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- Original file by zfeet -
- Resynced by Ornlu Wolfjarl -
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No more war! No more war!
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No more war! No more war!
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("Get Together" by the Youngbloods playing)
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No more war! No more war!
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No more war! No more war!
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No more war!
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CROWD (chanting): U.S.A.!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
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YOUNGBLOODS: d Love is but a song to sing
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d Fear's the way we die
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(crowds shouting, clamoring)
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d You can make the mountains ring d
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d Or make the angels cry
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(shouting continues)
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d Come on, people, now
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d Smile on your brother
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d Everybody get together
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d Try to love one another right now d
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KARL MARLANTES: My brother picked me up
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at Travis Air Force Base.
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And I remember he had a Valiant,
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an old beat-up Valiant.
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And we met inside the terminal.
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And I was so happy to see him.
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I just love my brother.
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(crowd shouting in distance)
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He said, "Now, I don't
want you to get upset,
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"but we're probably gonna get some trouble
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when we go outside."
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And I went, "Trouble? I
just got back from Vietnam.
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What are you talking about?"
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I mean, I knew that there was unrest.
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YOUNGBLOODS: d If you
hear the song I sing
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MARLANTES: But when we got in his car
to drive away from the terminal,
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we had to wind our way through protesters
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that were pounding on the car
with the ends of their signs
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and were snarling at me
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and pounding on the window and
shouting obscenities at me.
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That was my welcome home to America.
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(shouting continues)
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I was just stunned.
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YOUNGBLOODS: d Come on, people, now
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I have never felt...
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any anger toward people
that were war protesters.
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It's a legitimate political stance.
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For people that descended into that, I...
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I-I think that they were really wrong.
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YOUNGBLOODS: d Try to love
one another right now d
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It was this-this heartbreak
of why are you doing this?
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I mean, you don't know who I am.
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And it happened over and over.
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YOUNGBLOODS: d Everybody get together
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d Try to love one another right now d
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d Right now
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d Right now.
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(siren wailing)
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NARRATOR: In the spring of 1970,
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despite the uproar over
the invasion of Cambodia
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and the killing of four
students at Kent State,
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President Nixon's hold on what he called
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"the great silent majority" seemed secure.
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A Gallup poll showed that most Americans
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blamed the students, not
the national guardsmen,
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for what had happened.
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(shouting, clamoring)
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At an antiwar demonstration in Manhattan,
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hundreds of construction
workers in hard hats
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attacked protestors,
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sending 70 to the hospital.
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And when workers marched on City Hall
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a few days later,
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Nixon wrote the president of their union
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to say how pleased he was
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"to see the tremendous outpouring
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"of support for our country
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demonstrated in your orderly
and most heartening rally."
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How do you feel about the
construction workers
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who attacked the, uh,
demonstrators last Friday?
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Don't say attacked. Don't say attacked.
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They were provoked.
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They were provoked, man.
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We work for a living.
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Every day we get up, we're
out there in the cold,
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the rain, the snow, right?
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We got to have these dirty s...
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Forget about it, I don't
want to talk about it, man.
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Anybody that can take a
Viet Cong flag and fly it
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and wave it and bring it up this avenue
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and get away with it...
and get away with it...
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that's unpatriotic to me.
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NARRATOR: When American
troops withdrew from Cambodia
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at the end of June,
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the White House reported
that they had killed
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11,349 enemy troops,
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captured 22,000 weapons
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and had destroyed 11,688
bunkers and buildings.
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But after so many years of fighting,
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more and more Americans
were tired of the war,
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wanted to get out of Southeast Asia,
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and did not want the president
to expand the conflict further.
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Among their representatives in Congress,
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antiwar sentiment had steadily grown.
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As the president searched
for a face-saving way
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to end the war, he continued
to withdraw troops.
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CROWD (chanting): U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
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But even as American casualty figures fell,
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the gulf between Americans at home widened,
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tearing communities, neighborhoods,
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even families apart.
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CROWD (chanting): No more war! No more war!
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Nixon was convinced...
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just as Lyndon Johnson had been...
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that the antiwar movement was somehow
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being directed from Hanoi,
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Beijing and Moscow.
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"Within the iron gates of the White House
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a siege mentality was settling in,"
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a Nixon aide remembered.
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"It was now us against them.
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"Gradually, as we drew the
circle closer around us,
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the ranks of them began to swell."
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(crowd chattering)
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PHIL GIOIA: I think the
Vietnam War drove a stake
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right into the heart of America.
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It polarized the country
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as it had probably never been polarized
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since before the Civil War.
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And unfortunately, we've never moved
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really far away from that.
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And we never recovered.
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CROWD: No more war! No more war!
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CROWD: U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
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CROWD: No more war! No more war!
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No more war! No more war! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
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U.S.A.! U.S.A.! No more war! No more war!
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No more war! No more war! No more war!
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(chanting stops)
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d
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DAVID FROST: Thank you very much, indeed,
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and welcome to this, uh, special,
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very special edition
ofThe David Frost Show.
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The vice president himself
wanted to debate with students,
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and we suggested a format in
which he might like to do so.
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Welcome Eva Jefferson from Northwestern,
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who testified before the
Scranton Commission
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on Campus Unrest and is
majoring in political science.
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Is that right? Right.
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NARRATOR: Eva Jefferson,
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whose father had served in Vietnam,
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was now the student body president
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at Northwestern University.
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After Kent State,
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she had forcefully stopped angry protestors
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from burning down the ROTC
building at her school,
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and later testified before
a presidential commission
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looking into the causes of student unrest.
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She had warned then that some students
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were becoming so frustrated
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that they felt they had no choice
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but to engage in violence.
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And right now it's a privilege to welcome
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the vice president of the United States,
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Spiro T. Agnew.
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(audience applauding)
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AGNEW: Let me
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take brief exception to
one thing you've said,
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that the only way to get the attention
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of the society is to bomb buildings.
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What I attempted to do
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before the Scranton
Committee was to explain
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what could motivate someone
to blow up a building.
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I did not say I endorse this,
and if you read my testimony
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quite carefully, you'll know that I didn't.
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And it's this type of-of
just picking up on what,
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allegedly, I said instead of
really studying what I said
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that-that really disturbs me.
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(quietly): May I respond?
Because you're making people
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afraid of their own children.
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Yet they're your children,
they're my parents' children,
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they're the children of this country.
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Yet you're making people afraid of them.
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And I think this is the
greatest disservice.
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There's an honest difference
of agreement on issues,
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but-but when you make people
afraid of each other,
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you-you isolate people, and
maybe this is your goal,
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but I think this is...
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this could only have a disastrous effect
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on the country. (applause)
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Let me say first that isolating people
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is not my goal.
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If that were true I
wouldn't be here tonight.
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And let me take exception to that
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oft-repeated rationale that, uh,
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violence is the only way to get results.
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I was trying to explain to you
the rationale of some students
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who are openly revolutionary.
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You're not listening to what I'm saying.
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I'm-I'm really distressed. Just what are...
what are you advocating?
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EVA JEFFERSON PATERSON: They
were trying to politically
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benefit from making us out to be
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these scary, horrible, violent people.
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We weren't. We were against the war.
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We thought the war was wrong.
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We thought we were lied to.
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And we were in the streets.
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America has always had a
rich tradition of protests.
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We were founded by protesting England.
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So to make people afraid of their kids,
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I think, was wrong, but
that's what they were about.
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They were fearmongers.
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PHAN QUANG TUE: It was fratricide.
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You can say, "Well, but-but
they are communist."
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Okay, they're communist.
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"They are the worst Vietnamese
in the entire world.
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We were the good Vietnamese."
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But let's face Vietnamese
killing Vietnamese.
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How-how do you deny that?
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If you don't call that fratricide,
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what do you call that?
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What do you... how do we...
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I explain that to-to my children?
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NARRATOR: The Cambodian incursion had
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at least temporarily reduced
the flow of North Vietnamese
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men and supplies through that country,
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but they were still streaming down
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the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
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The White House wanted them stopped.
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But this time, South Vietnamese troops
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would have to try to do the job alone.
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By the end of 1970, both houses of Congress
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had barred all U.S. ground personnel,
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even advisors and special forces,
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from crossing the border.
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On February 8, 1971,
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17,000 ARVN troops began moving into Laos
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to destroy the enemy's jungle bases
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and to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail.
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The Americans could only
provide air support.
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Nixon and his National Security Advisor,
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Henry Kissinger, believed
that a successful operation
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would boost morale in Saigon
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and prove to Hanoi and the American public
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that the ARVN could fight
and win on their own,
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that Vietnamization could work.
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Their target was the North
Vietnamese logistics hub,
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the abandoned town of Tchepone.
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U.S. intelligence
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believed there were no more
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than 22,000 North Vietnamese
troops in the area.
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But there would eventually
turn out to be 60,000,
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and their commanders knew
there was only one route
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the ARVN was likely to take.
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Harry Hue, who had been
fighting the communists
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for eight years, was in the invasion force.
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HUE (speaking English):
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(explosion)
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00:13:06,194 --> 00:13:09,794
NARRATOR: Although individual
ARVN units fought bravely,
258
00:13:09,895 --> 00:13:12,362
the invasion was a failure.
259
00:13:30,030 --> 00:13:33,696
Almost half of the 17,000 South Vietnamese
260
00:13:33,796 --> 00:13:35,229
who entered Laos
261
00:13:35,330 --> 00:13:38,464
would be killed, wounded or captured.
262
00:14:39,569 --> 00:14:41,202
NARRATOR: In late March,
263
00:14:41,302 --> 00:14:42,970
as the surviving ARVN forces
264
00:14:43,070 --> 00:14:44,635
straggled back across the border
265
00:14:44,735 --> 00:14:46,870
into South Vietnam,
266
00:14:46,970 --> 00:14:50,802
crowds of weeping women,
children and old men...
267
00:14:50,903 --> 00:14:53,937
dressed in white, the color of mourning...
268
00:14:54,036 --> 00:14:57,536
begged for news of the
soldiers who were missing.
269
00:14:57,636 --> 00:15:02,004
In Vietnam, the dead must
receive proper burial
270
00:15:02,103 --> 00:15:05,938
so that their restless
souls can have peace,
271
00:15:06,037 --> 00:15:08,037
and their families needed to know
272
00:15:08,137 --> 00:15:09,704
the time of their deaths
273
00:15:09,804 --> 00:15:12,838
so that they could honor them each year.
274
00:15:15,373 --> 00:15:17,373
Even before the invasion was over,
275
00:15:17,471 --> 00:15:19,873
President Nixon had told an aide,
276
00:15:19,971 --> 00:15:22,038
"We must claim victory,
277
00:15:22,139 --> 00:15:24,605
whatever the outcome."
278
00:15:58,908 --> 00:16:01,108
Consequently, tonight,
279
00:16:01,209 --> 00:16:05,409
I can report that
Vietnamization has succeeded.
280
00:16:05,510 --> 00:16:07,710
Because of the increased strength
281
00:16:07,809 --> 00:16:09,176
of the South Vietnamese,
282
00:16:09,277 --> 00:16:11,809
because of the success of
the Cambodian operation,
283
00:16:11,909 --> 00:16:13,109
because of the achievements
284
00:16:13,210 --> 00:16:16,211
of the South Vietnamese operation in Laos,
285
00:16:16,310 --> 00:16:17,843
I am announcing an increase
286
00:16:17,944 --> 00:16:20,211
in the rate of American withdrawals.
287
00:16:20,310 --> 00:16:22,711
We have it in our power to leave Vietnam
288
00:16:22,810 --> 00:16:24,944
in a way that offers a brave people
289
00:16:25,043 --> 00:16:27,678
a realistic hope of freedom.
290
00:16:27,779 --> 00:16:29,079
We have it in our power
291
00:16:29,178 --> 00:16:31,344
to prove to our friends in the world
292
00:16:31,445 --> 00:16:34,212
that America's sense of responsibility
293
00:16:34,311 --> 00:16:37,678
remains the world's greatest
single hope of peace.
294
00:16:37,779 --> 00:16:42,080
And generations in the future
295
00:16:42,179 --> 00:16:45,580
will look back at this difficult,
296
00:16:45,679 --> 00:16:49,345
trying time in America's history,
297
00:16:49,446 --> 00:16:51,947
and they will be proud
298
00:16:52,046 --> 00:16:55,246
that we demonstrated
299
00:16:55,346 --> 00:16:57,913
that we had the courage
300
00:16:58,014 --> 00:17:01,381
and the character of a great people.
301
00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:02,347
OPERATOR: Dr. Kissinger, sir.
302
00:17:02,448 --> 00:17:03,948
NIXON: Yeah.
303
00:17:04,047 --> 00:17:04,948
KISSINGER: Mr. President?
304
00:17:05,047 --> 00:17:06,114
NIXON: Yeah. Hi, Henry.
305
00:17:06,215 --> 00:17:07,657
KISSINGER: This was the best
speech you've delivered
306
00:17:07,681 --> 00:17:08,801
since you've been in office.
307
00:17:08,882 --> 00:17:09,882
NIXON: Yeah.
308
00:17:09,981 --> 00:17:12,347
I'll tell you one thing, this was, uh...
309
00:17:12,448 --> 00:17:14,548
This little speech was a work of art.
310
00:17:14,649 --> 00:17:17,283
I mean, I-I know a little
something about speechwriting.
311
00:17:17,383 --> 00:17:19,583
And it was no act, because
no actor could do it.
312
00:17:19,682 --> 00:17:21,692
No actor in Hollywood could
have done that that well.
313
00:17:21,716 --> 00:17:23,016
KISSINGER: It's the best...
314
00:17:23,115 --> 00:17:24,391
NIXON: I thought that was
done well, didn't you think?
315
00:17:24,415 --> 00:17:25,792
KISSINGER: First of all, no
actor could have written it,
316
00:17:25,816 --> 00:17:27,017
to begin with.
317
00:17:27,116 --> 00:17:28,825
You couldn't have done it
unless you had meant it.
318
00:17:28,849 --> 00:17:30,084
NIXON: Yeah.
319
00:17:30,183 --> 00:17:32,450
And if it doesn't work, I don't care.
320
00:17:32,549 --> 00:17:34,683
I mean, right now, if it doesn't work...
321
00:17:34,784 --> 00:17:35,784
Then let me say, though,
322
00:17:35,884 --> 00:17:37,151
I'm going to find out soon,
323
00:17:37,250 --> 00:17:38,530
and then I'm going to turn right
324
00:17:38,585 --> 00:17:40,261
so goddamn hard it'll make your head spin.
325
00:17:40,285 --> 00:17:41,861
We'll bomb those bastards
right out of the...
326
00:17:41,885 --> 00:17:44,718
off the earth. I really mean it.
327
00:17:44,817 --> 00:17:47,817
("We Gotta Get Out of This
Place" by the Animals playing)
328
00:17:52,019 --> 00:17:56,318
d In this dirty old part of the city d
329
00:17:56,418 --> 00:18:00,852
d Where the sun refuse to shine d
330
00:18:00,953 --> 00:18:04,119
d People tell me there
ain't no use in trying d
331
00:18:08,887 --> 00:18:10,587
Do you belong to the same generation
332
00:18:10,686 --> 00:18:11,852
that is protesting at home?
333
00:18:11,953 --> 00:18:13,120
Do you feel as if you belong
334
00:18:13,221 --> 00:18:14,820
to those people? Very much.
335
00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:16,120
You do? Very much.
336
00:18:16,221 --> 00:18:18,487
I wish they'd get us out
of here, I really do.
337
00:18:18,588 --> 00:18:21,687
d We gotta get out of this place d
338
00:18:21,788 --> 00:18:25,655
d If it's the last thing we ever do d
339
00:18:25,754 --> 00:18:28,889
d We gotta get out of this place d
340
00:18:28,988 --> 00:18:30,621
d Girl, there's a better life
341
00:18:30,722 --> 00:18:33,889
JAMES GILLAM: Almost all
of us were draftees.
342
00:18:33,988 --> 00:18:36,890
None of us cared a damn about the war.
343
00:18:36,989 --> 00:18:39,590
We just didn't want to get blown up.
344
00:18:39,689 --> 00:18:41,689
We just didn't want to die in the jungle,
345
00:18:41,790 --> 00:18:44,189
holding your guts in.
346
00:18:44,290 --> 00:18:49,756
So the idea is do six
months, maybe eight months,
347
00:18:49,856 --> 00:18:55,091
get an R&R, take a deep
breath and try to finish up,
348
00:18:55,190 --> 00:18:58,923
try to do something that would
get you sent to base camp.
349
00:18:59,024 --> 00:19:02,857
Just don't die because
you're not gonna win.
350
00:19:02,958 --> 00:19:05,025
ANIMALS: d We gotta get
out of this place d
351
00:19:05,124 --> 00:19:08,525
d If it's the last thing we ever do d
352
00:19:08,624 --> 00:19:10,792
REPORTER: Chess is the most serious contest
353
00:19:10,892 --> 00:19:12,593
Glen Hindley will engage in,
354
00:19:12,692 --> 00:19:15,526
for he has not fired a
shot in his nine months
355
00:19:15,625 --> 00:19:17,125
in the field with Charlie Company.
356
00:19:17,226 --> 00:19:18,906
HINDLEY: Well, I haven't shot anybody yet.
357
00:19:18,992 --> 00:19:20,692
I don't plan on it.
358
00:19:20,793 --> 00:19:22,758
I haven't fired my gun since I been here,
359
00:19:22,858 --> 00:19:24,894
and I like it that way.
360
00:19:24,993 --> 00:19:27,094
REPORTER: How can you get away with that?
361
00:19:27,193 --> 00:19:28,693
Just don't fire it.
362
00:19:28,794 --> 00:19:30,094
I plan to go across the...
363
00:19:30,193 --> 00:19:31,460
across country when I get back
364
00:19:31,559 --> 00:19:33,426
because I'll see the
people I know over here,
365
00:19:33,527 --> 00:19:35,728
plus I'll be able to talk
to a lot of other people,
366
00:19:35,827 --> 00:19:37,895
maybe convince them that killing for peace
367
00:19:37,994 --> 00:19:39,194
just doesn't make sense.
368
00:19:39,295 --> 00:19:42,327
ANIMALS: d We gotta get
out of this place d
369
00:19:42,427 --> 00:19:47,495
d If it's the last thing we ever do d
370
00:19:47,596 --> 00:19:49,396
d We gotta get out of this place. d
371
00:19:49,495 --> 00:19:51,638
NARRATOR: "The morale,
discipline, and battleworthiness
372
00:19:51,662 --> 00:19:55,561
of the U.S. Armed Forces," a
retired Marine colonel wrote
373
00:19:55,662 --> 00:19:57,962
in the spring of 1971,
374
00:19:58,061 --> 00:20:01,297
"are lower and worse than at any time,
375
00:20:01,397 --> 00:20:05,597
possibly in the history
of the United States."
