All language subtitles for The.Vietnam.War.S01E09.A.Disrespectful.Loyalty.May.1970-March.1973.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-TOPKEK

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CROWD No more war!
No more war!

No more war!
No more war!

No more war! No more war!

No more war! No more war!

No more war!
No more war!

No more war!

CROWD U.S.A.!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

𝄞 Love is but a song to sing

𝄞 Fear's the way we die

𝄞 You can
make the mountains ring 𝄞

𝄞 Or make the angels cry

𝄞 Come on, people, now

𝄞 Smile on your brother

𝄞 Everybody get together

𝄞 Try to love one another
right now 𝄞

My brother picked me up

at Travis Air Force Base.

And I remember he had a Valiant,

an old beat-up Valiant.

And we met inside the terminal.

And I was so happy to see him.

I just love my brother.

He said, "Now,
I don't want you to get upset,

"but we're probably
gonna get some trouble

when we go outside."

And I went, "Trouble?
I just got back from Vietnam.

What are you talking about?"

I mean,
I knew that there was unrest.

𝄞 If you hear the song I sing

But when we got in his car to drive away from the terminal,

we had to wind our way
through protesters

that were pounding on the car
with the ends of their signs

and were snarling at me

and pounding on the window
and shouting obscenities at me.

That was my welcome home
to America.

I was just stunned.

𝄞 Come on, people, now

I have never felt...

any anger toward people
that were war protesters.

It's a legitimate
political stance.

For people that descended into that,
I...

I-I think that
they were really wrong.

𝄞 Try to love one another right now 𝄞

It was this-this heartbreak
of why are you doing this?

I mean,
you don't know who I am.

And it happened over and over.

𝄞 Everybody get together

𝄞 Try to love one another
right now 𝄞

𝄞 Right now

𝄞 Right now.

In the spring of 1970,

despite the uproar
over the invasion of Cambodia

and the killing of four students
at Kent State,

President Nixon's hold
on what he called

"the great silent majority"
seemed secure.

A Gallup poll showed
that most Americans

blamed the students,
not the national guardsmen,

for what had happened.

At an antiwar demonstration
in Manhattan,

hundreds of construction
workers in hard hats

attacked protestors,

sending 70 to the hospital.

And when workers
marched on City Hall

a few days later,

Nixon wrote
the president of their union

to say how pleased he was

"to see the tremendous
outpouring

"of support for our country

demonstrated in your orderly
and most heartening rally."

How do you feel about
the construction workers

who attacked the, uh,
demonstrators last Friday?

Don't say attacked.
Don't say attacked.

They were provoked.

They were provoked, man.

We work for a living.

Every day we get up,
we're out there in the cold,

the rain, the snow, right?

We got to have these dirty s...

Forget about it,
I don't want to talk about it, man.

Anybody that can take
a Viet Cong flag and fly it

and wave it and bring it
up this avenue

and get away with it-
and get away with it-

that's unpatriotic to me.

When American troops withdrew from Cambodia

at the end of June,

the White House reported
that they had killed

11,349 enemy troops,

captured 22,000 weapons

and had destroyed 11,688
bunkers and buildings.

But after so many years
of fighting,

more and more Americans
were tired of the war,

wanted to get out
of Southeast Asia,

and did not want the president
to expand the conflict further.

Among their representatives
in Congress,

antiwar sentiment
had steadily grown.

As the president searched
for a face-saving way

to end the war,
he continued to withdraw troops.

CROWD U.S.A.!
U.S.A.!

But even as American
casualty figures fell,

the gulf between Americans
at home widened,

tearing communities,
neighborhoods,

even families apart.

CROWD No more war!
No more war!

Nixon was convinced-

just as Lyndon Johnson
had been-

that the antiwar movement
was somehow

being directed from Hanoi,

Beijing and Moscow.

"Within the iron gates
of the White House

a siege mentality
was settling in,"

a Nixon aide remembered.

"It was now us
against them.

"Gradually,
as we drew the circle closer around us,

the ranks of them
began to swell."

I think the Vietnam War drove a stake

right into the heart
of America.

It polarized the country

as it had probably
never been polarized

since before the Civil War.

And unfortunately,
we've never moved

really far away from that.

And we never recovered.

