Original subtitles

(helicopter humming)

♪ When logic and proportion ♪

♪ Have fallen sloppy dead ♪

♪ And the White Knight is talking backwards ♪

♪ And the Red Queen's "off with her head" ♪

♪ Remember what the dormouse said ♪

♪ "Feed your head ♪

♪ Feed your head ♪

(helicopter humming)

(soft airy music)

- [Cal] Since the story of America's war with Vietnam

and how it began.

The history of Vietnam is one of conflict

and great dynastic struggles,

which have led to fragmentation of the country

over the centuries,

as well as inheriting the influence of many cultures.

- The idea that there has been one people

called the Vietnamese throughout the last 2,000 years

is a bit of a modern invention.

- [Cal] After centuries of war in Vietnam,

the one that began in 1955

would be internationally reported news

and last for 20 years.

- America say that they're fighting an army of peasants.

So how could they possibly lose?

However, these people culturally know about war

much better than any American has.

(explosion booms)

- [Cal] A war that America deemed necessary

in the fights against communism.

- These very intelligent men really thought

that it was the beginning

of the communist takeover of the world.

- It was a genuine, basic misinterpretation

of what the threat that communism

held for the United States and the rest of the free world.

- That's one of the really astounding things about the war:

that such intelligent men could have been so wrong.

(artillery booming)

- (indistinct) the fact

that the Viet Cong had entered the American embassy

in Saigon caused a great deal of damage.

It did turn up American public opinion

totally against the war.

- The protests were not even so much the soldiers,

as their mothers,

because what the hell is my boy doing in Vietnam?!

- [Cal] The devastation of this war

continues to resonate today.

(tense music)

(uneasy reed music)

Vietnam, the story of two major river deltas,

the Red River Delta in the north

and the Mekong Delta in the south.

- The three geographic areas of Vietnam were first settled,

as far as we know from the archeology,

by three different ethnic groups:

the Vietnamese in the north;

the Cham people in that central coastal strip

who belonged to various kingdoms known as Champa;

and then the Mekong Delta

was settled earliest by Cambodians.

The Cham people came actually from across the sea,

probably from the north coast of Borneo,

and they were great sailors and seafarers and traders,

and they speak a language that's related to Malay,

and they developed their own civilization

in central Vietnam, largely influenced by Hinduism

and to some extent Buddhism as well from India.

- They used to be the dominant kingdom,

the dominant political society along the South China Sea

for, you know, five or six centuries.

It was the Cham that controlled trade

on the South China Sea.

(light music)

- [Cal] Trade then expanded from Europe to China,

seeing the arrival of Western traders

as well as Muslim traders from India and the Middle East.

Slowly, Champa became mostly converted to Islam,

while Christianity became very important

in the central and northern regions.

- Full scale war broke out between the Northern

and the Southern Vietnamese kingdoms.

Part of their weaponry

came from trading with the Westerners,

so that the Dutch would supply weapons

to the Trinh in the north,

and the ships would cross over, the Portuguese ships,

supplying weapons from Macau near Hong Kong

to the Nguyen family and the Southern Kingdom.

- Those are the first European contacts,

but they were rapidly followed by the Dutch

and then the British and the French.

Before the Europeans arrived and throughout this period,

there were flourishing local,

quite sophisticated communities and societies,

often with cultures

that had borrowed elements from religion,

to the way that kings ruled,

to political organization from India more than from China.

- [Cal] Vietnam's interaction with Europe

brought the arrival of Catholic missionaries,

particularly the Portuguese.

It was not until the arrival of French missionaries

from the mid-17th century

that their influence across Vietnam was really felt.

The most significant of these missionaries

was Alexandre de Rhodes.

He studied the Vietnamese language

and compiled the dictionary into French.

This opened up the language to foreign influence.

The French converted an increasing number of Vietnamese

from Confucianism to Roman Catholicism.

The emperor became angry

and ordered the execution of many missionaries.

This was a turning point from friendly trading relations

to aggressive behavior.

The French almost seemed to use

the execution of their missionaries as a reason to invade.

They were without any territories,

unlike the British in India,

the Portuguese in the Philippines,

the Dutch in Indonesia.

They decided to take over Vietnam and establish a colony.

- There was this constant tension

between different regions of Vietnam,

and the French arrived in that context.

