1
00:00:53,136 --> 00:00:55,889
Coming home from Vietnam

2
00:00:56,014 --> 00:00:59,814
was close to as traumatic
as the war itself.

3
00:01:01,687 --> 00:01:04,657
For years, nobody talked
about Vietnam.

4
00:01:07,818 --> 00:01:09,320
We were friends
with a young couple

5
00:01:09,486 --> 00:01:14,083
and it was only after 12 years
that the two wives were talking.

6
00:01:14,199 --> 00:01:17,544
Found out that we both had been
Marines in Vietnam.

7
00:01:17,661 --> 00:01:20,164
Never said a word about it.

8
00:01:20,289 --> 00:01:21,962
Never mentioned it.

9
00:01:22,082 --> 00:01:24,130
And the whole country
was like that.

10
00:01:25,752 --> 00:01:28,505
It was so divisive.

11
00:01:28,630 --> 00:01:33,511
And it's like living in a family
with an alcoholic father.

12
00:01:33,677 --> 00:01:35,975
"Shh, we don't talk about that."

13
00:01:38,473 --> 00:01:40,350
Our country did that
with Vietnam.

14
00:01:40,475 --> 00:01:43,228
It's only been very recently
that, I think,

15
00:01:43,353 --> 00:01:46,027
that, you know, the baby boomers
are finally starting to say,

16
00:01:46,148 --> 00:01:47,365
"What happened?

17
00:01:47,524 --> 00:01:48,821
What happened?"

18
00:01:58,577 --> 00:02:00,545
What we need now in this country

19
00:02:00,662 --> 00:02:04,883
is to heal the wounds
and to put Vietnam behind us.

20
00:02:17,054 --> 00:02:18,306
The killing

21
00:02:18,430 --> 00:02:20,228
in this tragic war must stop.

22
00:02:30,901 --> 00:02:33,529
General Westmoreland's strategy

23
00:02:33,654 --> 00:02:35,327
is producing results.

24
00:02:35,447 --> 00:02:39,577
The enemy is no longer
closer to victory.

25
00:02:47,042 --> 00:02:48,919
No matter how you measure it,

26
00:02:49,044 --> 00:02:51,888
we're better off than we thought
we would be at this time.

27
00:02:57,344 --> 00:03:00,097
You have been less than candid

28
00:03:00,222 --> 00:03:03,726
as to how deeply we are
involved in Vietnam.

29
00:03:03,850 --> 00:03:05,443
We have increased our assistance

30
00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:07,562
to the government,
its logistics.

31
00:03:07,688 --> 00:03:10,066
We have not sent
combat troops there.

32
00:03:10,190 --> 00:03:13,785
You have
a row of dominoes set up

33
00:03:13,902 --> 00:03:15,950
and you knock over the first one

34
00:03:16,113 --> 00:03:17,911
and the last one,
certainly it will go over.

35
00:03:18,031 --> 00:03:20,159
If aggression
is successful in Korea,

36
00:03:20,283 --> 00:03:22,752
we can expect it to spread
throughout Asia and Europe

37
00:03:22,869 --> 00:03:24,041
and to this hemisphere.

38
00:03:46,309 --> 00:03:52,737

my blue-eyed son?

39
00:03:52,858 --> 00:03:56,988

my darling young one?

40
00:03:58,989 --> 00:04:03,210
Viktor Frankl, who survived
the death camps in World War II,

41
00:04:03,326 --> 00:04:06,250
wrote a book called
Man's Search for Meaning.

42
00:04:06,371 --> 00:04:08,669

I've crawled on six...

43
00:04:08,832 --> 00:04:11,426
You know, "To live is to suffer.

44
00:04:11,543 --> 00:04:15,969
To survive is to find meaning
in suffering.“

45
00:04:16,089 --> 00:04:20,515
And for those of us who suffered
because of Vietnam,

46
00:04:20,635 --> 00:04:24,856
that's been our quest
ever since.

47
00:04:24,973 --> 00:04:31,481

it's a hard, it's a hard

48
00:04:31,605 --> 00:04:33,528


49
00:04:33,690 --> 00:04:38,116

a-gonna fall

50
00:04:38,236 --> 00:04:42,332
America's involvement
in Vietnam began in secrecy.

51
00:04:42,449 --> 00:04:47,330
It ended, 30 years later,
in failure,

52
00:04:47,454 --> 00:04:50,708
witnessed by the entire world.

53
00:04:50,832 --> 00:04:53,631

see, my darling young one?

54
00:04:53,752 --> 00:04:56,881
It was begun in
good faith by decent people

55
00:04:57,047 --> 00:04:59,550
out of fateful
misunderstandings,

56
00:04:59,716 --> 00:05:04,062
American overconfidence,
and Cold War miscalculation.

57
00:05:04,179 --> 00:05:09,481
And it was prolonged because it
seemed easier to muddle through

58
00:05:09,601 --> 00:05:12,605
than admit that it had been
caused by tragic decisions,

59
00:05:12,729 --> 00:05:15,699
made by five American
presidents,

60
00:05:15,816 --> 00:05:18,615
belonging to both
political parties.

61
00:05:18,735 --> 00:05:20,713

with their hammers a-bleeding

62
00:05:20,737 --> 00:05:22,580
Before the war was over,

63
00:05:22,697 --> 00:05:26,327
more than 58,000 Americans
would be dead.

64
00:05:26,451 --> 00:05:31,252
At least 250,000
South Vietnamese troops died

65
00:05:31,373 --> 00:05:33,842
in the conflict, as well.

66
00:05:33,959 --> 00:05:37,884
So did over a million
North Vietnamese soldiers

67
00:05:38,004 --> 00:05:39,426
and Viet Cong guerrillas.

68
00:05:39,589 --> 00:05:42,513

hands of young children

69
00:05:42,634 --> 00:05:44,807


70
00:05:44,928 --> 00:05:47,932
Two million
civilians, north and south,

71
00:05:48,098 --> 00:05:49,941
are thought to have perished,

72
00:05:50,058 --> 00:05:53,437
as well as tens of thousands
more in the neighboring states

73
00:05:53,603 --> 00:05:55,355
of Laos and Cambodia.

74
00:05:58,108 --> 00:06:02,113
For many Vietnamese,
it was a brutal civil war;

75
00:06:02,279 --> 00:06:05,624
for others, the bloody
climactic chapter

76
00:06:05,740 --> 00:06:09,210
in a century-old struggle
for independence.

77
00:06:09,327 --> 00:06:14,299

now, my blue-eyed son?

78
00:06:14,457 --> 00:06:16,755
For those
Americans who fought in it,

79
00:06:16,877 --> 00:06:19,721
and for those who fought against
it back home,

80
00:06:19,838 --> 00:06:23,308
as well as for those who merely
glimpsed it on the nightly news,

81
00:06:23,466 --> 00:06:27,141
the Vietnam War
was a decade of agony,

82
00:06:27,262 --> 00:06:32,769
the most divisive period
since the Civil War.

83
00:06:32,893 --> 00:06:37,740
Vietnam seemed to call
everything into question-

84
00:06:37,856 --> 00:06:42,327
the value of honor
and gallantry;

85
00:06:42,444 --> 00:06:46,995
the qualities of cruelty
and mercy;

86
00:06:47,115 --> 00:06:51,541
the candor of the
American government;

87
00:06:51,661 --> 00:06:55,416
and what it means
to be a patriot.

88
00:06:57,334 --> 00:07:01,805

where the souls are forgotten

89
00:07:01,922 --> 00:07:04,050
And those who lived through it

90
00:07:04,174 --> 00:07:07,053
have never been able
to erase its memory,

91
00:07:07,177 --> 00:07:10,226
have never stopped arguing
about what really happened,

92
00:07:10,347 --> 00:07:15,854
why everything went so badly
wrong, who was to blame,

93
00:07:15,977 --> 00:07:18,651
and whether it was all worth it.

94
00:08:02,065 --> 00:08:03,908


95
00:08:04,067 --> 00:08:08,994

a-gonna fall

96
00:08:55,952 --> 00:08:59,377
The French conquest of
Indochina began with an attack

97
00:08:59,497 --> 00:09:05,004
on the ancient Vietnamese port
of Danang in 1858.

98
00:09:05,128 --> 00:09:08,553
It took 50 years to lay claim
to the whole region-

99
00:09:08,673 --> 00:09:13,224
Laos and Cambodia, as well as
the 1,200-mile-long area

100
00:09:13,344 --> 00:09:16,518
that would come to be called
Vietnam.

101
00:09:19,350 --> 00:09:22,320
All of it was ruled
by a French governor-general

102
00:09:22,479 --> 00:09:24,732
from his palace in Hanoi.

103
00:09:26,483 --> 00:09:29,783
The French largely lived
on plantation estates,

104
00:09:29,903 --> 00:09:34,124
and in cities, like Saigon,
made to look as much as possible

105
00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:36,334
like those at home.

106
00:09:37,660 --> 00:09:40,834
Most did not even bother
to learn the language

107
00:09:40,955 --> 00:09:42,832
spoken by their subjects.

108
00:09:42,999 --> 00:09:46,594
Instead they installed a series
of puppet emperors

109
00:09:46,711 --> 00:09:48,258
and employed a network

110
00:09:48,379 --> 00:09:52,179
of French-speaking Vietnamese
officials-mandarins-

111
00:09:52,342 --> 00:09:54,344
willing to carry out
their wishes.

112
00:09:57,806 --> 00:10:02,152
The French put their subjects to
work building roads and canals,

113
00:10:02,268 --> 00:10:04,737
railroads and bridges.

114
00:10:21,037 --> 00:10:23,711
The Vietnamese
people did not take easily

115
00:10:23,873 --> 00:10:25,250
to French occupation,

116
00:10:25,375 --> 00:10:28,128
just as they had fought
against earlier invasions

117
00:10:28,253 --> 00:10:29,846
by the Chinese.

118
00:10:29,963 --> 00:10:34,059
By the early 20th century,
nationalism was on the rise.

119
00:10:34,175 --> 00:10:39,432
But anyone who dared resist
colonial rule risked exile,

120
00:10:39,556 --> 00:10:41,979
prison, or the guillotine.

121
00:11:12,964 --> 00:11:16,639
LAM QUANG THY.

122
00:11:35,945 --> 00:11:39,074
My hatred for them was pure.

123
00:11:39,199 --> 00:11:40,997
Pure.

124
00:11:41,117 --> 00:11:44,212
I hated them so much.

125
00:11:44,329 --> 00:11:45,706
And I was so scared of them.

126
00:11:50,251 --> 00:11:52,470
Boy, I was terrified of them.

127
00:12:00,970 --> 00:12:03,849
And the scareder I got,
the more I hated them.

128
00:12:06,851 --> 00:12:10,071
I was an 18-year-old Marine
rifleman with the ink still wet

129
00:12:10,188 --> 00:12:12,236
on my high school diploma.

130
00:12:12,357 --> 00:12:14,701
I didn't want to shame myself
in front of my buddies.

131
00:12:16,861 --> 00:12:18,738
But I was so scared.

132
00:12:18,863 --> 00:12:21,662
I felt like I was hanging onto
my honor by my fingernails

133
00:12:21,783 --> 00:12:23,376
the whole time I was there.

134
00:12:38,216 --> 00:12:40,344
In the spring of 1919,

135
00:12:40,468 --> 00:12:43,597
as the victorious Allied Powers
met in Paris

136
00:12:43,721 --> 00:12:47,396
to rebuild a world shattered
by the Great War,

137
00:12:47,517 --> 00:12:51,192
President Woodrow Wilson
headed the American delegation

138
00:12:51,354 --> 00:12:53,698
housed in the Hotel Crillon.

139
00:12:56,609 --> 00:13:00,364
One day, a tall, slender,
29-nine-year-old man

140
00:13:00,530 --> 00:13:02,874
appeared with a petition
for the president

141
00:13:03,032 --> 00:13:06,912
he and other Vietnamese
nationalists had written.

142
00:13:07,036 --> 00:13:10,540
Inspired by Wilson's declaration

143
00:13:10,665 --> 00:13:13,509
that the interests of colonial
peoples should be given

144
00:13:13,626 --> 00:13:16,800
equal weight with those
of their European rulers,

145
00:13:16,921 --> 00:13:20,391
the man was asking that this
principle be applied

146
00:13:20,550 --> 00:13:22,223
to his homeland.