No more war!
No more war!

U.S.A.!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

No more war! No more war!

No more war! No more war!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
No more war! No more war!

No more war! No more war!
No more war!

𝄞

Thank you very much, indeed,

and welcome to this,
uh, special,

very special edition
ofThe David Frost Show.

The vice president himself
wanted to debate with students,

and we suggested a format
in which he might like to do so.

Welcome Eva Jefferson
from Northwestern,

who testified
before the Scranton Commission

on Campus Unrest and is majoring
in political science.

Is that right?
Right.

Eva Jefferson,

whose father
had served in Vietnam,

was now the student body
president

at Northwestern University.

After Kent State,

she had forcefully stopped
angry protestors

from burning down the ROTC
building at her school,

and later testified before
a presidential commission

looking into the causes
of student unrest.

She had warned then
that some students

were becoming so frustrated

that they felt
they had no choice

but to engage in violence.

And right now
it's a privilege to welcome

the vice president
of the United States,

Spiro T. Agnew.

Let me

take brief exception
to one thing you've said,

that the only way
to get the attention

of the society
is to bomb buildings.

What I attempted
to do

before the Scranton Committee
was to explain

what could motivate someone
to blow up a building.

I did not say I endorse this,
and if you read my testimony

quite carefully,
you'll know that I didn't.

And it's this type of-of just
picking up on what,

allegedly,
I said instead of really studying what I said

that-that really disturbs me.

May I respond? Because you're making people

afraid of their
own children.

Yet they're your children,
they're my parents' children,

they're the children
of this country.

Yet you're making people
afraid of them.

And I think this
is the greatest disservice.

There's an honest difference
of agreement on issues,

but-but when you make people
afraid of each other,

you-you isolate people,
and maybe this is your goal,

but I think this is...

this could only have
a disastrous effect

on the country.

Let me say first
that isolating people

is not my goal.

If that were true I wouldn't be
here tonight.

And let me take exception
to that

oft-repeated rationale that,
uh,

violence is the only way
to get results.

I was trying to explain to you
the rationale of some students

who are openly revolutionary.

You're not listening
to what I'm saying.

I'm-I'm really distressed. Just what are... what are you advocating?

They were trying to politically

benefit from
making us out to be

these scary, horrible,
violent people.

We weren't.
We were against the war.

We thought the war was wrong.

We thought we were lied to.

And we were in the streets.

America has always had
a rich tradition of protests.

We were founded
by protesting England.

So to make people
afraid of their kids,

I think, was wrong,
but that's what they were about.

They were fearmongers.

BAO NINH:

It was fratricide.

You can say, "Well,
but-but they are communist."

Okay, they're communist.

"They are the worst Vietnamese
in the entire world.

We were the good Vietnamese."

But let's face
Vietnamese killing Vietnamese.

How-how do you deny that?

If you don't
call that fratricide,

what do you call that?

What do you... how do we...

I explain that
to-to my children?

The Cambodian incursion had

at least temporarily reduced
the flow of North Vietnamese

men and supplies
through that country,

but they were still
streaming down

the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.

The White House
wanted them stopped.

But this time,
South Vietnamese troops

would have to try
to do the job alone.

By the end of 1970,
both houses of Congress

had barred
all U.S. ground personnel,

even advisors
and special forces,

from crossing the border.

On February 8, 1971,

17,000 ARVN troops
began moving into Laos

to destroy
the enemy's jungle bases

and to cut off
the Ho Chi Minh trail.

The Americans
could only provide air support.

Nixon and his
National Security Advisor,

Henry Kissinger,
believed that a successful operation

would boost morale in Saigon

and prove to Hanoi
and the American public

that the ARVN could fight
and win on their own,

that Vietnamization could work.

Their target was the
North Vietnamese logistics hub,

the abandoned town of Tchepone.

U.S. intelligence

believed there were no more

than 22,000 North Vietnamese
troops in the area.

But there would eventually turn
out to be 60,000,

and their commanders knew
there was only one route

the ARVN was likely to take.

Harry Hue,
who had been fighting the communists

for eight years,
was in the invasion force.

HUE

Although individual ARVN units fought bravely,

the invasion was a failure.

Almost half
of the 17,000 South Vietnamese

who entered Laos

would be killed,
wounded or captured.

