Original subtitles

(song in foreign language)

NARRATOR: October 16th, 1964.

Communist China prepares to detonate its first atomic bomb.

(countdown in Mandarin)

(opening theme song playing)

China modifies the Balance of Terror.

It becomes the fifth country to have nuclear capacity,

after the United States, the USSR, the United Kingdom and France.

China's Leader, Mao Zedong, will carry even more weight in the war in Vietnam.

Recalling his 1950 intervention in Korea, he threatens:

"If the United States attacks North Vietnam,

they will have to remember that the Chinese have legs,

and that those legs are made for walking."

A few months earlier,

in January 1963...

John F. Kennedy is often filmed with his family, to seduce public opinion.

He is increasingly concerned about the situation in Vietnam.

After a long war against the French,

Indochina has split into two separate countries.

The Communist North is dominated by China.

The South is part of the Western World.

Its army, trained by 15,000 American "military advisors",

fights against the Communist resistance fighters of the Viet Cong,

who pose a growing threat.

(gunshot)

They even defeat the South Vietnamese and the Americans, in the Battle of Ap Bac.

(soldiers shouting)

(gunfire)

(explosion)

(helicopter whirring)

In Saigon, in the spring of 1963,

Buddhist monks stage protests.

They accuse the South Vietnamese government,

backed by the Americans, of favoring the Catholics.

And the South Vietnamese accuse

the Buddhists of being manipulated by the Communists.

The South Vietnamese President, Ngo Dinh Diem,

is accused by American Ambassador Cabot Lodge,

of not having control over the situation.

Kennedy is reminded of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

American aide hadn't succeeded in stopping Mao.

We don't want to have a repetition of China

because that was the most damaging event certainly, that's occurred to us,

perhaps in this century

when that passed under the control of the communists.

NARRATOR: Kennedy gives the South Vietnamese generals

the green light to get rid of Diem, who is considered powerless.

(gunshots)

November 2nd, 1963,

the South Vietnamese army storms the Presidential Palace

and establishes a strict military regime in Saigon.

(heavy gunfire)

South Vietnamese President Diem, and his brother, are summarily executed.

(gunshot)

A few days later, on November 10th, 1963,

Jackie and John Kennedy take a family break together

before their electoral trip to Dallas, Texas.

Jackie is trying to overcome her depression

after the loss of her third child, Patrick.

John-John and Caroline are of great comfort to her.

Jackie teaches her son the military salute.

She has no desire to go to Dallas, a town known to be hostile towards her husband.

Kennedy is also concerned.

But he jokes around:

"It would be easy to assassinate me.

Just go to the top of a building with a sniper rifle."

(dramatic music playing)

(airplane landing)

November 22nd, 1963, at 11: 30 am,

the Presidential couple arrives in Dallas.

(crowd cheering)

The never-ending cortège takes an hour to reach downtown.

(gunshots)

12: 30.

(gunshot)

(woman screaming)

(chaotic chatter)

(reporters speaking indistinctly)

(woman screaming)

Vice-President, Lyndon Johnson will replace Kennedy

and become the 36th President of the United States,

as directed by the American Constitution.

He is sworn in on the plane that transports the body back to Washington.

Jackie Kennedy, still in shock, is with him.

(ceremonious funeral bugle playing)

At her husband's funeral,

Jackie leans over to her 3-year-old son, John-John and says:

“Now, you can salute Daddy and say goodbye to him.”

The police find the prints of a certain Lee Harvey Oswald

on the gun which killed the President.

He bought the gun by mail order for $21.

Oswald is a 24-year-old who has recently returned from the Soviet Union.

He is quickly arrested, and almost immediately assassinated

live on television, by Jack Ruby.

The investigative committee will conclude that Oswald was the President's assassin

and that it was an isolated act.

In Moscow, Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev

comes to sign the book of condolences at the American Embassy.

He is genuinely devastated,

and equally worried about the consequences of Kennedy's death.

Lyndon Johnson, is sworn in as President of the United States,

as a result of these sad circumstances.

He is 55 years old.

The Kennedy brothers chose him as Vice-President

because he is an elected Democrat from the South with anti-racist views.

Although he's determined to continue

Kennedy's work for equal civil and social rights,

he is less involved in the fight against Communism, which he knows little about.

(speaking indistinctly)

(heavy gunfire)

The Communist insurgents of the Viet Cong are uncatchable in the jungle.

Kennedy had approved getting rid of the jungle.

(airplane engines humming)

Ten years earlier, the French had considered this option.