And indeed conquered Vietnam (indistinct).

- [Cal] Around 1860, the French seized

the area near Saigon.

In the next two decades,

they moved through central and Northern Vietnam,

with French troops expanding their control

over all six provinces on the Mekong Delta

and formed the colony known as Cochinchine.

- They divided the country into those three regions,

which had never been divided into before.

- [Cal] France assumed control

over the whole of Vietnam.

French Indochina was formed in October, 1887.

Cambodia and Laos were added in 1893.

In the following years, the French influence

would play a significant role in shaping Vietnam.

Throughout its history, the country had been invaded

by a stream of dynasties,

and by the late 19th century,

Vietnam had become vulnerable to French ambition.

Years of civil war had led to a split

between the North and the South.

It was into this environment

that resentment to French occupation

gave a space for nationalism and then communism to arise.

The influence of Russia and China alarmed the USA.

- South Vietnam is already under attack.

(artillery shoots) ♪ Some folks are born ♪

♪ Made to wave the flag ♪

♪ They're red, white and blue ♪

- [Cal] But how did events lead

to such a catastrophic loss of life

and how necessary was America's involvement

in a war so far from home?

♪ It ain't me, it ain't me ♪

♪ I ain't no senator's son, son ♪

- [Cal] By 1884, France had taken control over Vietnam,

forming the territories of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchine.

The French were keen to bring Vietnam under French law.

And it wasn't long before French culture

grew across the country.

- The French conquest was in fact supported

by some Vietnamese, including Catholics,

but also some others who thought

that the French could bring modernization to Vietnam.

So there were some Vietnamese who sided with the French,

including some who benefited economically,

they were distributed lands in the south,

particularly in the Mekong Delta.

So, a new landlord class developed.

- [Cal] As French influence expanded,

they soon established the bureaucracy

and architecture of their towns,

building town halls, law courts, and schools.

The education system evolved for the expatriates,

but soon became a fashion

for the wealthy local residents as well.

- [Retro Narrator] In Hue, capital of the Annam section

of Indochina, the Japanese always so polite,

do not disturb the semblance of ancient rule,

likewise, carefully preserved

by the French colonial administration.

In a modern home built for her by the French (indistinct),

the Empress of Annam brings up her three attractive children

in truly royal atmosphere.

She accepts with Oriental resignation

the obvious facts of the situation.

(pensive music)

- It was clear to parents that if they wanted their children

to rise in the bureaucracy and get positions,

they needed to know the newly adopted Latin alphabet,

which came to be known as Quoc-ngu, or the national script.

And so the Vietnamese culture became internationalized

in a way it hadn't been before,

and at the same time, a new familiarity

with Western political ideologies including communism.

(dramatic music)

- [Cal] It was into this climate of French education

that Ho Chi Minh was brought up,

the man who would change Vietnam's history forever.

As a young man, he was keen to see the world

and took employments on ships as a deck hand.

He traveled to America, lived in London for a while,

where he was rumored to have spent time as a cook,

and also lived in Paris.

Whilst in Paris, he petitioned for the independence

and civil rights of the Vietnamese people from French rule.

When this failed in the US under president Woodrow Wilson,

Ho Chi Minh became disillusioned,

which furthered his communist zeal.

He spent time in Russia and China

before being imprisoned by Chiang Kai-shek.

His reputation at home was developing.

And when he returned in 1941, he had almost a hero status.

- He was very much a man of the world,

had been educated by the French,

had traveled around the world as a sailor,

worked as a chef in London.

In the Paris peace talks from 1919,

he turned up at Versailles and demanded freedom

from French colonialism for the Vietnamese people,

and was thrown out.

- Ho Chi Minh was a member of the French socialist party,

which split in 1919.

And he joined the communist faction,

which founded the French Communist Party.

- [Cal] During the Second World War,

France had fallen to Nazi Germany in June, 1940.

The Vichy government in Paris

immediately seeded control of Saigon and Hanoi to Japan.

Japan enforced the right to land forces in Vietnam.

They needed to block the transportation of war materials

through Vietnam to the allies.

When Ho Chi Minh was released from prison in China,

he returned to Vietnam

to lead the Viet Minh Independence Movement.

They fought against the Vichy French and Japanese forces.

