All language subtitles for The.Sixties.S01E04.720p.HMAX.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV_Subtitles01.ENG

It is a
mixture of pretty scenery

and ugly events.

Walter Cronkite: Vietnam
reports today of the

bloodiest fighting
in almost a year.

(machine gun and
artillery fire)

We will not surrender

and we will not retreat.

You think you can win?

Oh I know we can win.

These people are being killed.

They're being killed, why?

The United States must stop
this bloody aggression.

Goddamnit, we're in the--
(explosion)

♪ (theme music) ♪

Unidentified male:
Ladies and gentlemen,

the President
of the United states.

Unidentified male:
Mr. President,

it was just a year ago
that you ordered

stepped-up aid to Vietnam.

There seems to be a
good deal of discouragement

about the progress.

Can you give us
your assessment?

John F Kennedy:
No, we are putting in

a major effort in Vietnam.

As you know,
we have about 10 or 11 times

as many advisors there
as we had a year ago.

So we don't see
the end of the tunnel but

I must say, I don't think
it's darker than

it was a year ago,
in some ways lighter.

Early on, Kennedy
made a command decision.

We will not allow
South Vietnam

to fall to the Communists.

(gunfire)

Unidentified reporter:
In Southeast Asia,

communist inspired
subversion was unrelenting.

South Vietnam looked
to others for assistance

in stemming North Vietnamese
aggression.

Robert Dallek:
Going back to the

Eisenhower Administration
in the late 50's,

the country split into
South and North Vietnam.

You have the Communists
in the North

and so the United States
is very eager

to preserve the South
from a Communist takeover.

Andrew Bacevich:
The Communist

North Vietnamese
believed in nationalism,

uniting their country
under their own control.

Neil Sheehan:
The Cold War conspiracy

was that
if the Vietnamese Communists

won the war in Vietnam, all of
Southeast Asia would fall.

The dominoes would fall
one after another.

Charles Collongwood:
There is no doubt

that the fall of
South Vietnam

would have serious
repercussions

on the other countries
of Southeast Asia.

This is fundamentally
the reason

why we're in South Vietnam.

Dallek:
After all, Eastern Europe

has fallen to Communism.

China has fallen to
Communism.

We can't lose
Southeast Asia.

So we have to stabilize
South Vietnam.

(helicopter blades whirring)

Reporter:
On January 2nd, 1963,

South Vietnamese troops
surprise a Viet Cong battalion

at a village called Ap Bac.

(explosion)
(machine gun fire)

Reporter:
Five American helicopters

are shot down,

three American advisors
are killed,

and 63 South Vietnamese die,

half of them shooting
at each other.

We've got
US military advisors

flying combat missions.

We've got advisors
that are accompanying

South Vietnamese forces
into the field.

So by this point their role had
gone beyond simply advising.

We have
learned a bitter lesson.

The army of South Vietnam
cannot cope

with the Viet Cong,

the committed
guerrilla enemy.

It is trained for conventional
war, American-style.

George Herring:
There is growing uncertainty

about whether
the advisory effort

is really working.

Then in the midst of this,

there is what's called
the Buddhist Crisis.

Reporter:
The war in Vietnam

has literally become a fight
on two fronts.

On one hand,
the government faces

the Viet Cong Communists

and on the other hand
it faces

a revolt
of the Buddhist majority,

a fight which has been
joined by

thousands of students.

Unidentified male:
The country's

Buddhist majority sees
President Diem as a tyrant.

Richard Reeves:
We had established

a government
in South Vietnam

led by a western-educated
Catholic named Diem.

Diem was our boy.

Dallek:
But absolute power corrupts

and Diem becomes the dictator.

So you have
a Catholic presence

imposing itself
on a Buddhist majority

and now, they're going
after the Buddhists.

(shouting)

Frank McGee:
Soldiers and police

broke up to demonstrations
and killed nine persons.