HUE:

BAO NINH:

In late March,

as the surviving ARVN forces

straggled back
across the border

into South Vietnam,

crowds of weeping women,
children and old men-

dressed in white,
the color of mourning-

begged for news of the soldiers
who were missing.

In Vietnam,
the dead must receive proper burial

so that their restless souls
can have peace,

and their families
needed to know

the time of their deaths

so that they could honor them
each year.

Even before
the invasion was over,

President Nixon
had told an aide,

"We must claim victory,

whatever the outcome."

Consequently, tonight,

I can report that Vietnamization
has succeeded.

Because of
the increased strength

of the South Vietnamese,

because of the success
of the Cambodian operation,

because of the achievements

of the South Vietnamese
operation in Laos,

I am announcing an increase

in the rate
of American withdrawals.

We have it in our power
to leave Vietnam

in a way
that offers a brave people

a realistic hope of freedom.

We have it in our power

to prove to our friends
in the world

that America's
sense of responsibility

remains the world's
greatest single hope of peace.

And generations in the future

will look back
at this difficult,

trying time
in America's history,

and they will be proud

that we demonstrated

that we had the courage

and the character
of a great people.

Dr.
Kissinger, sir.

Yeah.

Mr.
President?

Yeah.
Hi, Henry.

This was the best speech you've delivered

since you've been in office.

Yeah.

I'll tell you one thing,
this was, uh...

This little speech
was a work of art.

I mean,
I-I know a little something about speechwriting.

And it was no act,
because no actor could do it.

No actor in Hollywood
could have done that that well.

It's the best...

I thought that was done well, didn't you think?

First of all, no actor could have written it,

to begin with.

You couldn't have done it
unless you had meant it.

Yeah.

And if it doesn't work,
I don't care.

I mean, right now,
if it doesn't work...

Then let me say, though,

I'm going to find out soon,

and then
I'm going to turn right

so goddamn hard
it'll make your head spin.

We'll bomb those bastards
right out of the...

off the earth.
I really mean it.

𝄞 In this dirty old part
of the city 𝄞

𝄞 Where the sun
refuse to shine 𝄞

𝄞 People tell me
there ain't no use in trying 𝄞

Do you belong
to the same generation

that is protesting
at home?

Do you feel as if you belong

to those people?
Very much.

You do?
Very much.

I wish they'd get us out of here,
I really do.

𝄞 We gotta get out
of this place 𝄞

𝄞 If it's the last thing
we ever do 𝄞

𝄞 We gotta get out
of this place 𝄞

𝄞 Girl, there's a better life

Almost all of us were draftees.

None of us cared a damn
about the war.

We just didn't want
to get blown up.

We just didn't want to die
in the jungle,

holding your guts in.

So the idea is do six months,
maybe eight months,

get an R&R,
take a deep breath and try to finish up,

try to do something that would
get you sent to base camp.

Just don't die
because you're not gonna win.

𝄞 We gotta get out of this place 𝄞

𝄞 If it's the last thing
we ever do 𝄞

Chess is the most serious contest

Glen Hindley will engage in,

for he has not fired a shot
in his nine months

in the field
with Charlie Company.

Well, I haven't shot anybody yet.

I don't plan on it.

I haven't fired my gun
since I been here,

and I like it that way.

How can you get away with that?

Just don't fire it.

I plan to go across the...

across country when I get back

because I'll see
the people I know over here,

plus I'll be able to talk
to a lot of other people,

maybe convince them
that killing for peace

just doesn't make sense.

𝄞 We gotta get out of this place 𝄞

𝄞 If it's the last thing
we ever do 𝄞

𝄞 We gotta get out of this place.
𝄞

"The morale, discipline, and battleworthiness

of the U.S. Armed Forces,"
a retired Marine colonel wrote

in the spring of 1971,

"are lower and worse
than at any time,

possibly in the history
of the United States."

An official report had found

that one out of four
enlisted men in Vietnam

had used marijuana regularly-

but almost never in combat.

There's, uh, drugs everywhere.

Really, you could, uh...

Well, within...
within ten minutes in country,

I-I had people approaching me
selling scag.

What's scag?

It's heroin.

Heroin was cheap,

pure, and everywhere.