147
00:13:22,343 --> 00:13:27,065
The president's secretary
promised to show it to Wilson,

148
00:13:27,181 --> 00:13:30,731
but there is no
evidence that he ever did.

149
00:13:30,852 --> 00:13:33,321
His name was Nguyen Tat Thanh,

150
00:13:33,438 --> 00:13:37,318
but he was now living under
an alias, Nguyen Ai Quoc-

151
00:13:37,442 --> 00:13:39,991
"Nguyen the Patriot."

152
00:13:41,321 --> 00:13:43,574
During his long, shadowy career,

153
00:13:43,698 --> 00:13:47,373
he would adopt some
70 different pseudonyms,

154
00:13:47,493 --> 00:13:50,542
finally settling on
"the most enlightened one"-

155
00:13:50,663 --> 00:13:53,963
Ho Chi Minh.

156
00:13:54,083 --> 00:13:59,260
Ho Chi Minh was a man
who succeeded in projecting an image

157
00:13:59,422 --> 00:14:03,302
of somebody who was totally
dedicated to freeing

158
00:14:03,426 --> 00:14:07,772
his country and his people
from foreign domination

159
00:14:07,930 --> 00:14:11,855
to the point that he
sacrificed his own well-being,

160
00:14:11,976 --> 00:14:15,822
his own life, not having
a family of his own.

161
00:14:17,273 --> 00:14:19,776
To Vietnamese,
that's a big sacrifice

162
00:14:19,901 --> 00:14:22,620
because to us
everybody needs a family.

163
00:14:24,614 --> 00:14:27,288
Ho Chi Minh was born in 1890,

164
00:14:27,450 --> 00:14:30,294
the son of a minor official
in the French regime.

165
00:14:30,411 --> 00:14:33,290
After taking part
in a demonstration

166
00:14:33,414 --> 00:14:34,961
against the puppet emperor

167
00:14:35,083 --> 00:14:36,881
and the Frenchmen
who pulled his strings,

168
00:14:37,001 --> 00:14:41,051
Ho was expelled from school
and marked for arrest.

169
00:14:43,257 --> 00:14:48,514
He left Vietnam in 1911 and
remained in exile for 30 years.

170
00:14:50,139 --> 00:14:53,313
He served as a cook's helper
aboard a French liner,

171
00:14:53,476 --> 00:14:56,150
and visited New York and Boston,

172
00:14:56,312 --> 00:15:01,284
where he worked for a time as a
pastry chef at the Parker House.

173
00:15:01,401 --> 00:15:06,658
He shoveled snow in London,
tinted photographs in Paris.

174
00:15:08,157 --> 00:15:12,333
There, Ho Chi Minh joined
the French Socialist Party.

175
00:15:12,453 --> 00:15:15,832
But when he discovered the
anti-colonial writings of Lenin,

176
00:15:15,957 --> 00:15:17,925
he became a communist.

177
00:15:19,502 --> 00:15:21,345
He was invited
to Moscow to study,

178
00:15:21,504 --> 00:15:24,474
underwent training
as a Soviet agent,

179
00:15:24,590 --> 00:15:27,935
was sometimes criticized
for being a nationalist first,

180
00:15:28,052 --> 00:15:29,850
a communist second,

181
00:15:30,012 --> 00:15:32,891
and then was dispatched to China

182
00:15:33,015 --> 00:15:36,189
to organize a cell
of other Vietnamese exiles

183
00:15:36,310 --> 00:15:40,861
and help establish
the Indochinese Communist Party.

184
00:15:40,982 --> 00:15:44,657
Through it all,
"He was taut and quivering,"

185
00:15:44,777 --> 00:15:47,997
a friend remembered,
"with only one thought-

186
00:15:48,114 --> 00:15:50,913
his country, Vietnam."

187
00:16:04,797 --> 00:16:11,180
By 1940, much of
the world was at war again.

188
00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:21,406
Germany had seized most
of Western Europe,

189
00:16:21,522 --> 00:16:23,399
including France.

190
00:16:26,903 --> 00:16:28,621
Imperial Japan threatened

191
00:16:28,738 --> 00:16:30,786
many of the European colonies
in Asia,

192
00:16:30,907 --> 00:16:34,753
and occupied Vietnam, where
they permitted their allies,

193
00:16:34,869 --> 00:16:36,416
the collaborationist French,

194
00:16:36,537 --> 00:16:39,211
to continue to oversee
their colony.

195
00:16:42,418 --> 00:16:45,922
To some Vietnamese,
the coming of the Japanese

196
00:16:46,088 --> 00:16:50,594
seemed to signal a welcome end
to white colonial rule.

197
00:16:50,718 --> 00:16:53,938
But Ho Chi Minh,
still in exile in China,

198
00:16:54,096 --> 00:16:57,441
saw the Japanese
as alien invaders,

199
00:16:57,558 --> 00:16:59,936
no more welcome than the French.

200
00:17:00,102 --> 00:17:03,231
They were only interested in
exploiting his country

201
00:17:03,356 --> 00:17:09,034
and seizing Vietnamese crops
to fill their own rice bowls.

202
00:17:09,153 --> 00:17:11,451
The time had come, he said,

203
00:17:11,614 --> 00:17:15,118
to rally "patriots of all ages
and all types,

204
00:17:15,284 --> 00:17:19,289
peasants, workers, merchants
and soldiers"

205
00:17:19,455 --> 00:17:23,130
to defeat the Japanese and
the collaborationist French.

206
00:17:26,921 --> 00:17:32,428
In February of 1941, after three
decades away from his homeland,

207
00:17:32,552 --> 00:17:36,557
Ho Chi Minh slipped back across
the Chinese border into Vietnam

208
00:17:36,681 --> 00:17:40,982
and set up headquarters near
the remote village of Pac Bo

209
00:17:41,102 --> 00:17:43,901
in a limestone cave
at the side of a mountain

210
00:17:44,021 --> 00:17:46,695
he named for Karl Marx,

211
00:17:46,816 --> 00:17:52,289
overlooking a jungle stream
he named for his hero, Lenin.

212
00:17:54,657 --> 00:17:57,285
There, he founded
a revolutionary movement,

213
00:17:57,410 --> 00:18:01,040
which he called the
Vietnam Independence League-

214
00:18:01,163 --> 00:18:03,791
the Viet Minh.

215
00:18:16,512 --> 00:18:19,686
To build and lead a
Fighting force for his revolution,

216
00:18:19,807 --> 00:18:22,401
Ho called upon Vo Nguyen Giap,

217
00:18:22,518 --> 00:18:24,896
a one-time teacher
of French history

218
00:18:25,021 --> 00:18:28,696
who had instructed
the children of Hanoi's elite.

219
00:18:28,816 --> 00:18:32,366
Giap was an early convert
to communism,

220
00:18:32,486 --> 00:18:35,831
whose life-long hatred
for the French intensified

221
00:18:35,948 --> 00:18:39,202
when they beat his wife to death
in prison.

222
00:18:39,368 --> 00:18:43,589
Inspired by Napoleon,
Lawrence of Arabia,

223
00:18:43,706 --> 00:18:47,301
and the communist Chinese
revolutionary Mao Zedong,

224
00:18:47,418 --> 00:18:49,716
Giap had already begun
to develop

225
00:18:49,837 --> 00:18:54,058
a distinctive theory of warfare
that relied on guerrilla tactics

226
00:18:54,216 --> 00:18:59,188
until a full-scale conventional
attack could be mounted.

227
00:18:59,305 --> 00:19:03,230
In the fight for independence
which he believed was coming,

228
00:19:03,392 --> 00:19:10,025
his armies, Giap said, would be
"everywhere and nowhere."

229
00:19:10,149 --> 00:19:13,949
The reason Vietnamese
had always resort to guerrilla warfare

230
00:19:14,070 --> 00:19:16,573
was because we were
a small country.

231
00:19:16,697 --> 00:19:21,919
And it was just a way of fight
the weak against the strong.

232
00:19:22,078 --> 00:19:25,582
Don't fight unless you're
sure you can win,

233
00:19:25,748 --> 00:19:29,048
and surprise is a big element.

234
00:19:30,878 --> 00:19:33,427
Choose your own battle.

235
00:19:39,136 --> 00:19:43,266
I had about 26
guys that clay out of 45.

236
00:19:43,432 --> 00:19:45,730
We were always
somewhat understrength.

237
00:19:45,851 --> 00:19:48,104
And this day we were
quite understrength.

238
00:19:49,772 --> 00:19:51,649
My platoon's on point.

239
00:19:56,779 --> 00:19:58,452
Go, 90, 90, 90, 90!

240
00:19:58,572 --> 00:20:01,291
And all of a
sudden the very point man,

241
00:20:01,450 --> 00:20:04,875
the first guy in the column,
said, “VC on the trail.

242
00:20:04,995 --> 00:20:06,247
VC on the trail."

243
00:20:08,249 --> 00:20:10,547
Before I had a chance
to digest this...

244
00:20:11,877 --> 00:20:13,677
...he went down,
shot right through the chest.

245
00:20:15,881 --> 00:20:19,431
And what was a very
well-laid ambush erupted.

246
00:20:30,646 --> 00:20:32,819
I knew I'd lost a bunch of guys.

247
00:20:32,940 --> 00:20:37,116
I said a prayer to God saying,
basically,

248
00:20:37,236 --> 00:20:39,659
"If you need any more guys
from my platoon, take me.

249
00:20:39,780 --> 00:20:41,623
Don't take any more of my men."

250
00:20:41,741 --> 00:20:45,166
As soon as I said it,
I freaked myself out and said,

251
00:20:45,286 --> 00:20:46,663
"Holy shit.

252
00:20:46,787 --> 00:20:49,336
Can I take that prayer back?"

253
00:20:59,508 --> 00:21:02,853
By the spring of 1945,

254
00:21:02,970 --> 00:21:08,272
more than three years after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,

255
00:21:08,392 --> 00:21:11,521
the United States government
was looking for allies

256
00:21:11,645 --> 00:21:13,693
behind the lines in Vietnam.

257
00:21:13,814 --> 00:21:15,816
The Americans were hoping
to find a way

258
00:21:15,941 --> 00:21:19,195
to undermine Japanese forces
there

259
00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:22,449
when they were contacted
by Ho Chi Minh.

260
00:21:22,573 --> 00:21:24,371
And so it was decided to drop

261
00:21:24,492 --> 00:21:29,464
an OSS team in to meet with
the Viet Minh leadership.

262
00:21:31,957 --> 00:21:35,177
Paul Hoagland was
the medic on the team.

263
00:21:35,294 --> 00:21:38,889
And the first thing he was told
was that he must attend

264
00:21:39,006 --> 00:21:40,804
to their leader, who was
desperately sick.

265
00:21:40,925 --> 00:21:43,929
So he was taken to a grass shack

266
00:21:44,053 --> 00:21:48,399
where a bewhiskered, skinny man
lay on a bundle of straw,

267
00:21:48,516 --> 00:21:50,018
desperately ill.

268
00:21:50,142 --> 00:21:51,735
And that was Ho Chi Minh.

269
00:21:54,230 --> 00:21:58,827
The OSS, the secret
wartime precursor of the CIA,

270
00:21:58,943 --> 00:22:02,038
supplied Ho's ragtag guerrillas
with arms

271
00:22:02,154 --> 00:22:06,955
and marveled at how quickly
they learned to handle them.

272
00:22:07,076 --> 00:22:09,750
Ho Chi Minh began to call
his followers

273
00:22:09,912 --> 00:22:14,088
the “Viet-American Army,"
and praised the United States

274
00:22:14,208 --> 00:22:16,006
as a "champion of democracy"

275
00:22:16,126 --> 00:22:19,255
that would surely help them end
colonial rule.

276
00:22:37,606 --> 00:22:42,157
Meanwhile, Famine gripped
the northern part of the country.

277
00:22:42,278 --> 00:22:44,246
Hundreds of thousands
of Vietnamese

278
00:22:44,363 --> 00:22:46,286
were dying of starvation

279
00:22:46,448 --> 00:22:49,622
while Japanese storehouses
were filled with rice.