376
00:20:05,696 --> 00:20:07,829
An official report had found
377
00:20:07,929 --> 00:20:10,930
that one out of four
enlisted men in Vietnam
378
00:20:11,031 --> 00:20:13,898
had used marijuana regularly...
379
00:20:13,997 --> 00:20:16,598
but almost never in combat.
380
00:20:16,697 --> 00:20:18,964
SOLDIER: There's, uh, drugs everywhere.
381
00:20:19,063 --> 00:20:20,263
Really, you could, uh...
382
00:20:20,363 --> 00:20:22,831
Well, within... within
ten minutes in country,
383
00:20:22,931 --> 00:20:25,099
I-I had people approaching me selling scag.
384
00:20:25,198 --> 00:20:26,431
INTERVIEWER: What's scag?
385
00:20:26,532 --> 00:20:27,665
It's heroin.
386
00:20:27,764 --> 00:20:30,698
NARRATOR: Heroin was cheap,
387
00:20:30,799 --> 00:20:33,364
pure, and everywhere.
388
00:20:33,465 --> 00:20:36,033
The Pentagon would eventually acknowledge
389
00:20:36,132 --> 00:20:39,832
that 40,000 American troops
had been addicted to it.
390
00:20:39,932 --> 00:20:43,100
ANIMALS: d We gotta get
out of this place d
391
00:20:43,199 --> 00:20:46,633
d If it's the last thing we ever do d
392
00:20:46,734 --> 00:20:48,933
d We gotta get out of this place d
393
00:20:49,034 --> 00:20:52,333
d Girl, there's a better life
394
00:20:52,433 --> 00:20:53,534
(coughs)
395
00:20:53,633 --> 00:20:56,101
d For me and you
396
00:20:56,200 --> 00:20:58,102
d Ooh, baby
397
00:20:58,201 --> 00:21:02,067
"The rearguard of a once 500,000-man army,"
398
00:21:02,168 --> 00:21:03,434
an officer wrote,
399
00:21:03,535 --> 00:21:07,302
"is numbly extricating
itself from a nightmare war
400
00:21:07,402 --> 00:21:10,536
"the armed forces feel
they had foisted on them
401
00:21:10,635 --> 00:21:14,103
"by bright civilians who
are now back on campus
402
00:21:14,202 --> 00:21:18,835
writing books about the folly of it all."
403
00:21:18,935 --> 00:21:21,568
Even General Creighton Abrams,
404
00:21:21,670 --> 00:21:24,804
commander of military
operations in Vietnam,
405
00:21:24,904 --> 00:21:26,703
now admitted privately,
406
00:21:26,804 --> 00:21:30,037
"I need to get this army home to save it."
407
00:21:30,136 --> 00:21:31,569
ANIMALS: d I know it, too, baby
408
00:21:31,670 --> 00:21:33,605
d Oh, yeah.
409
00:21:42,937 --> 00:21:45,306
The telegrams and letters
coming into this courthouse
410
00:21:45,406 --> 00:21:47,571
are from all parts of the country.
411
00:21:47,672 --> 00:21:50,505
From Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a man writes,
412
00:21:50,606 --> 00:21:53,138
"Congratulations to the Calley jurors.
413
00:21:53,239 --> 00:21:55,438
"A courageous and fair decision.
414
00:21:55,539 --> 00:21:57,572
Justice still exists."
415
00:21:57,673 --> 00:22:02,572
NARRATOR: On March 29, 1971,
416
00:22:02,673 --> 00:22:04,506
at Fort Benning, Georgia,
417
00:22:04,607 --> 00:22:07,639
a military court found
Lieutenant William Calley...
418
00:22:07,740 --> 00:22:09,974
and only Lieutenant Calley...
419
00:22:10,073 --> 00:22:12,640
guilty of murdering Vietnamese civilians
420
00:22:12,741 --> 00:22:15,741
at My Lai back in 1968.
421
00:22:18,674 --> 00:22:22,975
He was sentenced to life
imprisonment at hard labor.
422
00:22:23,074 --> 00:22:25,708
The commander of Calley's division,
423
00:22:25,809 --> 00:22:27,874
General Samuel Koster,
424
00:22:27,975 --> 00:22:30,774
who had watched some of the
slaughter from a helicopter
425
00:22:30,874 --> 00:22:33,775
and done nothing to stop it,
was now the superintendent
426
00:22:33,875 --> 00:22:37,075
of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
427
00:22:37,176 --> 00:22:40,976
He was forced to resign.
428
00:22:41,075 --> 00:22:44,075
The other 23 officers and men
429
00:22:44,176 --> 00:22:46,443
who had been indicted were either acquitted
430
00:22:46,544 --> 00:22:49,210
or had their cases dismissed.
431
00:22:49,311 --> 00:22:52,744
The Calley verdict proved as controversial
432
00:22:52,843 --> 00:22:55,044
as the war itself.
433
00:22:55,143 --> 00:22:57,211
TROTTA: A lady in Cheyenne, Wyoming, says,
434
00:22:57,312 --> 00:22:59,577
"What the jury has done
to Lieutenant Calley
435
00:22:59,678 --> 00:23:01,777
"is a disgrace to this nation.
436
00:23:01,877 --> 00:23:03,745
"The enemy is the enemy,
437
00:23:03,844 --> 00:23:06,545
the enemy is the enemy."
438
00:23:06,644 --> 00:23:08,878
From Bellefontaine, Ohio, a doctor says,
439
00:23:08,979 --> 00:23:11,645
"Let us not condemn Lieutenant Calley
440
00:23:11,746 --> 00:23:14,046
"when it is the character of the war
441
00:23:14,145 --> 00:23:16,778
which is at fault for such
slaughters as My Lai."
442
00:23:16,878 --> 00:23:20,114
What is your initial reaction
to this verdict, sir?
443
00:23:20,213 --> 00:23:22,379
I thought he would be found not guilty.
444
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,346
'Cause you send in a man into combat,
445
00:23:24,446 --> 00:23:26,747
you train him to be a... a killer,
446
00:23:26,846 --> 00:23:29,013
and then, when he does, why then,
447
00:23:29,114 --> 00:23:30,946
uh, you prosecute him?
448
00:23:32,847 --> 00:23:36,514
NARRATOR: Some believed everyone
involved should have gone to jail;
449
00:23:36,615 --> 00:23:39,681
others believed that Calley
had been made a scapegoat
450
00:23:39,780 --> 00:23:43,549
for the criminal misdeeds of his superiors.
451
00:23:43,648 --> 00:23:47,515
And still others felt a
systemic failure of leadership
452
00:23:47,616 --> 00:23:49,881
had occurred in a chain of command
453
00:23:49,982 --> 00:23:54,616
that stretched all the way up
to the commander in chief.
454
00:23:57,183 --> 00:23:58,949
According to a Gallup poll,
455
00:23:59,050 --> 00:24:04,250
79% of the American public
disagreed with the verdict.
456
00:24:04,349 --> 00:24:07,751
Nixon decided to intervene.
457
00:24:10,118 --> 00:24:13,551
Calley spent just three days behind bars.
458
00:24:14,818 --> 00:24:17,383
The president ordered him transferred
459
00:24:17,484 --> 00:24:19,619
from federal prison to house arrest
460
00:24:19,718 --> 00:24:21,884
at Fort Benning, pending appeal.
461
00:24:21,985 --> 00:24:23,985
MAN: Okay, I'm gonna walk
back from each side.
462
00:24:24,084 --> 00:24:26,185
NARRATOR: Captain Aubrey Daniel,
463
00:24:26,284 --> 00:24:28,819
who had successfully prosecuted Calley,
464
00:24:28,919 --> 00:24:32,085
wrote Nixon, accusing him of compromising
465
00:24:32,186 --> 00:24:34,753
"such a fundamental moral principle
466
00:24:34,852 --> 00:24:37,253
"as the inherent unlawfulness
467
00:24:37,352 --> 00:24:40,452
of the murder of innocent persons."
468
00:24:40,553 --> 00:24:42,953
A military appeals court
469
00:24:43,054 --> 00:24:46,786
eventually reduced
Calley's term to 20 years,
470
00:24:46,886 --> 00:24:49,754
the secretary of the army cut it to ten,
471
00:24:49,853 --> 00:24:52,321
and after just three-and-a-half years
472
00:24:52,421 --> 00:24:55,354
under house arrest, he was paroled.
473
00:24:59,587 --> 00:25:01,988
TIM O'BRIEN: Who's responsible?
474
00:25:04,255 --> 00:25:08,556
The human beings who did this...
475
00:25:08,655 --> 00:25:12,088
These are war crimes.
476
00:25:12,189 --> 00:25:16,123
The individual human beings
who put a rifle muzzle
477
00:25:16,222 --> 00:25:17,288
up against a baby's head
478
00:25:17,388 --> 00:25:20,723
and shot the brains out of that baby...
479
00:25:20,824 --> 00:25:23,589
nothing happened to them.
480
00:25:23,690 --> 00:25:25,956
Nothing!
481
00:25:33,357 --> 00:25:37,157
HAL KUSHNER: And we walked
up the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
482
00:25:39,325 --> 00:25:42,091
And they said we walked 900 kilometers...
483
00:25:42,192 --> 00:25:47,826
540 miles in 57 days.
484
00:25:47,926 --> 00:25:51,692
And we met all these
people going both ways.
485
00:25:51,791 --> 00:25:55,260
We met civilians coming south.
486
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,092
We met soldiers going north and south.
487
00:25:58,193 --> 00:26:01,392
We met people humping artillery rounds.
488
00:26:01,493 --> 00:26:02,760
We met a...
489
00:26:02,859 --> 00:26:04,726
I remember a whole unit,
490
00:26:04,827 --> 00:26:06,761
a company-size unit, of women.
491
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:12,128
On the way, in one of these villages,
492
00:26:12,227 --> 00:26:15,727
I stole a uniform.
493
00:26:17,294 --> 00:26:19,028
Just khaki pants and khaki shirt.
494
00:26:19,129 --> 00:26:20,361
And I stole it.
495
00:26:20,461 --> 00:26:23,861
And I folded it up and I put it in my pack.
496
00:26:23,961 --> 00:26:27,195
NARRATOR: By early 1971,
497
00:26:27,294 --> 00:26:29,162
army doctor Hal Kushner
498
00:26:29,263 --> 00:26:31,029
had been a prisoner of the Viet Cong
499
00:26:31,130 --> 00:26:34,462
in South Vietnam for more than three years.
500
00:26:36,430 --> 00:26:40,130
He had survived ill treatment
and a host of illnesses,
501
00:26:40,229 --> 00:26:43,530
and he had buried 13 of
his fellow captives,
502
00:26:43,631 --> 00:26:45,463
who had died of starvation
503
00:26:45,564 --> 00:26:49,096
and sickness and despair.
504
00:26:49,197 --> 00:26:52,998
Now, he and the other
survivors from his camp
505
00:26:53,097 --> 00:26:56,731
were being moved all the
way to North Vietnam.
506
00:26:59,164 --> 00:27:00,765
Kushner and his companions
507
00:27:00,864 --> 00:27:03,231
eventually reached the city of Vinh,
508
00:27:03,332 --> 00:27:06,032
where they boarded a train to Hanoi.
509
00:27:06,133 --> 00:27:08,165
KUSHNER: And I put on this fresh uniform,
510
00:27:08,266 --> 00:27:10,032
and when I got off the train
511
00:27:10,133 --> 00:27:13,833
I was met with this officer in a jeep.
512
00:27:13,933 --> 00:27:15,532
And he just looked at me and he said,
513
00:27:15,633 --> 00:27:16,810
"You're an officer, aren't you?
514
00:27:16,834 --> 00:27:18,966
You come here."
515
00:27:19,067 --> 00:27:21,334
And he just... I felt very
proud that I looked good
516
00:27:21,434 --> 00:27:23,334
when I came off that train.
517
00:27:29,734 --> 00:27:33,034
NARRATOR: Kushner joined
hundreds of American captives
518
00:27:33,135 --> 00:27:35,635
who were scattered among five prisons
519
00:27:35,734 --> 00:27:38,835
in and around Hanoi.
520
00:27:38,935 --> 00:27:41,502
KUSHNER: We hadn't been there
long when the word came down
521
00:27:41,601 --> 00:27:44,336
from the American senior ranking officer
522
00:27:44,436 --> 00:27:48,735
that nobody would go home
unless everybody went home.
523
00:27:48,836 --> 00:27:51,802
That nobody would cooperate
with the Vietnamese.
524
00:27:51,902 --> 00:27:53,837
(indistinct voice on radio)
525
00:27:57,203 --> 00:28:00,770
But we heard him on the camp radio once...
526
00:28:00,869 --> 00:28:02,770
(radio transmission continuing)
527
00:28:02,869 --> 00:28:05,803
...telling us that we should cooperate.
528
00:28:08,037 --> 00:28:10,838
And it was obvious, from his
voice and his inflection,
529
00:28:10,938 --> 00:28:12,970
that he had been tortured and beaten
530
00:28:13,071 --> 00:28:15,971
and was being made to say that.
531
00:28:16,072 --> 00:28:18,139
And that's what they did.
532
00:28:18,238 --> 00:28:22,639
NARRATOR: Eventually, Kushner,
like most of the prisoners,
533
00:28:22,738 --> 00:28:25,439
would be forced to record a statement
534
00:28:25,538 --> 00:28:27,472
against the war.
535
00:28:28,706 --> 00:28:30,239
(light clicks on)
536
00:28:33,039 --> 00:28:35,573
KUSHNER (on recording):
537
00:29:01,807 --> 00:29:03,451
KUSHNER: They wanted propaganda statements
538
00:29:03,475 --> 00:29:05,042
to say the war was criminal,
539
00:29:05,143 --> 00:29:07,643
to say that we were criminals.
540
00:29:07,742 --> 00:29:09,943
And they used our weakness against us.
541
00:29:10,042 --> 00:29:11,443
(light clicks off)
542
00:29:11,542 --> 00:29:14,510
("Gimme Shelter" by the
Rolling Stones playing)
543
00:29:14,609 --> 00:29:18,409
CROWD (chanting): No more war!
No more war! No more war!
544
00:29:18,510 --> 00:29:22,277
No more war! No more war!
545
00:29:22,376 --> 00:29:24,376
JOHN MUSGRAVE: The first
time in our history
546
00:29:24,476 --> 00:29:26,945
that veterans came home
from a war and said...
547
00:29:27,044 --> 00:29:28,477
while the war is still going on...
548
00:29:28,578 --> 00:29:31,578
and said, "This war's got to stop."
549
00:29:31,677 --> 00:29:34,544
And the American people
550
00:29:34,645 --> 00:29:36,977
might not listen to a bunch
of long-haired hippie kids.
551
00:29:37,078 --> 00:29:38,911
What do they know?
552
00:29:39,012 --> 00:29:41,779
But the working class, the
great "silent majority"...
553
00:29:41,878 --> 00:29:44,311
Richard Nixon always talked
about his "silent majority"
554
00:29:44,411 --> 00:29:46,911
that would back him by being silent...
555
00:29:47,012 --> 00:29:49,478
we were their kids.
556
00:29:49,579 --> 00:29:52,213
And it finally dawned on me...
557
00:29:52,312 --> 00:29:54,379
and this was a long, painful process...
558
00:29:54,479 --> 00:29:57,347
that... that I wasn't helping anybody
559
00:29:57,447 --> 00:30:00,546
by keeping my mouth shut.
560
00:30:00,647 --> 00:30:03,813
NARRATOR: Less than three
weeks after Lieutenant Calley
561
00:30:03,913 --> 00:30:06,581
was found guilty, some 2,000 members
562
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:08,613
of an organization called
563
00:30:08,714 --> 00:30:11,180
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
564
00:30:11,281 --> 00:30:16,048
and their followers descended
upon Washington, D.C.
565
00:30:16,149 --> 00:30:20,082
MICK JAGGER: d Ooh, storm is threatening
566
00:30:20,181 --> 00:30:23,649
d My very life today
567
00:30:23,748 --> 00:30:28,682
d If I don't get some shelter
568
00:30:28,783 --> 00:30:32,182
d Oh, yeah, I'm gonna fade away d
569
00:30:32,283 --> 00:30:35,783
d War, children
570
00:30:35,882 --> 00:30:38,316
d It's just a shot away
571
00:30:38,416 --> 00:30:40,416
d It's just a shot away d
572
00:30:40,517 --> 00:30:43,851
d War, children
573
00:30:43,951 --> 00:30:45,784
d It's just a shot away
574
00:30:45,883 --> 00:30:49,452
d It's just a shot away. d
575
00:30:49,551 --> 00:30:52,984
VVAW was a-a... it was great therapy.
576
00:30:53,085 --> 00:30:55,152
We were working it out ourselves.
577
00:30:55,251 --> 00:30:57,518
Vets taking care of vets.
578
00:30:57,617 --> 00:30:59,317
We were generals in our own right.
579
00:30:59,417 --> 00:31:00,953
And we didn't join anything.
580
00:31:01,052 --> 00:31:02,618
We became something.
581
00:31:02,719 --> 00:31:04,818
And that, yes, I was a Marine,
582
00:31:04,918 --> 00:31:06,653
but I was first and foremost
583
00:31:06,752 --> 00:31:09,019
a citizen of the United States of America.
584
00:31:09,118 --> 00:31:12,886
And being a citizen, I had
certain responsibilities.
585
00:31:12,986 --> 00:31:16,053
And the largest of those responsibilities
586
00:31:16,154 --> 00:31:19,454
is standing up to your
government and saying "no"
587
00:31:19,553 --> 00:31:21,587
when it's doing something that you think
588
00:31:21,686 --> 00:31:24,386
is not in this nation's best interest.
589
00:31:24,487 --> 00:31:29,687
That is the most important
job that every citizen has.
590
00:31:29,788 --> 00:31:33,455
ROLLING STONES: d Rape, murder
591
00:31:33,554 --> 00:31:36,688
MUSGRAVE: I served my country as honorably,
592
00:31:36,789 --> 00:31:39,888
when I was in Vietnam
Veterans Against the War,
593
00:31:39,988 --> 00:31:43,522
as I did as a United States Marine.