The Pentagon
would eventually acknowledge

that 40,000 American troops
had been addicted to it.

𝄞 We gotta get out of this place 𝄞

𝄞 If it's the last thing
we ever do 𝄞

𝄞 We gotta get out
of this place 𝄞

𝄞 Girl, there's a better life

𝄞 For me and you

𝄞 Ooh, baby

"The rearguard
of a once 500,000-man army,"

an officer wrote,

"is numbly extricating itself
from a nightmare war

"the armed forces feel
they had foisted on them

"by bright civilians
who are now back on campus

writing books
about the folly of it all."

Even General Creighton Abrams,

commander of military operations
in Vietnam,

now admitted privately,

"I need to get this army home
to save it."

𝄞 I know it, too, baby

𝄞 Oh, yeah.

The telegrams and letters
coming into this courthouse

are from all parts
of the country.

From Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
a man writes,

"Congratulations
to the Calley jurors.

"A courageous and fair decision.

Justice still exists."

On March 29, 1971,

at Fort Benning, Georgia,

a military court found
Lieutenant William Calley-

and only Lieutenant Calley-

guilty of murdering
Vietnamese civilians

at My Lai back in 1968.

He was sentenced to life
imprisonment at hard labor.

The commander
of Calley's division,

General Samuel Koster,

who had watched some of
the slaughter from a helicopter

and done nothing to stop it,
was now the superintendent

of the U.S. Military Academy
at West Point.

He was forced to resign.

The other 23 officers and men

who had been indicted
were either acquitted

or had their cases dismissed.

The Calley verdict
proved as controversial

as the war itself.

A lady in Cheyenne, Wyoming, says,

"What the jury has
done to Lieutenant Calley

"is a disgrace to this nation.

"The enemy is the enemy,

the enemy is the enemy."

From Bellefontaine, Ohio,
a doctor says,

"Let us not condemn
Lieutenant Calley

"when it is the character
of the war

which is at fault
for such slaughters as My Lai."

What is your initial reaction to this verdict,
sir?

I thought he would be found
not guilty.

'Cause you send in a man
into combat,

you train him to be a...
a killer,

and then, when he does,
why then,

uh, you prosecute him?

Some believed everyone involved should have gone to jail;

others believed that Calley
had been made a scapegoat

for the criminal misdeeds
of his superiors.

And still others felt a systemic
failure of leadership

had occurred
in a chain of command

that stretched all the way up
to the commander in chief.

According to a Gallup poll,

79% of the American public
disagreed with the verdict.

Nixon decided to intervene.

Calley spent just
three days behind bars.

The president
ordered him transferred

from federal prison
to house arrest

at Fort Benning,
pending appeal.

Okay, I'm gonna walk back from each side.

Captain Aubrey Daniel,

who had successfully
prosecuted Calley,

wrote Nixon,
accusing him of compromising

"such a fundamental
moral principle

"as the inherent unlawfulness

of the murder
of innocent persons."

A military appeals court

eventually reduced
Calley's term to 20 years,

the secretary of the army
cut it to ten,

and after just
three-and-a-half years

under house arrest,
he was paroled.

Who's responsible?

The human beings who did this...

These are war crimes.

The individual human beings
who put a rifle muzzle

up against a baby's head

and shot the brains
out of that baby-

nothing happened to them.

Nothing!

And we walked up the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

And they said we walked
900 kilometers-

540 miles in 57 days.

And we met all these people
going both ways.

We met civilians coming south.

We met soldiers
going north and south.

We met people humping
artillery rounds.

We met a...

I remember a whole unit,

a company-size unit,
of women.

On the way,
in one of these villages,

I stole a uniform.

Just khaki pants
and khaki shirt.

And I stole it.

And I folded it up
and I put it in my pack.

By early 1971,

army doctor Hal Kushner

had been a prisoner
of the Viet Cong

in South Vietnam
for more than three years.

He had survived ill treatment
and a host of illnesses,

and he had buried
13 of his fellow captives,

who had died of starvation

and sickness and despair.

Now,
he and the other survivors from his camp

were being moved
all the way to North Vietnam.

Kushner and his companions

eventually reached
the city of Vinh,

where they boarded
a train to Hanoi.