280
00:22:52,705 --> 00:22:54,745
In those
clays, garbage was collected

281
00:22:54,790 --> 00:22:56,918
by people pushing carts.

282
00:22:57,042 --> 00:23:01,548
And my mother remembers that
every morning she would see

283
00:23:01,672 --> 00:23:03,549
these garbage carts going around

284
00:23:03,674 --> 00:23:06,018
and people picking up dead
bodies and throwing them

285
00:23:06,135 --> 00:23:07,637
on the cart.

286
00:23:07,761 --> 00:23:09,263
It was incredible.

287
00:23:09,388 --> 00:23:12,938
And people who lived through it
never, never forgot.

288
00:23:13,058 --> 00:23:17,438
Duong Van Mai's
father was the deputy governor

289
00:23:17,563 --> 00:23:19,691
of a province east of Hanoi,

290
00:23:19,815 --> 00:23:22,238
the son and grandson
of mandarins

291
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:24,987
who had all served the French.

292
00:23:25,112 --> 00:23:28,412
He and his wife had 17 children.

293
00:23:28,532 --> 00:23:33,254
Parents who had
children who were, you know, plump,

294
00:23:33,370 --> 00:23:35,793
were very afraid of their
children being stolen

295
00:23:35,915 --> 00:23:38,338
and killed.

296
00:23:38,459 --> 00:23:41,508
And it was really like
hell on earth.

297
00:23:41,670 --> 00:23:45,174
The government didn't have
a clue on how to deal

298
00:23:45,341 --> 00:23:47,389
with this calamity.

299
00:23:49,011 --> 00:23:50,263
But Ho Chi Minh did.

300
00:23:50,387 --> 00:23:52,606
He directed the Viet Minh

301
00:23:52,723 --> 00:23:55,977
to break into the Japanese
storehouses wherever they could

302
00:23:56,101 --> 00:24:00,197
and distribute the rice
to the people.

303
00:24:00,356 --> 00:24:02,825
They were hailed as saviors.

304
00:24:17,665 --> 00:24:20,839
When an atomic
bomb destroyed Hiroshima,

305
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:24,464
and three days later a second
one destroyed Nagasaki,

306
00:24:24,588 --> 00:24:27,592
Japanese surrender
seemed imminent.

307
00:24:29,677 --> 00:24:33,227
Ho Chi Minh called upon
all Vietnamese to rise up

308
00:24:33,347 --> 00:24:35,224
and take over their own country

309
00:24:35,391 --> 00:24:37,735
before the Free French
could reestablish

310
00:24:37,851 --> 00:24:40,320
their old colonial regime.

311
00:24:40,437 --> 00:24:45,568
They did, in cities and towns
across the country.

312
00:24:49,154 --> 00:24:52,078
On September 2, 1945,

313
00:24:52,199 --> 00:24:54,918
the same day the Japanese
formally surrendered,

314
00:24:55,077 --> 00:24:57,921
hundreds of thousands
of Vietnamese

315
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:02,756
streamed into Ba Dinh Square in
Hanoi to see for the first time

316
00:25:02,918 --> 00:25:06,092
the mysterious leader
of the Viet Minh

317
00:25:06,255 --> 00:25:10,852
and hear him proclaim
Vietnam's independence.

318
00:25:14,513 --> 00:25:19,019
With an OSS
officer standing nearby,

319
00:25:19,143 --> 00:25:23,114
Ho Chi Minh began with the words
of Thomas Jefferson:

320
00:25:23,230 --> 00:25:25,779
"All men are created equal.

321
00:25:25,899 --> 00:25:28,652
"They are endowed
by their creator

322
00:25:28,777 --> 00:25:31,872
"with certain
unalienable rights;

323
00:25:31,989 --> 00:25:34,617
"that among these are life,
liberty

324
00:25:34,783 --> 00:25:36,956
and the pursuit of happiness."

325
00:25:59,558 --> 00:26:01,777
Ho Chi Minh had great hopes

326
00:26:01,894 --> 00:26:07,242
that the U.S. would support the
Vietnam desire for independence,

327
00:26:07,357 --> 00:26:09,109
not necessarily by intervening

328
00:26:09,234 --> 00:26:12,989
but by doing what it could

329
00:26:13,113 --> 00:26:16,663
to support an
independence movement.

330
00:26:16,784 --> 00:26:20,459
Ho Chi Minh's hopes for
American support were calculated

331
00:26:20,579 --> 00:26:23,458
but understandable.

332
00:26:23,582 --> 00:26:27,462
President Franklin Roosevelt had
promised a postwar world

333
00:26:27,586 --> 00:26:30,635
that would "respect the rights
of all peoples

334
00:26:30,756 --> 00:26:33,680
to choose the form of government
under which they live."

335
00:26:36,595 --> 00:26:40,395
But Roosevelt was dead now,
and his successor, Harry Truman,

336
00:26:40,516 --> 00:26:44,362
had inherited
a very different world.

337
00:26:44,478 --> 00:26:46,776
The alliance
with the Soviet Union

338
00:26:46,897 --> 00:26:50,697
that had won the
Second World War had collapsed.

339
00:26:50,818 --> 00:26:54,413
The Soviets now occupied
the Eastern European countries

340
00:26:54,530 --> 00:26:59,081
they had overrun, and hoped to
spread their influence farther,

341
00:26:59,201 --> 00:27:03,832
into Iran, Turkey,
and the Mediterranean.

342
00:27:03,956 --> 00:27:08,257
A new cold war had begun.

343
00:27:08,377 --> 00:27:10,926
French president
Charles De Gaulle warned

344
00:27:11,046 --> 00:27:14,095
that if the United States
insisted on independence

345
00:27:14,216 --> 00:27:17,811
for her colonies,
France might have no choice

346
00:27:17,928 --> 00:27:21,228
but to "fall into
the Russian orbit."

347
00:27:21,390 --> 00:27:24,735
The United States must do
nothing to undercut

348
00:27:24,893 --> 00:27:30,241
the restoration of France's
empire, including Vietnam.

349
00:27:34,361 --> 00:27:37,831
There were hardly any
Americans in Vietnam, you know...

350
00:27:37,948 --> 00:27:40,918
State Department people,
consular officials,

351
00:27:41,034 --> 00:27:43,207
a few businessmen.

352
00:27:43,328 --> 00:27:45,330
Hardly anyone from this country

353
00:27:45,455 --> 00:27:47,207
knew where Vietnam was located.

354
00:27:47,332 --> 00:27:52,008
George Wickes was
part of a seven-man OSS mission

355
00:27:52,129 --> 00:27:55,429
sent to Saigon,
the largest city in the south.

356
00:27:55,591 --> 00:27:59,016
The United States
was officially neutral,

357
00:27:59,136 --> 00:28:01,810
hoping the French
and Viet Minh could reach

358
00:28:01,930 --> 00:28:05,434
some peaceful solution
on their own.

359
00:28:05,601 --> 00:28:09,071
Allied leaders had agreed
temporarily to divide Vietnam

360
00:28:09,188 --> 00:28:11,657
into two separate zones.

361
00:28:11,773 --> 00:28:15,949
Nationalist Chinese troops were
to handle things in the north.

362
00:28:16,069 --> 00:28:19,494
British colonial troops would
try to perform the same task

363
00:28:19,615 --> 00:28:22,414
in the south,
where rival factions,

364
00:28:22,534 --> 00:28:26,630
including the French and Viet
Minh, were already fighting

365
00:28:26,747 --> 00:28:29,626
in the streets of Saigon.

366
00:28:29,750 --> 00:28:32,094
No one was in charge.

367
00:28:32,211 --> 00:28:36,341
On both sides, there was
brutality and atrocity

368
00:28:36,465 --> 00:28:37,967
and violence.

369
00:28:38,091 --> 00:28:40,594
It wasn't quite a civil war

370
00:28:40,719 --> 00:28:42,562
but it was getting very
close to civil war

371
00:28:42,679 --> 00:28:44,977
in the streets of Saigon.

372
00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:48,064
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Dewey,

373
00:28:48,185 --> 00:28:51,530
the 28-year-old commander
of the OSS in Saigon,

374
00:28:51,647 --> 00:28:54,241
tried to make sense of it all.

375
00:28:54,358 --> 00:28:57,077
Right from the start he
was in touch with everybody...

376
00:28:57,194 --> 00:28:59,913
not only the French,
but very soon he established

377
00:29:00,030 --> 00:29:04,126
a connection with various
Vietnamese groups.

378
00:29:04,243 --> 00:29:07,213
The Viet Minh soon
established themselves

379
00:29:07,329 --> 00:29:09,752
as the most successful.

380
00:29:09,873 --> 00:29:12,672
Dewey, who spoke fluent French,

381
00:29:12,793 --> 00:29:15,637
brokered talks between
a Viet Minh spokesman

382
00:29:15,754 --> 00:29:19,475
and the senior French
representative in the city.

383
00:29:19,591 --> 00:29:24,347
His efforts infuriated
British general Douglas Gracey,

384
00:29:24,471 --> 00:29:27,350
who commanded
Allied forces in the south.

385
00:29:27,516 --> 00:29:30,360
Gracey was convinced
that French control

386
00:29:30,477 --> 00:29:33,276
should be reimposed
as soon as possible.

387
00:29:33,397 --> 00:29:36,697
By conferring with
the Viet Minh, Gracey said,

388
00:29:36,858 --> 00:29:41,284
Colonel Dewey had become
a "subversive" force.

389
00:29:42,864 --> 00:29:46,334
The violence in and around
Saigon escalated.

390
00:29:48,370 --> 00:29:51,044
Colonel Dewey urgently
cabled his superiors:

391
00:29:51,206 --> 00:29:54,710
Vietnam "is burning," he wrote.

392
00:29:54,835 --> 00:29:57,304
"The French and British
are finished here

393
00:29:57,421 --> 00:29:59,924
and the United States,"
he concluded,

394
00:30:00,048 --> 00:30:02,221
"ought to clear out
of Southeast Asia."

395
00:30:06,555 --> 00:30:10,981
Two days later,
September 26, 1945,

396
00:30:11,101 --> 00:30:12,569
he set out for the airport,

397
00:30:12,728 --> 00:30:17,529
prepared to fly
to OSS headquarters.

398
00:30:17,649 --> 00:30:22,621
At a roadblock, the Viet Minh
mistook Dewey for a Frenchman

399
00:30:22,738 --> 00:30:24,740
and opened fire.

400
00:30:26,408 --> 00:30:29,582
He was killed instantly.

401
00:30:29,745 --> 00:30:33,500
Ho Chi Minh wrote
to the United States

402
00:30:33,623 --> 00:30:37,594
lamenting the death of Dewey,
whom he recognized

403
00:30:37,753 --> 00:30:41,599
as a person sympathetic
to his cause.

404
00:30:41,715 --> 00:30:44,468
It seemed a terrible irony
that Dewey,

405
00:30:44,593 --> 00:30:47,142
who was doing what he could
to help

406
00:30:47,262 --> 00:30:50,937
the Vietnamese independence
movement should have been killed

407
00:30:51,058 --> 00:30:53,277
by the Vietnamese by a mistake.

408
00:31:04,780 --> 00:31:09,536
An elderly African-American
woman answered the door.

409
00:31:14,623 --> 00:31:18,503
I think she knew the instant
she saw us why we were there.

410
00:31:21,505 --> 00:31:23,633
And the padre said, uh,

411
00:31:23,757 --> 00:31:28,308
"I'm... I'm terribly sorry
to inform you,

412
00:31:28,470 --> 00:31:33,647
but your son was killed
in Vietnam."

413
00:31:33,767 --> 00:31:34,767
And she just sat down.

414
00:31:34,810 --> 00:31:36,403
Didn't say a word.

415
00:31:38,772 --> 00:31:42,493
Then the... her husband says,
"No, there's a mistake."

416
00:31:42,609 --> 00:31:44,327
He comes back with this letter.

417
00:31:44,486 --> 00:31:46,705
And he said, "Look, see?

418
00:31:46,822 --> 00:31:51,703
We got it yesterday, my... our
son was still alive yesterday."

419
00:31:51,827 --> 00:31:54,797
And the chaplain looked
at the letter

420
00:31:54,913 --> 00:31:57,086
and he said, "It's a week old.