But it is Kennedy who authorizes the use of the herbicide, Agent Orange,

made by Monsanto.

Its effects are devastating,

especially in the rice bowl of the south, the Mekong Delta.

The Operation is code named Ranch Hand,

begun in 1962, it will continue for eight more years.

This doesn't impress Ho Chi Minh,

who still rules North Vietnam

and is very active in front of the world's cameras.

INTERVIEWER (speaking foreign language): Are you afraid that

the Americans might bring the war to North Vietnam?

We are never afraid.

As the French said: "Fear does not exist."

NARRATOR: Johnson doesn't have the same determination.

He calls his advisor, McGeorge Bundy, and tells him:

JOHNSON (on phone): I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of there with

once we're committed.

I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out.

I just thought about ordering all those kids in there.

And what in the hell am I ordering them out there for?

What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is it worth to this country?

NARRATOR: Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, McNamara

decide to send the head of the American Army to Vietnam.

General William Westmoreland, a brilliant 50-year old paratrooper officer,

is a World War II and Korean War hero.

His mission: save South Vietnam from collapsing.

When he arrives in June 1964,

Westmoreland discovers a very complex situation.

The Americans are convinced they are no longer confronting

South Vietnamese Viet Cong resistance fighters,

but the regular North Vietnamese army,

who has infiltrated the southern part of the country.

For the Americans to fight them legally, they'll need a pretext.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident will provide them with one.

On August 2nd, 1964,

two US Navy ships sail "too close" to North Vietnam.

They claim they were attacked by the North Vietnamese.

This is the pretext needed to order the American aircraft carriers to engage

in a show of force

and to ask the United States Congress on August 7th, 1964,

to authorize Johnson to officially declare war on North Vietnam.

(speaking in Mandarin) Get out of Vietnam, imperialistic Americans!

NARRATOR (in English): China immediately mobilizes to denounce Uncle Sam,

the symbol of America and its murderous planes.

(speaking in foreign language)

In Moscow on October 14th, 1964,

Soviet leaders, led by Leonid Brezhnev,

remove Khrushchev from power

in the hopes of rekindling relations with China once again.

Khrushchev's alienation also paves the way for a rapprochement

between the USSR and Vietnam.

Kosygin, the new Soviet Prime Minister, can travel to Hanoi

and organize large-scale aide for North Vietnam.

Much of these supplies transit through China,

who helps itself to whatever it likes, and copies the technology.

Mao continues to calculate ruthlessly.

He wants to weaken Russia.

These large quantities of arms delivered to North Vietnam

will put a strain on the Soviet economy.

Johnson, on the other hand,

dismisses the idea of peaceful coexistence in March 1965

when he launches a massive aerial offensive against North Vietnam.

(heavy gunfire)

Operation Rolling Thunder is intended to impact public opinion,

without risking the loss of American lives.

But the US Air Force is not authorized to strike Hanoi,

the Northern capital, so as not to provoke China.

So, once the supply routes towards the South have been destroyed,

along with the bridges, barracks, and ammunition depots,

the Americans run out of targets.

Enormous Boeing B-52 bombers,

based initially in the Pacific, then in Thailand, make their entrance.

Each one drops thirty tons of bombs on the countryside.

On March 30th, 1965,

a Viet Cong car bomb terrorist attack in front of the American embassy

kills 20 and injures 200.

There is no turning back for President Johnson.

On July 28th, 1965,

he solemnly addresses the American people on TV.

My fellow Americans,

I do not find it easy

to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men into battle.

But we must not let this mask the central fact

that this is really War.

It is guided by North Vietnam and it is spurred by communist China.

NARRATOR: American ground forces in Vietnam

increase from 23,000 to 184,000 men.

With the first wave of reinforcements,

the American general staff can implement major offensives

to find and destroy Charlie.

These operations mobilize hundreds of helicopters,

which have become the modern stallions of the First Cavalry Division.

(energetic music playing)

The American army launches roughly ten major operations in 1965,

twenty in '66 and thirty in '67.

The criteria of success for these operations is the Body Count,

the total number of enemy casualties. Like 600 in Operation Starlite.

A new element, television, makes its appearance,

broadcasting uncensored images and testimonies,

punctuated by the powerful delivery

of the star anchorman of the day, Walter Cronkite.

If the American public had not known until then, they know now.

The United States is indeed at war.

NARRATOR: This soldier can finally be heard by the American public.

Yes it does... Yeah it was... it was pretty bad to

listen to your friends crying out for help and not being able to do a thing.

We just couldn't do anything. We were all pinned down.