Unidentified male:
A debate broke out

in the American government

over whether
we should continue

to support Diem or not.

Dallek:
By the summer of 1963

there had been discussions
in the CIA,

in the Pentagon about
toppling the Diem regime.

Chet Huntley:
Mr. President has

our government in anyway
been tardy in recognizing

the nature
of the Diem government?

We are faced
with a problem of wanting

to protect the area
against the Communists.

On the other hand,
we have to deal

with the government there
that produces a kind of...

ambivalence...
in our efforts which

expose us to some criticism.

David Brinkley:
Mr. President, in the last

48 hours,
there have been a great,

many conflicting reports
from there

about what the CIA
was up to.

Could you give us any
enlightenment on that?

No. I don't think so.

Okay.

This is an
NBC Special news report.

The government
of South Vietnam

has been overthrown
by a military coup.

Robert Schenkkan:
Now, this happens with our

understanding and knowledge.

And then the President
of South Vietnam

is shot and killed by a cabal
of South Vietnamese Generals.

Kalb: Once the US had led
the coup to get rid of Diem,

Kennedy realized
that the United States

had finally
bitten into a bad apple.

Kennedy:
Monday, November 4th, 1963.

Karl Marlantes:
When that assassination

took place, we owned it.

It actually started
that early in the 60s,

in the Kennedy Administration.

Fredrik Logevall:
When Kennedy came into office,

January of 1961,

you had on the order
of about 600

US military advisors
in South Vietnam.

By the time he left on that
fateful trip to Dallas

in November 1963
there were more than 16,000.

♪ (somber music) ♪

(applause)

Lyndon Johnson:
John Kennedy's death

commands what
his life conveyed...

that America must move forward.

I think
Johnson genuinely felt

that continuity
in the government

after this terrible event
was essential

to retaining the confidence
of the American people.

Johnson: And now,
the ideas and the ideals

which he so nobly represented
must and will be translated

into effective action.

(applause)

(marching drums)

Walter Cronkite:
Congress and the nation

had reminders today

that while the world seemed
suspended by our tragedy,

it really kept on it's
whirling way.

In Vietnam, reports today
of the bloodiest fighting

in almost a year.

How are we doing?

Oh fine,
I think Mr. President.

I want you
your dictate to me

on the situation in Vietnam

Yeah, yeah.

Robert McNamara,
Secretary of Defense.

He had been the head of the
Ford Motor Company,

brilliant executive.

Schenkkan: Famous especially
for his cold analytic methods.

Marlantes:
He was a World War II vet.

He wanted to stop
wasting the Pentagon.

Robert McNamara:
We have increased the

number of combat ready
army divisions by 45 percent.

Schenkkan:
The expectation is

that he would
figure out Vietnam.

(cheering)

The position
of my government is clear.

We are prepared to

furnish whatever economic aid,
whatever military training

and whatever quanties
are required

and for as long as
that is required.

Vietnam 'Mung Nam'!

Fredrik Logevall:
The public Secretary of Defense

McNamara is all
about kind of bullish bravado,

that we are going to
prevail, but privately

McNamara is increasingly
gloomy about the prospects.

Murray Fromson:
Until a strong government

begins to function here
in Saigon,

the war against the Communists
will continue to flounder.

I'll tell you, the
more I stayed awake last night

thinking about this thing...

Gen. William Westmoreland:
Gentleman, this is a

modern war.

But it's a different war.

We are here to advise
and support

our courageous
Vietnamese ally.

It was
Westmoreland's misfortune

to inherit the most complex war

that we had fought
to this time

and I think his plan
for the war was

an entirely
conventional plan

in a very
unconventional war.

We're over here to win

and we have what it takes

to assist them
in this victory.

Is that enough for you?

I'm going to put this
in two parts,

so I'll be a little more
candid in the second round.

Lyndon Johnson
doesn't want to be

a President who found his
Administration torpedoed

by an unpopular war.