421
00:31:57,207 --> 00:32:01,553
I think your son was killed on
the day he wrote this letter."

422
00:32:09,428 --> 00:32:13,604
In the fall of 1945, a
week after Colonel Dewey's death,

423
00:32:13,723 --> 00:32:16,602
fresh French troops
began arriving in Saigon,

424
00:32:16,726 --> 00:32:20,572
taking over from the British.

425
00:32:20,689 --> 00:32:21,861
They quickly established

426
00:32:21,982 --> 00:32:23,734
control of the city

427
00:32:23,859 --> 00:32:25,156
and set out to reoccupy

428
00:32:25,277 --> 00:32:27,029
the entire country.

429
00:32:28,989 --> 00:32:32,710
Ho Chi Minh hoped somehow
to achieve independence

430
00:32:32,826 --> 00:32:34,794
without a war with France,

431
00:32:34,911 --> 00:32:38,290
and he still hoped the
United States would intervene.

432
00:32:38,415 --> 00:32:42,340
"You never had an empire, never
exploited the Asian peoples,"

433
00:32:42,461 --> 00:32:45,556
he would tell a visiting
American journalist.

434
00:32:45,672 --> 00:32:49,722
"Do not be blinded by this issue
of communism."

435
00:32:49,843 --> 00:32:54,940
He did not want to fight
the French as an enemy of America.

436
00:32:55,056 --> 00:33:01,189
And, in fact, I saw the letters
he wrote to President Truman

437
00:33:01,313 --> 00:33:05,739
saying, "We believe in the same
things you believe."

438
00:33:05,859 --> 00:33:09,079
Those letters I saw
in the CIA files,

439
00:33:09,237 --> 00:33:13,083
they had never been given
to President Truman.

440
00:33:17,329 --> 00:33:21,926
In June of 1946, Ho
Chi Minh returned to Paris

441
00:33:22,042 --> 00:33:24,921
in a fruitless attempt to get
the French to live up

442
00:33:25,086 --> 00:33:28,260
to a promise they had made
of increased autonomy

443
00:33:28,381 --> 00:33:30,600
for his country.

444
00:33:30,717 --> 00:33:32,469
While Ho was away,

445
00:33:32,594 --> 00:33:35,939
General Giap began consolidating
communist control

446
00:33:36,097 --> 00:33:37,440
of the revolution.

447
00:33:37,557 --> 00:33:40,276
He conducted a merciless purge

448
00:33:40,435 --> 00:33:43,314
of members of rival
nationalist parties

449
00:33:43,438 --> 00:33:46,783
and people he called
"reactionary saboteurs"-

450
00:33:46,942 --> 00:33:52,164
landlords and moneylenders,
Trotskyites and Catholics,

451
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:56,626
men and women accused of
collaborating with the French.

452
00:33:56,785 --> 00:34:01,006
Hundreds were shot,
drowned, buried alive.

453
00:34:01,122 --> 00:34:02,999
LAM QUANG THY.

454
00:34:14,177 --> 00:34:19,024
On December 19, 1946,
after months of building tension,

455
00:34:19,140 --> 00:34:21,313
fighting broke out in Hanoi

456
00:34:21,476 --> 00:34:24,320
between the Viet Minh
and the French.

457
00:34:28,650 --> 00:34:31,779
The Viet Minh proved no match
for French firepower.

458
00:34:36,366 --> 00:34:41,213
Ho, Giap, and their comrades
slipped out of the city

459
00:34:41,329 --> 00:34:45,334
and returned to their mountain
stronghold far to the north.

460
00:34:47,586 --> 00:34:50,681
"Those who have rifles will use
their rifles,"

461
00:34:50,839 --> 00:34:52,841
Ho declared in a radio address

462
00:34:52,966 --> 00:34:55,765
calling for a nationwide
guerrilla war.

463
00:34:55,885 --> 00:34:59,731
"Those who have swords
will use swords;

464
00:34:59,848 --> 00:35:05,025
those who have no swords
will use spades or sticks."

465
00:35:35,425 --> 00:35:38,019
But the country
Ho Chi Minh hoped to unite

466
00:35:38,136 --> 00:35:41,356
was itself bitterly divided.

467
00:35:41,473 --> 00:35:43,726
Families were being torn apart.

468
00:35:43,892 --> 00:35:47,692
Despite her father's position
in the French government,

469
00:35:47,812 --> 00:35:52,739
Duong Van Mai's sister felt
compelled to answer Ho's call.

470
00:35:54,402 --> 00:35:57,997
My older
sister Thang was married

471
00:35:58,114 --> 00:36:03,086
to a man who had great sympathy
for the Viet Minh.

472
00:36:03,244 --> 00:36:06,214
And by that time Ho Chi Minh
had evacuated his government

473
00:36:06,331 --> 00:36:07,583
to the mountain base.

474
00:36:07,749 --> 00:36:11,344
So my sister and her husband
trekked all the way

475
00:36:11,461 --> 00:36:13,680
from Hanoi toward the base

476
00:36:13,797 --> 00:36:17,301
in order to join the resistance
against the French.

477
00:36:20,053 --> 00:36:22,476
So the Vietnam War
was really a civil war

478
00:36:22,597 --> 00:36:24,224
down to the family level.

479
00:36:32,607 --> 00:36:36,202
France poured
thousands of men into Vietnam...

480
00:36:36,319 --> 00:36:40,620
French regulars, European
mercenaries, and colonial troops

481
00:36:40,782 --> 00:36:44,662
from Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia, and Senegal-

482
00:36:44,786 --> 00:36:49,633
who fought alongside an army
of Cambodians, Laotians,

483
00:36:49,791 --> 00:36:52,635
and anti-communist Vietnamese.

484
00:36:56,506 --> 00:37:00,727
French forces managed to occupy
most of the large towns

485
00:37:00,844 --> 00:37:02,221
and province capitals

486
00:37:02,345 --> 00:37:07,317
and established hundreds
of isolated outposts.

487
00:37:07,475 --> 00:37:12,106
The French also set out to try
to win over rural Vietnamese

488
00:37:12,230 --> 00:37:15,484
through a program
they called pacification-

489
00:37:15,650 --> 00:37:17,698
pacification-

490
00:37:17,819 --> 00:37:22,450
building dikes, schools and
roads, and vaccinating children.

491
00:37:25,326 --> 00:37:27,670
The French
would pacify a village

492
00:37:27,829 --> 00:37:31,959
and during the daytime
they could control it.

493
00:37:32,083 --> 00:37:35,553
But at night the Viet Minh
would come back.

494
00:37:35,670 --> 00:37:39,846
And so it was never
completely secure.

495
00:37:39,966 --> 00:37:43,345
My father would shake his head
and said, you know,

496
00:37:43,511 --> 00:37:45,013
"Pacification is really futile

497
00:37:45,138 --> 00:37:49,359
because it's like trying to hold
sand in your fingers."

498
00:37:52,854 --> 00:37:57,906
The Viet Minh mined roads,
blew up bridges and railroads,

499
00:37:58,026 --> 00:38:03,123
ambushed French patrols,
and then disappeared.

500
00:38:05,492 --> 00:38:09,668
French soldiers sometimes took
revenge on the nearest village,

501
00:38:09,788 --> 00:38:12,166
burning homes, raping women,

502
00:38:12,290 --> 00:38:16,466
executing men suspected
of aiding the Viet Minh.

503
00:38:55,458 --> 00:39:00,259
But the communists proved
every bit as ruthless as the French.

504
00:39:00,380 --> 00:39:03,429
"It is better to kill even
those who might be innocent,"

505
00:39:03,591 --> 00:39:09,269
one commander said, "than to let
a guilty person go."

506
00:39:09,430 --> 00:39:11,649
And they specifically targeted

507
00:39:11,766 --> 00:39:15,020
anyone who had links
to the French.

508
00:39:15,144 --> 00:39:18,774
Once my father started
working for the French, then he was

509
00:39:18,940 --> 00:39:21,568
a target, especially
the higher he rose,

510
00:39:21,693 --> 00:39:23,536
the bigger target he became.

511
00:39:23,653 --> 00:39:29,706
A Viet Minh agent actually came
in with a pistol to shoot him

512
00:39:29,826 --> 00:39:33,376
but at the last moment
decided not to.

513
00:40:12,452 --> 00:40:15,706
French casualties
continued to mount.

514
00:40:15,830 --> 00:40:18,674
“There are days
when we are so discouraged

515
00:40:18,791 --> 00:40:21,340
that we would like
to give it all up,"

516
00:40:21,502 --> 00:40:23,550
a French soldier
wrote his mother.

517
00:40:23,671 --> 00:40:26,845
"Convoys under attack,
roads cut,

518
00:40:27,008 --> 00:40:30,057
"firing in all directions
every night,

519
00:40:30,178 --> 00:40:32,101
the indifference at home."

520
00:40:41,814 --> 00:40:44,543
While I was there I had
the opportunity to call my mother,

521
00:40:44,567 --> 00:40:46,695
you know.

522
00:40:46,819 --> 00:40:49,823
And I was telling my mother
what was happening over there,

523
00:40:49,948 --> 00:40:53,043
and I was telling her how
she shouldn't believe

524
00:40:53,159 --> 00:40:56,003
what she sees in the newspaper
and sees on television

525
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,714
because we're losing the war.

526
00:40:58,873 --> 00:41:01,547
I said, "And you'll probably
never see me again

527
00:41:01,709 --> 00:41:05,259
"because we're the most northern
outpost that the Marines have,

528
00:41:05,380 --> 00:41:06,677
you know."

529
00:41:06,798 --> 00:41:08,817
We could literally... could look
right into North Vietnam.

530
00:41:08,841 --> 00:41:10,801
We could see the sparks
when the guns fired on us.

531
00:41:10,885 --> 00:41:13,013
And I said, "And everybody
in my unit is dying.

532
00:41:13,137 --> 00:41:15,731
I probably won't be
coming back."

533
00:41:15,848 --> 00:41:17,850
And my mother said,
"No, you're coming back."

534
00:41:17,976 --> 00:41:21,697
She said, "I talk to God
every day and you're special.

535
00:41:21,813 --> 00:41:23,611
You're coming back."

536
00:41:23,731 --> 00:41:25,950
And I said, "Ma, everybody's
mother thinks

537
00:41:26,067 --> 00:41:28,240
"that they're special.

538
00:41:28,403 --> 00:41:32,408
You know, I'm putting pieces
of special people in bags."

539
00:41:37,912 --> 00:41:39,598
President Truman's
dramatic announcement

540
00:41:39,622 --> 00:41:41,044
that Russia had the atom secret

541
00:41:41,165 --> 00:41:42,810
caused state departments
all over the world

542
00:41:42,834 --> 00:41:45,553
to stir uneasily.

543
00:41:45,670 --> 00:41:49,675
We were very aware
that there was a Cold War

544
00:41:49,799 --> 00:41:51,642
and that we had an enemy,

545
00:41:51,759 --> 00:41:55,764
and that enemy was
the Soviet Union.

546
00:41:55,930 --> 00:41:58,934
The United States stood
at one pole

547
00:41:59,100 --> 00:42:01,194
and the Soviet Union stood
at the other pole.

548
00:42:01,310 --> 00:42:04,280
It was kind of a
Manichean dynamic

549
00:42:04,397 --> 00:42:06,115
that there was evil
and there was good.

550
00:42:06,274 --> 00:42:08,197
And we were good,
and the other side was evil.

551
00:42:08,317 --> 00:42:11,366
It wasn't morally ambiguous.

552
00:42:14,198 --> 00:42:18,328
Just a few weeks after
Russia became a nuclear power,

553
00:42:18,453 --> 00:42:20,296
there was more stunning news-

554
00:42:20,413 --> 00:42:23,963
communist forces under
Mao Zedong seized control

555
00:42:24,125 --> 00:42:26,674
of China.

556
00:42:26,794 --> 00:42:30,640
Separate communist insurrections
were also underway

557
00:42:30,798 --> 00:42:36,305
in the British colonies
of Burma and Malaya.

558
00:42:36,429 --> 00:42:40,104
In January 1950,
Mao formally recognized

559
00:42:40,224 --> 00:42:44,229
Ho Chi Minh's insurgency and
agreed to provide the arms,

560
00:42:44,353 --> 00:42:48,324
equipment, and military training
he had been seeking.