And...

INTERVIEWER: I suppose, there are two questions...

NARRATOR: Even General Westmoreland appears exhausted.

INTERVIEWER: ...One is how long is this war going to go on? And two,

how many more American boys will have to be sent here?

Are they any answers to these questions?

There is certainly no simple answers.

This war is not going to end by any one single battle or combination of battles.

It could be a situation that it could drag out for some time

and I think we must prepare for this eventuality.

Certainly as the war gets more intense, and I feel it will in coming months,

we will suffer more American casualties.

NARRATOR: Westmoreland obtains 250,000 additional troops.

-Yes, sir. -WESTMORELAND: Well, you'll get...

NARRATOR: A few comforting words...

-WESTMORELAND: ...in few days. -Thank you, sir.

NARRATOR: ...but does high command already know that their sacrifice will be useless?

To bring the North to its knees, other means are required.

Famous Air Force general Curtis LeMay,

an advocate of strategic bombing, declares:

"My solution is to tell the North Vietnam Communists

that we are going to send them back to the Stone Age!"

June 29th, 1966,

for the first time, Johnson authorizes the bombing of Hanoi and the Haiphong harbor.

Johnson tells his daughter:

"Your daddy may go down in history for having started World War III."

Bombing Haiphong harbor is a dangerous undertaking.

American planes risk hitting Russian freighters,

continually unloading war supplies,

and a Soviet intervention is always a possibility.

The targets are very limited and are on the outskirts of the city,

but always result in tragic human casualties.

These are immediately exploited by the North's propaganda machine.

(aircraft engines and alarm noise)

The destruction of Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam,

would provoke a violent reaction from China.

So once again, the bombs fall outside the city limits.

Ho Chi Minh is confident.

He parades along Haiphong harbor with his friends from the Russian navy.

He has nothing to fear, and makes the most of the situation.

His voice echoes daily in Hanoi:

(Ho Chi Minh voice on radio)

The war could last another five, ten, twenty years or even more.

Hanoi, Haiphong, and other towns, businesses,

factories may be totally destroyed.

But the Vietnamese will not let themselves be intimidated,

because nothing is more precious to them than independence and freedom!

(alarm blaring)

(jet noise)

The American pilots know that their planes full of electronic equipment,

are vulnerable to ground fire, even of small caliber.

The pilots fear North Vietnamese anti-aircraft attacks,

(heavy gunfire)

backed by the numerous Soviet canons that are controlled by radar,

and the highly sophisticated SAM missiles.

Future Senator John McCain, a pilot at the time,

is hit by a missile and parachutes to safety.

Like many pilots, he is virtually lynched by the crowds,

especially for the cameras.

His arms and legs are broken.

He is spared at the last minute and taken care of at the Hanoi hospital.

Since he is the son of the admiral in charge of the Pacific zone,

the North Vietnamese call in the TV cameras.

I would just like to tell...

my wife...

I will get well...

I love her...

and I hope to see her soon.

I would appreciate if you tell her that,

that's all.

(somber music playing)

NARRATOR: The captured American pilots are locked up in the old French jail

they facetiously refer to as the Hanoi Hilton.

They are kept alive to be used as human shields in the town's center.

(crowd shouting)

English student, Trinh Thi Ngo,

speaks to them every day over Hanoi's radio waves.

TRINH (on radio): GI, your government has abandoned you.

They lied to you GI.

You have lost this war, GI.

They cannot see you from your airplanes, GI.

They come to bomb you!

NARRATOR: From now on, the Americans limit their targets to the South.

Their planes drop thousands of tons of bombs on the Viet Cong,

destroying a territory that they are supposed to defend.

The most common way of wiping out fighters hidden in the jungle

is phosphorus mixed with napalm,

gelled gasoline that burns everything upon impact when it explodes.

The Viet Cong go underground. They dig hundreds of miles of tunnels.

Like the famous underground complex in Cu Chi, near Saigon.

Survival shelters, "living" spaces, military hospitals,

food and weapon storage.

Westmoreland says: They are human moles!

(helicopter whirring)

At the end of 1967, the Viet Cong receive orders from Hanoi

to prepare a major offensive across the entire southern part of the country.

The launch date is carefully chosen.

January 30th, 1968,

the day of the Vietnamese New Year, the Tet.

It will be known as the Tet Offensive.

In Saigon, the year of the Monkey, a very good omen, begins.

The unicorn dance chases the evil spirits.

Ancestors are honored.

Half the South Vietnamese Army is on leave.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

(lively music playing)

NARRATOR: The young Americans spend a tropical New Year at the beach.