594
00:31:43,621 --> 00:31:46,956
And, in fact, I conducted
myself as a Marine
595
00:31:47,055 --> 00:31:49,756
the whole time I was in VVAW.
596
00:31:49,857 --> 00:31:51,389
I... My-my whole life,
597
00:31:51,489 --> 00:31:54,223
I conduct myself as a Marine.
598
00:31:54,322 --> 00:31:57,657
NARRATOR: Navy Lieutenant John Kerry,
599
00:31:57,756 --> 00:32:01,057
who had commanded a swift
boat in the Mekong Delta
600
00:32:01,158 --> 00:32:03,658
and was one of the organization's leaders,
601
00:32:03,757 --> 00:32:05,091
was invited to address
602
00:32:05,190 --> 00:32:07,323
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
603
00:32:07,423 --> 00:32:10,390
still chaired by J. William Fulbright.
604
00:32:10,490 --> 00:32:11,891
Thank you.
605
00:32:11,991 --> 00:32:15,424
MUSGRAVE: I went up for the presentation.
606
00:32:15,525 --> 00:32:17,725
And it was standing room only.
607
00:32:17,824 --> 00:32:21,625
And I was crammed up against
the wall in the very back.
608
00:32:21,725 --> 00:32:24,760
And when John...
609
00:32:24,860 --> 00:32:27,659
gave that presentation... (gavel bangs)
610
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:30,260
...I felt like he was
speaking for all of us.
611
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:33,726
KERRY: We could come back to this
country and we could be quiet.
612
00:32:33,825 --> 00:32:35,325
We could hold our silence.
613
00:32:35,426 --> 00:32:38,893
We could not tell what went
on in Vietnam, but we feel,
614
00:32:38,993 --> 00:32:41,826
because of what threatens this country,
615
00:32:41,926 --> 00:32:43,694
we have to speak out.
616
00:32:43,794 --> 00:32:45,627
Millions of men who have been
617
00:32:45,727 --> 00:32:48,795
taught to deal and to trade in violence
618
00:32:48,894 --> 00:32:51,195
and who were given the chance to die
619
00:32:51,295 --> 00:32:53,494
for the biggest nothing in history,
620
00:32:53,594 --> 00:32:57,228
men who have returned with a sense of anger
621
00:32:57,327 --> 00:32:58,728
and a sense of betrayal
622
00:32:58,827 --> 00:33:01,196
which no one has yet grasped.
623
00:33:01,296 --> 00:33:03,928
We rationalized destroying villages
624
00:33:04,028 --> 00:33:05,562
in order to save them.
625
00:33:05,662 --> 00:33:07,729
We saw America lose her sense of morality,
626
00:33:07,828 --> 00:33:10,763
as she accepted very coolly a My Lai
627
00:33:10,864 --> 00:33:13,264
and refused to give up the
image of American soldiers
628
00:33:13,364 --> 00:33:16,063
that hand out chocolate
bars and chewing gum.
629
00:33:16,163 --> 00:33:18,730
We learnt the meaning of free-fire zones,
630
00:33:18,829 --> 00:33:21,329
shoot anything that moves,
631
00:33:21,429 --> 00:33:23,597
and we watched while
America placed a cheapness
632
00:33:23,698 --> 00:33:25,865
on the lives of Orientals.
633
00:33:25,965 --> 00:33:29,865
We watched the United States'
falsification of body counts...
634
00:33:29,965 --> 00:33:33,397
in fact, the glorification of body counts.
635
00:33:33,497 --> 00:33:36,065
We watched while men charged up hills
636
00:33:36,165 --> 00:33:39,299
because a general said
that hill has to be taken.
637
00:33:39,398 --> 00:33:42,098
And after losing one
platoon or two platoons,
638
00:33:42,199 --> 00:33:43,498
they marched away
639
00:33:43,598 --> 00:33:45,498
to leave the hill for the reoccupation
640
00:33:45,598 --> 00:33:48,467
of the North Vietnamese.
641
00:33:48,566 --> 00:33:51,133
And we are asking Americans
to think about that.
642
00:33:51,233 --> 00:33:53,399
Because how do you ask a man
643
00:33:53,499 --> 00:33:56,233
to be the last man to die in Vietnam?
644
00:33:56,332 --> 00:34:00,968
How do you ask a man to be the
last man to die for a mistake?
645
00:34:01,067 --> 00:34:04,100
And so, when, 30 years from now,
646
00:34:04,201 --> 00:34:06,900
our brothers go down the
street without a leg,
647
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:09,567
without an arm or a face,
648
00:34:09,667 --> 00:34:12,302
and small boys ask why,
649
00:34:12,401 --> 00:34:15,168
we will be able to say "Vietnam"
650
00:34:15,269 --> 00:34:18,834
and not mean a filthy, obscene memory
651
00:34:18,934 --> 00:34:24,236
but mean instead the place
where America finally turned
652
00:34:24,335 --> 00:34:29,035
and where soldiers like us
helped it in the turning.
653
00:34:29,136 --> 00:34:30,870
Thank you.
654
00:34:30,970 --> 00:34:32,902
(cheers and applause)
655
00:34:37,403 --> 00:34:40,304
MUSGRAVE: I thought, "I have never heard
656
00:34:40,403 --> 00:34:43,237
"so... such an incredible speech
657
00:34:43,336 --> 00:34:45,772
that says exactly what I'm feeling."
658
00:34:45,872 --> 00:34:49,238
You know? It was extraordinary.
659
00:34:49,337 --> 00:34:51,705
Extraordinary.
660
00:34:51,805 --> 00:34:55,372
NARRATOR: But some veterans
remembered a different part
661
00:34:55,472 --> 00:34:57,306
of Kerry's testimony,
662
00:34:57,405 --> 00:35:01,038
testimony in which he repeated
accounts of atrocities
663
00:35:01,139 --> 00:35:04,938
he had heard from other American veterans.
664
00:35:05,038 --> 00:35:08,206
KERRY: They told the stories of times
665
00:35:08,306 --> 00:35:13,274
that they had personally raped,
cut off ears, cut off heads,
666
00:35:13,374 --> 00:35:17,140
taped wires from portable
telephones to human genitals
667
00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:18,939
and turned up the power,
668
00:35:19,039 --> 00:35:22,375
cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
669
00:35:22,475 --> 00:35:25,040
randomly shot at civilians,
670
00:35:25,141 --> 00:35:29,375
razed villages in fashion
reminiscent of Genghis Khan...
671
00:35:29,475 --> 00:35:31,907
GIOIA: What I saw in Vietnam
was not the soldier
672
00:35:32,007 --> 00:35:33,908
that Mr. Kerry or his colleagues
673
00:35:34,008 --> 00:35:36,041
were describing at that time.
674
00:35:36,142 --> 00:35:38,575
There was no widespread atrocity.
675
00:35:38,675 --> 00:35:40,315
There was... there were a couple of units
676
00:35:40,341 --> 00:35:42,841
that went right off the rails,
and we can talk about that.
677
00:35:42,941 --> 00:35:45,576
But they were not out-of-control animals,
678
00:35:45,676 --> 00:35:47,710
which was the way they were portrayed.
679
00:35:47,810 --> 00:35:51,377
And what was even worse was
they were alluding to the fact
680
00:35:51,477 --> 00:35:52,797
that you would take ordinary kids
681
00:35:52,877 --> 00:35:55,342
and turn them into these savages,
682
00:35:55,442 --> 00:35:56,943
war criminals, and the...
683
00:35:57,043 --> 00:35:58,410
that the military was doing that.
684
00:35:58,510 --> 00:36:01,077
And it didn't. Didn't happen that way.
685
00:36:01,177 --> 00:36:03,543
I'm still very angry about that.
686
00:36:03,644 --> 00:36:05,478
ROLLING STONES: d War, children
687
00:36:05,577 --> 00:36:07,010
NARRATOR: The next day,
688
00:36:07,110 --> 00:36:10,279
700 Vietnam Veterans Against the War
689
00:36:10,379 --> 00:36:12,544
gathered at the Capitol.
690
00:36:12,645 --> 00:36:15,611
MUSGRAVE: We originally intended
to put our medals in a body bag
691
00:36:15,712 --> 00:36:18,578
and have them delivered to Congress.
692
00:36:18,678 --> 00:36:21,980
But the Nixon administration erected
693
00:36:22,079 --> 00:36:27,579
this big wire and wood fence
on the steps of our Capitol
694
00:36:27,679 --> 00:36:31,213
to keep us out.
695
00:36:31,313 --> 00:36:33,214
To keep out the young men and women
696
00:36:33,314 --> 00:36:35,881
who were fighting that war.
697
00:36:35,981 --> 00:36:38,346
And all that did was piss us off
698
00:36:38,446 --> 00:36:42,346
and give us the greatest photo opportunity
699
00:36:42,446 --> 00:36:45,114
that we could ever have.
700
00:36:45,215 --> 00:36:46,358
Silver Star. STEVE SHAW: Purple Heart.
701
00:36:46,382 --> 00:36:48,514
MAN: Bronze Star.
702
00:36:48,614 --> 00:36:50,423
Cross of Gallantry. SACHS:
Distinguished Flying Cross.
703
00:36:50,447 --> 00:36:51,815
And everything else! (cheering)
704
00:36:51,914 --> 00:36:53,691
FERRIZZI: I don't want
these fucking medals, man!
705
00:36:53,715 --> 00:36:56,948
The Silver Star, the third
highest medal in the country,
706
00:36:57,048 --> 00:36:58,548
it doesn't mean anything!
707
00:36:58,649 --> 00:37:00,948
Bob Smeal died for these medals!
708
00:37:01,048 --> 00:37:03,448
Lieutenant Panamaroff
died so I got a medal!
709
00:37:03,548 --> 00:37:05,883
Sergeant Johns died so I got a medal!
710
00:37:05,983 --> 00:37:07,884
I got a Silver Star, a Purple Heart,
711
00:37:07,984 --> 00:37:10,284
Army Commendation Medal, eight Air Medals,
712
00:37:10,384 --> 00:37:11,750
National Defense,
713
00:37:11,849 --> 00:37:12,992
and the rest of this garbage!
714
00:37:13,016 --> 00:37:14,849
It doesn't mean a thing!
715
00:37:14,949 --> 00:37:16,349
(cheering)
716
00:37:16,449 --> 00:37:20,017
JAGGER: d Mm, the flood is threatening
717
00:37:20,117 --> 00:37:21,550
d My very life
718
00:37:21,651 --> 00:37:23,771
FERRIZZI: Throwing my medals
back was probably harder
719
00:37:23,850 --> 00:37:25,151
than going to the war.
720
00:37:25,251 --> 00:37:27,818
Was actually harder than going
and serving in Vietnam.
721
00:37:27,917 --> 00:37:32,351
JAGGER: d Or I'm gonna fade away
722
00:37:32,451 --> 00:37:34,927
FERRIZZI: If this medal is so
important, let's make it important.
723
00:37:34,951 --> 00:37:36,551
Here it is. You can have it back.
724
00:37:36,652 --> 00:37:38,685
End the war in Vietnam.
725
00:37:38,786 --> 00:37:40,319
What else is there?
726
00:37:40,418 --> 00:37:41,685
I... There was nothing else.
727
00:37:41,786 --> 00:37:43,263
I wouldn't put 'em on my wall for my son.
728
00:37:43,287 --> 00:37:45,419
I never want... that was the
last thing in the world
729
00:37:45,519 --> 00:37:48,119
I would ever want my son to revere.
730
00:37:48,220 --> 00:37:50,452
(indistinct shouting)
731
00:37:50,552 --> 00:37:53,387
TOM VALLELY: It was a
difficult decision for me.
732
00:37:53,487 --> 00:37:58,388
I did it out of a disrespectful loyalty.
733
00:37:58,488 --> 00:38:02,420
I was proud of my military service.
734
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:04,754
And I wanted to say,
"You know, I don't think
735
00:38:04,853 --> 00:38:07,554
you guys know that much,"
the American military.
736
00:38:07,655 --> 00:38:10,655
"You know, I think you should think again
737
00:38:10,755 --> 00:38:12,121
"about this enterprise.
738
00:38:12,222 --> 00:38:14,588
And here you go, pal."
739
00:38:14,688 --> 00:38:16,454
Tim Bagwell from Sacramento, California,
740
00:38:16,554 --> 00:38:19,455
still on active duty, and
I say get the hell out.
741
00:38:19,555 --> 00:38:20,555
(cheering)
742
00:38:20,622 --> 00:38:23,256
("Gimme Shelter" continues)
743
00:38:32,824 --> 00:38:35,190
MUSGRAVE: When we threw our medals away,
744
00:38:35,291 --> 00:38:36,791
that got their attention,
745
00:38:36,891 --> 00:38:39,456
because America values those things.
746
00:38:39,556 --> 00:38:40,891
So do we.
747
00:38:40,991 --> 00:38:43,191
That's why it was so important.
748
00:38:43,292 --> 00:38:46,325
NARRATOR: The police had
been ordered not to arrest
749
00:38:46,424 --> 00:38:48,924
any of the veterans, because,
750
00:38:49,024 --> 00:38:51,524
Pat Buchanan, a White House aide, wrote,
751
00:38:51,624 --> 00:38:54,993
they were "being received in a
far more sympathetic fashion
752
00:38:55,092 --> 00:38:57,192
"than other demonstrators.
753
00:38:57,293 --> 00:39:00,925
The 'crazies' will be in town
soon enough," he continued,
754
00:39:01,025 --> 00:39:03,092
"and if we want a confrontation,
755
00:39:03,192 --> 00:39:05,159
let's have it with them."
756
00:39:05,259 --> 00:39:07,559
He was right.
757
00:39:07,660 --> 00:39:09,894
In the days immediately following
758
00:39:09,994 --> 00:39:11,359
the veterans' protest,
759
00:39:11,459 --> 00:39:13,494
other groups of antiwar activists
760
00:39:13,593 --> 00:39:16,593
moved into the capital.
761
00:39:16,693 --> 00:39:20,360
The most radical called
itself the May Day Tribe
762
00:39:20,460 --> 00:39:23,427
and threatened to close the city down.
763
00:39:23,527 --> 00:39:26,761
For three days, they
staged hit-and-run raids
764
00:39:26,860 --> 00:39:28,627
throughout Washington...
765
00:39:28,728 --> 00:39:31,162
blocking bridges and traffic circles,
766
00:39:31,262 --> 00:39:32,595
smashing windows,
767
00:39:32,695 --> 00:39:35,095
hurling rocks, burning cars.
768
00:39:35,195 --> 00:39:36,195
(sirens wailing)
769
00:39:36,262 --> 00:39:37,638
RENNIE DAVIS: If Richard Nixon thought
770
00:39:37,662 --> 00:39:40,962
that this week was something,
wait until the next round.
771
00:39:41,062 --> 00:39:43,629
This is only a warm-up of
what is going to come.
772
00:39:43,730 --> 00:39:46,462
This is going to continue
until the war ends.
773
00:39:46,562 --> 00:39:48,763
NARRATOR: Some 12,000 were arrested...
774
00:39:48,862 --> 00:39:51,330
7,000 on a single day,
775
00:39:51,429 --> 00:39:54,898
the largest number of arrests in 24 hours
776
00:39:54,998 --> 00:39:57,398
in United States history.
777
00:39:57,498 --> 00:40:00,863
BILL ZIMMERMAN: I realized,
coming away from Washington,
778
00:40:00,963 --> 00:40:03,264
that our whole strategy was wrong
779
00:40:03,363 --> 00:40:06,999
and that we were becoming
more and more militant
780
00:40:07,098 --> 00:40:09,864
at a time when more and more Americans
781
00:40:09,964 --> 00:40:11,464
were opposing the war
782
00:40:11,564 --> 00:40:14,064
but were turned off by our militancy.
783
00:40:14,165 --> 00:40:17,065
So we were doing exactly the wrong thing.
784
00:40:17,166 --> 00:40:20,632
NARRATOR: The White House
was initially pleased.
785
00:40:20,733 --> 00:40:23,800
Public sympathy for the
veterans was largely forgotten
786
00:40:23,900 --> 00:40:27,833
in the face of days of
battle in the streets.
787
00:40:27,932 --> 00:40:30,966
Polls showed that most Americans approved
788
00:40:31,066 --> 00:40:32,866
of the arrests.
789
00:40:37,033 --> 00:40:40,067
But those same polls also showed
790
00:40:40,168 --> 00:40:42,867
that most Americans no longer believed
791
00:40:42,967 --> 00:40:46,668
they were being told the
truth about Vietnam.
792
00:40:51,634 --> 00:40:54,336
MUSGRAVE: When I got home, my...
so my dad's pissed off.
793
00:40:54,435 --> 00:40:58,169
'Cause he's-he's a true believer, you know?
794
00:40:59,702 --> 00:41:01,935
He was already receiving threats
795
00:41:02,035 --> 00:41:05,170
because I'd thrown away their medals.
796
00:41:06,936 --> 00:41:09,904
And that pissed my dad off then.
797
00:41:10,004 --> 00:41:12,636
And you would've thought I
hadn't done anything wrong.
798
00:41:12,737 --> 00:41:15,771
Because then somebody outside
the family was messing with me.
799
00:41:15,870 --> 00:41:17,905
And he said, "Son, don't worry.
800
00:41:18,005 --> 00:41:19,905
"Those were your medals. You paid for 'em.
801
00:41:20,005 --> 00:41:21,381
"You can do anything you want with 'em.
802
00:41:21,405 --> 00:41:23,470
"They want to jack with
us, they'll face us both.
803
00:41:23,570 --> 00:41:25,210
We'll-we'll take 'em on in the driveway."
804
00:41:25,305 --> 00:41:27,971
You know? "Yo, Dad."
805
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,172
(applause)
806
00:41:32,871 --> 00:41:35,306
(band playing "Thank
Heaven for Little Girls")
807
00:41:35,406 --> 00:41:38,306
NARRATOR: On June 12, 1971,
808
00:41:38,406 --> 00:41:40,639
Richard Nixon's daughter, Tricia,
809
00:41:40,740 --> 00:41:45,273
married Edward Cox in the
White House Rose Garden.
810
00:41:45,372 --> 00:41:48,972
The country watched it all on television.
811
00:41:52,408 --> 00:41:55,573
The wedding was still news the next day.
812
00:41:55,674 --> 00:41:59,174
But another story on the front
page of theNew York Times
813
00:41:59,274 --> 00:42:02,073
caught the president's attention.