561
00:42:48,441 --> 00:42:52,412
The Soviets recognized
the Viet Minh as well,

562
00:42:52,528 --> 00:42:54,326
and also offered help.

563
00:42:54,447 --> 00:42:57,997
President Truman,
who was being blamed

564
00:42:58,117 --> 00:43:01,838
by his political opponents
for having "lost" China,

565
00:43:01,996 --> 00:43:04,294
and having failed to "contain"
communism,

566
00:43:04,415 --> 00:43:07,840
approved a $23 million
aid program

567
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:10,679
for the French in Vietnam.

568
00:43:10,797 --> 00:43:15,553
The United States
was no longer neutral.

569
00:43:15,676 --> 00:43:18,520
We were caught
on the horns of a dilemma

570
00:43:18,638 --> 00:43:21,232
of how can we maintain
our friendship

571
00:43:21,349 --> 00:43:25,070
and our alliance with the French
and support them in Indochina

572
00:43:25,186 --> 00:43:28,816
while we, as a former
colony ourselves,

573
00:43:28,940 --> 00:43:31,864
sympathized with the Vietnamese
and their aspirations

574
00:43:32,026 --> 00:43:33,903
for freedom and independence?

575
00:43:38,783 --> 00:43:41,178
A highly trained and
well-equipped North Korean Army

576
00:43:41,202 --> 00:43:43,330
swarmed across the 38th parallel

577
00:43:43,454 --> 00:43:45,456
to attack unprepared
South Korean defenders.

578
00:43:47,291 --> 00:43:50,886
In June of 1950, China's ally,

579
00:43:51,045 --> 00:43:54,515
communist North Korea,
invaded South Korea.

580
00:43:56,175 --> 00:43:58,052
President Truman ordered

581
00:43:58,177 --> 00:44:00,396
tens of thousands
of American ground troops

582
00:44:00,555 --> 00:44:02,307
onto the Korean Peninsula.

583
00:44:09,313 --> 00:44:11,190
The United States and its allies

584
00:44:11,315 --> 00:44:15,570
eventually pushed the invaders
back north.

585
00:44:15,736 --> 00:44:17,989
Meanwhile in southern China,

586
00:44:18,114 --> 00:44:20,492
Mao's military was beginning
to turn the Viet Minh

587
00:44:20,616 --> 00:44:24,416
into a modern fighting force,

588
00:44:24,537 --> 00:44:28,587
capable of inflicting a heavy
toll on the French occupiers.

589
00:44:35,965 --> 00:44:37,717
In July, the Truman
administration

590
00:44:37,842 --> 00:44:40,686
quietly dispatched
transport planes

591
00:44:40,803 --> 00:44:43,352
and a shipload of jeeps
to Vietnam.

592
00:44:43,472 --> 00:44:49,195
Thirty-five military advisors
went along to oversee their use.

593
00:44:51,063 --> 00:44:53,942
None of them, and no one
in the American embassy,

594
00:44:54,108 --> 00:44:58,079
spoke a word of Vietnamese.

595
00:44:58,196 --> 00:45:02,417
But the United States was now
officially in Vietnam.

596
00:45:04,660 --> 00:45:06,788
In October of 1950,

597
00:45:06,954 --> 00:45:09,958
hundreds of thousands
of Chinese troops

598
00:45:10,124 --> 00:45:12,252
began pouring into North Korea,

599
00:45:12,376 --> 00:45:16,301
driving the allies
back down the peninsula.

600
00:45:16,464 --> 00:45:18,057
As that fighting raged,

601
00:45:18,174 --> 00:45:21,348
Truman continued to increase
military aid

602
00:45:21,469 --> 00:45:24,268
for the French war in Vietnam.

603
00:45:28,059 --> 00:45:29,786
If aggression
is successful in Korea,

604
00:45:29,810 --> 00:45:32,984
we can expect it to spread
throughout Asia and Europe

605
00:45:33,147 --> 00:45:34,319
and to this hemisphere.

606
00:45:36,984 --> 00:45:39,453
We are fighting in Korea

607
00:45:39,570 --> 00:45:42,164
for our own national security
and survival.

608
00:45:48,996 --> 00:45:51,090
In the autumn of 1951,

609
00:45:51,207 --> 00:45:53,335
a young Massachusetts
congressman

610
00:45:53,459 --> 00:45:57,305
named John F. Kennedy dined
at the rooftop bar

611
00:45:57,421 --> 00:46:00,015
of the Hotel Majestic
overlooking Saigon.

612
00:46:01,425 --> 00:46:03,393
As he and his party ate,

613
00:46:03,511 --> 00:46:07,857
they could hear the thunder of
guns across the Saigon River.

614
00:46:07,974 --> 00:46:10,978
French commanders
assured Kennedy

615
00:46:11,102 --> 00:46:13,571
that with more American support,

616
00:46:13,688 --> 00:46:16,783
French rule would be
re-established.

617
00:46:16,899 --> 00:46:20,449
But Kennedy spent two hours
with Seymour Topping,

618
00:46:20,569 --> 00:46:22,663
a seasoned American reporter,

619
00:46:22,780 --> 00:46:25,374
who gave him a very
different perspective:

620
00:46:25,491 --> 00:46:28,165
the French were losing, he said,

621
00:46:28,286 --> 00:46:32,041
and many Vietnamese, who had
once admired the Americans,

622
00:46:32,164 --> 00:46:36,294
were beginning to despise them
for backing the French.

623
00:46:36,419 --> 00:46:39,639
Kennedy believed the reporter.

624
00:46:39,755 --> 00:46:43,009
Unless the United States could
persuade the Vietnamese

625
00:46:43,134 --> 00:46:46,729
that it was as opposed to
"injustice and inequality"

626
00:46:46,887 --> 00:46:48,355
as it was to communism,

627
00:46:48,472 --> 00:46:51,396
he told his constituents
when he got home,

628
00:46:51,559 --> 00:46:56,781
the current effort would result
in "foredoomed failure."

629
00:46:59,859 --> 00:47:05,161

I'm gonna give you candy

630
00:47:05,281 --> 00:47:07,124
In 1952,

631
00:47:07,241 --> 00:47:10,541
General Dwight Eisenhower
was elected president,

632
00:47:10,661 --> 00:47:13,414
in part because he promised
to take a tougher stance

633
00:47:13,581 --> 00:47:15,504
on communism.

634
00:47:15,624 --> 00:47:18,924
That year, American taxpayers

635
00:47:19,045 --> 00:47:21,423
were footing more than
30% of the bill

636
00:47:21,589 --> 00:47:24,468
for the French war in Vietnam.

637
00:47:24,592 --> 00:47:26,686
Within two years,

638
00:47:26,802 --> 00:47:30,102
that number would rise
to nearly 80%.

639
00:47:30,264 --> 00:47:33,438

everything, everything

640
00:47:33,601 --> 00:47:35,820
And many
of you ask this question:

641
00:47:35,936 --> 00:47:38,189
Why is the United States
spending

642
00:47:38,314 --> 00:47:40,112
hundreds of millions of dollars

643
00:47:40,232 --> 00:47:44,328
supporting the forces
of the French Union

644
00:47:44,445 --> 00:47:47,995
in the fight against communism
in Indochina?

645
00:47:48,115 --> 00:47:50,334
I think perhaps if we go over
to the map here,

646
00:47:50,451 --> 00:47:54,797
I can indicate to you why
it is so vitally important.

647
00:47:54,914 --> 00:47:57,212
Here's Indochina.

648
00:47:57,333 --> 00:47:58,630
If Indochina falls,

649
00:47:58,793 --> 00:48:01,922
Thailand is put in almost
impossible position.

650
00:48:02,046 --> 00:48:05,095
The same is true of Malaya
with its rubber and tin.

651
00:48:05,216 --> 00:48:10,222
Now may I say that as far as the
war in Indochina is concerned,

652
00:48:10,346 --> 00:48:14,943
that I was there, right on the
battlefield, or close to it,

653
00:48:15,059 --> 00:48:17,653
and it's a bloody war,
and it's a bitter one.

654
00:48:23,067 --> 00:48:27,789
By 1953, the French had
been fighting for seven years.

655
00:48:27,905 --> 00:48:31,125
They had suffered over
100,000 casualties

656
00:48:31,242 --> 00:48:34,337
and failed to pacify
the countryside.

657
00:48:34,495 --> 00:48:38,125
Six commanders had come
and gone.

658
00:48:38,249 --> 00:48:40,377
Nevertheless,
the seventh commander,

659
00:48:40,501 --> 00:48:43,505
General Henri Navarre,
assured his countrymen

660
00:48:43,671 --> 00:48:45,139
that victory was near.

661
00:48:45,256 --> 00:48:48,305
"Now we can see it clearly,"
he said,

662
00:48:48,426 --> 00:48:52,226
"like the light at the end
of the tunnel."

663
00:48:54,265 --> 00:48:58,145
Meanwhile, large parts of the
French population were horrified

664
00:48:58,269 --> 00:49:00,772
by reports of French brutality

665
00:49:00,896 --> 00:49:03,570
and the widespread
use of napalm-

666
00:49:03,691 --> 00:49:08,367
gelatinized petroleum
that burned foliage,

667
00:49:08,487 --> 00:49:10,910
homes, and human flesh.

668
00:49:13,868 --> 00:49:17,213
When returning French troops
disembarked at Marseilles,

669
00:49:17,329 --> 00:49:21,709
members of the longshoremen's
union pelted them with rocks.

670
00:49:21,834 --> 00:49:24,883
Parisian leftists began to call
the conflict

671
00:49:25,004 --> 00:49:28,099
"La Sale Guerra"-
"The Dirty War."

672
00:49:36,515 --> 00:49:38,768
The camera was a close-up,

673
00:49:38,893 --> 00:49:41,942
was over the shoulder
of this storm trooper

674
00:49:42,062 --> 00:49:45,566
who had a kid by the scruff
of his shirt and he smacks him.

675
00:49:45,733 --> 00:49:46,853
People screaming...

676
00:49:46,901 --> 00:49:48,949
At that moment in time,

677
00:49:49,069 --> 00:49:51,663
I realized that anybody who
really cared for America

678
00:49:51,780 --> 00:49:53,248
was sent halfway
around the world

679
00:49:53,365 --> 00:49:56,744
chasing some ghost in a jungle.

680
00:49:56,911 --> 00:49:59,915
In the meantime,
my country's being torn apart.

681
00:50:00,039 --> 00:50:02,212
So I saw somebody
who looked like my dad

682
00:50:02,333 --> 00:50:03,801
hitting somebody
who looked like me.

683
00:50:03,918 --> 00:50:05,761
Whose side would I be on?

684
00:50:13,886 --> 00:50:16,264
In Korea,
three years of combat end

685
00:50:16,430 --> 00:50:19,274
as United Nations and communist
negotiators at Panmunjom

686
00:50:19,391 --> 00:50:20,392
sign a truce.

687
00:50:20,518 --> 00:50:23,442
In July of 1953,

688
00:50:23,604 --> 00:50:26,949
the Korean War ended
in a negotiated settlement

689
00:50:27,066 --> 00:50:28,989
and a still-divided peninsula.

690
00:50:29,109 --> 00:50:32,409
American policymakers
saw it as proof

691
00:50:32,530 --> 00:50:35,784
that communism in Asia
could be contained.

692
00:50:35,950 --> 00:50:37,761
And in Washington, a
dramatic evening press conference...

693
00:50:37,785 --> 00:50:40,789
That fall, the French
indicated their willingness

694
00:50:40,913 --> 00:50:44,838
to begin talks to end
the fighting in Vietnam.

695
00:50:44,959 --> 00:50:48,463
Ho Chi Minh agreed to meet.

696
00:50:48,587 --> 00:50:52,433
But before the negotiators
were to convene in Geneva,

697
00:50:52,550 --> 00:50:57,522
each side sought to improve
its position on the battlefield.

698
00:50:59,139 --> 00:51:01,642
General Navarre set up
a fortified base

699
00:51:01,809 --> 00:51:04,653
in a remote valley
in northwestern Vietnam

700
00:51:04,770 --> 00:51:09,196
called Dien Bien Phu, where
he hoped to lure the Viet Minh

701
00:51:09,316 --> 00:51:11,318
into a decisive battle.