And I put on this fresh uniform,

and when I got off the train

I was met with this officer
in a jeep.

And he just looked at me
and he said,

"You're an officer, aren't you?

You come here."

And he just...
I felt very proud that I looked good

when I came off that train.

Kushner joined hundreds of American captives

who were scattered
among five prisons

in and around Hanoi.

We hadn't been there long when the word came down

from the American
senior ranking officer

that nobody would go home
unless everybody went home.

That nobody would cooperate
with the Vietnamese.

But we heard him
on the camp radio once...

...telling us that
we should cooperate.

And it was obvious,
from his voice and his inflection,

that he had been
tortured and beaten

and was being made to say that.

And that's what they did.

Eventually, Kushner, like most of the prisoners,

would be forced
to record a statement

against the war.

KUSHNER

They wanted propaganda statements

to say the war was criminal,

to say that we were criminals.

And they used our weakness
against us.

CROWD No more war! No more war! No more war!

No more war!
No more war!

The first time in our history

that veterans came home
from a war and said-

while the war
is still going on-

and said,
"This war's got to stop."

And the American people

might not listen to a bunch
of long-haired hippie kids.

What do they know?

But the working class,
the great "silent majority"-

Richard Nixon always talked
about his "silent majority"

that would back him
by being silent-

we were their kids.

And it finally dawned on me-

and this was a long,
painful process-

that...
that I wasn't helping anybody

by keeping my mouth shut.

Less than three weeks after Lieutenant Calley

was found guilty,
some 2,000 members

of an organization called

Vietnam Veterans
Against the War

and their followers descended upon Washington,
D.C.

𝄞 Ooh, storm is threatening

𝄞 My very life today

𝄞 If I don't get some shelter

𝄞 Oh, yeah,
I'm gonna fade away 𝄞

𝄞 War, children

𝄞 It's just a shot away

𝄞 It's just
a shot away 𝄞

𝄞 War, children

𝄞 It's just a shot away

𝄞 It's just a shot away.
𝄞

VVAW was a-a...
it was great therapy.

We were working it out
ourselves.

Vets taking care of vets.

We were generals
in our own right.

And we didn't join anything.

We became something.

And that, yes, I was a Marine,

but I was first and foremost

a citizen
of the United States of America.

And being a citizen,
I had certain responsibilities.

And the largest
of those responsibilities

is standing up to your
government and saying "no"

when it's doing something
that you think

is not in this nation's
best interest.

That is the most important job
that every citizen has.

𝄞 Rape, murder

I served my country as honorably,

when I was in Vietnam Veterans
Against the War,

as I did
as a United States Marine.

And, in fact,
I conducted myself as a Marine

the whole time I was in VVAW.

I... My-my whole life,

I conduct myself as a Marine.

Navy Lieutenant John Kerry,

who had commanded a swift boat
in the Mekong Delta

and was one of
the organization's leaders,

was invited to address

the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee,

still chaired
by J. William Fulbright.

Thank you.

I went up for the presentation.

And it was standing room only.

And I was crammed up against
the wall in the very back.

And when John...

gave that presentation...

...I felt like
he was speaking for all of us.

We could come back to this country and we could be quiet.

We could hold our silence.

We could not tell what went on in Vietnam,
but we feel,

because of what threatens
this country,

we have to speak out.

Millions of men
who have been

taught to deal
and to trade in violence

and who were given
the chance to die

for the biggest nothing
in history,

men who have returned
with a sense of anger

and a sense of betrayal

which no one has yet grasped.

We rationalized
destroying villages

in order to save them.

We saw America lose
her sense of morality,

as she accepted very coolly
a My Lai

and refused to give up
the image of American soldiers

that hand out chocolate bars
and chewing gum.

We learnt the meaning
of free-fire zones,

shoot anything that moves,

and we watched while America
placed a cheapness

on the lives of Orientals.

We watched the United States'
falsification of body counts-

in fact,
the glorification of body counts.

We watched
while men charged up hills

because a general said
that hill has to be taken.

And after losing one platoon
or two platoons,

they marched away

to leave the hill
for the reoccupation

of the North Vietnamese.

And we are asking Americans
to think about that.

Because how do you ask a man

to be the last man to die
in Vietnam?