- During World War II, Ho Chi Minh returned to China.

And with General Giap and others

set up a communist resistance who fought the Japanese.

In 1945, they'd taken over the north part of Vietnam.

The south was liberated by the British

who, to justify taking back their own colonies

in the Far East, rearmed the Japanese

to hold the country until the French turned up

to reoccupy south Vietnam.

(group cheers)

- The Japanese and the French were very anti-communist.

And the Vietnamese Communist Party had been founded in 1930

by Ho Chi Minh.

He and the other Vietnamese communists

rejected both the Japanese and the French.

And they were the only large political party in Vietnam,

which did oppose both the French and the Japanese,

that at the end of the war,

when both of those groups lost, the communists

led by Ho Chi Minh were in a stronger position to take over.

- I remember that many people at the time

talk a lot about Ho Chi Minh,

who they call Uncle Ho.

As a time, everyone thought

he was somewhere up there to help,

but obviously he also human being

with some kind of ambition (indistinct).

- [Cal] People respected Ho Chi Minh as a great patriot

and were willing to support him.

They were tired of being dominated by the French

and now the Japanese and fought for their freedom.

He oversaw many successful military actions

against the French,

and then against Japanese occupation of Vietnam

during World War II, supported secretly

by the United States Office of Strategic Services.

- Ho Chi Minh had meanwhile formed a alliance

with the United States and was rescuing French

and American pilots who were shut down by the Japanese

and delivering them to the American forces

in the south of China.

And so Ho Chi Minh was able to build an army

with some support from the United States,

and was in a position to take over

once the Japanese were defeated.

- [Cal] Over the years, Ho Chi Minh had developed

a significant army.

The country was in the midst of a huge famine.

The Vietnam peasants blamed the French and Japanese

who were keeping the rice to feed their troops,

even exporting it to Japan.

After the Japanese had handed Vietnam

to the Viet Minh in 1945,

an estimated 2 million Vietnamese people have died.

- One of the problems at the end of the Second World War

is led into a variety of other wars,

particularly in Indochina, and the Vietnam war,

which the United States inherited from the French,

which they'd lost, was in fact inherited

from Ho Chi Minh himself when he had been an ally

of the United States.

And I think that the basic problem was Ho Chi Minh

was a nationalist first and foremost, not a communist.

- Since 1945, the American foreign policy

was the containment of communism.

There was the famous domino theory

that if south Vietnam fell to the communists,

it allows Cambodia, Thailand, it will now spread down

the Malay Peninsula

until eventually Australia would become communist.

And one senator famously said,

"we don't want to start fighting them

when they land on Waikiki beach."

- There's no question in my mind

that these very intelligent men,

McNamara and Rusk really thought that it was the beginning

of the communist takeover of the world.

I mean, the famous Domino Theory,

and they all believed it, and it was dead wrong.

- The French finally built up to a point

where Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh in the North

decided to resist, and they started to attack the French

in Hanoi in December of 1946,

and the war, which lasted until 1954, began then.

- [Retro Narrator] Meanwhile the situation French Indochina

grows graver, as bitter fighting sweeps through Hanoi,

leaving misery and destruction in its wake.

French troops move up country

to engage the well-equipped forces of the Vietnam Republic,

who made a desperate but unsuccessful bid

to massacre the entire French population of the city.

(dramatic music)

- The French don't let Vietnam independent.

And that just boost the country into the Communist hand,

because everyone wanted it to be independent

and only communist was well organized.

- The only intentions, as far as I can tell,

that Ho Chi Minh had (indistinct) any other country,

was South Vietnam.

President Eisenhower's refused to help the French

with the airstrikes.

At the time, in Dien Bien Phu,

Ho Chi Minh was so able to marshal his forces,

get Soviet aid in.

At the same time, keep the Chinese

from getting frantic about it

and getting help from them as well.

And then, that was his determination.

Extraordinarily brilliant general.

(explosion booms)

- [Retro Narrator] (indistinct) French fighting communism

in Indochina as JU 52 planes lend their weight

in an all out offensive against the red jungle strongholds

of the Viet Minh forces.

- Particularly after the fall of China

to the Mao's communist regime

and the start of the Korean War

in 1949 and 1950 respectively,

the United States began to give massive military support

and political support

to the French effort in Indochina from 1950.