702
00:51:13,445 --> 00:51:16,540
Navarre was certain that
superior French firepower

703
00:51:16,657 --> 00:51:21,663
and air support would crush
any attack by the Viet Minh.

704
00:51:21,787 --> 00:51:24,336
He and his commanders
saw no need to worry

705
00:51:24,456 --> 00:51:28,836
about the jungle-covered hills
that overlooked his 11,000 men,

706
00:51:29,003 --> 00:51:31,847
dug in on the valley floor.

707
00:51:32,006 --> 00:51:36,227
The artillery commander
was so confident of victory,

708
00:51:36,343 --> 00:51:40,348
he complained, "I have more guns
than I need."

709
00:51:43,475 --> 00:51:46,149
General Giap saw his chance.

710
00:51:46,270 --> 00:51:50,696
"We decided to wipe out at all
costs the whole enemy force

711
00:51:50,858 --> 00:51:53,737
at Dien Bien Phu,"
he remembered.

712
00:51:55,863 --> 00:51:59,538
To do it, he pulled off one
of the greatest logistical feats

713
00:51:59,700 --> 00:52:01,543
in military history...

714
00:52:01,660 --> 00:52:04,709
a feat that would be restaged
in propaganda films

715
00:52:04,872 --> 00:52:08,046
and celebrated for decades.

716
00:52:08,208 --> 00:52:12,054
A quarter of a million
civilian porters-

717
00:52:12,171 --> 00:52:13,468
nearly half of them women-

718
00:52:13,589 --> 00:52:18,311
moved everything he needed
for a siege, from sacks of rice

719
00:52:18,427 --> 00:52:20,555
to disassembled
artillery pieces,

720
00:52:20,721 --> 00:52:23,725
on foot through the jungle.

721
00:52:23,849 --> 00:52:28,571
Giap surrounded the valley
with 50,000 soldiers

722
00:52:28,729 --> 00:52:33,826
and 200 big guns, dug-in
and camouflaged so well

723
00:52:33,942 --> 00:52:38,493
they could not be spotted
from the air.

724
00:52:40,240 --> 00:52:44,086
On March 13,1954,

725
00:52:44,203 --> 00:52:46,456
Viet Minh artillery
on the hillsides

726
00:52:46,580 --> 00:52:49,834
began raining down 50 shells
a minute

727
00:52:49,958 --> 00:52:52,928
on the French troops
huddled below.

728
00:52:55,297 --> 00:52:57,015
The airstrip was destroyed.

729
00:53:00,094 --> 00:53:03,098
The besieged troops could only
be reinforced

730
00:53:03,222 --> 00:53:06,021
and resupplied by airdrop.

731
00:53:09,645 --> 00:53:11,318
The French artillery commander,

732
00:53:11,438 --> 00:53:16,365
who had underestimated
his enemy, committed suicide.

733
00:53:16,485 --> 00:53:19,455
The airlift
to Dien Bien Phu continues...

734
00:53:19,613 --> 00:53:21,991
vital men and supplies
for the heroic garrison

735
00:53:22,116 --> 00:53:23,760
that has defied the massed
Viet Minh onslaughts

736
00:53:23,784 --> 00:53:24,831
for over six weeks.

737
00:53:24,952 --> 00:53:27,956
Today, Dien Bien Phu
is a human dam

738
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:29,957
trying to stem the red tide

739
00:53:30,082 --> 00:53:32,130
that threatens to engulf
Southeast Asia.

740
00:53:33,836 --> 00:53:36,555
The French government
begged President Eisenhower

741
00:53:36,672 --> 00:53:38,140
to intervene.

742
00:53:38,298 --> 00:53:41,552
He refused to act without
Congressional approval

743
00:53:41,677 --> 00:53:44,521
and support from
European allies.

744
00:53:44,638 --> 00:53:46,732
Britain said no

745
00:53:46,849 --> 00:53:50,649
and the Congress would not
support unilateral action.

746
00:53:50,769 --> 00:53:51,986
The communists

747
00:53:52,146 --> 00:53:54,649
under Ho Chi Minh are able
to claim that they are fighting

748
00:53:54,815 --> 00:53:57,318
for independence and the French
appear to be fighting

749
00:53:57,443 --> 00:53:59,662
for a maintain...
maintenance of colonial rule.

750
00:53:59,820 --> 00:54:01,037
I therefore believe

751
00:54:01,155 --> 00:54:04,329
that before the United States
moves in, in any degree,

752
00:54:04,491 --> 00:54:06,994
that independence must be
granted to the people,

753
00:54:07,119 --> 00:54:08,759
that the people must support
the struggle.

754
00:54:10,581 --> 00:54:14,506
"I am convinced,"
Eisenhower confided to his diary,

755
00:54:14,626 --> 00:54:19,348
"that no military victory is
possible in this theater."

756
00:54:19,506 --> 00:54:22,134
Still, without
consulting Congress,

757
00:54:22,259 --> 00:54:26,059
the president had secretly sent
more American transport planes,

758
00:54:26,180 --> 00:54:31,858
their markings painted over and
flown by civilian contractors,

759
00:54:31,977 --> 00:54:36,528
to help resupply the desperate
French troops at Dien Bien Phu.

760
00:54:40,319 --> 00:54:42,447
Everyone understood
that in and of itself,

761
00:54:42,571 --> 00:54:46,166
Vietnam didn't mean very much.

762
00:54:46,283 --> 00:54:50,379
But they believed, I believed,
if we lost it,

763
00:54:50,537 --> 00:54:53,336
that the rest of Asia
would tumble to communism.

764
00:54:53,457 --> 00:54:58,258
You have broader
considerations that might follow

765
00:54:58,378 --> 00:55:03,054
what you would call the
falling domino principle.

766
00:55:03,217 --> 00:55:05,720
You have a row of dominoes
set up,

767
00:55:05,844 --> 00:55:07,562
and you knock over
the first one,

768
00:55:07,721 --> 00:55:11,567
and what will happen to the
last one is the certainty

769
00:55:11,683 --> 00:55:14,562
that it will go over
very quickly.

770
00:55:35,749 --> 00:55:41,756
On the afternoon of May
7, 1954, after 55 clays of siege,

771
00:55:41,922 --> 00:55:47,099
the exhausted French forces
at Dien Bien Phu surrendered.

772
00:55:49,721 --> 00:55:54,443
They had lost 8,000 men,
killed, wounded, or missing.

773
00:55:57,312 --> 00:56:01,613
General Giap had lost
three times as many,

774
00:56:01,775 --> 00:56:04,870
but he had won a great victory.

775
00:56:05,946 --> 00:56:09,746
NGUYEN THOI BUNG'.

776
00:56:21,962 --> 00:56:26,809
Even Duong Van Mai's parents
could not help but be impressed.

777
00:56:26,967 --> 00:56:28,969
They were very proud

778
00:56:29,094 --> 00:56:31,688
that the Viet Minh had defeated
the French,

779
00:56:31,805 --> 00:56:33,682
this great Western power.

780
00:56:33,807 --> 00:56:37,653
Admiration and respect
on the one hand,

781
00:56:37,811 --> 00:56:39,984
but fear on the other hand.

782
00:56:40,147 --> 00:56:42,821
And fear was the
stronger emotion.

783
00:56:44,526 --> 00:56:47,245
"We have been caught
bluffing by our enemies,"

784
00:56:47,362 --> 00:56:51,037
Senate Minority Leader
Lyndon Johnson said.

785
00:56:51,158 --> 00:56:56,164
"Today it is Indochina,
tomorrow Asia may be in flames.

786
00:56:56,288 --> 00:57:02,295
And the day after, the Western
Alliance will lie in ruins."

787
00:57:02,419 --> 00:57:05,343
We should have seen
it as the end of the colonial era

788
00:57:05,505 --> 00:57:08,600
in Southeast Asia,
which it really was.

789
00:57:08,717 --> 00:57:11,061
But instead we saw it
in Cold War terms,

790
00:57:11,178 --> 00:57:15,775
and we saw it as a defeat
for the free world

791
00:57:15,891 --> 00:57:17,643
that was related to the rise
of China.

792
00:57:17,768 --> 00:57:22,740
And it was a total misreading
of a pivotal event,

793
00:57:22,856 --> 00:57:25,450
which cost us very dearly.

794
00:57:31,531 --> 00:57:33,551
The former home
of the League of Nations,

795
00:57:33,575 --> 00:57:35,703
Geneva, Switzerland,
where East is meeting West

796
00:57:35,869 --> 00:57:37,121
in the international conference

797
00:57:37,245 --> 00:57:40,715
that may decisively affect
the political future of Asia.

798
00:57:40,832 --> 00:57:44,086
The day after the
fall of Dien Bien Phu,

799
00:57:44,211 --> 00:57:47,932
diplomats from nine nations
gathered in Geneva

800
00:57:48,048 --> 00:57:50,801
to settle the future of Vietnam.

801
00:57:50,926 --> 00:57:54,931
The talks dragged on for nearly
two-and-a-half months.

802
00:57:58,016 --> 00:57:59,734
Despite their victory,

803
00:57:59,893 --> 00:58:03,443
Ho Chi Minh and General Giap
could not keep fighting

804
00:58:03,563 --> 00:58:08,694
without more support from China
and the Soviet Union.

805
00:58:08,819 --> 00:58:12,198
But China had lost a million men
in Korea

806
00:58:12,322 --> 00:58:15,292
and did not want to become
involved in another war

807
00:58:15,409 --> 00:58:16,956
along its border.

808
00:58:17,077 --> 00:58:22,800
The Soviet Union was hoping
to ease tensions with the West.

809
00:58:22,916 --> 00:58:27,763
Both of Ho Chi Minh's communist
patrons urged him to agree

810
00:58:27,921 --> 00:58:29,764
to a negotiated settlement,

811
00:58:29,881 --> 00:58:34,136
a partition like the one
that had ended the Korean War.

812
00:58:34,261 --> 00:58:37,606
Ho had no option but to give in.

813
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:44,279
In the end,
no one was satisfied.

814
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:51,412
Vietnam was temporarily to be
divided at the 17th parallel.

815
00:58:51,528 --> 00:58:55,954
The 130,000 French-led troops
stationed in the North

816
00:58:56,074 --> 00:58:58,122
were to withdraw to the South,

817
00:58:58,243 --> 00:59:02,043
and somewhere between
50,000 and 90,000 Viet Minh

818
00:59:02,164 --> 00:59:04,792
were to "re-group" to the North.

819
00:59:04,958 --> 00:59:06,676
The two halves
would be separated

820
00:59:06,793 --> 00:59:11,094
by a demilitarized zone
until an election could be held

821
00:59:11,214 --> 00:59:14,388
to reunify
North and South Vietnam,

822
00:59:14,509 --> 00:59:19,561
an election everyone knew
Ho Chi Minn would win.

823
00:59:36,573 --> 00:59:39,076
NGUYEN THOI BUNG'.

824
00:59:54,674 --> 00:59:56,274
We had started walking up

825
00:59:56,343 --> 00:59:58,279
and we had probably gotten about
a third of the way up the hill

826
00:59:58,303 --> 00:59:59,771
and then they unleashed on us.

827
01:00:02,682 --> 01:00:04,776
We were in the middle of this
horrible shit sandwich.

828
01:00:04,893 --> 01:00:06,861
That's what we called it.

829
01:00:12,025 --> 01:00:15,780
One of the things that I learned
in the war is that

830
01:00:15,904 --> 01:00:19,499
we're not the top species on
the planet because we're nice.

831
01:00:22,369 --> 01:00:25,498
People talk a lot about how well
the military turns, you know,

832
01:00:25,622 --> 01:00:28,296
kids into, you know,
killing machines and stuff.

833
01:00:28,416 --> 01:00:30,919
And I'll always argue that
it's just finishing school.

834
01:00:39,636 --> 01:00:43,266
Braving the dangers
of the open sea in tiny, rickety craft,

835
01:00:43,390 --> 01:00:45,859
thousands of Roman Catholic
and Buddhist faith

836
01:00:45,976 --> 01:00:48,229
have found life impossible
under the communists.