814
00:42:02,174 --> 00:42:05,242
The article, by Neil Sheehan,
815
00:42:05,342 --> 00:42:08,041
was the first report of
what came to be called
816
00:42:08,141 --> 00:42:09,909
the Pentagon Papers,
817
00:42:10,009 --> 00:42:13,574
7,000 pages of highly classified documents
818
00:42:13,675 --> 00:42:15,642
and historical narrative,
819
00:42:15,743 --> 00:42:17,975
compiled secretly at the orders
820
00:42:18,075 --> 00:42:21,843
of former Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara.
821
00:42:21,942 --> 00:42:25,176
He had hoped a study of the
decision-making process
822
00:42:25,276 --> 00:42:28,777
that had led the United States
to become so deeply involved
823
00:42:28,876 --> 00:42:32,110
in Vietnam would help future policymakers
824
00:42:32,210 --> 00:42:34,811
avoid similar errors.
825
00:42:36,411 --> 00:42:38,444
SHEEHAN: I thought I knew a great deal.
826
00:42:38,544 --> 00:42:40,577
I thought I knew most of
what was worth knowing
827
00:42:40,678 --> 00:42:41,912
about the war.
828
00:42:42,012 --> 00:42:45,711
And, suddenly, I didn't.
829
00:42:45,812 --> 00:42:48,778
It wasn't a reporter's version of an event.
830
00:42:48,877 --> 00:42:50,712
It wasthe ir version of an event.
831
00:42:50,813 --> 00:42:53,045
It was their telegrams, their orders,
832
00:42:53,145 --> 00:42:54,978
their memoranda, et cetera.
833
00:43:09,446 --> 00:43:12,514
NARRATOR: The documents proved
that American presidents
834
00:43:12,613 --> 00:43:14,447
and their closest advisors
835
00:43:14,547 --> 00:43:16,515
had steered the United States
836
00:43:16,614 --> 00:43:19,315
toward deeper involvement in Vietnam,
837
00:43:19,415 --> 00:43:23,815
despite their own grave doubts
about the chances for victory.
838
00:43:32,682 --> 00:43:35,182
They had known that the Saigon government
839
00:43:35,282 --> 00:43:37,683
was weak and incompetent...
840
00:43:45,049 --> 00:43:48,982
...that the enemy was
disciplined and resilient...
841
00:43:55,083 --> 00:43:58,851
...and that the bombing of
the North wasn't working.
842
00:44:06,419 --> 00:44:10,484
Yet, they had routinely
lied about all these things
843
00:44:10,584 --> 00:44:13,119
to Congress and the American people.
844
00:44:37,288 --> 00:44:38,954
(sighs)
845
00:44:39,054 --> 00:44:41,987
I certainly don't endorse
846
00:44:42,087 --> 00:44:46,987
anyone releasing top-secret
material to the press.
847
00:44:48,689 --> 00:44:52,588
Um, on the other hand, uh...
848
00:44:52,689 --> 00:44:55,823
I was very concerned
849
00:44:55,923 --> 00:44:58,356
about the fact that the, uh,
850
00:44:58,455 --> 00:45:03,723
government was not being up
front with the American people
851
00:45:03,824 --> 00:45:07,489
in certain respects with the Vietnam War.
852
00:45:07,589 --> 00:45:10,757
NARRATOR: Two copies of the
report had been stored
853
00:45:10,857 --> 00:45:14,191
at the RAND Corporation,
a California think tank,
854
00:45:14,291 --> 00:45:16,258
where Daniel Ellsberg,
855
00:45:16,358 --> 00:45:21,057
one of the study's 36 authors,
worked as an analyst.
856
00:45:21,157 --> 00:45:24,091
Ellsberg had once supported the war.
857
00:45:24,192 --> 00:45:26,091
He'd served in the Pentagon,
858
00:45:26,192 --> 00:45:28,591
and spent two years working
for the State Department
859
00:45:28,692 --> 00:45:30,826
in Vietnam.
860
00:45:30,926 --> 00:45:35,326
But he had come to see the
war as profoundly immoral,
861
00:45:35,426 --> 00:45:37,927
and hoped that if Americans understood
862
00:45:38,027 --> 00:45:42,360
how administration after
administration had misled them
863
00:45:42,459 --> 00:45:44,927
about what was being done in their name,
864
00:45:45,027 --> 00:45:47,560
they might help bring it to an end.
865
00:45:47,660 --> 00:45:51,393
He and Anthony Russo,
another RAND employee,
866
00:45:51,493 --> 00:45:54,893
secretly copied most of the report.
867
00:45:54,993 --> 00:45:59,093
Ellsberg offered it to three
leading antiwar senators,
868
00:45:59,195 --> 00:46:03,094
hoping they would be willing
to reveal its contents.
869
00:46:03,195 --> 00:46:05,829
None dared do it.
870
00:46:05,929 --> 00:46:09,429
Meanwhile, Neil Sheehan
of theNew York Times,
871
00:46:09,529 --> 00:46:13,562
who had been reporting
on Vietnam since 1962,
872
00:46:13,662 --> 00:46:17,430
and had already secretly
read some of the documents,
873
00:46:17,530 --> 00:46:21,495
asked Ellsberg to show
him the whole report.
874
00:46:21,595 --> 00:46:24,630
SHEEHAN: At that point, I was
very passionate about the war.
875
00:46:24,730 --> 00:46:28,163
I felt that it was really wrong,
876
00:46:28,264 --> 00:46:30,130
because we were getting a lot of Americans
877
00:46:30,230 --> 00:46:32,463
and a lot of Vietnamese
killed for no purpose.
878
00:46:32,563 --> 00:46:36,298
We were gonna lose this war.
879
00:46:36,397 --> 00:46:40,597
And so I vowed to myself
when I saw this material
880
00:46:40,698 --> 00:46:42,464
that this is never gonna go back
881
00:46:42,564 --> 00:46:44,131
into a government safe again.
882
00:46:44,231 --> 00:46:45,897
The American public had paid for it
883
00:46:45,997 --> 00:46:48,665
with the lives of their sons
and with their treasure,
884
00:46:48,766 --> 00:46:50,465
and it's gonna be published.
885
00:46:50,565 --> 00:46:52,132
NIXON: That piece in theTimes
886
00:46:52,232 --> 00:46:53,433
is, of course,
887
00:46:53,533 --> 00:46:56,598
a massive security leak from
the Pentagon, you know.
888
00:46:56,699 --> 00:46:58,399
ROGERS: Yeah.
889
00:46:58,499 --> 00:47:01,534
NIXON: It all relates, of course,
to everything up until we came in.
890
00:47:01,633 --> 00:47:03,233
ROGERS: Yeah.
891
00:47:03,334 --> 00:47:05,767
NIXON: And it's, uh, it's ver...
it's hard on Johnson,
892
00:47:05,867 --> 00:47:09,200
it's hard on Kennedy, it's hard on Lodge.
893
00:47:09,300 --> 00:47:12,701
NARRATOR: At first, Nixon
was not unduly disturbed
894
00:47:12,801 --> 00:47:15,201
by the newspaper's revelations.
895
00:47:15,301 --> 00:47:18,835
They reflected badly on his
Democratic predecessors,
896
00:47:18,935 --> 00:47:21,301
not on him.
897
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:24,601
But Henry Kissinger quickly convinced Nixon
898
00:47:24,702 --> 00:47:26,501
that if theTime s were permitted
899
00:47:26,601 --> 00:47:30,336
to reveal the classified
secrets of earlier presidents,
900
00:47:30,436 --> 00:47:35,437
it was only a matter of time
until someone leaked his own.
901
00:47:35,537 --> 00:47:39,370
The Justice Department obtained
a temporary court order
902
00:47:39,469 --> 00:47:43,037
forbidding theTi mes from
publishing further installments
903
00:47:43,136 --> 00:47:46,170
on the grounds of national security.
904
00:47:46,271 --> 00:47:49,970
But soon, both theBoston Globe
905
00:47:50,070 --> 00:47:53,938
and theWashington Pos t were
also printing excerpts.
906
00:47:55,570 --> 00:47:58,104
On June 30, 1971,
907
00:47:58,205 --> 00:48:00,872
the United States Supreme Court,
908
00:48:00,971 --> 00:48:03,138
citing the First Amendment,
909
00:48:03,238 --> 00:48:06,805
ruled six to three that
theTimes had the right
910
00:48:06,904 --> 00:48:10,373
to publish the stolen documents.
911
00:48:10,472 --> 00:48:12,572
SHEEHAN: And I went down into the basement
912
00:48:12,672 --> 00:48:14,972
to wait for the presses to start to roll,
913
00:48:15,072 --> 00:48:17,672
and they had these huge
round reams of paper.
914
00:48:17,773 --> 00:48:18,873
(whirring)
915
00:48:18,972 --> 00:48:20,548
And, finally, the presses started to roll.
916
00:48:20,572 --> 00:48:25,006
And it was just an exquisite
moment of vindication
917
00:48:25,106 --> 00:48:27,240
of the freedom of the press in this country
918
00:48:27,341 --> 00:48:28,941
and how important it is.
919
00:48:29,041 --> 00:48:31,006
(rhythmic rattling)
920
00:48:31,106 --> 00:48:33,775
KARL MARLANTES: That changed
921
00:48:33,875 --> 00:48:35,775
our whole attitude toward government.
922
00:48:35,875 --> 00:48:38,241
Up until then, the president wouldn't lie.
923
00:48:38,342 --> 00:48:40,474
After then, they always lie.
924
00:48:40,574 --> 00:48:43,042
NARRATOR: The day the presses
began to roll again,
925
00:48:43,141 --> 00:48:46,376
Nixon ordered attorney
general John Mitchell
926
00:48:46,475 --> 00:48:50,043
to try to discredit Daniel
Ellsberg, who had just
927
00:48:50,142 --> 00:48:52,343
been indicted by a federal grand jury
928
00:48:52,443 --> 00:48:54,608
for theft and conspiracy
929
00:48:54,709 --> 00:48:58,676
under the Espionage Act of 1917.
930
00:49:33,646 --> 00:49:37,847
NARRATOR: Nixon feared Ellsberg
possessed more classified documents
931
00:49:37,947 --> 00:49:40,380
that would show that he himself had lied
932
00:49:40,479 --> 00:49:44,247
about the secret bombing
of Cambodia and Laos,
933
00:49:44,348 --> 00:49:47,080
and he believed that Ellsberg had had help
934
00:49:47,180 --> 00:49:50,613
and wanted to know the names
of his co-conspirators.
935
00:49:50,714 --> 00:49:53,048
The president created a private,
936
00:49:53,147 --> 00:49:56,449
clandestine investigative
unit within the White House.
937
00:49:56,549 --> 00:49:59,449
It came to be called "The Plumbers."
938
00:49:59,549 --> 00:50:03,081
John Ehrlichman, one of
Nixon's closest aides,
939
00:50:03,181 --> 00:50:06,549
eventually ordered them
to burglarize the office
940
00:50:06,648 --> 00:50:09,582
of Ellsberg's Los Angeles psychiatrist
941
00:50:09,682 --> 00:50:11,649
in search of material
942
00:50:11,749 --> 00:50:15,450
with which he could be
blackmailed into silence.
943
00:50:15,550 --> 00:50:19,750
Nixon may have privately
feared something else as well.
944
00:50:19,851 --> 00:50:22,650
He was told that the safe
at another think tank,
945
00:50:22,750 --> 00:50:26,351
the Brookings Institution
in Washington, D.C.,
946
00:50:26,451 --> 00:50:30,516
contained files that might
reveal the secret role
947
00:50:30,616 --> 00:50:34,484
his campaign had played in
torpedoing the peace talks
948
00:50:34,584 --> 00:50:37,785
on the eve of his election
three years earlier,
949
00:50:37,885 --> 00:50:42,484
which President Johnson had
then considered treason.
950
00:50:42,584 --> 00:50:46,286
Nixon wanted his "plumbers"
to break into Brookings,
951
00:50:46,386 --> 00:50:50,719
crack the safe, and remove the files.
952
00:50:50,819 --> 00:50:53,018
None of it was legal.
953
00:50:53,118 --> 00:50:56,253
Nixon did not care.
954
00:51:26,988 --> 00:51:31,223
NARRATOR: The Brookings break-in
would never take place.
955
00:51:31,323 --> 00:51:33,790
The burglars would be unable
956
00:51:33,890 --> 00:51:36,989
to find Ellsberg's file
in his doctor's office.
957
00:51:37,089 --> 00:51:40,522
But Nixon's obsession with his enemies
958
00:51:40,622 --> 00:51:44,358
would be the undoing of his presidency.
959
00:51:45,657 --> 00:51:49,123
("Embryonic Journey" by
Jefferson Airplane playing)
960
00:51:53,090 --> 00:51:55,059
(laughter and chatter)
961
00:52:01,624 --> 00:52:03,905
(indistinct voice of man
speaking French over microphone)
962
00:52:04,959 --> 00:52:07,226
JACK TODD: Once a month, I have a dream
963
00:52:07,326 --> 00:52:11,860
that I'm... I'm back... I'm
back in basic training.
964
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:13,393
But I'm the age I am now,
965
00:52:13,492 --> 00:52:15,759
which is way too old to be in the military.
966
00:52:15,860 --> 00:52:18,227
But, you know, somehow
I've gotten a waiver,
967
00:52:18,327 --> 00:52:19,926
and I'm going through all the training,
968
00:52:20,026 --> 00:52:22,093
and there's some major war going on.
969
00:52:22,193 --> 00:52:25,327
And I'm going to get there,
and I'm going to be a hero
970
00:52:25,426 --> 00:52:30,728
and vindicate myself and be
taken back by my country.
971
00:52:30,828 --> 00:52:32,661
(car horn honks)
972
00:52:32,761 --> 00:52:36,994
NARRATOR: Jack Todd had crossed
into Canada in early 1970,
973
00:52:37,094 --> 00:52:38,828
rather than take part
974
00:52:38,927 --> 00:52:41,563
in what he believed to
be a dishonorable war.
975
00:52:43,963 --> 00:52:47,729
He found himself living in a
strange underground world
976
00:52:47,829 --> 00:52:49,896
of deserters and draft evaders
977
00:52:49,995 --> 00:52:54,297
and the disaffected Canadians
who gathered around them.
978
00:52:54,397 --> 00:52:58,464
In 1971, he was living in Montreal,
979
00:52:58,564 --> 00:53:00,596
restless and often depressed,
980
00:53:00,696 --> 00:53:04,297
increasingly alienated from his country,
981
00:53:04,397 --> 00:53:07,530
but also anxious always for news from home,
982
00:53:07,630 --> 00:53:10,398
and eager to know how his boyhood friends
983
00:53:10,497 --> 00:53:13,530
from Scottsbluff, Nebraska, were doing.
984
00:53:13,630 --> 00:53:16,231
One, named Ron Bales,
985
00:53:16,331 --> 00:53:19,399
had lived just down the street.
986
00:53:19,498 --> 00:53:24,265
And, uh... my mother sent me a letter, um,
987
00:53:24,366 --> 00:53:26,531
and I remember taking
the clipping out of it.
988
00:53:26,631 --> 00:53:30,132
I had walked up to Mount Royal
in Montreal to read the letter.
989
00:53:30,233 --> 00:53:33,099
And the clipping was from
theScottsbluff Star-Herald,
990
00:53:33,199 --> 00:53:35,967
and it was about Ron
being killed in Vietnam.
991
00:53:39,199 --> 00:53:42,167
Why? Why?
992
00:53:42,267 --> 00:53:46,234
It was long after we knew
how wrong the war was,
993
00:53:46,334 --> 00:53:50,401
and guys like Ron were
still dying, you know.
994
00:53:52,235 --> 00:53:54,168
Why?
995
00:53:55,469 --> 00:53:57,802
The government today restricted the use
996
00:53:57,902 --> 00:54:00,402
of the weed killer 2,4,5-T on the ground
997
00:54:00,501 --> 00:54:02,402
that the chemical has caused birth defects
998
00:54:02,501 --> 00:54:05,035
in some laboratory animals.
999
00:54:06,935 --> 00:54:11,635
NARRATOR: Since 1962, American
and South Vietnamese forces
1000
00:54:11,736 --> 00:54:15,102
had sprayed some 20 million
gallons of herbicides
1001
00:54:15,202 --> 00:54:19,404
over roughly one quarter of South Vietnam.
1002
00:54:19,503 --> 00:54:22,670
The idea had been to reduce casualties
1003
00:54:22,770 --> 00:54:26,237
by clearing areas around U.S.
installations,
1004
00:54:26,337 --> 00:54:30,537
and to deny the enemy
crops and forest cover.
1005
00:54:30,637 --> 00:54:34,704
The most frequently used
defoliant was Agent Orange,
1006
00:54:34,805 --> 00:54:37,704
which contained 2,4,5-T.
1007
00:54:37,805 --> 00:54:39,873
When environmentalists convinced
1008
00:54:39,973 --> 00:54:43,038
the Nixon administration
to ban the weed killer
1009
00:54:43,138 --> 00:54:44,705
on American farms,
1010
00:54:44,806 --> 00:54:47,605
the Pentagon had reluctantly agreed
1011
00:54:47,705 --> 00:54:51,340
to stop using Agent Orange in Vietnam.
1012
00:54:51,439 --> 00:54:56,173
The ecological damage
defoliants did was obvious.
1013
00:54:56,273 --> 00:55:00,273
The damage done to soldiers and civilians
1014
00:55:00,374 --> 00:55:04,575
would be the subject of
angry debate for decades.
1015
00:55:07,875 --> 00:55:10,774
(crowd shouting in Vietnamese)
1016
00:55:10,875 --> 00:55:13,607
TED KOPPEL: Opposition
to the Saigon government
1017
00:55:13,707 --> 00:55:16,041
is not just Viet Cong.
1018
00:55:16,141 --> 00:55:17,641
TUE: How many governments
1019
00:55:17,742 --> 00:55:20,742
actually care for the Vietnamese people?
1020
00:55:20,842 --> 00:55:24,576
KOPPEL: The student antiwar,
anti-American movement
1021
00:55:24,675 --> 00:55:27,109
is larger than its small
demonstrations indicate.
1022
00:55:27,209 --> 00:55:29,977
TUE: You don't need military aid...
1023
00:55:32,042 --> 00:55:34,442
...to promote democracy in Vietnam.
1024
00:55:34,542 --> 00:55:37,810
To return to the Vietnamese people
1025
00:55:37,910 --> 00:55:40,244
their right that...
1026
00:55:40,344 --> 00:55:42,510
their right to speak freely.
1027
00:55:42,610 --> 00:55:45,277
You don't need even one penny.