Parenthetically however,

we have a very interesting
episode that happens

in August of 1964
in the Tonkin Gulf.

Three PT boats

identified by our State
Department as North Vietnamese,

attacked the USS Maddox,
a Destroyer

which was operating in the
Tonkin Gulf,

some 35 miles off the
North Vietnamese coast.

Logevall: This was not
an unprovoked attack.

There had been
these covert actions

against the North Vietnamese

directed by
the United States.

And the North Vietnamese
were responding

to that on August 2nd.

Reporter:
This is a special report

from CBS news in Washington.

Today, just pass
the midday point,

unofficial sources
started to report

additional
Naval combat action

in the same Tonkin Gulf.

Now, I'd like to review briefly

in chronological order,
the unprovoked attacks

which took place today,
August 4th.

Herring:
We know now for sure

that the second Tonkin Gulf
incident didn't happen.

But the Johnson
Administration

pretty much dismissed
evidence indicating

that an attack actually
hadn't taken place.

Schenkkan:
There was this acute

political pressure
from the right wing

to be strong, stand up to
Communist aggression.

Certainly I think

a more prudent administration

that wasn't looking
for a pretext

to flex some American muscle

would have stepped back
and said,

"Let's determine
what actually happened here

before we launch
any retaliatory action."

Johnson: My fellow Americans,
hostile actions

against United States' ships
on the high seas

have today required me

to order the military forces
of the United States

to take action in reply.

That was the beginning

of the American air assault
on North Vietnam.

President Johnson has

asked for and will soon get
a congressional resolution

authorizing the president
to act as he is.

The Tonkin Gulf resolution
said that Johnson had

all out power to
use American military strength

to defend American interest
as he deemed necessary.

Schenkkan:
And that is the beginning

of the slippery slope.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

has been elected President
of the United States.

And the landslide
has carried him in

for his first term in office

on his own right
by his own election.

Communist
Viet Cong guerrillas

killed seven American
and wounded 109

yesterday in a sneak
night time attack

on the American
helicopter base at Pleiku.

I don't wish to speculate on

action we may take in
the future

but I don't believe
it'll ever be possible

to protect our forces
against

sneak attacks of that kind.

Schenkkan:
Vietnam keeps creeping

into the Oval Office
but Johnson stuck.

He refuses to be
the American president

who loses Southeast Asia.

So he has to keep going
in deeper.

Then we're going
to send the Marines in.

(explosions)

Early in 1965,

the President decided
to launch

'Operation Rolling Thunder'.

A sustained bombing
campaign

directed against
North Vietnam.

Reporter:
The emphasis is

on the destruction of
strategic enemy targets.

Raids are
designed to cut off supplies

from the North
to the Viet Cong rebels

in the South.

Caputo:
Our first mission was

more or less static defense

of the principle airfield

for the bombing
missions over North Vietnam.

Reporter:
General, will this entail

any offensive operations?

No.

No,
I don't believe it will.

The reason
we put ground troops in

was to protect airfields.

And then we have to
protect the ground troops

surrounding airfields.
And it sort of,

we backed into this war,

not really understanding
what we're doing.

Let's go out. Let's go!

Reporter:
The soldiers move

cautiously off
into the jungle

encountering
only an occasional sniper.

(gunfire)

The Viet Cong
and the North Vietnamese

didn't play by our rules.

(chatter amongst soldiers)

They couldn't
find the enemy.

They were invisible,
it was their country.

(heavy machine gun fire)

The enemy
again broke contact,

slipped away
and disappeared.

Caputo:
Combat arouses emotions

so powerful, that
teaches you about

human nature at it's best
and at it'sworst.

Unidentified soldier:
Give the baby to mama-san.

-Yeah.
-Papa-san, come on.

Give the baby to mama-san,
come on.

Unidentified soldier: VC?
You VC?

Yeah, you're VC,
you're Viet Cong.