- The Americans were initially very reluctant

to support them,

but partly in exchange for support for France

and NATO in Europe,

the Americans decided to support France in Indochina,

which led to American financial support

and advisors and that sort of thing.

(artillery booming)

- [Retro Narrator] The fight for Indochina goes on.

French pilots flying American planes

take up what the big guns left off,

blasting communist divisions,

which had infiltrated French positions

in the Hanoi (indistinct).

(explosions booming)

- For the next four years of that war,

the United States paid for about 80%

of the French military budget.

And at the same time, the Chinese were supporting

the Vietnamese independence movement

led mostly by communists and fought mostly in the North.

- Many, many people from the south,

like everyone in Vietnam as a time, join Viet Minh,

because their relationship,

their involvement with resistance,

they have the heart for it.

- [Retro Narrator] War comes to a peaceful rice paddies,

rich prize the reds we're hoping to seize,

until the French, aided by the loyal Vietnamese,

drove them into the sea.

But from the back waters of war

come the helpless victims of immigration,

the women, the children, the old and infirm.

Communism past their way.

They have little left now about a spark of life

that drives them on door to escape and sanctuary

behind the French lines.

- It's clear that people on all sides,

were fighting for different reasons.

The Americans were fighting to stop this tide of communism

that would sweep down from China through Vietnam

into the rest of Indochina, the rest of Southeast Asia.

The Vietnamese, some of them may have thought

they were part of an international movement,

but many of them were just fighting

for their own personal reasons, you know,

to liberate the country against foreign occupiers

or to get rid of the power of landlords

and that kind of thing.

The war that broke out in 1946 dragged on for eight years

and has its culmination

at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954,

where a very bold move by the French military

goes completely wrong, and they're outfought and out thought

by the guerrillas under General Giap.

(explosions booming)

- [Cal] The First Indochina War

came to an end with the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954,

culminating in a comprehensive defeat for the French.

France agreed to have its its forces from all its colonies,

and a conference at Geneva

decided on the division of Vietnam

with control of the north given to the Viet Minh

as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh,

and the South becoming the State of Vietnam

nominally under Emperor Bao Dai.

This prevented Ho Chi Minh

from gaining control of the entire country.

After the division of Vietnam into North and South,

the North is seen as a communist threat

by the United States.

South Vietnam's Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem

faced the two-year deadline

for a nationwide reunification vote.

However, the US feared the DM might not win.

In the North, the Viet Minh

had formed the national liberation front under Ho Chi Minh

known as the Viet Cong,

and started guerrilla warfare in the south of the country

in an attempt to gain control.

- President Ngo Diem came back to Vietnam

with the acceptance from the last Emperor Bao Dai

in a referendum.

He ousted Bao Dai, sent him into exile in France,

and he became president.

- The south was still administered from Saigon,

until it was good to be an election,

which would then unite the country.

When the Americans realized

that they wouldn't win any election against the communists,

they backed Prime Minister Diem in South Vietnam

to set up an independent state,

so it would be analogous to North and South Korea.

- Because of the influence of the Korean War

upon American thinking,

when the French lost at Dien Bien Phu,

Eisenhower had to decide what to do about the country,

he decided to support

the South Vietnamese government in place,

and they supported that dreadful man Diem.

Diem was like a south American dictator,

but whom some American general, I think, once said,

"He's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."

And that strain of thought

ran through the American government

when they look into their allies around the world.

And it was a mistake.

- Half of the villages were under communist rule in 1954.

And it wasn't clear who was going to come out on top,

and indeed the United States and the other political groups

also expected that the communists would win.

- Wasn't anything, great American conspiracy

to rule the world or anything.

They just didn't want the Russians to take over.

When they realize that Soviet communism,

as they saw it, was a menace, which it was,

it would influence other parts of the world

that they thought they could reach.

And, as a consequence, Vietnam,

after the French were defeated at the Dien Bien Phu,

was a prime candidate for American help.

- And so the Diem regime immediately turned its attention

to the religious or the political religious sects

in the Mekong Delta, and attacked them first.

And so there was fighting in the streets of Saigon

in 1954, 1955, and much of it spread to the Mekong Delta.

There was a sort of civil war

in the early days of the South Vietnamese regime.