North Vietnam has even called for a cease-fire,

while secretly sending reinforcements to the South.

(explosion)

During the night,

the North Vietnamese Army initiates its attack throughout the country.

On the morning of January 31st, 1968, the situation is unclear.

(gunfire and people shouting)

The Communists had bet on a massive popular uprising in their favor.

But the people, terrorized, seek protection.

(speaking in foreign language)

The South Vietnamese Army manages to hold its own

against the soldiers from the North.

(heavy gunfire)

The Marines fight to regain control of the American Embassy's gardens.

A powerful symbol that the Viet Cong has managed to occupy.

(heavy gunfire and soldiers shouting)

(gunfire continues)

By the evening of January 31st,

the situation in Saigon has returned to normal.

But not in the hundreds of towns of the South

which were attacked at the same time.

(explosions)

Especially in Hué, where the Viet Cong has taken over the Imperial City

and are now holed-up inside.

They have raised their flag, which the Americans are struggling to take down.

These particularly violent combats last 28 days.

(gunfire)

In the end, the South Vietnamese and Americans

count 700 men killed and 4000 injured.

8000 Communist fighters died.

But not before executing 3000 South Vietnamese civilians,

dignitaries, and civil servants along with their families.

In eight months of offensive warfare,

North Vietnam has lost 50,000 soldiers

and must now recruit children.

But it is also a failure for the Americans,

one which costs Westmoreland and McNamara their jobs.

These images, like those of the American camp of Khe Sanh,

create a widespread change in public opinion.

(electric guitar music playing)

Mass protests, refusal to enlist

and desertions take place everywhere.

The younger generation rebels across the country.

This revolt spreads around the world.

To Tokyo,

Berlin,

WE DEMAND FREEDOM FOR VIETNAM

Madrid,

London,

Sydney,

and Paris, where the student protests turn May '68 into a national crisis.

Peace talks between North Vietnam and the United States

begin in the French capital.

In Washington, Johnson has lost a great deal of popularity

and has already decided not to run for re-election in November '68.

He is followed by President Richard Nixon,

who brings on Henry Kissinger as an advisor.

Kissinger is thought to be capable of resolving this impossible situation.

Kissinger is a German who fled Nazi persecution.

He became an American citizen and taught at Harvard.

Because of his European origins,

he is one of the rare people in Washington

able to understand the workings of the Communist world

and the very essence of the Vietnam war.

He explains to Nixon that the key is China.

Once they give in to Mao's demands, the war will end.

Mao, to eliminate those he calls "inside enemies",

has launched a so-called "cultural revolution".

Mao wants American recognition...

a seat on the UN Security Council.

He also wants American troops pulled out of Taiwan.

Will Nixon give in?

In the meantime, in South Vietnam, the war continues,

with the never-ending patrols on the hostile streams and rivers.

(gunfire)

(indistinct chatter)

Many desperate American soldiers fall prey to madness,

drugs and senseless bloodshed,

like the massacre at My Lai,

a village where the entire population of 400 are killed by soldiers

from the 23rd infantry division.

At the same time, in early March of '69,

on the front line of the Cold War,

the USSR and China go head to head in Siberia,

on the Chinese border.

Colonel Leonov's tanks advance.

The Chinese Red Guard, fanaticized by the Cultural Revolution,

shoots and kills Leonov.

The Soviets retaliate.

A hundred Chinese and Russian soldiers die in this brief conflict

over domination of the Communist world.

At the time, most observers believe that a war,

possibly even a nuclear war, will break out between China and the USSR.

On the other side of the globe,

the Americans get their revenge in the race to Space.

July 1969.

Neil Armstrong and two other astronauts board for a round-trip to the Moon.

(cameras flashing)

And also demonstrate to the world

that America can now easily send a loaded nuclear weapon anywhere on the planet.

(indistinct conversation on the radio)

During the night of July 20th, 1969,

Armstrong pronounces these famous words for 500 million TV viewers:

NEIL ARMSTRONG: That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for Mankind!

(gunfire)

NARRATOR: In Vietnam, major operations continue.

(explosion)

(screaming)

(indistinct conversation)

They reach as far as Cambodia in 1970.

And in 1971 in Laos, Operation Lam Son,

8000 American and South Vietnamese troops are killed and 20,000 injured

while trying to cut off the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail,

which enables the North to infiltrate the South.

In Paris, the peace conference has been turning in circles

for three years, without any results.

Nixon decides to go to Peking,

now Beijing, with Kissinger, to break the deadlock.