Caputo:
The rule of thumb was just

not to trust anybody
regardless of sex or age.

(machine gun fire)

Unidentified soldier:
What's going on?

(soldiers cheering)

Neil Sheehan:
If the Americans got

sniper fire from a village,

they didn't send a squad in

to find the sniper
and kill him.

They just called
for artillery

or air strikes and blew
the whole hamlet away.

The United States
was killing

25,000 civilians a year.

We were blowing up
and burning down

this country we were
supposed to be saving.

Success
continues to be elusive

in any meaningful way

and Johnson
keeps being told,

I need more troops.

Lyndon B Johnson:
I have today ordered

to Vietnam certain forces

which will raise
our fighting strength

from 75,000 to 125,000 men...

almost immediately.

This will make it necessary

to the raise of the
monthly draft call

from 17,000 to 35,000
per month.

And this is the most agonizing

and the most painful duty
of your President.

It's difficult
to understand,

why would you
take the course

that is going to lead
to a large-scale war,

even with what we
now know is this

deep skepticism on the
part of Lyndon Johnson.

But it seems he felt
that no matter

which way
he went on Vietnam,

he would be crucified.

We're on the outskirts
of the village of Cam Ni

with elements of the
1st Battalion 9th Marines.

(explosions)

Reporter:
It first appeared

that the marines
had been sniped at

and that a few houses
were made to pay.

Reporter:
Shortly after

an officer told me,
he had orders to go in

and level the string of
hamlets

that surrounds
Cam Ne village.

Safer:
I wasn't looking for that story

but what I saw was
absolutely shocking.

(speaking Vietnamese)
(weeping)

Reporter:
Today's operation

burned down 150 houses,

wounded three women,
killed one baby

and netted
these four prisoners

who could not answer
questions

put to them in English.

Rather:
To a Vietnamese peasant,

it will take more than
presidential promises

to convince him that
we are on his side.

The morning news
had put the first bit

of footage on the air.

I had no idea we would have that
kind of repercussions it had.

Do you ever
have any regrets about

some of these people that
you are leaving homeless?

You can't expect
to do your job

and feel pity
for these people.

But I think it's sad in a way

but I don't think
there's any other way

you can get around it,
in this kind of war.

Lawrence Wright:
What Vietnam did

to America via television

was introduce us
to a new kind of America,

one that was not pure,

one that committed
the same kinds of atrocities

that will-- are always
committed in war

but we had never allowed
ourselves to see them.

Safer:
The President, I understand,

called the senior executive
at CBS.

And Lyndon Johnson said,

"Frank, this is
your President.

Your boys just shat on
the flag of the United States."

(ship born blaring)

Walter Cronkite:
Three months ago

the first
Air Cavalry Division

shipped out from Charleston,
South Carolina.

Last week some of them
came home.

Most of these casualties
were suffered

in a battle of
Ia Drang Valley.

The most significant,
yet fought

by American troops
in Vietnam.

(gunfire)

Safer:
It looked at first like a

routine Viet Cong attack

but this is was a full scale
sustained assault

by not only the
Viet Cong of South Vietnam

but with North Vietnam and
it's strong and dedicated army.

(gunfire and explosions)

Reporter:
At first light

the full shock came.

Americans and
North Vietnamese

lay side by side
in the grass.

Kind of walked right
into an ambush.

It was pretty bad to
listen to your friends

crying out for help

and not being able to do
a thing.

We just...
we were all pinned down.

I want to congratulate
you on your

distinguished victory.

You were fighting regular
North Vietnamese troops.

The consensus

of the military
after Ia Drang is

we can inflict enough
casualties on them to win.

Our armed forces
are prepared

to take the necessary
casualties

in order to seek out
and destroy the enemy.

The question remains,
are the American people

prepared to lose

more and more young men
in Vietnam?

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ (Band music playing) ♪

Reporter:
The first Air Cavalry band

will go anywhere
for a parade,

even within rifle range
of the Viet Cong.