- [Cal] The divisions and unrest in Vietnam continued.

The rioting intensified,

and the Vietnamese people continue to see Ho Chi Minh

and the national liberation front

as a way to gain back their independence.

America continued to closely monitor the situation,

uneasy at the rapid rise of communism in Vietnam,

which they deemed to be a direct threat to them.

This mood prompted President Kennedy to send in aid,

ultimately ending in over half a million US troops

and a bloody war that would last for 20 years.

♪ Mama told me not to go ♪

♪ That ain't the way to have fun, no ♪

- [Cal] In the 20th century,

Vietnam had endured invasion from France and China.

It had seen the creation of Indochina under French rule

and the development of French culture and influence

in the coming years.

After the defeat of the French

at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the Geneva Peace Conference

divided the country with control of the South

now led by Diem, supported by America.

♪ Riders on the storm ♪

- [Cal] North Vietnam was given

to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh.

He formed the national liberation front,

also known as the Viet Cong

and began an uprising against the South.

♪ Into this world, we're thrown ♪

- [Cal] The National Liberation Front

was gaining significant strength in Vietnam.

To many Vietnamese, the Viet Minh were heroes.

To America's leaders, Ho Chi Minh represented communism

and a significant threat.

♪ There's a killer on the road ♪

- For man holds in his mortal hands

the power to abolish all forms of human poverty

and all forms of human life.

And yet the same revolutionary beliefs

for which our forebears fought

are still at issue around the globe.

- The Viet Minh were able to recruit

in the South, Center and North.

The religious groups in the South were not able to recruit

in the Center and North,

the Vietnamese nationalist party was more Northern based

and a Ngo Dinh Diem's following

was largely among Vietnamese Catholics,

in particularly in his home base of Central Vietnam.

And so the Viet Minh built

the biggest political organization.

The Viet Minh were able to recruit the peasants,

whereas most of the other political groups

didn't show much interest.

- To communist party, that there were, its discipline,

there are lots of people,

it has the ability to take power

from the top right down into the villages

and mobilize large numbers of people.

- By the early 1960s, Hanoi's policy

shifted further again towards supporting the guerrilla war

that was already developing fast in the south.

And meanwhile, the United States had built up

its own forces.

They had surpassed the Geneva limit

on foreign forces in South Vietnam.

- The position of this administration

has been carefully considered,

and we have sought to make it just as clear as we know how

to the government's concern.

- [Cal] President Kennedy pledged aid to Diem.

It hadn't been long since America

had not been able to defeat the communists in North Korea.

And they were intent on not losing to them again in Vietnam.

♪ Fighting soldiers from the sky ♪

- [Cal] In 1961, 400 American Green Berets

special advisers are sent to train soldiers in the fight

against the Viet Cong guerrillas under Ho Chi Minh.

In October that year, general Maxwell Taylor

reports to the president and advises Kennedy

to expand the number of US military advisors

and to send 8,000 combat soldiers.

The number of troops sent by Kennedy

will eventually surpass 16,000 by 1963.

- There was a serious mistake for Kennedy

to get involved as he did

with American force in that part of the world,

thinking that this great monolithic Soviet-style communism

would rule the roost,

when he could have played it differently, I believe,

and fought it more subtly.

- The great word the Vietnam War gave us

was escalation, because it starts off with Kennedy

sending in just 400 military advisers

who were actually special forces,

organizing and controlling action,

and then more go in, and then more go in.

- He should have fought it

with the limited aid he gave them initially,

with the development of the special forces,

the Green Berets as they're called,

and another small tactical units,

and not created this great surge

of North Vietnamese resentment.

- South Vietnam is already under attack,

sometimes by a single assassin,

sometimes by a band of guerrillas,

recently by full battalions.

The peaceful borders of Burma, Cambodia and India

have been repeatedly violated.

And the peaceful people of Laos

are in danger of losing the independence

they gained not so long ago.

- The eventual result was that the United States decided

that the South would lose very quickly

if it didn't change policy

and that the United States needed to move in

with regular forces on a large scale.

- The Chinese or the communists or nationalists

were age-old enemies of the Vietnamese.

It was the threat of Soviet communism

and the fact that China had fallen with now

in a way that was assisted by the Soviet

was to the Americans,

they created this monster in their imaginations,

and they had to go and fight it.

