy...

Secretary Katzenbach and others...

in which we spoke on behalf-

this was the actual phraseology-

"on behalf of" high officials of the State Department.

All of Asia - free Asia -

as well as communist Asia...

is watching Vietnam.

And if, for example, out of this present struggle...

after making this great commitment...

after turning around the psychology in Asia...

we then agree to a coalition government with the communists...

or we force the South Vietnamese into a neutralized position...

and neutralize as we did Laos...

or if we make...

any kind of territorial concessions to the Vietcong...

either one of these three courses of action...

would be interpreted as a retreat...

and also a defeat, not only for South Vietnam but for the United States.

We had an extended interview - almost two hours -with Ho Chi Minh.

It was perfectly clear, in the course of that interview...

that Ho Chi Minh was delivering to us certain information he expected us to deliver...

back to the State Department.

And on the side of Ho Chi Minh...

understand that, first of all, he will bring to the negotiation...

the prestige of an unparalleled life of devotion to his country.

In the history of this century...

he will be the great patriot.

And be careful here.

Don't forget that he is a Marxist.

And don't expect him to turn a traitor to the ideal of his life.

He was unyielding on the point that the bombing had to halt...

before his negotiators would enter into any kind of substantive discussions.

But I think he was trying to make the point, and making it repeatedly...

that after that the agenda was open.

There may be those who say, well, obviously you haven't offered them enough.

Well, it's true that we haven't offered them South Vietnam.

And it is true that we have not agreed to assure them...

that we will stop the bombing on a permanent and unconditional basis.

We discovered sometime later...

when the correspondence was made public by Hanoi...

that four days before our letter could arrive in Hanoi...

a letter arrived there, sent over President Johnson�s signature...

which was a very hard line letter indeed...

which restated all the previous conditions regarding cessation of the bombing...

and even added some new ones...

and which was, in our judgment...

intended to do what it did do...

which was to break off any possibility of negotiation at that time.

This letter, we subsequently learned...

had been written two days before ours was written...

in conjunction with the State Department.

We found, to our surprise and shock, I might say...

that Harriman was already saying that he proposed to negotiate the settlement...

by suggesting that there had to be some reciprocal military action...

in return for the final cessation of the bombing.

In other words, the same point that Johnson had been standing on...

before he made the speech of March 31.

It was almost as though Harriman turned off his hearing aid...

when we told him this would not work...

this was not the understanding the North Vietnamese had...

and they would certainly repudiate it...

if he attempted to take that position at the bargaining table.

And this, of course, is what did happen at Paris.

In the view of the North Vietnamese...

the reciprocity means...

United States is bombing North Vietnam...

and North Vietnam must bomb United States.

This, in their view, is reciprocity.

Since North Vietnam is not bombing the United States...

the United States should not bomb North Vietnam.

The general impression that I came away with -

and I think here I would speak for my colleague Bill Baggs -

was that we were dealing with the State Department...

on a basis of what we have come to call Fulbright's Law -

"Never Trust the State Department. "

Bombing is going on in the south.

We haven't bombed anybody's embassy in Hanoi...

but they've bombed our embassy in Saigon.

Arms continue to flow. Men continue to come.

We've tried all over the Earth to find an answer to the question...

what else would stop if the bombing stopped?

The niceties of the argument about whether there are two Vietnams...

or one Vietnam...

seem quite inconsequential when you're talking to Ho Chi Minh.

It would seem incredible...

that this man does not speak for most of the Vietnamese -

not all, but most -

and the idea that there could be some arbitrary geographic dividing line...

that would cut off his influence...

has been proved an absurdity...

by the figure and determination...

of the National Liberation Front...

that fights in his name in the south.

My name is Ilya Todd.

I'm a journalist on the non-communist, liberal, left-wing French paper...

Le nouvel observateur.

I first went to South Vietnam when escalations started in 1965...

and I first went to North Vietnam at the end of 1967.

Uh, I'm Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times.

Uh, assistant managing editor of the Times.

I'm, uh, Father Daniel Berrigan.

I'm working here at Cornell teaching...

and helping with the peace movement.

It's about one month since I was in North Vietnam...

on a project to get the three American flyers out.

At the time I went to North Vietnam...

the communiqu�s which were being issued, by Washington in particular...

about the American bombing raids on the north...

gave the impression, although they did not say so specifically...

that we were not killing civilians...

in any substantial numbers, at least...

in the course of our very heavy bombing offensive.

Indeed, President Johnson himself said that the targets...

were, uh, steel and concrete.

I think almost anyone familiar with war...

would have been somewhat skeptical of the ability to bomb with such precision.

And indeed, when I got on the spot in North Vietnam...

I discovered, of course, that while the bombs presumably had been aimed...

toward military objectives, as best the aviators could aim them...

they indeed did kill many civilians...

demolished large areas of civilian housing.

Before I left for North Vietnam...

I was under the impression that it was a small country...

that was just sort of vaguely fighting back.

But after seeing many battles against American planes...

from the banks of the Red River...

I changed my opinions completely.

The antiaircraft in North Vietnam...

in certain pockets, as the American pilots say, is absolutely formidable.

It's a sort of four-level affair.

You have people equipped with submachine guns and rifles...

shooting at a first level, forcing the planes to go up to a second level...

where there they come against the machine guns...

a lot of them being Chinese.

And then they're forced up to a third level...

which is that of the ordinary guns, most of them, I would say, Russian.

And after that they go up to a level where they meet the SAMs-

And I was being told that these SAMs were antiquated...

when in fact they are not- they are formidably powerful.

During one week in October...