1028
00:55:45,378 --> 00:55:48,478
You don't need to consult the White House,
1029
00:55:48,578 --> 00:55:51,511
you don't need to care
about the American media,
1030
00:55:51,611 --> 00:55:54,111
you don't need French,
you don't need Chinese,
1031
00:55:54,211 --> 00:55:55,778
you don't need Americans.
1032
00:55:55,879 --> 00:56:00,312
If you really care for Vietnam
then you turn back inside.
1033
00:56:00,412 --> 00:56:03,945
NARRATOR: South Vietnamese
president Nguyen Van Thieu
1034
00:56:04,045 --> 00:56:06,012
was campaigning for reelection.
1035
00:56:06,112 --> 00:56:08,445
The Americans had insisted on it
1036
00:56:08,545 --> 00:56:11,212
and urged him not to rig the race,
1037
00:56:11,313 --> 00:56:14,314
for fear it would resemble too closely
1038
00:56:14,414 --> 00:56:16,847
the fraudulent communist "elections"
1039
00:56:16,946 --> 00:56:20,347
routinely denounced by the United States.
1040
00:56:20,446 --> 00:56:22,013
But Thieu made sure
1041
00:56:22,113 --> 00:56:25,013
no serious candidates ran against him,
1042
00:56:25,113 --> 00:56:28,882
and claimed to have won 94% of the vote.
1043
00:56:28,982 --> 00:56:32,681
It became known as "the one-man election,"
1044
00:56:32,781 --> 00:56:33,947
and added to the ranks
1045
00:56:34,047 --> 00:56:37,047
of what was called the "Third Force":
1046
00:56:37,147 --> 00:56:40,916
South Vietnamese hoping for
a negotiated settlement
1047
00:56:41,015 --> 00:56:43,182
and an end to the bloodshed.
1048
00:56:59,917 --> 00:57:02,050
NARRATOR: By the middle of 1971,
1049
00:57:02,150 --> 00:57:05,050
Nixon and Kissinger were looking for a way
1050
00:57:05,150 --> 00:57:08,550
to get all U.S. troops out of Vietnam
1051
00:57:08,650 --> 00:57:11,150
before his re-election campaign began
1052
00:57:11,251 --> 00:57:13,151
the following year,
1053
00:57:13,252 --> 00:57:15,651
but to do so without causing
1054
00:57:15,752 --> 00:57:18,685
Saigon to fall too soon.
1055
00:57:55,489 --> 00:57:57,889
NARRATOR: At the secret talks in Paris,
1056
00:57:57,989 --> 00:58:01,055
Kissinger had offered his
North Vietnamese counterpart,
1057
00:58:01,155 --> 00:58:04,356
Le Duc Tho, the most
significant concessions
1058
00:58:04,455 --> 00:58:07,423
the United States had yet made:
1059
00:58:07,522 --> 00:58:11,022
North Vietnam could keep
its troops in the South...
1060
00:58:11,122 --> 00:58:13,023
tens of thousands of them.
1061
00:58:13,123 --> 00:58:17,523
And in exchange for the release
of American prisoners of war,
1062
00:58:17,623 --> 00:58:19,223
all American troops
1063
00:58:19,324 --> 00:58:22,591
would be withdrawn within seven months.
1064
00:58:24,791 --> 00:58:28,157
Le Duc Tho countered with
a new offer of his own:
1065
00:58:28,258 --> 00:58:30,457
Hanoi would release the prisoners
1066
00:58:30,557 --> 00:58:34,358
simultaneously with the
departure of U.S. forces.
1067
00:58:34,457 --> 00:58:37,625
But he still insisted
that Washington remove
1068
00:58:37,725 --> 00:58:41,192
President Thieu from power.
1069
00:58:41,292 --> 00:58:44,058
Kissinger was encouraged
that the North Vietnamese
1070
00:58:44,158 --> 00:58:47,927
seemed, for the first time,
to be negotiating seriously.
1071
00:58:48,026 --> 00:58:52,793
He could almost "taste
peace," he told a friend.
1072
00:58:52,894 --> 00:58:54,459
Thieu knew nothing
1073
00:58:54,559 --> 00:58:57,693
about the new American
concessions to Hanoi.
1074
00:58:57,793 --> 00:59:01,660
He was worried about something else.
1075
00:59:04,794 --> 00:59:06,794
ANNOUNCER: NBC News interrupts
regular programming
1076
00:59:06,828 --> 00:59:08,627
to bring you a special report.
1077
00:59:08,727 --> 00:59:11,195
The announcement I shall
now read is being issued
1078
00:59:11,295 --> 00:59:15,961
simultaneously in Peking
and in the United States.
1079
00:59:16,061 --> 00:59:17,728
NARRATOR: Richard Nixon,
1080
00:59:17,829 --> 00:59:20,929
famous for the ferocity
of his anticommunism,
1081
00:59:21,028 --> 00:59:23,562
astonished the world by announcing
1082
00:59:23,662 --> 00:59:27,196
that he was planning to
restore relations with China
1083
00:59:27,296 --> 00:59:30,662
that had been severed for
more than two decades.
1084
00:59:30,763 --> 00:59:34,397
The United States had
gone to war in Vietnam
1085
00:59:34,497 --> 00:59:37,530
in part to block Chinese expansionism.
1086
00:59:37,630 --> 00:59:41,764
What would Nixon's visit
mean for Thieu's future
1087
00:59:41,864 --> 00:59:44,098
or for that of his country?
1088
00:59:44,197 --> 00:59:47,365
Thieu was afraid he knew.
1089
00:59:47,464 --> 00:59:50,099
"America has been looking
for a new mistress,"
1090
00:59:50,198 --> 00:59:51,499
he told an aide,
1091
00:59:51,599 --> 00:59:54,332
"and now Nixon has discovered China.
1092
00:59:54,432 --> 00:59:58,164
"He does not want to have
the old mistress around.
1093
00:59:58,265 --> 01:00:02,000
Vietnam has become old and ugly."
1094
01:00:14,700 --> 01:00:18,300
KUSHNER: I believe it was
in the fall of 1971.
1095
01:00:20,901 --> 01:00:25,002
And they called us out and
they hung a bed sheet
1096
01:00:25,102 --> 01:00:29,768
and they had a projector and they showed us
1097
01:00:29,868 --> 01:00:33,335
color and black and white movies
1098
01:00:33,435 --> 01:00:36,735
of these protests in Washington.
1099
01:00:36,836 --> 01:00:38,769
(shouting)
1100
01:00:41,535 --> 01:00:43,468
And in the same film
1101
01:00:43,568 --> 01:00:45,736
it showed John Kerry.
1102
01:00:45,837 --> 01:00:47,969
And I remember he was very articulate,
1103
01:00:48,069 --> 01:00:50,236
very, very well spoken,
1104
01:00:50,337 --> 01:00:53,303
very fluent
1105
01:00:53,404 --> 01:00:56,004
and a good spokesman
1106
01:00:56,104 --> 01:00:57,505
for his cause.
1107
01:00:57,605 --> 01:00:59,670
Someone has to die so that President Nixon
1108
01:00:59,771 --> 01:01:02,371
won't be... and these are his words...
1109
01:01:02,470 --> 01:01:06,204
"the first president to lose a war."
1110
01:01:06,304 --> 01:01:07,470
And I remember very well,
1111
01:01:07,570 --> 01:01:10,106
he's sitting with his fatigue jacket
1112
01:01:10,205 --> 01:01:11,805
and long hair
1113
01:01:11,906 --> 01:01:14,038
and testifying about atrocities
1114
01:01:14,138 --> 01:01:16,071
and war crimes that...
1115
01:01:16,171 --> 01:01:18,171
we perpetrated.
1116
01:01:18,272 --> 01:01:21,239
Cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
1117
01:01:21,340 --> 01:01:23,607
randomly shot at civilians...
1118
01:01:23,706 --> 01:01:25,672
KUSHNER: But I was shocked by what he said.
1119
01:01:25,773 --> 01:01:27,507
And I didn't believe it.
1120
01:01:27,607 --> 01:01:30,972
I didn't believe it at all.
1121
01:01:32,706 --> 01:01:35,573
I mean, I'm sophisticated
to know, and I knew then,
1122
01:01:35,673 --> 01:01:38,173
that bad things happen in war
and they happen on both sides,
1123
01:01:38,274 --> 01:01:41,908
and I had seen the evidence
of the other side too, also.
1124
01:01:42,008 --> 01:01:43,307
And I knew it.
1125
01:01:43,408 --> 01:01:45,641
And... but still, to hear the testimony
1126
01:01:45,741 --> 01:01:50,674
and to hear it used as a weapon
1127
01:01:50,775 --> 01:01:53,308
against our further prosecution of this war
1128
01:01:53,409 --> 01:01:58,242
that we were suffering for
was very powerful indeed.
1129
01:01:58,343 --> 01:02:00,975
NARRATOR: A few months later
1130
01:02:01,075 --> 01:02:04,242
Kushner got an even bigger shock.
1131
01:02:04,343 --> 01:02:06,610
VALERIE KUSHNER (on recording):
My son has no father.
1132
01:02:06,709 --> 01:02:10,310
This Christmas Day we celebrate
the birth of a son to Mary
1133
01:02:10,411 --> 01:02:12,976
and this Christmas Day
some other mother's son
1134
01:02:13,076 --> 01:02:15,411
will die in Vietnam.
1135
01:02:15,511 --> 01:02:18,076
That death takes away all
that was taught to us
1136
01:02:18,176 --> 01:02:20,744
by Christ's birth.
1137
01:02:20,845 --> 01:02:23,144
KUSHNER: The whole time I was in the South
1138
01:02:23,244 --> 01:02:25,577
I never got one letter,
one bit of information.
1139
01:02:25,677 --> 01:02:27,711
When I got to North
Vietnam I got no letter,
1140
01:02:27,811 --> 01:02:30,244
no bit of information, nothing.
1141
01:02:30,345 --> 01:02:35,978
Then, I think it may have
been Christmas of '71,
1142
01:02:36,078 --> 01:02:40,513
my wife wrote an op-ed piece
in theNew York Times.
1143
01:02:40,613 --> 01:02:44,079
She had become politically active.
1144
01:02:44,179 --> 01:02:46,414
NARRATOR: The families of POWs
1145
01:02:46,514 --> 01:02:50,179
overwhelmingly supported
the Nixon administration.
1146
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:53,179
Valerie Kushner did not,
1147
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:54,914
and the North Vietnamese were quick
1148
01:02:55,014 --> 01:02:58,247
to exploit her antiwar views.
1149
01:02:58,348 --> 01:03:00,180
They broadcast a message
1150
01:03:00,281 --> 01:03:03,214
they had permitted her
husband to record for her.
1151
01:03:03,314 --> 01:03:06,015
It was the first time
she had heard his voice
1152
01:03:06,115 --> 01:03:08,048
in four years.
1153
01:03:10,382 --> 01:03:13,116
KUSHNER (on recording): I
received the glasses, Val,
1154
01:03:13,215 --> 01:03:15,981
and my eyes have improved considerably.
1155
01:03:16,081 --> 01:03:18,715
Please let me know about Brother John.
1156
01:03:18,815 --> 01:03:21,283
He or she is almost four now,
1157
01:03:21,383 --> 01:03:23,950
and he or she is old enough to understand
1158
01:03:24,049 --> 01:03:27,482
where Daddy is and that I love him or her
1159
01:03:27,582 --> 01:03:30,850
immeasurably despite our never meeting.
1160
01:03:30,950 --> 01:03:34,583
I calculate that T-Bird
is now in second grade,
1161
01:03:34,683 --> 01:03:36,717
and I know she is doing well.
1162
01:03:36,817 --> 01:03:38,618
She is a grown-up lady now
1163
01:03:38,717 --> 01:03:42,550
and I hope you have plans for
piano or ballet lessons soon.
1164
01:03:42,650 --> 01:03:45,151
Happy eighth birthday, dear T-Bird,
1165
01:03:45,251 --> 01:03:46,718
and Merry Christmas.
1166
01:03:46,818 --> 01:03:49,051
When I left you I promised to come home
1167
01:03:49,151 --> 01:03:50,684
before you were five.
1168
01:03:50,785 --> 01:03:54,519
I didn't fulfill that promise,
but when I do return,
1169
01:03:54,619 --> 01:03:57,185
I will never leave you again.
1170
01:03:57,286 --> 01:03:59,985
His optimism about the
whole situation amazes me.
1171
01:04:00,085 --> 01:04:01,453
I'm just very happy
1172
01:04:01,552 --> 01:04:03,920
that he can't see this morning's newspaper.
1173
01:04:04,020 --> 01:04:06,986
Because I-I don't have the same optimism
1174
01:04:07,086 --> 01:04:08,753
or the same confidence in this government
1175
01:04:08,854 --> 01:04:11,653
that he seems to have.
1176
01:04:15,621 --> 01:04:21,087
NARRATOR: President Nixon's visit
to China in February of 1972
1177
01:04:21,187 --> 01:04:23,721
not only alarmed President Thieu,
1178
01:04:23,821 --> 01:04:26,687
it worried Hanoi as well.
1179
01:04:26,788 --> 01:04:29,922
The North Vietnamese
remembered how Ho Chi Minh
1180
01:04:30,022 --> 01:04:32,923
had felt betrayed in 1954
1181
01:04:33,023 --> 01:04:35,623
when Moscow and Beijing had compelled them
1182
01:04:35,722 --> 01:04:39,856
to sign the Geneva Accords,
dividing Vietnam in two.
1183
01:04:39,956 --> 01:04:43,056
Now, they were concerned
that warmer relations
1184
01:04:43,156 --> 01:04:45,424
between the United States and China
1185
01:04:45,524 --> 01:04:49,323
might soon mean less support from Beijing.
1186
01:04:49,424 --> 01:04:53,256
Nixon was also planning to travel to Moscow
1187
01:04:53,357 --> 01:04:56,824
to meet with Soviet
premier Leonid Brezhnev,
1188
01:04:56,925 --> 01:04:58,724
seeking to ease tensions
1189
01:04:58,824 --> 01:05:02,625
with North Vietnam's
other communist patron.
1190
01:05:02,724 --> 01:05:07,426
Before that summit took place,
First Secretary Le Duan,
1191
01:05:07,526 --> 01:05:10,392
the man who headed the Politburo in Hanoi,
1192
01:05:10,491 --> 01:05:13,859
decided to undertake a
new kind of offensive.
1193
01:05:13,959 --> 01:05:17,659
It would be conventional warfare this time,
1194
01:05:17,759 --> 01:05:21,627
and on a scale he had
never before attempted.
1195
01:05:21,726 --> 01:05:24,527
Le Duan had several goals in mind:
1196
01:05:24,627 --> 01:05:26,960
to strengthen his hand at the peace talks
1197
01:05:27,059 --> 01:05:29,493
by altering the military balance of power
1198
01:05:29,593 --> 01:05:31,160
in South Vietnam,
1199
01:05:31,260 --> 01:05:34,660
to show that the ARVN could
not stand on their own,
1200
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:38,461
and to convince the Soviets and the Chinese
1201
01:05:38,560 --> 01:05:42,429
his revolution was still worth supporting.
1202
01:05:46,561 --> 01:05:50,494
The assault began on March 30, 1972.
1203
01:05:50,594 --> 01:05:54,030
14 North Vietnamese infantry divisions...
1204
01:05:54,130 --> 01:05:56,762
more than 120,000 men...
1205
01:05:56,863 --> 01:05:59,363
now, for the first time,
1206
01:05:59,463 --> 01:06:03,396
supported by hundreds of
Soviet and Chinese-made tanks
1207
01:06:03,495 --> 01:06:08,563
and other armored vehicles,
attacked on three fronts:
1208
01:06:08,663 --> 01:06:12,330
across the demilitarized zone,
1209
01:06:12,431 --> 01:06:16,831
in the Central Highlands
1210
01:06:16,932 --> 01:06:21,398
and west of Saigon.
1211
01:06:21,497 --> 01:06:26,532
Americans would call it
"The Easter Offensive."
1212
01:06:26,632 --> 01:06:29,433
To the South Vietnamese,
1213
01:06:29,532 --> 01:06:33,065
it would be remembered as
"The Summer of Flames."
1214
01:06:33,166 --> 01:06:36,233
REPORTER: The South Vietnamese
Army knew this day was coming:
1215
01:06:36,332 --> 01:06:37,599
the day without Americans.
1216
01:06:37,698 --> 01:06:39,032
It was to be the big test,
1217
01:06:39,133 --> 01:06:40,367
both for them
1218
01:06:40,466 --> 01:06:43,399
and for President Nixon's
Vietnamization program.
1219
01:06:43,499 --> 01:06:46,367
The results in so far are not encouraging.
1220
01:06:46,466 --> 01:06:49,434
Whole battalions of the
government's third division
1221
01:06:49,533 --> 01:06:51,833
joined the refugees on the road south.
1222
01:06:51,934 --> 01:06:55,767
They had been outnumbered,
overpowered, overwhelmed.
1223
01:06:55,868 --> 01:06:58,067
NARRATOR: An entire ARVN regiment
1224
01:06:58,168 --> 01:07:00,368
surrendered at Camp Carroll.
1225
01:07:00,467 --> 01:07:02,235
North Vietnamese troops
1226
01:07:02,334 --> 01:07:05,136
then swiftly overran Quang Tri Province,
1227
01:07:05,236 --> 01:07:10,201
driving tens of thousands of
terrified refugees southward.
1228
01:07:10,302 --> 01:07:13,835
They nearly cut South Vietnam in half
1229
01:07:13,936 --> 01:07:16,670
through the Central Highlands
1230
01:07:16,769 --> 01:07:20,969
and drove toward Saigon,
hoping to seize large areas
1231
01:07:21,069 --> 01:07:24,002
along the Cambodian border.
1232
01:07:24,103 --> 01:07:26,902
It looked as if it were going to be
1233
01:07:27,002 --> 01:07:29,671
a total defeat for the ARVN.
1234
01:07:29,770 --> 01:07:33,703
There were only 60,000 U.S.
military personnel
1235
01:07:33,804 --> 01:07:35,770
left in South Vietnam,
1236
01:07:35,871 --> 01:07:38,871
and very few of them were combat troops.
1237
01:07:41,404 --> 01:07:44,504
Suddenly, the survival of
everything Nixon and Kissinger
1238
01:07:44,605 --> 01:07:46,838
had worked for was in peril.
1239
01:07:46,939 --> 01:07:51,272
They had to do something... and fast.
1240
01:08:13,441 --> 01:08:16,875
NARRATOR: Nixon ordered
up Operation Linebacker...