(light music)

♪ There's something happening here ♪

♪ What it is ain't exactly clear ♪

- And the final analysis, it's their war.

They're the ones who have to win it or lose it.

We can help them. We can give them equipment.

We can send our men out there as advisors,

but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam,

against the communists.

All we can do is help and we make it very clear,

but I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw.

That'd be a great mistake.

♪ Stop, hey, what's that sound ♪

♪ Everybody look what's going down ♪

- [Cal] President Kennedy was conflicted about Vietnam.

He realized that he couldn't give up the territory,

but faced the crisis by July.

Despite increased US support, the South Vietnamese military

was not making any ground against the Viet Cong forces.

- [Retro Narrator] The regime of South Vietnam

is President Ngo Dinh Diem comes to an end

in a wave of violence.

A few days before the army revolt,

these last pictures showed a man

who seemed to have no premonition

of the horrible death he was to meet.

- [Cal] The situation in Saigon was intensifying

as the Viet Cong fought against Diem,

ultimately leading to his death.

- [Retro Narrator] Mortar fire concentrates on tanks

and armored carriers bucking the way to the palace.

For two and a half hours,

the palace comes at the heavy bombardment

before the white flag is raised.

Meanwhile, Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu

had fled the palace in disguise.

They were later captured only to die in an armored car

that was taking them to prison.

- [Cal] Three weeks later in the US,

the nation was to be shocked by the tragic assassination

of President Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963.

- [Retro Narrator] At 1:25, the motorcade moves

into the downtown area.

Death is six minutes away.

In a warehouse a sniper with a rifle poised waits.

The cheers of the crowd almost muffled the three shots.

The assassin's aim is deadly.

- From Dallas, Texas, the flash,

apparently official, President Kennedy died

at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time,

two o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.

Vice President Lyndon Johnson

has left the hospital in Dallas,

but we do not know to where he has proceeded.

Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly

and become the 36th president of the United States.

- [Cal] Lyndon Johnson was thrust into the presidency

after the assassination.

The country was in disarray.

The worsening situation in Vietnam

had been Kennedy's most pressing problem.

And Johnson inherited America's commitment to Vietnam

and to defeating communism.

- President Johnson, for all his great virtues,

wasn't very strong foreign policy.

He had been in the Navy during the Pacific War

and he believed, one,

that overwhelming force worked, militarily.

And number two, he was a great Texan wheeler dealer.

He figured if he waved a big stick,

he could negotiate with Ho Chi Minh.

Ho Chi Minh didn't want to negotiate with anyone.

He knew eventually he would win.

They could control how many people they were losing,

and all they were doing was keeping their casualties

down to below their birth rate.

- [Cal] In August, 1964,

an incident of the Gulf of Tonkin

triggered a reaction from president Johnson.

- The termination of all Americans

to carry out our full commitment

to the people and to the government of South Vietnam

will be redoubled by this outrage.

- [Cal] Ultimately, this reaction would lead

to the beginning of a war in Vietnam,

a war that still resonates.

The justification remains a question to this day.

(dramatic music)

Lyndon Johnson became the 36th president

of the United States

after the assassination of John F. Kennedy

in November, 1963.

He inherited an economic crisis in America

that saw him proclaim a war on poverty.

He had inherited another conflict: a war on communism,

and America's commitment to Vietnam.

The increased strength of the Viet Cong

and the rise of communism

demanded more resources from Johnson.

But until now, he had resisted the need

to escalate the situation.

However, in August, 1964,

President Johnson decided to act

after events at the Gulf of Tonkin.

- [Retro Narrator] Destroyers of the United States Navy

are assigned routine patrol from time to time.

Sunday, August the second, 1964, the destroyer Maddox

was on such a patrol.

Shortly after noon, the calm of the day is broken

as general quarters sound.

(alarm blasts)

- When the Gulf of Tonkin (indistinct) comes

instant comes without long,

and that there's a (indistinct) report

that American warships have been attacked

by Vietnamese patrol boats, they used this as an excuse.

- [Retro Narrator] The Gulf of Tonkin incident

illustrates this capability for instant retaliation

against unprovoked attack.

- [Cal] The USS Maddox's captain sent a report

that three North Vietnamese torpedo boats

supposedly fired on them,

but then center attraction than it had been foul weather

and not an attack.