837
01:00:48,353 --> 01:00:51,778
For them, it's freedom
or nothing.

838
01:00:54,985 --> 01:00:56,908
Under the Geneva Accords,

839
01:00:57,070 --> 01:00:59,869
civilians living in either
half of Vietnam

840
01:00:59,990 --> 01:01:02,118
who wanted to relocate
to the other

841
01:01:02,242 --> 01:01:05,246
would have 300 days to do so.

842
01:01:05,412 --> 01:01:09,258
My mother
and father wanted to stay

843
01:01:09,416 --> 01:01:11,384
and meet my sister Thang again

844
01:01:11,501 --> 01:01:13,799
because they knew
Thang would come back.

845
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:16,093
But on the other hand
they couldn't risk that.

846
01:01:16,214 --> 01:01:21,061
They were convinced that when
Ho Chi Minh and his government

847
01:01:21,178 --> 01:01:23,272
arrived in Hanoi,

848
01:01:23,430 --> 01:01:26,934
my father would be the first one
to be killed

849
01:01:27,058 --> 01:01:28,901
and all of us would be
persecuted.

850
01:01:31,646 --> 01:01:33,648
And I remember the day we left.

851
01:01:33,773 --> 01:01:37,027
I looked around and I thought,
"I never come back here again."

852
01:01:39,446 --> 01:01:41,323
It was extremely traumatic.

853
01:01:41,448 --> 01:01:46,124
It was like the ground was
suddenly cut from under you.

854
01:01:46,244 --> 01:01:51,671
In the end,
some 900,000 refugees,

855
01:01:51,791 --> 01:01:54,010
including more than half
of all the Catholics

856
01:01:54,127 --> 01:01:55,379
living in the North,

857
01:01:55,503 --> 01:02:00,600
fled to the South, many of them
aboard American ships.

858
01:02:04,971 --> 01:02:08,521
The United States hoped somehow
to encourage the building

859
01:02:08,642 --> 01:02:10,861
of a legitimate government
in the South.

860
01:02:13,063 --> 01:02:17,660
That government was now headed
by Ngo Dinh Diem.

861
01:02:17,817 --> 01:02:20,445
Both a Roman Catholic
and a Confucian

862
01:02:20,570 --> 01:02:22,664
in a largely Buddhist country,

863
01:02:22,781 --> 01:02:27,662
he was a celibate bachelor who
had once planned to be a priest.

864
01:02:27,786 --> 01:02:33,839
The war for us really started
when we became the partner,

865
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:39,006
or I would say the victim,
of President Diem.

866
01:02:39,130 --> 01:02:44,057
We were going to help him turn
South Vietnam into a democracy.

867
01:02:44,177 --> 01:02:45,679
That's what he said
he wanted to do.

868
01:02:45,804 --> 01:02:46,805
And we believed him.

869
01:02:46,930 --> 01:02:49,228
Like Ho Chi Minh,

870
01:02:49,349 --> 01:02:52,899
Diem had spent years abroad
seeking support

871
01:02:53,019 --> 01:02:56,694
for his own brand
of Vietnamese nationalism.

872
01:02:56,815 --> 01:03:00,194
He was a veteran politician
whose loathing for the French

873
01:03:00,318 --> 01:03:03,993
was matched only by his hatred
for the communists,

874
01:03:04,114 --> 01:03:07,744
who had imprisoned him and
buried alive his eldest brother

875
01:03:07,867 --> 01:03:10,211
and his nephew.

876
01:03:10,370 --> 01:03:13,670
Diem was aloof, autocratic,

877
01:03:13,790 --> 01:03:17,010
mistrustful of anyone much
beyond his own family.

878
01:03:17,127 --> 01:03:21,007
He also proved to be shrewd,
resourceful,

879
01:03:21,131 --> 01:03:25,136
and skilled at exploiting
the weaknesses of his opponents.

880
01:03:25,260 --> 01:03:31,188
But he faced a daunting task
in creating a new country.

881
01:03:31,308 --> 01:03:34,278
The French, who still had
thousands of troops

882
01:03:34,394 --> 01:03:37,864
stationed in the South,
detested Diem.

883
01:03:37,981 --> 01:03:41,736
Several provinces were under
the sway of religious sects

884
01:03:41,860 --> 01:03:44,204
with armies of their own.

885
01:03:44,321 --> 01:03:48,451
Tens of thousands of Viet Minh
soldiers had gone north,

886
01:03:48,575 --> 01:03:50,703
but several thousand cadre-

887
01:03:50,827 --> 01:03:54,127
trained and dedicated Communist
Party workers...

888
01:03:54,247 --> 01:04:00,175
had stayed behind to organize
resistance in the countryside.

889
01:04:00,295 --> 01:04:04,266
And Saigon itself was ruled
by the Binh Xuyen,

890
01:04:04,424 --> 01:04:07,769
a crime syndicate
backed by the French.

891
01:04:07,927 --> 01:04:10,197
And the French
were behind the Binh Xuyen,

892
01:04:10,221 --> 01:04:11,598
sort of supporting them

893
01:04:11,723 --> 01:04:14,772
because they didn't want
Diem to succeed.

894
01:04:14,893 --> 01:04:16,736
And that became
the central contest.

895
01:04:18,772 --> 01:04:22,652
Some in the CIA believed
that Diem could be the savior

896
01:04:22,776 --> 01:04:24,778
of South Vietnam.

897
01:04:24,903 --> 01:04:26,780
Others were not so sure.

898
01:04:26,946 --> 01:04:29,040
“He is a messiah
without a message,"

899
01:04:29,157 --> 01:04:32,081
one diplomat reported
to Washington.

900
01:04:32,202 --> 01:04:35,627
The U.S. ambassador agreed.

901
01:04:35,789 --> 01:04:39,043
On April 27, 1955,

902
01:04:39,167 --> 01:04:43,217
President Eisenhower decided
to end American support

903
01:04:43,338 --> 01:04:45,966
for Diem's regime.

904
01:04:47,133 --> 01:04:50,307
But then Diem made
an all-out assault

905
01:04:50,470 --> 01:04:52,723
on the Binh Xuyen syndicate.

906
01:04:55,141 --> 01:04:57,021
Suddenly
in the middle of the day

907
01:04:57,102 --> 01:05:01,482
we heard gunfire
and then we saw flames

908
01:05:01,648 --> 01:05:03,946
and the neighborhood
was burning.

909
01:05:04,067 --> 01:05:06,947
There are hundreds
of dead and wounded on both sides

910
01:05:06,986 --> 01:05:09,830
as the street fighting continues
for an entire week.

911
01:05:09,989 --> 01:05:11,912
For the United States,
the situation presents

912
01:05:12,033 --> 01:05:13,159
a grave problem.

913
01:05:15,161 --> 01:05:18,005
Diem finally regains control
of Saigon.

914
01:05:19,791 --> 01:05:24,012
In the end,
Diem's forces prevailed.

915
01:05:24,170 --> 01:05:30,018
Eisenhower now saw no option
but to stick with Diem.

916
01:05:30,176 --> 01:05:35,524
The French then announced their
intention to withdraw completely

917
01:05:35,640 --> 01:05:41,738
from South Vietnam, ending
nearly a century of occupation.

918
01:05:41,855 --> 01:05:46,861
Diem became wildly popular
because he seemed to embody

919
01:05:47,026 --> 01:05:49,495
the nationalist cause
in the South.

920
01:05:49,612 --> 01:05:51,489
He succeeded in getting
the French

921
01:05:51,614 --> 01:05:53,537
out of Vietnam all the way.

922
01:05:53,658 --> 01:05:57,083
And Ho Chi Minh had only got
them out of the northern half.

923
01:05:57,203 --> 01:06:02,960
Flush with victory, Diem
called for a referendum in the South.

924
01:06:03,084 --> 01:06:08,466
The CIA warned him not to meddle
too much with the returns.

925
01:06:09,716 --> 01:06:11,468
But when the ballots
were counted,

926
01:06:11,593 --> 01:06:17,271
Diem claimed to have won
98.2% of the vote.

927
01:06:19,225 --> 01:06:24,732
On October 26, 1955,
Ngo Dinh Diem named himself

928
01:06:24,856 --> 01:06:30,454
the first president of the
brand-new Republic of Vietnam.

929
01:06:30,570 --> 01:06:34,370
The election to reunify
the North and South

930
01:06:34,491 --> 01:06:38,086
that had been promised at Geneva
would never be held.

931
01:06:38,203 --> 01:06:44,210
He became our ally,
or rather our master,

932
01:06:44,334 --> 01:06:46,883
because the goal of preventing

933
01:06:47,003 --> 01:06:49,097
the communists from taking
over the South

934
01:06:49,214 --> 01:06:55,722
was so strong that we couldn't
afford for him to lose.

935
01:06:55,845 --> 01:06:58,564
So Diem started
to boss us around.

936
01:06:58,681 --> 01:07:00,604
And this was a typical
relationship.

937
01:07:00,725 --> 01:07:03,069
You need any ally you believe

938
01:07:03,186 --> 01:07:06,110
to be the centerpiece
of your foreign policy.

939
01:07:06,231 --> 01:07:07,699
They understand that right away.

940
01:07:07,815 --> 01:07:10,443
And the tail wags the dog.

941
01:07:14,989 --> 01:07:17,259
From the Far East
comes a distinguished visitor.

942
01:07:17,283 --> 01:07:19,957
President Ngo Dinh Diem
of Vietnam is accorded

943
01:07:20,078 --> 01:07:22,957
one of President Eisenhower's
rare airport greetings,

944
01:07:23,122 --> 01:07:25,466
as he arrives for a four-day
state visit.

945
01:07:25,625 --> 01:07:28,003
President Diem, one of America's
staunchest allies

946
01:07:28,127 --> 01:07:29,299
in Southeast Asia,

947
01:07:29,462 --> 01:07:32,056
will seek an increase in aid
to shore up his country

948
01:07:32,173 --> 01:07:33,971
against increasing
communist pressure,

949
01:07:34,092 --> 01:07:39,519
a request to which the president
lends a sympathetic ear.

950
01:07:39,639 --> 01:07:43,610
Most politicians,
Democrats as well as Republicans,

951
01:07:43,726 --> 01:07:45,603
now seemed to share
the changing views

952
01:07:45,728 --> 01:07:47,605
of Senator John F. Kennedy.

953
01:07:47,730 --> 01:07:51,280
South Vietnam is
"our offspring," he said.

954
01:07:51,401 --> 01:07:52,994
"We cannot abandon it."

955
01:07:53,111 --> 01:07:57,332
If it fell, the United States
would be "held responsible

956
01:07:57,490 --> 01:08:01,666
and our prestige in Asia
will sink to a new low."

957
01:08:01,828 --> 01:08:07,130
There had never before been
a South Vietnamese nation,

958
01:08:07,250 --> 01:08:10,470
but Americans, who had rebuilt
much of their own country

959
01:08:10,587 --> 01:08:14,182
during the New Deal and had
helped rebuild Western Europe

960
01:08:14,299 --> 01:08:15,516
through the Marshall Plan,

961
01:08:15,633 --> 01:08:20,309
were convinced they
could build one nonetheless.

962
01:08:22,515 --> 01:08:26,361
Eisenhower ordered scores
of American civilians

963
01:08:26,519 --> 01:08:30,194
to South Vietnam, full of
plans for economic development

964
01:08:30,315 --> 01:08:34,036
meant to win, he hoped,
the hearts and minds

965
01:08:34,152 --> 01:08:35,825
of the Vietnamese people.

966
01:08:38,823 --> 01:08:41,872
But those civilians would always
be outnumbered

967
01:08:42,035 --> 01:08:43,503
by military advisors,

968
01:08:43,620 --> 01:08:48,046
with orders to modernize, train,
and equip Diem's forces,

969
01:08:48,207 --> 01:08:53,964
now called the Army of the
Republic of Vietnam-the ARVN.

970
01:08:54,088 --> 01:08:59,515
Some ARVN officers found
American methods unsuited

971
01:08:59,636 --> 01:09:02,185
to the guerrilla war they
expected to wage

972
01:09:02,305 --> 01:09:04,399
against the communists.

