Original subtitles

well today

marks the 50th anniversary of what would become

one of the most controversial news reports

from the war in Vietnam on August 5th, 1965

CBS News morally safer

filed a report for the CBS Evening News

with Walter Kronkite Safer

who was stationed in Vietnam

was following US Marines through the village of Cam NE

as they torched houses

essentially leaving the villagers with nothing

we're on the outskirts of the village of Cam NE

with elements of the 1st Battalion

9th Marines and we were walking into this village when

you can hear what happened

come let's move in with those other guys

this is what the war in Vietnam is all about

the old and the very young

the Marines are burned this old couple's cottage

because fire was coming from here

now you walk into the village

you see no young people at all

fire was coming from automatic light

automatic weapons

fire was coming from all of these villages

it's not really one village it's a strain of huts

and the people that are left

come this way Khan

people that are left are like this woman here

the very old

been an action like this before Marie

no I haven't

not like this I have

did you uh

set fire to these houses here

no we're just off to left it when it was burning

were you getting fire from them

somewhat not too much

just a little sniper fire

it first appeared that the Marines had been sniped at

and that a few houses were made to pay

shortly after an officer told me

he had orders to go in and level

the string of hamlets that surrounds

Camney village

and all around

the common petty field that feeds these hamlets

a ring of fire 150 homes were leveled

in retaliation for a burst of gunfire

in Vietnam like everywhere else in Asia property

a home is everything

a man lives with his family on ancestral land

his parents are buried nearby

their spirit is part of his holding

if there were Viet Cong in the hamlets

they were long gone

alerted by the roar of the amphibious tractors

and the heavy barrage of rocket fire

laid down before the troops moved in

the women and the old men who remained

will never forget that August afternoon

the day's operation burned down 150 houses

wounded three women killed one baby

wounded one Marine and netted these four prisoners

four old men

who could not answer questions put to them in English

four old men who had no idea what an ID card was

today's operation is the frustration of Vietnam

and miniature

there is little doubt that American firepower can

win a military victory here

but to a Vietnamese peasant whose home is a let

means a lifetime of back breaking labor

it will take more than presidential promises

to convince him that we are on his side

morally safer CBS News near the village of Camney

you can't tell the story of Vietnam without CBS News

that that footage

that filing from morally safer was just incredible

um in February 1968

Walter Kronkite would go on and deliver a CBS

new special report essentially saying that he

in his opinion the war was unwinnable

and Johnson said if I've lost Kronkite

I've lost America and

it would be another eight years

before President Nixon would withdraw all US troops

from Vietnam in 1973

that report drew backlash from US citizens

because it was showing them a side of the war

they had never imagined

it said that President Johnson wanted to have

morely safer censored after that report

but it was the truth it was the truth

it was absolutely

and

it was a scene that was also mortalized in the movie

Platoon

Oliver Stone served in Vietnam at around that time

and he the scene

just as you saw in Morley's report

was filmed almost

almost seen for scene in the movie platoon