Original subtitles

g at the peace table.

Peace table!

Sell out South Vietnam?

This is your advice?

If I could lay a plan to win the war before--

I gotta go on TV in three weeks

and explain all this to the American people!

And you're telling me to cut and run, admit defeat.

That 20,000 American boys have died for nothing!

That 20,000 American mothers weep for nothing!

The situation has changed since Tet.

Yes, it has! Tet was a failure!

The enemy has failed to overrun us.

We are poised to win,

and now it's only you and your people

who are advising against the extra effort it'll take

to turn three years of miserable war into victory!

And I'm telling you there is no victory to be had!

Not without measures that'll tear this country apart

and bring down this administration!

I told you to get out of Vietnam three years ago, Lyndon--

What about two years ago, and one, eh?

You shot down every bombing pause,

backed every troop increase!

Don't you dare!

Excuse me, Mr. President!

My counsel has not deviated one whit!

My every word, then as now,

has been informed solely by my commitment

to preserve your presidency

and establish your place in this country's history!

I should have cleaned house November '63.

Got rid of all of 'em.

McNamara, Bundy, Connally.

Warned me those fucking Kennedy lovers

would be disloyal to me!

All of 'em!

They all may have advised you, Mr. President.

You decided.

Against all your natural instincts.

Against the whole of your life experience.

You decided.

Man, on TV: Senator Eugene McCarthy, a dove on Vietnam,

who was virtually unknown to voters of this state two months ago,

has finished in a virtual tie

with the sitting President of the United States,

Lyndon Johnson.

Since polls taken only a week ago

predicted Johnson would win two-thirds of the vote

and McCarthy only 11%,

the senator's surprisingly high turnout

has shocked the country.

I run because it is now unmistakably clear

that we can change these disastrous, divisive policies

only by changing the men who are now making them.

I run because I am convinced that this country

is on a perilous course

and because I have such strong feelings

about what must be done,

and I feel that I am obliged to do all that I can.

Oh, I was there.

I was there when you told your brother to go into that place.

I was there.

And now I'm paying for it,

day after day after day while you cut me to pieces!

There's blood on your hands, you traitor!

Our troops are being killed

by the bullets and the mines of the south.

If by ending the bombing of the north

we can bring peace to South Vietnam,

then we will save the lives of thousands of our young men

and thousands of Vietnamese.

Yes, Mr. President?

I talked to Mills.

He won't back a war surtax

unless we go on TV and announce deep cuts.

I want you to go up there

and talk to everybody at Ways and Means.

I'm meeting with five of them in the morning, sir.

Take Ackley up with you to back up the numbers.

They don't believe anything out of the White House anymore.

It's a good idea.

Anything else, Mr. President?

I...

Are you all right, Mr. President?

Uh, I'm all right, Joe.

Joe?

Senator Kennedy's speech, who wrote it for him?

This guy Walinsky on his staff's

been writing a lot of his stuff.

I don't know. Maybe Schlesinger, Sorensen.

Goodwin.

I think he was involved, yes.

All right, Joe. Thanks.

Yes, sir.

Dr. King, on TV: I could never again raise my voice

against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos

without having spoken first clearly

to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today:

my own government.

Protestors: How many kids did you kill today?

Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?

Man, on TV: The largest antiwar demonstration yet

brought hundreds of thousands of protesters

into the streets of American cities.

The radicals say that since peaceful demonstrations won't end the war,

they're ready to move from protest to resistance.

With talk of full-scale rebellion sweeping the country

from college campuses to the inner cities,

the mood is turning ugly,

and there's a dangerous sense

that the nation's political life

is spinning out of control.

For it seems now more certain than ever

that the bloody experience of Vietnam

is to end in a stalemate.

This summer's almost certain standoff

will either end in real give-and-take negotiations

or terrible escalation.

But it is increasingly clear to this reporter

that the only rational way out, then,

will be to negotiate.

Not as victors, but as an honorable people

who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy

and did the best they could.

This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.

Well, say what you think.

All right.

It's tough.

And effective.

But the music in it is sad and sour to the ear.

And I don't know that any speechwriter

could have made it sing.

I got a hundred bills in committee.

They'll never see the light of day.

But I think I can pass a thousand bills.

More education, more health care,

more rights.

But it wouldn't matter.

'Cause it seems nothing I say, no matter how I say it,

could ever bring this country together again.

Then perhaps eloquence of speech

is no longer the answer,

but eloquence of action.

Mr. Secretary.

Would you be kind enough to make sure

that the president sees that this evening?

- Clark. - Lady Bird.

I promised that he'd have those budget figures by the end of the day.

Oh, he's right inside.

No, no, I won't disturb him.

Thank you. Good night.

Uh, Clark.

Uh, Clark, I...

I got the speech here.

I need your help with it.

You know that I'm at your service, Mr. President.

I know, old friend.

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

Tonight, I want to speak to you

of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

We are prepared to move immediately

towards peace through negotiations.

We are reducing, substantially reducing,

the present level of hostilities,

and we are doing so unilaterally and at once.

Tonight, I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels

to make no more attacks on North Vietnam

except in the area north of the demilitarized zone

where the continuing enemy buildup

directly threatens allied forward positions.

The area in which we are stopping our attacks

includes almost 90% of North Vietnam's population

and most of its territory.

Our purpose in this action

is to bring about a reduction

in the level of violence that now exists.

It is to save the lives of brave men

and to save the lives of innocent women and children.

Now, as in the past,

the United States is ready to send its representatives

in any forum at any time

to discuss the means of bringing this ugly war to an end.

There is a division in the American house now.

There is divisiveness among us all tonight.

With America's sons in the fields far away,

with America's future under challenge right here at home,

with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace

in the balance every day,

I do not believe that I should

devote an hour or a day of my time

to any personal partisan causes

or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office,

the presidency of your country.

Accordingly, I shall not seek,

and I will not accept,

the nomination of my party

for another term as your president.

But let men everywhere know, however,

that a strong and a confident

and a vigilant America stands ready tonight

to seek an honorable peace

and stands ready tonight

to defend an honored cause,

whatever the price, whatever the burden,

whatever the sacrifice that duty may require.

Thank you for listening.

Good night, and God bless you all.