1241
01:08:16,974 --> 01:08:19,474
massive air attacks
1242
01:08:19,574 --> 01:08:20,974
on the advancing North Vietnamese.
1243
01:08:22,774 --> 01:08:24,875
"The bastards have never been bombed
1244
01:08:24,974 --> 01:08:27,908
"like they're going to
be this time," he said.
1245
01:08:31,609 --> 01:08:34,809
The most crucial battle
of the Easter Offensive
1246
01:08:34,908 --> 01:08:36,643
was fought at An Loc,
1247
01:08:36,743 --> 01:08:39,310
a city that commanded Route 13,
1248
01:08:39,409 --> 01:08:42,644
a paved highway that led
directly to Saigon,
1249
01:08:42,744 --> 01:08:45,043
just 60 miles away.
1250
01:08:47,909 --> 01:08:50,244
North Vietnamese artillery fire
1251
01:08:50,344 --> 01:08:52,277
and a massive infantry and armor attack
1252
01:08:52,378 --> 01:08:54,477
drove the city's ARVN defenders
1253
01:08:54,577 --> 01:08:58,878
into an area less than a mile square.
1254
01:08:58,977 --> 01:09:04,312
Repeated efforts to reinforce
and resupply them failed.
1255
01:09:04,411 --> 01:09:07,711
The ARVN bravely held out.
1256
01:09:07,812 --> 01:09:10,246
JAMES WILLBANKS: The
number one thing we did
1257
01:09:10,345 --> 01:09:12,946
was coordinate the air strikes.
1258
01:09:13,045 --> 01:09:15,479
General Hollingsworth
went to General Abrams
1259
01:09:15,579 --> 01:09:17,680
and begged for all the B-52s he could get,
1260
01:09:17,779 --> 01:09:19,613
and on the 10th and 11th of May,
1261
01:09:19,712 --> 01:09:25,412
he planned a B-52 strike every
50 minutes for 24 hours.
1262
01:09:36,080 --> 01:09:37,314
NARRATOR: In the end,
1263
01:09:37,413 --> 01:09:41,815
American airpower made the difference.
1264
01:09:47,348 --> 01:09:50,015
The North Vietnamese and
their armored columns,
1265
01:09:50,116 --> 01:09:51,549
massed in the open,
1266
01:09:51,650 --> 01:09:55,482
proved easy targets for American pilots.
1267
01:09:55,582 --> 01:09:59,549
"This," one American advisor said,
1268
01:09:59,650 --> 01:10:03,617
"was the kind of war we came to fight."
1269
01:10:55,520 --> 01:10:57,255
(explosion)
1270
01:10:57,354 --> 01:11:00,656
NARRATOR: The North Vietnamese
suffered 10,000 casualties
1271
01:11:00,756 --> 01:11:02,488
at An Loc alone
1272
01:11:02,588 --> 01:11:06,721
and lost most of their
tanks and heavy artillery.
1273
01:11:06,822 --> 01:11:08,322
(explosions continue)
1274
01:11:10,122 --> 01:11:12,556
WILLBANKS: The bottom line
was that all the air power
1275
01:11:12,657 --> 01:11:14,257
in the world would not make a difference
1276
01:11:14,356 --> 01:11:15,765
if the ARVN hadn't stood and fought.
1277
01:11:15,789 --> 01:11:17,222
(people shouting)
1278
01:11:17,323 --> 01:11:20,690
They had held Kon Tum,
they had held An Loc,
1279
01:11:20,789 --> 01:11:22,457
they had re-taken Quang Tri.
1280
01:11:22,556 --> 01:11:24,624
They had taken the best
that the North Vietnamese
1281
01:11:24,723 --> 01:11:26,357
had to throw at them.
1282
01:11:26,458 --> 01:11:29,691
So I thought if we continue
to maintain that support,
1283
01:11:29,790 --> 01:11:30,990
perhaps they had a chance.
1284
01:11:31,090 --> 01:11:34,990
DUONG VAN MAI ELLIOTT: The
Easter Offensive, to me,
1285
01:11:35,090 --> 01:11:38,325
showed that the South
Vietnamese could fight,
1286
01:11:38,424 --> 01:11:41,392
but only up to a certain point.
1287
01:11:41,491 --> 01:11:44,159
So, my question would be,
1288
01:11:44,259 --> 01:11:46,159
what would happen when the Americans left
1289
01:11:46,259 --> 01:11:48,826
with their B-52s, you know?
1290
01:11:48,925 --> 01:11:50,425
(protestors chanting)
1291
01:11:50,525 --> 01:11:53,592
NARRATOR: Americans may have
approved of the renewed use
1292
01:11:53,693 --> 01:11:56,960
of American air power to
stop the communist advance
1293
01:11:57,059 --> 01:11:58,425
into the South,
1294
01:11:58,525 --> 01:12:03,093
but Nixon had also ordered
American planes to resume
1295
01:12:03,194 --> 01:12:06,394
sustained bombing of North Vietnam,
1296
01:12:06,493 --> 01:12:10,060
which had been halted since
the Johnson administration.
1297
01:12:10,161 --> 01:12:13,962
Some saw the new bombing,
which vastly exceeded
1298
01:12:14,061 --> 01:12:16,061
all previous campaigns,
1299
01:12:16,162 --> 01:12:20,895
as evidence that a war Nixon
had promised was winding down
1300
01:12:20,994 --> 01:12:23,763
was once again being escalated.
1301
01:12:23,862 --> 01:12:27,196
(plane soaring)
1302
01:12:27,295 --> 01:12:28,728
LESLIE GELB: The bombing campaign
1303
01:12:28,829 --> 01:12:30,295
was much more extensive
1304
01:12:30,396 --> 01:12:34,862
than the bombing campaign
under Lyndon Johnson.
1305
01:12:34,964 --> 01:12:36,029
And from a standpoint
1306
01:12:36,130 --> 01:12:38,630
of pressuring them to make concessions
1307
01:12:38,729 --> 01:12:40,563
at the negotiating table,
1308
01:12:40,664 --> 01:12:43,029
historically, that's how you did it.
1309
01:12:43,130 --> 01:12:45,363
Only it didn't work with these guys.
1310
01:12:45,464 --> 01:12:47,297
(bombs exploding)
1311
01:12:47,398 --> 01:12:49,064
They took the pounding.
1312
01:12:51,131 --> 01:12:52,930
(men yelling in Vietnamese)
1313
01:12:56,198 --> 01:12:59,798
NARRATOR: Le Minh Khue,
who had served four years
1314
01:12:59,899 --> 01:13:03,266
as a Youth Volunteer on
the Ho Chi Minh trail,
1315
01:13:03,365 --> 01:13:05,998
was now back home in North Vietnam.
1316
01:13:48,069 --> 01:13:50,970
NARRATOR: Among the thousands
of South Vietnamese
1317
01:13:51,069 --> 01:13:53,770
who lost their lives in
the Easter Offensive
1318
01:13:53,869 --> 01:13:57,035
was the brother of Phan Quang Tue.
1319
01:13:57,136 --> 01:13:59,671
PHAN QUANG TUE: I had a brother, Tuan.
1320
01:13:59,771 --> 01:14:03,870
And we were raised together.
1321
01:14:03,971 --> 01:14:07,671
He would have been now 67.
1322
01:14:07,771 --> 01:14:10,504
When his plane was shot down
1323
01:14:10,604 --> 01:14:14,672
and later on they weren't
able to recover him,
1324
01:14:14,772 --> 01:14:17,338
his body, so he disappeared,
1325
01:14:17,437 --> 01:14:21,805
he was missing in action,
he was 26 years old.
1326
01:14:21,906 --> 01:14:25,273
He has his full life ahead of him.
1327
01:14:25,372 --> 01:14:28,372
(voice breaking): Tuan never
had a chance to live his life.
1328
01:14:30,473 --> 01:14:34,106
And I can never overcome the feeling,
1329
01:14:34,207 --> 01:14:38,306
as to himself
1330
01:14:38,407 --> 01:14:40,640
and his generation,
1331
01:14:40,739 --> 01:14:43,974
sacrifice their lives for what?
1332
01:14:45,807 --> 01:14:50,141
And the frustrating thing is
that even Vietnamese themself
1333
01:14:50,240 --> 01:14:52,175
do not seem to value that loss.
1334
01:14:58,476 --> 01:15:01,476
NIXON: There's only one
way to stop the killing.
1335
01:15:01,575 --> 01:15:05,209
That is to keep the weapons
of war out of the hands
1336
01:15:05,308 --> 01:15:11,042
of the international
outlaws of North Vietnam.
1337
01:15:11,143 --> 01:15:12,376
Throughout the war in Vietnam,
1338
01:15:12,477 --> 01:15:15,242
the United States has exercised
a degree of restraint
1339
01:15:15,343 --> 01:15:17,477
unprecedented in the annals of war...
1340
01:15:17,576 --> 01:15:19,076
(planes flying overhead)
1341
01:15:19,177 --> 01:15:21,978
NARRATOR: Le Duan's Easter
Offensive, like Tet,
1342
01:15:22,077 --> 01:15:24,310
had been a great gamble.
1343
01:15:24,411 --> 01:15:27,144
So was Nixon's next move.
1344
01:15:27,243 --> 01:15:30,278
The massive North Vietnamese
assault had failed,
1345
01:15:30,377 --> 01:15:31,778
the president said,
1346
01:15:31,877 --> 01:15:34,912
but it could never have been
mounted in the first place
1347
01:15:35,011 --> 01:15:37,511
without weapons and
supplies provided by China
1348
01:15:37,611 --> 01:15:40,179
and the Soviet Union.
1349
01:15:40,279 --> 01:15:44,445
Accordingly, he ordered 11,000 mines laid
1350
01:15:44,545 --> 01:15:47,945
in North Vietnamese waters
to block further access
1351
01:15:48,045 --> 01:15:49,713
to Haiphong harbor.
1352
01:15:49,812 --> 01:15:53,545
It was something the Joint
Chiefs had been asking for
1353
01:15:53,646 --> 01:15:55,480
for years.
1354
01:15:55,579 --> 01:15:57,714
The scheduled summit with the Soviets
1355
01:15:57,813 --> 01:15:59,513
was just two weeks away,
1356
01:15:59,613 --> 01:16:01,813
and some advisors had urged the president
1357
01:16:01,914 --> 01:16:04,847
not to take any action
that directly threatened
1358
01:16:04,946 --> 01:16:08,715
Soviet ships, for fear
they would cancel it.
1359
01:16:08,814 --> 01:16:11,415
Nixon thought he had to take the risk.
1360
01:16:11,514 --> 01:16:15,581
And so he spoke directly to Moscow.
1361
01:16:15,682 --> 01:16:19,114
Let us not slide back
toward the dark shadows
1362
01:16:19,215 --> 01:16:22,048
of a previous age.
1363
01:16:22,149 --> 01:16:26,815
We do not ask you to
sacrifice your principles
1364
01:16:26,916 --> 01:16:28,916
or your friends,
1365
01:16:29,015 --> 01:16:32,350
but neither should you
permit Hanoi's intransigence
1366
01:16:32,449 --> 01:16:35,049
to blot out the prospects we together
1367
01:16:35,150 --> 01:16:36,516
have so patiently prepared.
1368
01:16:39,350 --> 01:16:42,083
NARRATOR: Nixon's gamble paid off.
1369
01:16:42,184 --> 01:16:43,750
The Soviets and the Chinese denounced
1370
01:16:43,851 --> 01:16:49,285
the president's action,
but then did nothing.
1371
01:16:49,384 --> 01:16:54,450
On May 26, the United States
and the Soviet Union signed
1372
01:16:54,550 --> 01:16:58,486
an historic Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
1373
01:16:58,585 --> 01:17:01,786
the first agreement to
limit nuclear armaments
1374
01:17:01,885 --> 01:17:04,251
since the Cold War began.
1375
01:17:04,352 --> 01:17:07,420
For the Soviet Union, for China,
1376
01:17:07,519 --> 01:17:09,886
as well as for the United States,
1377
01:17:09,987 --> 01:17:14,487
Vietnam's significance
was steadily receding.
1378
01:17:51,089 --> 01:17:52,856
NIXON: I know.
1379
01:18:16,757 --> 01:18:18,693
(camera shutter clicks)
1380
01:18:20,892 --> 01:18:25,458
NARRATOR: On the morning of June 8, 1972,
1381
01:18:25,558 --> 01:18:29,959
Nick Ut, a 21-year-old South
Vietnamese photographer
1382
01:18:30,059 --> 01:18:32,294
working for the Associated Press,
1383
01:18:32,393 --> 01:18:35,826
was accompanying ARVN
troops on Highway One,
1384
01:18:35,927 --> 01:18:38,393
moving toward a village called Trang Bang,
1385
01:18:38,494 --> 01:18:41,259
to dislodge North Vietnamese forces
1386
01:18:41,361 --> 01:18:45,127
that had occupied it during
the Easter Offensive.
1387
01:18:45,228 --> 01:18:48,394
Ut was beginning to put his cameras away,
1388
01:18:48,495 --> 01:18:50,428
ready to return to Saigon,
1389
01:18:50,527 --> 01:18:55,261
when he saw a South Vietnamese
fighter suddenly dip down
1390
01:18:55,362 --> 01:18:57,395
toward the fleeing refugees,
1391
01:18:57,496 --> 01:19:00,395
whom the pilot mistook for the enemy.
1392
01:19:00,496 --> 01:19:04,729
(explosions)
1393
01:19:04,828 --> 01:19:09,629
(camera shutter clicking)
1394
01:19:13,863 --> 01:19:17,097
(speaking English):
1395
01:19:51,300 --> 01:19:52,833
(speaking Vietnamese)
1396
01:20:23,869 --> 01:20:28,903
NARRATOR: Ut drove the badly
burned girl, Kim Phuc,
1397
01:20:29,004 --> 01:20:31,237
and several other injured children
1398
01:20:31,336 --> 01:20:33,569
to a hospital in Saigon.
1399
01:20:33,670 --> 01:20:38,036
She had been burned over 30% of her body.
1400
01:20:38,136 --> 01:20:41,371
Then, Ut raced to the AP darkroom
1401
01:20:41,470 --> 01:20:44,871
to find out what he had caught on film.
1402
01:21:03,105 --> 01:21:05,972
NARRATOR: His photo
editor in Saigon told him
1403
01:21:06,072 --> 01:21:09,039
they could not send the
picture out on the wire,
1404
01:21:09,139 --> 01:21:11,507
because the girl was naked.
1405
01:21:11,606 --> 01:21:14,039
But then Ut's boss,
1406
01:21:14,139 --> 01:21:17,808
the legendary combat
photographer Horst Faas,
1407
01:21:17,907 --> 01:21:19,840
saw the pictures.
1408
01:21:31,774 --> 01:21:35,675
NARRATOR: Nick Ut's photograph appeared
1409
01:21:35,774 --> 01:21:38,574
on front pages around the world
1410
01:21:38,676 --> 01:21:42,609
and won the Pulitzer Prize.
1411
01:21:42,710 --> 01:21:45,609
For many Americans,
1412
01:21:45,710 --> 01:21:48,943
even many of those who
had supported the war,
1413
01:21:49,042 --> 01:21:53,643
the image seemed to signal
that enough was enough.
1414
01:21:57,244 --> 01:21:59,610
Kim Phuc would survive.
1415
01:21:59,711 --> 01:22:05,144
She eventually left Vietnam
and settled outside Toronto.
1416
01:22:10,611 --> 01:22:14,813
(cheers and applause)
1417
01:22:14,912 --> 01:22:16,978
(rhythmic clapping)
1418
01:22:20,578 --> 01:22:24,578
I introduce Valerie Kushner of Virginia
1419
01:22:24,679 --> 01:22:27,346
to second the nomination
of George McGovern.
1420
01:22:27,447 --> 01:22:29,646
(applause and cheering)
1421
01:22:29,747 --> 01:22:33,346
Mr. Chairman, Democrats,
1422
01:22:33,447 --> 01:22:37,914
my participation in this
convention is a tribute
1423
01:22:38,015 --> 01:22:41,181
to the reforms instituted
by the Democratic Party,
1424
01:22:41,280 --> 01:22:45,215
for I am a woman, and I am under 30.
1425
01:22:45,315 --> 01:22:48,881
But I also represent an
even smaller minority:
1426
01:22:48,980 --> 01:22:51,716
the wives of Americans who are missing
1427
01:22:51,816 --> 01:22:54,249
or imprisoned in Southeast Asia.
1428
01:22:54,348 --> 01:22:57,882
(cheers and applause)
1429
01:22:57,981 --> 01:23:00,648
NARRATOR: Valerie Kushner,
1430
01:23:00,749 --> 01:23:04,217
hoping to get her husband,
Hal, home as soon as possible,
1431
01:23:04,317 --> 01:23:07,250
had become an ardent
supporter of the candidacy
1432
01:23:07,349 --> 01:23:10,950
of Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.
1433
01:23:11,049 --> 01:23:15,083
A decorated bomber pilot in World War II,
1434
01:23:15,184 --> 01:23:17,884
McGovern had called for an early end
1435
01:23:17,983 --> 01:23:19,283
to the bombing of the North,
1436
01:23:19,384 --> 01:23:22,483
a halt to Congressional
funding for the war,
1437
01:23:22,583 --> 01:23:24,483
and immediate withdrawal
1438
01:23:24,583 --> 01:23:29,151
from Vietnam once the POWs were released.
1439
01:23:29,252 --> 01:23:32,651
I knew that he would bring my husband home.
1440
01:23:32,752 --> 01:23:35,385
(applause)
1441
01:23:36,919 --> 01:23:41,585
But even more important, he
will bring America home.
1442
01:23:41,686 --> 01:23:44,652
(applause and cheering)
1443
01:23:44,753 --> 01:23:47,753
And it is for that reason
1444
01:23:47,852 --> 01:23:50,120
that I am proud to second the nomination
1445
01:23:50,221 --> 01:23:54,954
of our next president, Senator George S.
McGovern.
1446
01:23:55,053 --> 01:23:57,986
(applause and cheering)
1447
01:24:00,522 --> 01:24:02,755
NARRATOR: By the time her candidate
1448
01:24:02,854 --> 01:24:05,255
finally accepted the nomination,
1449
01:24:05,354 --> 01:24:07,987
it was 2:48 in the morning.
1450
01:24:08,087 --> 01:24:11,022
Most Americans were asleep.
1451
01:24:11,121 --> 01:24:15,956
McGOVERN: During four
administrations of both parties,
1452
01:24:16,055 --> 01:24:21,023
a terrible war has been
charted behind closed doors.