Frederick Ackerson:
The Viet Cong

have terrorized you
and have burned your homes.

We are here to help you.

And to show how much
we are able to protect you,

the Air Force
are going to get

some Viet Cong on the
other side of the valley.

♪ (band playing) ♪

(explosions)

The televising
of the Vietnam War

was like the split-screen
reality in American culture.

On one side you had
what the official story was,

which was "we're winning
in Vietnam."

And yet, every time that
Americans looked up,

what they saw was
bodybags.

Reporter:
Marine Colonel Michael Yunck

was hit by fire
from a village

while he was directing
close air support

from a helicopter.

He saw women and
children there

and decided not to order
an air attack.

The Colonel talked about it

while surgeons
amputated his leg.

Surgeon: I'll going to do
all I can to save that leg.

I know.

God damn it! I hate to

put bombs and napalm
on these women and children.

I just didn't do it,
I just said

they can't be there.

I'm sure now that
that's where they were.

Sheehan:
And as the causalities mounted,

that was turning
the public in this country

against the war.

(crowds chanting
anti-war slogans)

Reporter:
How do you expect to be

protected in this country

unless you have people
fighting for you?

They are not fighting for me.

They're not. They're not.

This is genocide.

These people are
being killed.

They are being killed. Why?

Dissent spread
across the campuses

all over the country and

give a sense of
empowerment to students

who were about to be drafted.
But still couldn't vote.

Reporter:
A new type of protest

and civil disobedience
occurs in New York City.

David Miller publicly
burns his draft card.

Reporter:
Seven young and

earnest protesters
burned draft cards

on the steps of a
Boston court house.

A group of high school boys
set upon them with fists.

Denis O'Neill: The draft was
in place from World War II,

when you turn 18
you had to register.

Reporter:
In January 1965,

5,400 young men
were called for the draft.

In December 1965,

45,224 young men were called.

This is one fact pouring in
on the American conscience

and causing increasing
concern.

Tom Hayden:
It's a compulsory draft

It forced you to make a choice.

Vietnam against your will,
jail against your will.

Canada against your will.
No good options.

All kinds of ways
are found to try

to beat the physical.

People are known to
mutilate themselves.

Starve themselves,
declare that

they were homosexual
when they weren't.

Herring:
There were also

escape hatches
in terms of deferment,

like deferments for
college students,

which means that
working class, young people,

are likely to get
drafted before

upper middle class.

(crowd chanting)

Their war was waged

in a lot of living rooms
in America.

There's a real generational
divide

because
my father's generation

went off and saved Europe.

I fully expected to have
a military experience.

But it was
the wrong damn war.

Reporter:
Washington, November 27.

The rally was to be held
at the Washington Monument.

The protestors began
to arrive, about 20,000 strong.

♪ Most of the world
♪

♪ Peace corps by day
♪

The whole world

are watching us right now.

I'm here to support
the Constitution

of the United States,
I will not fight in Vietnam.

(crowd cheering)

We forget this.
But there was always

a substantial number of
Americans

who supported
the Vietnam War.

(booing)

Go away!

(crowd booing
anti-war supporters)

-You traitors!
-I'll get you, you punk!

Where is your son?

My son's a marine!

Wright:
It's hard to recapture

how intense
that period it was.

How morally conflictual

it was in your relationship
with your country,

which is something
we never questioned.

Harry Reasoner:
The pressure on Mr. Johnson

to choose sides
has been growing.

Clinging to a middle line

he tried to give one ear
to the war hawks in America

one ear to the doves
but both ears to neither.

We halted bombing
in the North

in the hope that
the government in Hanoi

would signal it'swillingness
to talk instead of fight.

But I regret to tell you

that no signal came
during those 37 days.

Johnson feels
alternately outraged

that he's being attacked
in this way,

when he's doing the best
he can.