How do you ask a man to be the
last man to die for a mistake?

And so, when,
30 years from now,

our brothers go down the street
without a leg,

without an arm or a face,

and small boys ask why,

we will be able
to say "Vietnam"

and not mean a filthy,
obscene memory

but mean instead the place
where America finally turned

and where soldiers like us
helped it in the turning.

Thank you.

I thought, "I have never heard

"so... such an incredible speech

that says exactly what
I'm feeling."

You know?
It was extraordinary.

Extraordinary.

But some veterans remembered a different part

of Kerry's testimony,

testimony in which he repeated
accounts of atrocities

he had heard
from other American veterans.

They told the stories of times

that they had personally raped,
cut off ears, cut off heads,

taped wires from portable
telephones to human genitals

and turned up the power,

cut off limbs, blown up bodies,

randomly shot at civilians,

razed villages in fashion
reminiscent of Genghis Khan...

What I saw in Vietnam was not the soldier

that Mr.
Kerry or his colleagues

were describing at that time.

There was
no widespread atrocity.

There was...
there were a couple of units

that went right off the rails,
and we can talk about that.

But they were not
out-of-control animals,

which was the way
they were portrayed.

And what was even worse was
they were alluding to the fact

that you would take
ordinary kids

and turn them
into these savages,

war criminals, and the...

that the military
was doing that.

And it didn't.
Didn't happen that way.

I'm still very angry about that.

𝄞 War, children

The next day,

700 Vietnam Veterans
Against the War

gathered at the Capitol.

We originally intended to put our medals in a body bag

and have them delivered
to Congress.

But the Nixon
administration erected

this big wire and wood fence
on the steps of our Capitol

to keep us out.

To keep out
the young men and women

who were fighting that war.

And all that did was piss us off

and give us
the greatest photo opportunity

that we could ever have.

Silver Star.
Purple Heart.

Bronze Star.

Cross of Gallantry. SACHS: Distinguished Flying Cross.

And everything else!

I don't want these fucking medals, man!

The Silver Star,
the third highest medal in the country,

it doesn't mean anything!

Bob Smeal died for these medals!

Lieutenant Panamaroff died
so I got a medal!

Sergeant Johns died
so I got a medal!

I got a Silver Star,
a Purple Heart,

Army Commendation Medal,
eight Air Medals,

National Defense,

and the rest of this garbage!

It doesn't mean a thing!

𝄞 Mm, the flood is threatening

𝄞 My very life

Throwing my medals back was probably harder

than going to the war.

Was actually harder than going
and serving in Vietnam.

𝄞 Or I'm gonna fade away

If this medal is so important, let's make it important.

Here it is.
You can have it back.

End the war in Vietnam.

What else is there?

I... There was nothing else.

I wouldn't put 'em on my wall
for my son.

I never want...
that was the last thing in the world

I would ever want my son
to revere.

It was a difficult decision for me.

I did it out
of a disrespectful loyalty.

I was proud
of my military service.

And I wanted to say,
"You know, I don't think

you guys know that much,"
the American military.

"You know,
I think you should think again

"about this enterprise.

And here you go, pal."

Tim Bagwell from Sacramento,
California,

still on active duty,
and I say get the hell out.

When we threw our medals away,

that got their attention,

because America values
those things.

So do we.

That's why it was so important.

The police had been ordered not to arrest

any of the veterans, because,

Pat Buchanan,
a White House aide, wrote,

they were "being received in
a far more sympathetic fashion

"than other demonstrators.

The 'crazies' will be in town soon enough,"
he continued,

"and if we want
a confrontation,

let's have it with them."

He was right.

In the days
immediately following

the veterans' protest,

other groups
of antiwar activists

moved into the capital.

The most radical called itself
the May Day Tribe

and threatened
to close the city down.

For three days,
they staged hit-and-run raids

throughout Washington-

blocking bridges
and traffic circles,

smashing windows,

hurling rocks, burning cars.

If Richard Nixon thought

that this week was something,
wait until the next round.

This is only a warm-up
of what is going to come.

This is going to continue
until the war ends.

Some 12,000 were arrested-

7,000 on a single day,

the largest number of arrests
in 24 hours

in United States history.