However, President Johnson ignored the retraction

and ordered the bombing of torpedo boat bases

and an oil depot.

- President Lyndon Johnson

obtained a almost unanimous approval from the US Congress

to escalate the war in Vietnam,

and bombing aircraft was sent North.

- He knew everyone on Capital Hill,

he could get anything that he wanted.

They gave him this Gulf of Tonkin resolution,

which he said it was like grandmother's night shirt.

It covered everything.

And it just gave him carte blanche to fight how he wished.

- It is my duty to the American people to report

that renewed hostile actions

against United States ships on the high seas

in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me

to order the military forces of the United States

to take action in reply.

♪ The Eastern world, it is explodin' ♪

♪ Violence flarin', bullets loadin' ♪

♪ You're old enough to kill but not for votin' ♪

♪ You don't believe in war ♪

♪ But what's that gun you're totin' ♪

♪ And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin' ♪

♪ But you tell me over and over and over again my friend ♪

♪ Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction ♪

- But repeated acts of violence

against the Armed Forces of the United States

must be met not only with alert defense,

but with positive reply.

That reply is being given as I speak to you tonight.

♪ Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction ♪

- [Cal] Full-scale military action

on Vietnam had begun.

The Viet Cong retaliate with a bombing onslaught

on a US air base.

- One of the major impacts

of the United States buildup of ground troops

in South Vietnam was that the communist guerrillas

in the South started recruiting

at an increased level themselves.

And in fact, from 1964 to 1965,

the communist guerrillas quadrupled their recruitment.

Meanwhile, the United States was building up its forces

at an even faster rate to hundreds of thousands.

- The American commitment on the ground in South Vietnam

rises from 12,000 to 200,000.

And suddenly, everyone in America is affected.

- [Cal] Despite a campaign

for deescalation of US involvement,

Johnson's attack on Vietnam is greeted with much support

in the USA and his popularity rises.

He wins a landslide victory to be US president.

Within a year, he had given the command

for Operation Rolling Thunder to begin.

♪ And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy ♪

♪ And God I know I'm one ♪

- Forced us on both sides built up

with the contribution made from North Vietnam regular troops

coming into the fighting as well.

And the destruction that was being conducted and carried out

in the villages of South Vietnam,

particularly the populated areas

where the impact was greatest,

but also in the forested areas,

the level of destruction escalated enormously

from the mid-'60s onwards, and had an enormous impact

on the Vietnamese people's livelihood,

on the way people tried to survive in the cities,

fleeing from the countryside, where the war was strongest,

into the cities.

The cities began to fill up with rural refugees,

protest movements developed in the cities.

♪ Is a suitcase and a trunk ♪

- [Cal] The continuous arrival of US troops

and a large buildup of the South Vietnamese army

meant that America could inflict large casualties,

not just on the Northern Vietnamese regulars

who had moved south, but also on the guerrillas

and the south Vietnamese communists regular troops as well.

Large scale rioting in Saigon continues.

- We have made a national pledge

to help South Vietnam defend its independence.

And I intend to keep our promise.

("House Of The Rising Sun" by The Animals)

- America could not politically invade the North

because they hadn't declared war.

This was a police action.

So that they couldn't invade North,

but they did fill their way with bombing.

(explosion booms)

This was called Operation Rolling Thunder,

and they just tried to pulverize all the industry,

all the supply lines, everything in the North.

And in a month, they would drop

as much ordnance on North Vietnam,

as it has been dropped in the whole of World War II.

("House Of The Rising Sun" by The Animals continues)

(explosions booming)

- [Cal] This bombardment of air raids

would last three years

together with the deployment of agent orange.

♪ The other foot on the train ♪

- [Cal] This was just the start of a war

that would rage for many years,

a war that would affect Vietnam and America

for decades to come.

♪ To wear that ball and chain ♪

(helicopters humming)

♪ Some folks are born made to wave the flag ♪

♪ They're red, white and blue ♪

♪ And when the band plays "Hail to the Chief" ♪

♪ They point the cannon at you, Lord ♪

♪ It ain't me, it ain't me ♪

♪ I ain't no senator's son, son ♪

♪ It ain't me, it ain't me ♪

♪ I ain't no fortunate one ♪