I saw at least 11 planes in five days...

being shot by the North Vietnamese...

antiaircraft defense.

When you walk about the streets of Hanoi...

you are struck by the fact that you constantly see...

civilians going about in trucks...

with guns in their arms...

or even walking down the streets with guns strapped to their back.

It's unusual to see so many people with guns in their hands...

and it's most unusual to see this in a communist country.

One evening, on the road to Haiphong...

we were bombed 300 yards from where we were.

And with my interpreter we immediately went onto the side road.

I was very frightened. I was terribly frightened.

As soon as we bumped into a machine gun nest, fear disappeared.

The government has understood this...

and I think this is one of the reasons why it has armed most of the population.

We went into the countryside...

and we saw great evidence in the cities as well...

that the people are generally armed.

The civilian militia is very large.

The women share, for instance, the burden of antiaircraft gunfire...

in defense of the city.

We saw large numbers of men and women on the roofs of buildings...

preparing, in the early stages of air alarms, for the bombardment itself.

And they said to us quite openly on several occasions...

"Look, one of the most practical evidences of the truth that this government speaks for us...

"is that the government has armed us...

"to the point where, if we wanted, we could bring the government down in a day...

and they themselves know this. "

At the time that I was in North Vietnam...

there obviously had not been any breaking of the morale of the people...

either in the cities or, as far as I could observe, out in the villages...

although they had been subjected to an extremely heavy bombardment.

At that time it was reaching the levels of World War II...

and, of course, since that time has been much, much strengthened.

The people of North Vietnam are young, for the most part...

and the war effort is largely on the backs of teenagers...

not because they're running out of manpower, but because this is a young country.

There is nothing that has not been attacked -

There is no threat that has not been tried to be burned...

or frayed or broken by us...

and yet none of it has happened, or it's been repaired in the night.

Altogether, I think one can say, objectively...

that there isn't a town left standing, apart from Haiphong and Hanoi.

So that there are hospitals, there are schools.

There is a trusted government...

and there are - there are political leaders...

whom they don't hesitate to call loved and admired.

Which is to say, the war's not working.

It's a very simple judgment.

Too simple for the complexities of our power.

Uh, perhaps, in a deeper spiritual sense, too tough to face...

because it means the end of a giant.

It means the last days of Superman.

It means that for those...

with the capacity of overkill...

kill is not enough.

Um...

the real thing required is to live in the real world.

As Buber says, it is to be able to imagine the real world and imagine human beings.

As long as the dinosaur couldn't do it, he ended up on the museum shelf...

and as long as Superman can't do it, he can rave and destroy...

but he cannot give life...

and he cannot even truly, as we know so bitterly, he cannot live himself.

The North Vietnamese always insist...

that they are winning this war...

that they are not simply resisting.

And when I talked to Prime Minister Pham Van Dong...

he said, "We are not underbombing, we are facing the bombs. "

And at first I thought this was mere propaganda.

But seeing the North Vietnamese fighting, in the country and in the towns...

I think that psychologically it is true.

I was most interested to find that when I got to Hanoi...

the authorities...

put no restrictions on what I wanted to send out.

Prime Minister Pham Van Dong has stressed, in his talk with me...

the parallel between the ancient struggles...

of the Vietnamese people against the Chinese, the Manchus and the Mongols...

and their contemporary struggles for independence...

which began, of course, under the French many years ago...

were continued without interruption through World War II...

then resumed again against the French...

and are now being carried on against the Americans.

Prime Minister Pham Van Dong turned to me at one point and said...

"Mr. Salisbury, how long do you want to fight? Ten years? Twenty? Thirty?

You pick the term of years. We're ready to accommodate you. "

A rather bold statement, and maybe it had some bravado in it...

but this is, again, in accordance with the spirit of the Vietnamese people.

There's no one in that society who doesn't remember hunger...

in his own lifetime...

and it was interesting that, from the peasants to the young intellectuals...

when you posed the very same question-

that is, "What has the revolution meant, first of all, to you?"-

you'll get the same answer- "We now have enough to eat. "

As simple as that.

So that when the North Vietnamese government makes it its pledge of honor...

that the rice bowl will be filled...

this is so great a thing that we can hardly conceive of it-it seems to be off our radar.

I think, you know, for them, the question is, first of all, a very, very concrete one.

That statement is literally true.

And then again it begins to move into the larger areas.

The circumference of the bowl expands and you note that the revolution has meant...

a passion for education...

a passion for grass-roots involvement in their own future...

their own social structures, their own politics...

and that at the other end of that power, which they are trying to move upward...

after so many, many years of colonial powerlessness...

at the other end of that power is standing a man who also has a rice bowl in his hand...

and whose poverty is equivalent...

whose power has not separated himself from the fate of the majority...

who can move in the same cheap cotton clothing...

and with dignity among them...

and whose power is not an inferior backroom game...

or a game of marked cards under a table...

or corrupt double-talk such as we've gotten so used to in the chanceries of the West.

Yet there is one light of hope...

and this is that...

throughout Vietnamese history they had catastrophes -

they had Chinese, Mongolian invasions...

where whole provinces were destroyed.

You are not the first people who destroyed villages in Vietnam...

unfortunately.

And so, they are used to that...

and it's a great tradition that the village is not lost...

even when it disappears from the surface of the ground...

because the village is down below-

down below with the tradition, down below with the people...

the ancestors who have made the country, literally.

The country is hand-made.

There is not one square foot, I would say, a square thumb of the earth...

that has not been built as it is by the peasantry in the past.

And this survives.

And when waylaid after 100 years, a village comes back-

the descendants of a village come back to the village...

they find the village and the village starts again.

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