973
01:09:04,557 --> 01:09:07,185
Most American military advisors
were veterans

974
01:09:07,310 --> 01:09:08,562
of the war in Korea,

975
01:09:08,728 --> 01:09:12,358
determined to prepare
South Vietnamese forces

976
01:09:12,482 --> 01:09:17,830
to slow a conventional invasion
from the North.

977
01:09:17,945 --> 01:09:21,540
But no one in North Vietnam

978
01:09:21,658 --> 01:09:25,208
was planning
a conventional invasion.

979
01:09:25,328 --> 01:09:29,208
Ho Chi Minh was focused
on rebuilding his country,

980
01:09:29,332 --> 01:09:33,178
devastated by more
than a decade of war.

981
01:09:35,755 --> 01:09:39,259
The communists imposed
brutal land reforms

982
01:09:39,384 --> 01:09:41,512
modeled on those underway
in China

983
01:09:41,636 --> 01:09:46,267
with a ruthlessness that left
thousands of people dead,

984
01:09:46,432 --> 01:09:49,777
including not only landlords
who had sided with the French,

985
01:09:49,894 --> 01:09:54,115
but also many villagers who had
fought with the Viet Minh.

986
01:09:56,859 --> 01:10:00,580
Ho Chi Minh was still determined
to reunite Vietnam.

987
01:10:00,697 --> 01:10:03,291
But he worried that if he took
direct military action

988
01:10:03,408 --> 01:10:04,876
against the South,

989
01:10:04,992 --> 01:10:09,042
the United States would be drawn
more deeply into the struggle.

990
01:10:09,163 --> 01:10:12,588
He cautioned his comrades
in the South to put their faith

991
01:10:12,709 --> 01:10:16,384
in political agitation
and avoid violence.

992
01:10:18,840 --> 01:10:20,808
But that message rang hollow

993
01:10:20,925 --> 01:10:23,644
among embattled Southern
revolutionaries

994
01:10:23,803 --> 01:10:25,476
struggling to survive

995
01:10:25,596 --> 01:10:30,477
under Diem's increasingly
harsh regime.

996
01:10:30,643 --> 01:10:35,149
In a campaign he called
"Denounce the Communists,"

997
01:10:35,273 --> 01:10:38,527
Diem had imprisoned tens of
thousands of citizens

998
01:10:38,651 --> 01:10:44,784
without trial and ordered
the executions of hundreds more.

999
01:10:44,907 --> 01:10:48,832
Now, the communists took matters
into their own hands

1000
01:10:48,995 --> 01:10:52,625
and began attacking
South Vietnamese officials.

1001
01:11:32,288 --> 01:11:36,338
As violence in
South Vietnam intensified,

1002
01:11:36,459 --> 01:11:39,087
new leaders emerged in Hanoi.

1003
01:11:39,212 --> 01:11:42,557
Ho Chi Minh would remain
the face of the revolution

1004
01:11:42,715 --> 01:11:46,595
around the world,
but he now began to share power

1005
01:11:46,719 --> 01:11:49,893
with men who were growing
impatient with his caution,

1006
01:11:50,014 --> 01:11:54,520
men about whom Americans
knew almost nothing.

1007
01:11:56,687 --> 01:11:59,566
The most important proved to be
a carpenter's son

1008
01:11:59,732 --> 01:12:05,739
from Quang Tri province
in the South named Le Duan.

1009
01:12:05,863 --> 01:12:09,288
He had helped found the
Indochinese Communist Party,

1010
01:12:09,408 --> 01:12:12,912
survived nearly ten years
in a French prison,

1011
01:12:13,037 --> 01:12:16,041
and proved himself a shrewd
political infighter

1012
01:12:16,165 --> 01:12:19,590
as he rose to become
First Secretary of the party.

1013
01:12:54,495 --> 01:12:58,545
By 1959, Le Duan
and his hardline allies

1014
01:12:58,666 --> 01:13:02,512
were gaining influence within
the North Vietnamese Politburo

1015
01:13:02,628 --> 01:13:05,222
and beginning to
change its policy.

1016
01:13:05,339 --> 01:13:09,094
They now argued that Hanoi
should do everything

1017
01:13:09,218 --> 01:13:12,313
within its power to help
Southern revolutionaries

1018
01:13:12,430 --> 01:13:14,683
remove Diem by force.

1019
01:13:36,329 --> 01:13:39,833
Now, bands of
40 to 50 armed Viet Minh

1020
01:13:39,999 --> 01:13:43,253
began slipping back home
into South Vietnam,

1021
01:13:43,377 --> 01:13:47,177
following jungle paths hacked
through the Laotian mountains

1022
01:13:47,340 --> 01:13:51,811
that the Americans would soon
call the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

1023
01:13:57,850 --> 01:14:00,979
Violence against the Diem regime
steadily accelerated.

1024
01:14:10,947 --> 01:14:15,999
On the evening of July 8, 1959,
at Bien Hoa,

1025
01:14:16,118 --> 01:14:17,916
20 miles northeast of Saigon,

1026
01:14:18,037 --> 01:14:22,167
six American military advisors
were watching a movie

1027
01:14:22,291 --> 01:14:23,793
in their mess hall.

1028
01:14:25,544 --> 01:14:27,546
Viet Minh guerrillas,
who had crept silently

1029
01:14:27,713 --> 01:14:31,217
into the compound,
opened fire through the windows.

1030
01:14:36,931 --> 01:14:39,810
Major Dale Buis
from Pender, Nebraska,

1031
01:14:39,934 --> 01:14:42,028
and Master Sergeant
Chester Ovnand

1032
01:14:42,144 --> 01:14:45,523
from Copper-as Cove, Texas,
were killed.

1033
01:14:47,817 --> 01:14:52,072
They were the first American
soldiers to die from enemy fire

1034
01:14:52,238 --> 01:14:54,081
in the Vietnam War.

1035
01:14:55,658 --> 01:14:58,252
We must prove all over again,

1036
01:14:58,369 --> 01:15:04,001
to a watching world, as we sit
on a most conspicuous stage,

1037
01:15:04,125 --> 01:15:05,718
whether this nation,

1038
01:15:05,835 --> 01:15:09,931
conceived as it is
with its freedom of choice,

1039
01:15:10,047 --> 01:15:14,598
its breadth of opportunity,
its range of alternatives,

1040
01:15:14,719 --> 01:15:16,972
can compete with the
single-minded advance

1041
01:15:17,096 --> 01:15:18,769
of the communist system.

1042
01:15:18,889 --> 01:15:24,487
On November 8, 1960, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected

1043
01:15:24,603 --> 01:15:27,231
president of the United States.

1044
01:15:27,356 --> 01:15:31,111
His vice president
was Senator Lyndon Johnson.

1045
01:15:31,235 --> 01:15:35,160
They had narrowly beaten
Vice President Richard Nixon

1046
01:15:35,281 --> 01:15:38,501
and his running mate,
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.

1047
01:15:39,994 --> 01:15:42,918
During the campaign,
both Kennedy and Nixon

1048
01:15:43,039 --> 01:15:47,510
had pledged to hold the line
against international communism

1049
01:15:47,626 --> 01:15:50,220
wherever it seemed to be
a threat.

1050
01:15:50,337 --> 01:15:54,217
But very few Americans knew
or cared about

1051
01:15:54,341 --> 01:15:56,639
what was going on in Vietnam.

1052
01:15:58,471 --> 01:16:00,644
Six weeks after
Kennedy's election,

1053
01:16:00,765 --> 01:16:03,644
at a remote jungle village
called Tan Lap

1054
01:16:03,768 --> 01:16:05,611
near the Cambodian border,

1055
01:16:05,728 --> 01:16:09,528
representatives of southern
revolutionary groups

1056
01:16:09,648 --> 01:16:13,744
met to form a new organization
to replace the Viet Minh,

1057
01:16:13,861 --> 01:16:16,660
dedicated to overthrowing
Ngo Dinh Diem

1058
01:16:16,781 --> 01:16:20,661
and ousting the
foreigners supporting him.

1059
01:16:20,785 --> 01:16:26,258
Behind the scenes, Le Duan and
his communist comrades in Hanoi

1060
01:16:26,373 --> 01:16:30,344
were orchestrating everything.

1061
01:16:30,503 --> 01:16:32,176
The new organization
would be called

1062
01:16:32,296 --> 01:16:36,517
the National Liberation Front-
the NLF.

1063
01:16:38,177 --> 01:16:41,181
The armed wing
of the NLF was called

1064
01:16:41,347 --> 01:16:43,975
the People's Liberation
Armed Forces,

1065
01:16:44,100 --> 01:16:47,570
but its enemies in Saigon
and Washington preferred

1066
01:16:47,686 --> 01:16:49,688
a more disparaging term.

1067
01:16:49,855 --> 01:16:53,200
In their eyes,
the revolutionaries were

1068
01:16:53,317 --> 01:16:56,696
Communist Traitors
to the Vietnamese Nation-

1069
01:16:56,821 --> 01:16:58,289
the Viet Cong.

1070
01:17:48,497 --> 01:17:50,875
Let every nation know,

1071
01:17:51,000 --> 01:17:56,598
whether it wishes us well
or ill,

1072
01:17:56,714 --> 01:18:02,642
that we shall pay any price,
bear any burden,

1073
01:18:02,761 --> 01:18:07,608
meet any hardship,
support any friend,

1074
01:18:07,766 --> 01:18:12,738
oppose any foe,
to assure the survival

1075
01:18:12,855 --> 01:18:14,198
and the success of liberty.

1076
01:18:26,619 --> 01:18:29,088
For me, I'd
always thought of courage

1077
01:18:29,205 --> 01:18:33,676
as charging enemy bunkers
or standing up under fire.

1078
01:18:33,792 --> 01:18:39,720
But just to walk, day after day
from village to village

1079
01:18:39,840 --> 01:18:44,346
and through the paddies
and up into the mountains,

1080
01:18:44,470 --> 01:18:48,691
just to get up in the morning
and look out at the land

1081
01:18:48,807 --> 01:18:52,437
and think, "In a few minutes
I'll be walking out there

1082
01:18:52,561 --> 01:18:55,656
"and will my corpse be there,
over there?

1083
01:18:55,814 --> 01:18:57,191
Will I lose a leg out there?"

1084
01:18:59,026 --> 01:19:02,701
Just to walk felt
incredibly brave.

1085
01:19:02,821 --> 01:19:05,574
I would sometimes look
at my legs as I walked,

1086
01:19:05,699 --> 01:19:08,077
thinking, how am I doing this?

1087
01:19:18,337 --> 01:19:22,012

my blue-eyed son?

1088
01:19:24,551 --> 01:19:28,727

my darling young one?

1089
01:19:31,600 --> 01:19:35,355

of 12 misty mountains

1090
01:19:38,399 --> 01:19:42,529

on six crooked highways

1091
01:19:44,989 --> 01:19:48,994

of seven sad forests

1092
01:19:51,412 --> 01:19:55,883

of a dozen dead oceans

1093
01:19:58,002 --> 01:20:02,508

in the mouth of a graveyard

1094
01:20:04,758 --> 01:20:07,978


1095
01:20:08,095 --> 01:20:12,100


1096
01:20:12,224 --> 01:20:17,401

a-gonna fall

1097
01:20:22,776 --> 01:20:26,906

my blue-eyed son?

1098
01:20:29,533 --> 01:20:33,254

my darling young one?

1099
01:20:36,206 --> 01:20:40,586

with wild wolves all around it

1100
01:20:42,921 --> 01:20:46,596

with nobody on it

1101
01:20:49,678 --> 01:20:53,603

blood that kept drippin'

1102
01:20:56,268 --> 01:21:00,193

with their hammers a-bleedin'

1103
01:21:03,025 --> 01:21:06,620

all covered with water

1104
01:21:09,615 --> 01:21:13,461

tongues were all broken

1105
01:21:16,330 --> 01:21:21,086

in the hands of young children

1106
01:21:21,210 --> 01:21:24,430


1107
01:21:24,546 --> 01:21:28,392


1108
01:21:28,509 --> 01:21:33,982

a-gonna fall

1109
01:21:36,350 --> 01:21:39,820


1110
01:21:39,937 --> 01:21:43,362


1111
01:21:43,482 --> 01:21:48,704

a-gonna fall.