Original subtitles

I will do my best

that is all I can do

I ask for your help and God

Bob?

Yes Mr. President?

I hate to modify your speech and intrude

it's been a good one but

I just wonder if we should find 2 minutes in there

for Vietnam

yeah the problem is what to say about it, alright

I'll tell you what I would say about it

I would say that we have a commitment

to Vietnamese freedom

we could pull out of there

the dominoes would fall

and that part of the world would become communist

we could send our marines in there

and we could get tied down in the Third World War

or another Korean action

nobody really understands what it is out there

I ask you questions and I said why

why don't we do more?

Well, I think this: you can have more war

you can have more peace

but we don't want more of either

our purpose is to train these people

and our training is going good

that's wrong. I always thought it was foolish

for you to make any statement about withdrawing

I thought it was bad psychologically

but you and the president thought otherwise

I just sat silent

the problem is your academic questions

how the hell does McIntyre think

when he's losing the war he pulled me out of it

if you went to the CIA and said

how's the situation today in South Vietnam

I think they'd say it's worse

you see it in the desertion rate

you see it in the morale

you see it in the difficulty recruiting people

you see it in the gradual loss of population control

many of us

in private would say that things are not good

they've gotten worse

now while we say this in private and not n public

there are facts available

that find their way in the press

if we're gonna stay in there

we're going to go up the escalation chain

we're gonna have to educate

but we haven't done so yet

I'm not sure now is exactly the right time

no no

I think if you start there

they're gonna be hollering

"you're a warmonger!"

I completely agree with you

don't try to sweep this under the rug

we are at war in Vietnam

and yet the president

and his secretary of defense continues to mislead

and misinform the American people

and enough of it's gone by

on August 2nd

the destroyer Maddox reported

it was attacked by a North Vietnamese patrol boat

it was an act of aggression against us

we were in international waters

I sent officials from the Defense Department out

and we recovered pieces of North Vietnamese shells

that were clearly identified

as North Vietnamese shells

from the deck of the Maddox

so there's no question in my mind that it occurred

but in any event we didn't respond

and it was very difficult

it was difficult for the president

we had very

very senior people in uniform and out who said

my god this president is

they didn't use the word 'coward'

but in fact he's not protecting the national interest

two days later the Maddox and the Turner Joy

Two destroyers reported they were attacked

Where are these torpedoes coming from?

well, we don't know

presumably from these unidentified craft

there were sonar soundings

torpedoes had been detected

other indications of attack from patrol boats

we spent about 10 hours that day

trying to find out what in the hell had happened

at one point the commander of the ship said

we're not certain of the attack

another point they said yes

we're absolutely positive

and then finally later the day

Admiral Sharp said yes

we're certain it happened

so I reported this to Johnson

and as a result

there were bombing attacks on targets in North Vietnam

Johnson said we may have to escalate

I'm not gonna do it without congressional authority

and he put forward a resolution

the language of which

gave complete authority to the president

to take the nation to war

the Gulf of Tonkin resolution

now let me go back to the August 4th attack

well

apparently at least 9 torpedoes in the water all missed

yeah no

I don't why am I not

I'm not so sure about this number of

of engaged right

we have to check it out here

he said

many of the reported contacts of torpedoes fired

appear doubtful uh

freak weather effects and radar and over eager storm

and may have accounted for many reports

okay well

I'll tell Mr. McNamara this

that's the best I can give you Dave sorry

it does appear now

that a lot of these torpedo attacks were from the sonar men

and you see and uh

they get keyed up the thing like this

everything they hear on the phone are torpedo

you're pretty sure there was a torpedo attack

oh no doubt about that

I think no doubt about that

no it was just confusion

and events afterwards showed that our judgement

that we've been attacked that day was wrong

it didn't happen

and the judgement

that we'd been attacked on August 2nd

which we'd made was right

we had been although that was disputed at the time

so we're right once and wrong once

ultimately President Johnson authorized bombing

in response to what he thought

had been the second attack

that had occurred

but that's irrelevant to the point I'm making here

he authorized the attack on the assumption it had occurred

and his belief that it was a conscious decision

on the part of the North Vietnamese

political and military leaders to escalate the conflict

and an indication they would not stop short of winning

we were wrong

but we had in our minds

a mindset that led to that action

and it carry such heavy costs

we see incorrectly or we see only half of the story

at times

we see what we wanna believe we see what we

you're absolutely right

believe and seeing

they're both often wrong

we Americans know

although others appear to forget

the risk of spreading conflict

we still seek no wider war

we introduced what was called Rolling Thunder

which over the years became a very

very heavy bombing program

two to three times as many bombs

as were dropped on Western Europe

during all World War two

this is not primarily a military problem

it's a battle for the hearts and the minds of the

people of South Vietnam

as a prerequisite to that

we must be able to guarantee their physical security