1453
01:24:21,122 --> 01:24:23,155
(cheers and applause)
1454
01:24:23,256 --> 01:24:25,623
I want those doors opened,
1455
01:24:25,724 --> 01:24:28,724
and I want that war closed.
1456
01:24:28,824 --> 01:24:31,489
(raucous cheers and applause)
1457
01:24:31,589 --> 01:24:33,056
(static)
1458
01:24:33,156 --> 01:24:36,857
NARRATOR: McGovern's
campaign quickly collapsed.
1459
01:24:36,958 --> 01:24:40,157
He botched the selection
of his running mate,
1460
01:24:40,258 --> 01:24:43,525
and secretly asked an aide in Paris
1461
01:24:43,624 --> 01:24:46,891
to talk with the North
Vietnamese about POWs,
1462
01:24:46,990 --> 01:24:52,091
and then denied he'd meddled
in the peace process.
1463
01:24:52,192 --> 01:24:54,158
Organized labor,
1464
01:24:54,259 --> 01:24:57,326
traditionally the Democrats'
most reliable ally,
1465
01:24:57,425 --> 01:25:00,260
refused to endorse the party's candidate
1466
01:25:00,359 --> 01:25:03,893
for the first time in 20 years.
1467
01:25:03,992 --> 01:25:09,727
McGovern's poll numbers eroded
steadily over the summer.
1468
01:25:09,827 --> 01:25:12,761
Still, hoping to find material
1469
01:25:12,860 --> 01:25:15,761
that might be used to smear the opposition,
1470
01:25:15,860 --> 01:25:19,493
Nixon's aides had already
authorized the Plumbers
1471
01:25:19,593 --> 01:25:21,793
to make another break-in,
1472
01:25:21,894 --> 01:25:25,529
this time at Democratic
National Headquarters
1473
01:25:25,628 --> 01:25:28,428
in the Washington, D.C., apartment complex
1474
01:25:28,529 --> 01:25:31,462
called the Watergate.
1475
01:25:31,561 --> 01:25:33,561
They had been caught.
1476
01:25:33,661 --> 01:25:36,295
JOHN CHANCELLOR: One of the most
fascinating and exotic stories
1477
01:25:36,396 --> 01:25:38,095
ever to come out of Washington, D.C.,
1478
01:25:38,196 --> 01:25:40,129
is the talk of the Capitol today.
1479
01:25:40,230 --> 01:25:42,196
Five men were arrested early Saturday
1480
01:25:42,295 --> 01:25:45,095
while trying to install
eavesdropping equipment
1481
01:25:45,196 --> 01:25:47,296
at the Democratic National Committee.
1482
01:25:47,397 --> 01:25:49,596
And it turns out that one
of them has an office
1483
01:25:49,697 --> 01:25:51,964
in the headquarters of the Committee
1484
01:25:52,063 --> 01:25:53,796
for the Re-Election of the President.
1485
01:25:53,897 --> 01:25:57,197
(camera shutter clicking)
1486
01:26:02,032 --> 01:26:04,131
("Barbarella" by Bob Crewe
and Charles Fox playing)
1487
01:26:04,232 --> 01:26:09,765
d It's a wonder, wonder woman d
1488
01:26:09,864 --> 01:26:15,432
d You're so wild and wonderful d
1489
01:26:15,533 --> 01:26:20,498
d 'Cause it seems whenever
1490
01:26:20,598 --> 01:26:22,999
d We're together
1491
01:26:23,099 --> 01:26:24,767
d The planets all...
1492
01:26:24,866 --> 01:26:28,334
JOHN MUSGRAVE: Barbarella...
Jane Fonda was...
1493
01:26:28,433 --> 01:26:32,499
was one of our major fantasies.
1494
01:26:32,599 --> 01:26:36,701
You know? I mean, major fantasies.
1495
01:26:36,800 --> 01:26:40,035
And, uh, we couldn't believe it
1496
01:26:40,134 --> 01:26:44,468
when that fantasy went to North Vietnam.
1497
01:26:44,567 --> 01:26:47,135
She was held to a different
standard of conduct
1498
01:26:47,236 --> 01:26:51,101
by being our fantasy, you
know, our dream girl.
1499
01:26:51,202 --> 01:26:54,736
It's like our dream girl betrayed us.
1500
01:26:54,836 --> 01:26:56,111
("Where Have All the Flowers
Gone" by Joan Baez playing)
1501
01:26:56,135 --> 01:26:58,203
d Where have all the young men gone? d
1502
01:26:58,302 --> 01:27:02,569
d They are all in uniform
1503
01:27:02,669 --> 01:27:08,169
d When will they ever learn?
1504
01:27:08,270 --> 01:27:13,103
d When will they ever learn? d
1505
01:27:13,204 --> 01:27:15,070
d Where have all...
1506
01:27:15,170 --> 01:27:17,670
NARRATOR: Over the years, a steady stream
1507
01:27:17,771 --> 01:27:21,271
of Americans opposed to the
war would visit Hanoi,
1508
01:27:21,370 --> 01:27:24,604
including the folk singer Joan Baez,
1509
01:27:24,705 --> 01:27:28,272
David Dellinger of the
War Resisters League,
1510
01:27:28,371 --> 01:27:31,571
the writer Susan Sontag,
1511
01:27:31,671 --> 01:27:36,040
and Tom Hayden of the
Indochina Peace Campaign.
1512
01:27:36,139 --> 01:27:39,273
But no visitor made more headlines
1513
01:27:39,372 --> 01:27:41,706
than the actress Jane Fonda.
1514
01:27:41,805 --> 01:27:45,140
During two weeks in the summer of 1972,
1515
01:27:45,241 --> 01:27:49,474
she broadcast at least ten
times over Radio Hanoi,
1516
01:27:49,573 --> 01:27:51,940
denouncing American POWs
1517
01:27:52,041 --> 01:27:54,407
for having committed war crimes,
1518
01:27:54,506 --> 01:27:57,007
urging the North Vietnamese to hold out
1519
01:27:57,107 --> 01:28:00,475
against American imperialism.
1520
01:28:00,574 --> 01:28:03,941
Many Americans would never forgive her
1521
01:28:04,042 --> 01:28:07,307
for what she did and said.
1522
01:28:07,408 --> 01:28:09,843
FONDA: According to international law,
1523
01:28:09,942 --> 01:28:12,343
these men are war criminals.
1524
01:28:12,442 --> 01:28:13,909
That's according to law,
1525
01:28:14,008 --> 01:28:15,319
according to the Nuremberg principles,
1526
01:28:15,343 --> 01:28:17,743
according to the Geneva Accord, and others.
1527
01:28:17,843 --> 01:28:20,744
They should be tried in front of a court
1528
01:28:20,844 --> 01:28:23,277
and probably executed for what they did.
1529
01:28:23,376 --> 01:28:26,943
MUSGRAVE: She's taken a lot
of heat for what she did.
1530
01:28:27,044 --> 01:28:29,609
And deservedly so.
1531
01:28:29,710 --> 01:28:33,211
She did some things that were terrible.
1532
01:28:33,310 --> 01:28:35,877
And-and, yes,
1533
01:28:35,978 --> 01:28:38,478
we have a right to be pissed off at her.
1534
01:28:38,577 --> 01:28:41,478
But, you know,
1535
01:28:41,577 --> 01:28:44,311
she wasn't the only one.
1536
01:28:44,412 --> 01:28:48,912
She's just the only one
we fantasized about.
1537
01:28:49,912 --> 01:28:54,346
(cheers and applause)
1538
01:28:59,112 --> 01:29:01,247
AUDIENCE: Four more years!
1539
01:29:01,347 --> 01:29:04,179
Four more years! Four more years!
1540
01:29:04,280 --> 01:29:06,679
NIXON: We have brought over
half a million men home,
1541
01:29:06,780 --> 01:29:08,680
and more will be coming home.
1542
01:29:08,781 --> 01:29:11,813
We have ended America's ground combat role.
1543
01:29:11,914 --> 01:29:14,481
No draftees are being sent to Vietnam.
1544
01:29:14,580 --> 01:29:17,481
We have reduced our casualties by 98%.
1545
01:29:17,580 --> 01:29:19,380
We've gone the extra mile.
1546
01:29:19,481 --> 01:29:22,181
In fact, we've gone tens
of thousands of miles
1547
01:29:22,282 --> 01:29:24,681
trying to seek a negotiated
settlement of the war.
1548
01:29:24,782 --> 01:29:26,448
(applause)
1549
01:29:26,549 --> 01:29:29,249
There are three things,
however, that we have not
1550
01:29:29,349 --> 01:29:31,381
and that we will not offer.
1551
01:29:31,483 --> 01:29:34,582
We will never abandon our prisoners of war.
1552
01:29:34,682 --> 01:29:36,082
(cheers and applause)
1553
01:29:41,949 --> 01:29:43,583
And, second,
1554
01:29:43,683 --> 01:29:47,251
we will not join our enemies
1555
01:29:47,351 --> 01:29:50,851
in imposing a communist
government on our ally,
1556
01:29:50,950 --> 01:29:53,284
the 17 million people of South Vietnam.
1557
01:29:53,383 --> 01:29:56,084
(cheers and applause)
1558
01:29:59,418 --> 01:30:01,317
And we will never stain the honor
1559
01:30:01,418 --> 01:30:03,485
of the United States of America.
1560
01:30:03,584 --> 01:30:05,517
(cheers)
1561
01:30:46,521 --> 01:30:49,621
NARRATOR: Back in Paris, Henry
Kissinger was determined
1562
01:30:49,722 --> 01:30:54,155
to hammer out a peace agreement
before Election Day.
1563
01:30:54,257 --> 01:30:57,522
Now Le Duc Tho made a key concession.
1564
01:30:57,622 --> 01:30:59,822
Hanoi no longer insisted
1565
01:30:59,923 --> 01:31:03,456
that President Thieu had to go.
1566
01:31:03,557 --> 01:31:06,291
JOHN NEGROPONTE: There was
somehow this compulsion
1567
01:31:06,390 --> 01:31:09,890
to come to some kind of an agreement.
1568
01:31:09,991 --> 01:31:12,890
I remember Le Duc Tho when he
produced the draft agreement
1569
01:31:12,991 --> 01:31:19,225
in October 8 of '72 to Kissinger, saying,
1570
01:31:19,324 --> 01:31:20,624
"You're in a hurry, aren't you?
1571
01:31:20,725 --> 01:31:22,624
You want to do this quickly."
1572
01:31:22,725 --> 01:31:26,292
And-and the response was, "Yes."
1573
01:31:26,391 --> 01:31:29,825
NARRATOR: The two sides
soon had a tentative deal,
1574
01:31:29,926 --> 01:31:31,825
a "cease-fire in place"
1575
01:31:31,926 --> 01:31:34,325
to be followed within 60 days
1576
01:31:34,426 --> 01:31:37,325
by a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops
1577
01:31:37,426 --> 01:31:40,926
and the return of all American POWs.
1578
01:31:41,025 --> 01:31:45,193
The United States stopped
bombing the North.
1579
01:31:45,294 --> 01:31:50,794
No one had told President
Thieu any of the terms.
1580
01:31:52,427 --> 01:31:56,127
The day before Kissinger was to
arrive in Saigon to brief him,
1581
01:31:56,228 --> 01:31:59,862
Thieu was handed a document
found in an enemy bunker
1582
01:31:59,961 --> 01:32:02,094
in Quang Tin Province.
1583
01:32:02,194 --> 01:32:06,528
It was entitled "General
Instructions for Cease-Fire."
1584
01:32:06,628 --> 01:32:11,296
It meant that communist cadres
in an isolated province
1585
01:32:11,395 --> 01:32:15,729
of his own country already
knew more about what Kissinger
1586
01:32:15,828 --> 01:32:20,764
and Le Duc Tho had agreed
to in Paris than he did.
1587
01:32:20,864 --> 01:32:24,196
NEGROPONTE: And imagine
being given an agreement
1588
01:32:24,297 --> 01:32:29,664
concerning the fate of
your own country and, uh,
1589
01:32:29,765 --> 01:32:31,431
being told that you really don't have
1590
01:32:31,530 --> 01:32:35,097
any input in the matter.
1591
01:32:35,197 --> 01:32:38,664
And, oh, by the way, we
didn't even yet have
1592
01:32:38,765 --> 01:32:40,565
the Vietnamese translation,
1593
01:32:40,665 --> 01:32:42,398
because that hadn't been completed.
1594
01:32:42,499 --> 01:32:45,965
And we gave him the English version.
1595
01:32:46,066 --> 01:32:49,299
So, I mean, as a professional diplomat,
1596
01:32:49,398 --> 01:32:52,567
somebody who's been in this
business all my life, uh,
1597
01:32:52,666 --> 01:32:55,332
I've got to tell you,
that just an awful lot
1598
01:32:55,433 --> 01:32:58,132
of diplomatic rules were broken there.
1599
01:32:58,233 --> 01:33:02,067
NARRATOR: Thieu refused
to accept the terms.
1600
01:33:02,166 --> 01:33:05,333
Allowing North Vietnamese
troops to remain in the South
1601
01:33:05,434 --> 01:33:08,501
would be the death of his country.
1602
01:33:08,600 --> 01:33:12,768
Nonetheless, after Kissinger returned home
1603
01:33:12,868 --> 01:33:15,301
12 days before the election,
1604
01:33:15,400 --> 01:33:19,569
he told the press, "Peace is at hand."
1605
01:33:19,668 --> 01:33:22,134
("Tail Dragger" by Link Wray playing)
1606
01:33:25,235 --> 01:33:28,169
On November 7, 1972,
1607
01:33:28,270 --> 01:33:31,335
Richard Nixon won a stunning victory.
1608
01:33:31,436 --> 01:33:36,169
He was reelected with more
than 60% of the popular vote...
1609
01:33:36,270 --> 01:33:42,170
521 electoral votes to McGovern's 17.
1610
01:33:42,271 --> 01:33:45,970
He took every single state
except Massachusetts
1611
01:33:46,071 --> 01:33:48,571
and the District of Columbia.
1612
01:33:48,670 --> 01:33:51,772
Now, the president resolved to rid himself
1613
01:33:51,872 --> 01:33:57,438
of Vietnam completely before
his second inauguration.
1614
01:33:57,537 --> 01:34:00,305
To calm Thieu's fears of what was to come,
1615
01:34:00,404 --> 01:34:03,238
Nixon launched another massive airlift
1616
01:34:03,337 --> 01:34:06,172
of military equipment to South Vietnam.
1617
01:34:06,273 --> 01:34:09,273
"If we had given this aid
to the North Vietnamese,"
1618
01:34:09,373 --> 01:34:11,172
one American general said,
1619
01:34:11,273 --> 01:34:15,574
"they could have fought us for
the rest of the century."
1620
01:34:15,673 --> 01:34:19,539
The Paris peace talks resumed.
1621
01:34:19,639 --> 01:34:22,906
But then, Le Duc Tho suddenly announced
1622
01:34:23,007 --> 01:34:27,174
he needed to return to
Hanoi for consultation.
1623
01:34:27,275 --> 01:34:29,183
NEGROPONTE: We could only
conclude that maybe they were
1624
01:34:29,207 --> 01:34:30,674
having some doubts about whether
1625
01:34:30,775 --> 01:34:32,674
they wanted to go through
with the agreement,
1626
01:34:32,775 --> 01:34:35,375
because we had sent so many supplies
1627
01:34:35,474 --> 01:34:38,575
to Saigon in the intervening weeks.
1628
01:34:38,674 --> 01:34:41,276
NARRATOR: There turned out to be dissension
1629
01:34:41,376 --> 01:34:43,908
on the communist side as well.
1630
01:34:44,009 --> 01:34:47,475
Hanoi, like Washington, had
not bothered to consult
1631
01:34:47,576 --> 01:34:49,708
with its southern comrades.
1632
01:34:49,809 --> 01:34:52,510
It had dropped the two
demands that meant the most
1633
01:34:52,609 --> 01:34:56,542
to the Viet Cong... the removal
of Thieu, and the release
1634
01:34:56,642 --> 01:34:59,777
of some 30,000 of their prisoners.
1635
01:34:59,877 --> 01:35:02,843
"Hanoi's message was clear,"
1636
01:35:02,944 --> 01:35:05,311
one bitter Viet Cong official said.
1637
01:35:05,410 --> 01:35:09,210
"It cared more about
American prisoners of war
1638
01:35:09,311 --> 01:35:11,977
than it did for us."
1639
01:35:12,078 --> 01:35:15,611
Nixon ordered Kissinger
to suspend the talks,
1640
01:35:15,711 --> 01:35:18,644
and then he resumed the
bombing of North Vietnam
1641
01:35:18,745 --> 01:35:20,911
to further punish Hanoi,
1642
01:35:21,012 --> 01:35:23,844
and to signal to both Hanoi and Saigon
1643
01:35:23,945 --> 01:35:27,513
that the United States
might use its airpower
1644
01:35:27,612 --> 01:35:29,780
to defend South Vietnam
1645
01:35:29,880 --> 01:35:34,280
even after a peace agreement was signed.
1646
01:35:35,679 --> 01:35:37,513
On December 18,
1647
01:35:37,612 --> 01:35:40,980
Nixon unleashed round-the-clock air strikes
1648
01:35:41,081 --> 01:35:44,146
that flattened targets
around Hanoi and Haiphong.
1649
01:35:44,247 --> 01:35:45,980
(explosions)
1650
01:35:46,081 --> 01:35:49,247
It would be remembered as
the Christmas Bombing.
1651
01:35:49,346 --> 01:35:52,681
(bombs exploding, people shouting)
1652
01:35:52,782 --> 01:35:54,547
HAL KUSHNER: And all of a sudden,
1653
01:35:54,647 --> 01:35:56,647
around Christmastime,
1654
01:35:56,748 --> 01:35:59,047
we hear an Arc Light operation,
1655
01:35:59,147 --> 01:36:01,615
B-52s... bom-bom-bom-bom-bom.
1656
01:36:01,715 --> 01:36:03,583
And it's all around, and
it is just exploding.
1657
01:36:03,682 --> 01:36:08,482
And everyone knew they were B-52s.
1658
01:36:08,583 --> 01:36:10,816
And is... in the two
years that I was there,
1659
01:36:10,915 --> 01:36:13,584
that was the first time
I ever heard a bomb.
1660
01:36:13,683 --> 01:36:15,116
And it was close.
1661
01:36:15,216 --> 01:36:17,483
It was really close.