He is the first American President ever to visit China.

Nixon must bow to Mao, the Great helmsman.

But the worst part for him

is having to announce that he will be leaving South Vietnam to its fate.

(people cheering)

Paris, January 23rd, 1973.

The North Vietnam and United States peace agreement is signed.

It is more like a cease-fire in three parts:

cessation of hostilities, release of all prisoners,

upholding the Southern regime and its 1954 borders at the 17th parallel,

but leaving the country to face the menacing North.

For the North, the Vietnam war has been won.

(lively music playing)

The Americans can pack up, as can all those who came to fight with them.

A hundred thousand Australians, New Zealanders,

Thais, Taiwanese Chinese, Filipinos

and even some Spaniards from Health Services.

The North Vietnamese release fighter pilot prisoners, including John McCain.

Yet barely two years after the signature of these "Peace Agreements",

the South Vietnamese population massively flees the Northern Army,

who sweep down on them, in total violation of the agreements,

which were intended to protect the South.

(explosion)

The Southern Army begs for American air support, which will no longer come.

On April 30th, 1975, Saigon falls.

Thirty years after the beginning of the first war of Indochina against France,

the Viet Cong flag flies over the Presidential palace.

Ho Chi Minh is no longer there to savor his victory.

After a stroke, he died in 1969, at the age of 79.

His body, embalmed like Stalin's, is displayed in his mausoleum,

which becomes a place of pilgrimage for the Vietnamese

and later, for tourists.

The Vietnam War cost the Americans the equivalent of 300 billion dollars.

58,000 Americans have perished.

Hundreds of thousands are physically or emotionally injured.

America is deeply divided.

Eight million tons of bombs have been dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia,

four times as many as on Germany during World War II.

The Earth has been severely contaminated for generations.

Two million Vietnamese are dead.

Millions of widows and orphans wander the streets aimlessly.

A million boat-people flee Vietnam,

risking their lives once again in overcrowded vessels.

Mao has won on all fronts.

He dies on September 9th, 1976, after killing 80 million Chinese.

Communism has spread to the majority of South East Asia.

To Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia,

where the Khmer Rouge will massacre a quarter of its population.

Although Mao weakened the United States, he crippled the Soviet Union even more.

Soviet aid to North Vietnam,

the Middle East, and the insurrections in Africa and South America

have bankrupted the USSR.

To survive, a wartime economy is instituted.

The iron fist of the KGB, the political police,

is the only way to force the population to accept

shortages and rationing.

Against the regime, many become dissidents

and even defectors, like Nureyev, the dancer

and Stalin's own daughter, Svetlana!

Hello to everybody, I am very happy to be here.

NARRATOR: The Soviet Empire begins to crack.

In 1980, after Budapest and Prague,

the Polish workers led by Lech Walesa rise up.

The Afghan trap closes in on the Red Army.

The Soviet Union had set up a so-called Socialist regime,

which was rejected by the local population.

For ten years, from 1979 to 1989,

young Russian soldiers confront the elusive Afghan fighters.

Only the Soviet helicopters manage to locate them.

But, consistent with Cold War logic,

the Americans and their allies supply the insurgents

with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

(speaking in foreign language)

These missiles contribute to shaking the balance of terror

and provoke a Soviet withdrawal.

Ronald Reagan, President of the United States since 1980,

plays a major role by launching a new race

for more sophisticated weapons.

(beeping)

The USSR can't engage in this ruinous space adventure,

nicknamed "Star Wars".

The country is now governed by a high-ranking Communist civil servant,

Mikhail Gorbachev,

who has no choice but to concede.

This sets off an explosion in the Soviet Union,

Glasnost, or transparency, truth and freedom.

And Perestroika,

the reconstruction,

the major economic reform.

On November 9th, 1989,

the Soviet government lets Berlin's population destroy the Wall of Shame,

which leads to Germany's reunification.

The Soviet Empire explodes into ten independent nations.

Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,

Poland,

and the Baltic States,

all reject the regimes imposed by Moscow.

On July 2nd, 1990,

the 28th and last Congress of the Party is held at the Kremlin.

(singing 'The Internationale')

General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev sings "The Internationale" one last time.

Like a farewell to a social utopia corrupted by bloodthirsty tyrants.

In the new Russia, the Communist Party is forbidden.

On December 25th, 1991,

the Soviet Union's red flag is taken down from the Kremlin roof...

and replaced by the Russian flag.

The Cold War is over.

The hands of the Doomsday clock

back away from the Apocalypse!

For now!