Until the day they decide

to end this aggression

and to make
an honorable peace,

I can assure you

that we speaking for the
United States of America

intend to carry on.

(explosion)

Frank McGee:
A large committee of

responsible lawyers
has examined

the United States'
legal position in Vietnam.

It's conclusions, briefly
and bluntly, are

that the United States
is violating

the Unite Nations Charter,

the Geneva Agreement
and finally violating

the United States
Constitution which says,

"Only Congress
can declare war."

When the Congress
tried to ask questions

about the Vietnam War,

they've found it
very difficult

to get answers and
sometimes they were lied to.

Senator Wayne Morse:
We're engaged in a

historic debate
in this country.

We have honest
differences of opinion.

Herring:
Fulbright hearings are

one of the first times
when people

who weren't far on the left

or extreme on the right,
started raising

some very serious questions
about the war.

Morse:
And all I'm asking is

if the people decide that
this war should be stopped,

are you going to take
the position

that it's weakness on
the home front in a democracy?

General Maxwell Taylor:
I would feel that our people,

we're badly misguided
and did not understand

the consequences
of such a disaster.

Well, we agree on one thing

that they can be
badly misguided

and you and the President,
in my judgment,

have been misguiding them
for a long time in this war.

At the beginning of 1965,

there were 23,000 American
service men in Vietnam.

Currently,
there are about 267,000

U.S fighting men in Vietnam

and 18,000 more
will be there

by the end of this month.

The commitment

became bigger and bigger
and bigger.

You could feel the spirit
of the troops was draining.

Reporter:
How old are you?

22.

Reporter:
Volunteer?

Nope.

Reporter:
Would you?

Nope.

What's
the worst thing about it?

Getting shot, getting hit.

Well you see...

your buddies get hit.

Living in the swamp, dirt.

Karl Marlantes:
Three days out in the bush,

you'll be covered with
ringworm and jungle rot.

It was just
the nature of the terrain

and the weather.

Reporter:
It's hot in Vietnam,

often hotter
than the Mojave Desert.

The temperature rises
to 120 degrees.

(breathing heavily)

Caputo: If we got
two hours sleep at night,

I'd be surprised.

Marlantes:
You're almost in a

hypnotic state.

I'm amazed that
these kids didn't just

completely fall apart.

Humans are
really, really tough.

Yes, I think so.

Today I can tell you that

military progress
in the past 12 months

has exceeded
our expectations.

Our policy remains
what it was

and has been, we will
supply our commanders

whatever they require
to accomplish our objective

in South Vietnam.

Caputo:
You started to distrust

your own leaders
because you started to say,

"Well they're lying to us."
I mean...

or if they're not
lying to us they

don't know
what's going on over here.

If they don't know
what's going on,

what the hell is going on?

(gunfire)

Get in the hole.
-Soldiers: In the hole.

(explosions)

I'm glad they're on our side.

Unidentified soldier: Hold out.

Reporter:
Alpha company has

reached Hill 943.

(gunfire)

Force them in this way! Up!

Reporter: After sweeping
the area around 943,

Hill 943 is taken.

There is nothing to take.

And now that the enemy
is gone,

there is no reason
for the Americans to stay.

Marlantes: When we
abandoned the hill,

it was crashing to our morale

because your friends died.

What was that all
that about?

Reporter:
There is a hill in Vietnam

which was assaulted twice,
taken twice

and abandoned twice
by Americans.

And today,
943 is again controlled

by the North Vietnamese.

Safer:
Progress was not being made.

There was no end in sight.

How do you measure
progress?

So it was kind of
an absurd situation.

(indistinct chatter)

Reporter:
How do you feel about it now

that's it's all over?

Pretty bad in a way,

you live with him,
you work with him,

you get really
attached to them.

I had three that
died in my arms,

that hurt more
anything else.

(gunfire)

We have to carry them out,
you know.

And that's when it
bothers you.

When you got to carry them
through the slop,

it really gets to you.