1662
01:36:17,584 --> 01:36:19,716
It was frightening, but
we were still cheering.
1663
01:36:19,817 --> 01:36:23,483
I mean, we were cheering because
something was happening.
1664
01:36:23,584 --> 01:36:25,818
(explosions)
1665
01:36:56,587 --> 01:36:57,953
NARRATOR: Around the world,
1666
01:36:58,052 --> 01:37:01,288
antiwar demonstrators
returned to the streets.
1667
01:37:01,388 --> 01:37:04,487
The prime minister of Sweden
compared the United States
1668
01:37:04,588 --> 01:37:06,220
to Nazi Germany.
1669
01:37:06,321 --> 01:37:08,420
The Pope called the bombing,
1670
01:37:08,521 --> 01:37:11,220
which killed more than 1,600 civilians,
1671
01:37:11,321 --> 01:37:14,421
"the object of daily grief."
1672
01:37:14,522 --> 01:37:18,822
James Reston of theNew York
Times pronounced the raids
1673
01:37:18,921 --> 01:37:20,721
"war by tantrum."
1674
01:37:20,822 --> 01:37:25,256
Republican Senator William
Saxbe of Ohio said
1675
01:37:25,355 --> 01:37:29,956
the president had taken
leave of his senses.
1676
01:37:30,055 --> 01:37:31,590
(gunfire)
1677
01:37:31,689 --> 01:37:35,655
North Vietnam shot down 15 B-52s,
1678
01:37:35,756 --> 01:37:40,024
along with 11 other aircraft.
1679
01:37:40,123 --> 01:37:44,091
93 crewmen were reported missing.
1680
01:37:44,190 --> 01:37:48,857
45 new prisoners of war
were locked up in Hanoi,
1681
01:37:48,958 --> 01:37:53,557
one of whom died in captivity.
1682
01:37:53,657 --> 01:37:58,557
Meanwhile, both the Chinese
and the Soviets pressed Hanoi
1683
01:37:58,657 --> 01:38:01,158
to resume negotiations.
1684
01:38:01,259 --> 01:38:04,858
"The most important thing is
to let the Americans leave,"
1685
01:38:04,959 --> 01:38:08,125
Zhou Enlai told a North
Vietnamese official.
1686
01:38:08,225 --> 01:38:12,926
"The situation will change
in six months or a year."
1687
01:38:14,993 --> 01:38:19,059
On December 26, Hanoi
signaled its willingness
1688
01:38:19,159 --> 01:38:21,394
to return to Paris.
1689
01:38:21,493 --> 01:38:26,060
It would take just six days
to reach a final agreement.
1690
01:38:26,160 --> 01:38:32,360
NEGROPONTE: We bombed them into
accepting our concessions.
1691
01:38:32,461 --> 01:38:36,561
We bombed them into
accepting our concessions.
1692
01:38:36,661 --> 01:38:40,396
And I stand by that statement,
because, in effect,
1693
01:38:40,495 --> 01:38:46,728
what we did was to carry out
this massive bombing campaign
1694
01:38:46,829 --> 01:38:51,629
in order to basically get
back to pretty much exactly
1695
01:38:51,729 --> 01:38:55,362
where we were at the end of October in '72.
1696
01:38:57,330 --> 01:39:00,264
NARRATOR: President Thieu
still balked at signing on.
1697
01:39:00,363 --> 01:39:02,630
Nixon was adamant.
1698
01:39:02,730 --> 01:39:05,730
Thieu had to go along with
what Washington and Hanoi
1699
01:39:05,831 --> 01:39:07,398
had worked out.
1700
01:39:07,497 --> 01:39:10,197
But without informing Congress,
1701
01:39:10,298 --> 01:39:13,198
the president assured Thieu in writing
1702
01:39:13,299 --> 01:39:17,032
that the United States would
"respond with full force"
1703
01:39:17,131 --> 01:39:20,731
if the North ever violated the agreement.
1704
01:39:20,832 --> 01:39:24,365
"The Americans really leave
me no choice," Thieu said.
1705
01:39:24,466 --> 01:39:28,333
"Either sign or they will cut off aid.
1706
01:39:28,432 --> 01:39:32,533
"On the other hand, we have an
absolute guarantee from Nixon
1707
01:39:32,632 --> 01:39:34,834
"to defend the country.
1708
01:39:34,933 --> 01:39:39,401
"I am going to agree to sign
and hold him to his word.
1709
01:39:39,500 --> 01:39:43,200
He is an honest man and I
am going to trust him."
1710
01:39:51,867 --> 01:39:55,934
On January 22, 1973,
1711
01:39:56,035 --> 01:39:59,935
at his ranch in the Hill Country of Texas,
1712
01:40:00,036 --> 01:40:02,969
Lyndon Baines Johnson,
1713
01:40:03,068 --> 01:40:05,668
the president who had
committed the United States
1714
01:40:05,769 --> 01:40:08,635
to a ground war in Vietnam,
1715
01:40:08,735 --> 01:40:13,037
and had seen that war undercut
his domestic social programs
1716
01:40:13,136 --> 01:40:16,136
and end his political career,
1717
01:40:16,236 --> 01:40:18,404
died of congestive heart failure.
1718
01:40:23,637 --> 01:40:28,437
The following evening, Richard
Nixon spoke to the nation.
1719
01:40:28,538 --> 01:40:31,137
28 years after the United States
1720
01:40:31,237 --> 01:40:34,039
first became involved in Vietnam,
1721
01:40:34,138 --> 01:40:37,005
it was finally getting out.
1722
01:40:37,106 --> 01:40:38,539
NIXON: I have asked for this radio
1723
01:40:38,638 --> 01:40:40,906
and television time tonight
1724
01:40:41,005 --> 01:40:44,472
for the purpose of announcing that we today
1725
01:40:44,571 --> 01:40:47,840
have concluded an agreement to end the war
1726
01:40:47,939 --> 01:40:51,939
and bring peace with honor in
Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.
1727
01:40:52,040 --> 01:40:55,439
A cease-fire, internationally supervised,
1728
01:40:55,540 --> 01:40:59,341
will begin at 7:00 p.m.
this Saturday, January 27,
1729
01:40:59,440 --> 01:41:01,173
Washington time.
1730
01:41:01,274 --> 01:41:03,274
Within 60 days from this Saturday,
1731
01:41:03,373 --> 01:41:07,608
all Americans held prisoners
of war throughout Indochina
1732
01:41:07,707 --> 01:41:10,141
will be released.
1733
01:41:11,909 --> 01:41:16,741
NARRATOR: American prisoners
of war, 591 of them,
1734
01:41:16,842 --> 01:41:20,042
were to be released in batches of 40.
1735
01:41:20,141 --> 01:41:23,043
Those who had been in captivity the longest
1736
01:41:23,142 --> 01:41:25,709
were to come home first.
1737
01:41:25,810 --> 01:41:29,742
Today the largest contingents of
repatriated prisoners so far,
1738
01:41:29,843 --> 01:41:31,610
60 men, were flown from Clark
1739
01:41:31,709 --> 01:41:33,576
to Travis Air Force Base, California.
1740
01:41:33,676 --> 01:41:35,587
ROGER PETERSON: Today's
most dramatic moment came
1741
01:41:35,611 --> 01:41:38,210
when Everett Alvarez made his
happy trek down the ramp,
1742
01:41:38,311 --> 01:41:39,411
home at last.
1743
01:41:39,510 --> 01:41:40,919
For almost as long as most Americans
1744
01:41:40,943 --> 01:41:42,411
have been aware of Vietnam,
1745
01:41:42,510 --> 01:41:46,345
Lieutenant Commander Alvarez
has been a prisoner in Hanoi.
1746
01:41:46,444 --> 01:41:49,278
He was shot down August 5, 1964,
during the first raids flown
1747
01:41:49,377 --> 01:41:52,345
in retaliation for the
Tonkin Gulf incident.
1748
01:41:52,444 --> 01:41:54,244
And finally, today, he was home.
1749
01:41:54,345 --> 01:41:56,712
For years and years,
1750
01:41:56,813 --> 01:42:03,046
we dreamed of this day, and we kept faith.
1751
01:42:03,145 --> 01:42:07,846
Faith in God, in our president,
1752
01:42:07,945 --> 01:42:09,513
and in our country.
1753
01:42:09,614 --> 01:42:12,746
("America the Beautiful"
by Ray Charles playing)
1754
01:42:14,547 --> 01:42:19,079
NARRATOR: Hal Kushner's
turn came in mid-March.
1755
01:42:19,179 --> 01:42:21,615
CHARLES: d Oh, beautiful
1756
01:42:21,714 --> 01:42:25,747
d For heroes proved
1757
01:42:28,315 --> 01:42:32,116
d In liberating strife
1758
01:42:32,215 --> 01:42:34,748
KUSHNER: And they... then
they called our name.
1759
01:42:34,849 --> 01:42:37,381
And I walked out in the sunlight.
1760
01:42:37,482 --> 01:42:40,316
And the first thing I saw
was a girl in a miniskirt.
1761
01:42:40,416 --> 01:42:43,081
She was a reporter for one
of the news organizations.
1762
01:42:43,181 --> 01:42:45,117
I'd never seen a real-life miniskirt.
1763
01:42:45,216 --> 01:42:50,817
CHARLES: d And mercy more than life
1764
01:42:50,917 --> 01:42:53,182
KUSHNER: And there was a
table with the Vietnamese
1765
01:42:53,283 --> 01:42:55,318
and American authorities on one side,
1766
01:42:55,418 --> 01:42:57,918
and there was a brigadier
general, Air Force general
1767
01:42:58,017 --> 01:43:00,318
in Class A uniform.
1768
01:43:00,418 --> 01:43:03,583
And he looked magnificent.
1769
01:43:03,683 --> 01:43:06,484
And I looked at him...
1770
01:43:06,583 --> 01:43:08,319
(voice breaking): and he had breadth,
1771
01:43:08,419 --> 01:43:12,419
he had thickness that we didn't have.
1772
01:43:12,518 --> 01:43:15,684
And his hair was... he
had on a garrison cap.
1773
01:43:15,785 --> 01:43:18,819
And his hair was plump and moist,
1774
01:43:18,920 --> 01:43:21,420
and our hair was like straw, you know.
1775
01:43:21,519 --> 01:43:23,719
It was dry and we were skinny.
1776
01:43:23,820 --> 01:43:24,820
(clears throat)
1777
01:43:26,152 --> 01:43:27,853
And I went out and I saluted,
1778
01:43:27,952 --> 01:43:30,620
which was a courtesy
that had been denied us
1779
01:43:30,719 --> 01:43:33,453
for so many years.
1780
01:43:33,554 --> 01:43:35,953
And he saluted me, and he...
1781
01:43:36,054 --> 01:43:38,020
I shook hands with him and he hugged me,
1782
01:43:38,121 --> 01:43:39,554
he actually hugged me,
1783
01:43:39,653 --> 01:43:43,254
and he said, "Welcome home, Major.
1784
01:43:43,355 --> 01:43:44,954
We're glad to see you, doctor."
1785
01:43:45,055 --> 01:43:47,822
And the tears were
streaming down his cheeks.
1786
01:43:47,922 --> 01:43:50,954
And it was just a-a powerful moment.
1787
01:43:51,055 --> 01:43:55,588
CHARLES: d For purple mountains
1788
01:43:55,688 --> 01:43:57,056
d Majesty
1789
01:43:57,155 --> 01:43:59,423
KUSHNER: And then this
liaison officer they called
1790
01:43:59,522 --> 01:44:02,989
that came out and got me and
escorted me on this C-141.
1791
01:44:03,088 --> 01:44:06,924
It was this beautiful white
airplane with a flag.
1792
01:44:07,023 --> 01:44:10,324
(sighs)
1793
01:44:10,424 --> 01:44:15,557
An American flag on the tail and USAF.
1794
01:44:15,656 --> 01:44:18,090
CHARLES: d America
1795
01:44:18,190 --> 01:44:19,524
d You know
1796
01:44:19,625 --> 01:44:24,090
d God done shed his grace on thee d
1797
01:44:24,190 --> 01:44:27,757
KUSHNER: And they had these real
cute flight nurses on there.
1798
01:44:27,858 --> 01:44:29,791
They were all tall and
blonde and, you know,
1799
01:44:29,891 --> 01:44:31,826
they-they were just gorgeous.
1800
01:44:31,926 --> 01:44:34,258
And we got on this thing and, and she said,
1801
01:44:34,359 --> 01:44:37,359
this nurse... we sat in
these seats and she said,
1802
01:44:37,458 --> 01:44:39,025
"We have anything you want, you know.
1803
01:44:39,126 --> 01:44:40,158
"Do... what do you want?"
1804
01:44:40,258 --> 01:44:42,327
And I-I wanted a Coke with crushed ice
1805
01:44:42,427 --> 01:44:44,560
and some chewing gum.
1806
01:44:44,659 --> 01:44:47,959
CHARLES: d You know, I wish had
somebody to help me sing this d
1807
01:44:48,060 --> 01:44:52,026
d America
1808
01:44:52,127 --> 01:44:54,393
d America d America
1809
01:44:54,494 --> 01:44:55,828
d I love you, America
1810
01:44:55,928 --> 01:44:58,561
d God shed d You see
1811
01:44:58,660 --> 01:45:00,828
d My God, he done shed d His grace
1812
01:45:00,928 --> 01:45:03,428
d His grace on thee d On thee
1813
01:45:03,527 --> 01:45:05,728
d And you ought to love him for it d
1814
01:45:05,829 --> 01:45:10,261
d 'Cause he, he, he,
he crowned thy good d
1815
01:45:10,362 --> 01:45:12,094
d He told me he would
1816
01:45:12,194 --> 01:45:15,795
d With brotherhood
1817
01:45:15,894 --> 01:45:18,063
d From sea
1818
01:45:18,162 --> 01:45:20,296
d To shining
1819
01:45:20,395 --> 01:45:22,830
d Shining sea d Sea
1820
01:45:22,930 --> 01:45:24,796
d Oh, Lord
1821
01:45:24,895 --> 01:45:26,029
d Oh, Lord!
1822
01:45:26,130 --> 01:45:28,395
d I thank you, Lord
1823
01:45:28,496 --> 01:45:34,030
d Shining sea.
1824
01:45:40,631 --> 01:45:43,032
("The Lord Is in This Place" by
Fairport Convention playing)
1825
01:45:46,231 --> 01:45:49,332
NARRATOR: Within a few days
of Hal Kushner's release,
1826
01:45:49,432 --> 01:45:54,333
the last American combat
troops would leave Vietnam.
1827
01:45:54,433 --> 01:45:59,165
But they would leave behind
many unanswered questions.
1828
01:45:59,265 --> 01:46:03,965
How long could the South
Vietnamese government survive?
1829
01:46:04,066 --> 01:46:07,266
What was the value of American promises,
1830
01:46:07,367 --> 01:46:10,199
and American sacrifice?
1831
01:46:10,300 --> 01:46:14,466
And how long would it take for
the wounds of war to heal?
1832
01:46:27,568 --> 01:46:29,502
("What's Going On?" by Marvin Gaye playing)
1833
01:46:31,136 --> 01:46:33,069
(indistinct conversations)
1834
01:46:37,168 --> 01:46:39,701
d Mother, mother
1835
01:46:39,802 --> 01:46:43,870
d There's too many of you crying d
1836
01:46:46,769 --> 01:46:48,902
d Brother, brother, brother
1837
01:46:49,003 --> 01:46:53,004
d There's far too many of you dying d
1838
01:46:54,970 --> 01:46:58,103
d You know we've got to find a way d
1839
01:46:59,903 --> 01:47:02,804
d To bring some loving here today d
1840
01:47:02,903 --> 01:47:05,738
d Yeah
1841
01:47:05,839 --> 01:47:07,439
d Father, father
1842
01:47:09,271 --> 01:47:11,572
d We don't need to escalate
1843
01:47:14,439 --> 01:47:18,605
d You see, war is not the answer d
1844
01:47:18,705 --> 01:47:23,340
d For only love can conquer hate d
1845
01:47:23,440 --> 01:47:26,306
d You know we've got to find a way d
1846
01:47:28,374 --> 01:47:31,574
d To bring some loving here today d
1847
01:47:31,673 --> 01:47:34,074
d Oh
1848
01:47:34,173 --> 01:47:36,206
d Picket lines d Sister
1849
01:47:36,307 --> 01:47:38,606
d And picket signs d Sister
1850
01:47:38,706 --> 01:47:40,375
d Don't punish me d Sister
1851
01:47:40,474 --> 01:47:43,642
d With brutality d Sister
1852
01:47:43,741 --> 01:47:45,575
d Talk to me d Sister
1853
01:47:45,674 --> 01:47:47,607
d So you can see d Sister
1854
01:47:47,707 --> 01:47:50,107
d Oh, what's going on d What's going on
1855
01:47:50,207 --> 01:47:52,175
d What's going on d What's going on
1856
01:47:52,275 --> 01:47:54,542
d Yeah, what's going
on d What's going on
1857
01:47:54,643 --> 01:47:56,809
d Ah, what's going on d What's going on
1858
01:47:56,908 --> 01:47:59,675
d Ah d Right on
1859
01:47:59,775 --> 01:48:01,408
d Whoo! Right on, brother
1860
01:48:01,509 --> 01:48:02,877
(indistinct conversations)
1861
01:48:02,976 --> 01:48:04,909
(scatting)
1862
01:48:06,377 --> 01:48:08,476
MAN: Hey, man, what's your name? Whoo!
1863
01:48:08,577 --> 01:48:10,310
d Right on, baby
1864
01:48:10,409 --> 01:48:12,176
Right on. d Right on
1865
01:48:12,276 --> 01:48:15,210
(scatting)
1866
01:48:27,946 --> 01:48:29,178
Whoo! d Whoo
1867
01:48:29,278 --> 01:48:32,045
d Right on, baby
1868
01:48:32,146 --> 01:48:34,079
(scatting)
1869
01:48:46,412 --> 01:48:47,412
Whoo!
1870
01:48:47,513 --> 01:48:48,913
-d Right on, baby -(man whooping)
1871
01:48:48,947 --> 01:48:49,948
d Come on
1872
01:48:50,014 --> 01:48:51,314
d Right on
1873
01:48:51,413 --> 01:48:53,348
(singer scatting, man whooping)
1874
01:48:56,547 --> 01:48:59,547
d Whoo! Right on
1875
01:48:59,648 --> 01:49:00,948
d Go slow
1876
01:49:01,047 --> 01:49:02,981
(scatting)
1877
01:49:05,981 --> 01:49:09,981
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