♪ (somber music) ♪

Marlantes: I'd lose friends
and I would just like--

Wow. You know,
I got a job to do here and

you throw him on a chopper

and that'll be the last
you'll see him.

And so you're constantly

shoving it down
because if you didn't

you couldn't function.

Crowd: Stop the war now!

Reporter:
These women came

by the thousands to the
Pentagon this week.

They demand to see
Secretary of Defense

Robert McNamara to ask him

to stop sending their sons
to Vietnam.

And they showed their anger
and frustration.

Women's Strike For Peace:
Stop war now! Stop war now!

(yelling)

(clapping)

Given the nature

of the enemy, it seems to me

that the strategy we are
following at this time

is the proper one.

And that it is producing
results.

We will prevail in Vietnam

over the Communist aggressor.

(applause)

Ricks:
Fundamentally we didn't have

a strategy in the Vietnam War

except that of attrition.

Marlantes:
They talked about,

"Well, we can kill
300 North Vietnamese

for everyone of us."

Do the American people
care about the 300?

No. They care about the one.

(gunfire and explosions)

Reporter:
500,000 American troops,

14,000 American dead,

the war in Vietnam
is no longer simply

their war to win or lose.

It's ours as well.

And it has become
the most divisive

in 100 years of
American history.

Peace now!

So it was the
first time that all these

different factions
and philosophies

and personalities came
together in one place.

(crowd yelling)

Tom Hayden:
The seed was planted

when there was a massive
march on the Pentagon.

People realized
that we could

go beyond light protest

into more
massive civil disobedience

and shake-up the war makers.

(yelling)

McNamara had been
managing the war since 1961.

The man was just overwhelmed
with guilt.

In less than 60 days,
I will observe

seven years as
Secretary of Defense.

No one of my predecessors
has served so long.

I, myself, did not plan to.

Robert McNamara
leaves office.

I think it's fair to say

that he is, by that point,

tortured on a personal level
by the war.

(gunfire)

Mike Wallace:
Tonight, the Communists

hit the very
heart of Saigon,

the brand new U.S.
Embassy building

and at least 10 cities
in that war torn country.

Kurlansky:
The Tet offensive was

the big show
of the Viet Cong.

It's huge, they got
the Americans and

the South Vietnamese
completely by surprise.

Kurlansky: It exposed how
tenuous the U.S. hold was.

Walter Cronkite:
Who won and who lost

in the great Tet offensive
against the cities?

I'm not sure.

But terrible loss
in American lives,

prestige and morale,

and this is a tragedy of
our stubbornness there.

It seems now more
certain than ever

that the bloody
experience of Vietnam

is to end in a stalemate.

When Walter Cronkite,

who was the most
trusted man in America

said that,
'Lyndon Johnson said,

"If I've lost Walter,

I've lost middle America."'

Lyndon Johnson realized
he was no longer

in charge of the war. The
war was in charge of him.

Reporter:
What'd you lose?

I had a...
36 when I started.

We got a... 21 killed.

What were
you thinking about?

I was thinking...

of my wife and...

my baby that I haven't seen,
I guess.

I got a
baby coming in June

and that was on my mind.

I just knew we were
going to be overrun.

You look at the
history of Vietnam,

it was a tragic
'Comedy of Errors'

from beginning to end.

And the tragedy of Johnson

is that he achieved
remarkable things,

particularly in
terms of Civil Rights

but will be remembered
for Vietnam.

Schenkkan:
It's the full Shakespearean

wheel of fortune.

The man who has nothing,

who rises to everything,

and then loses it all.

In a moment of
tragedy and trauma

the duties of this
office fell upon me.

With American
sons in the field

far away

and the America's future

under challenge
right here at home,

I have concluded

that I should not
permit the presidency

to become involved in
the partisan divisions

that are developing
in this political year.

Accordingly,
I shall not seek

and I will not accept

the nomination of my party

for another term
as your President.