I realized, coming away from Washington,

that our whole strategy
was wrong

and that we were becoming
more and more militant

at a time
when more and more Americans

were opposing the war

but were turned off
by our militancy.

So we were doing
exactly the wrong thing.

The White House was initially pleased.

Public sympathy for the veterans
was largely forgotten

in the face of days of battle
in the streets.

Polls showed
that most Americans approved

of the arrests.

But those same polls
also showed

that most Americans
no longer believed

they were being told the truth
about Vietnam.

When I got home, my... so my dad's pissed off.

'Cause he's-he's a true believer,
you know?

He was already receiving threats

because I'd thrown away
their medals.

And that pissed my dad off then.

And you would've thought
I hadn't done anything wrong.

Because then somebody outside
the family was messing with me.

And he said, "Son, don't worry.

"Those were your medals.
You paid for 'em.

"You can do anything
you want with 'em.

"They want to jack with us,
they'll face us both.

We'll-we'll take 'em on
in the driveway."

You know?
"Yo, Dad."

On June 12, 1971,

Richard Nixon's daughter,
Tricia,

married Edward Cox
in the White House Rose Garden.

The country watched it all
on television.

The wedding was still news
the next day.

But another story on the front
page of theNew York Times

caught
the president's attention.

The article, by Neil Sheehan,

was the first report
of what came to be called

the Pentagon Papers,

7,000 pages
of highly classified documents

and historical narrative,

compiled secretly at the orders

of former Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara.

He had hoped a study
of the decision-making process

that had led the United States
to become so deeply involved

in Vietnam would help
future policymakers

avoid similar errors.

I thought I knew a great deal.

I thought I knew most
of what was worth knowing

about the war.

And, suddenly, I didn't.

It wasn't a reporter's version
of an event.

It wasthe ir version
of an event.

It was their telegrams,
their orders,

their memoranda, et cetera.

The documents proved that American presidents

and their closest advisors

had steered the United States

toward deeper involvement
in Vietnam,

despite their own grave doubts
about the chances for victory.

They had known
that the Saigon government

was weak and incompetent...

...that the enemy was
disciplined and resilient...

...and that the bombing
of the North wasn't working.

Yet,
they had routinely lied about all these things

to Congress
and the American people.

I certainly don't endorse

anyone releasing top-secret
material to the press.

Um, on the other hand, uh...

I was very concerned

about the fact that the, uh,

government was not being up
front with the American people

in certain respects
with the Vietnam War.

Two copies of the report had been stored

at the RAND Corporation,
a California think tank,

where Daniel Ellsberg,

one of the study's 36 authors,
worked as an analyst.

Ellsberg had once
supported the war.

He'd served in the Pentagon,

and spent two years working
for the State Department

in Vietnam.

But he had come to see the war
as profoundly immoral,

and hoped
that if Americans understood

how administration after
administration had misled them

about what was being
done in their name,

they might help
bring it to an end.

He and Anthony Russo,
another RAND employee,

secretly copied
most of the report.

Ellsberg offered it to three
leading antiwar senators,

hoping they would be willing
to reveal its contents.

None dared do it.

Meanwhile,
Neil Sheehan of theNew York Times,

who had been reporting
on Vietnam since 1962,

and had already secretly read
some of the documents,

asked Ellsberg
to show him the whole report.

At that point, I was very passionate about the war.

I felt
that it was really wrong,

because we were getting
a lot of Americans

and a lot of Vietnamese killed
for no purpose.

We were gonna lose this war.

And so I vowed to myself
when I saw this material

that this is never
gonna go back

into a government safe again.

The American public
had paid for it

with the lives of their sons
and with their treasure,

and it's gonna be published.

That piece in theTimes

is, of course,

a massive security leak from the Pentagon,
you know.

Yeah.

It all relates, of course, to everything up until we came in.

Yeah.

And it's, uh, it's ver... it's hard on Johnson,

it's hard on Kennedy,
it's hard on Lodge.

At first, Nixon was not unduly disturbed

by the newspaper's revelations.

They reflected badly
on his Democratic predecessors,

not on him.

But Henry Kissinger
quickly convinced Nixon

that if theTime s were
permitted

to reveal the classified secrets
of earlier presidents,

it was only a matter of time
until someone leaked his own.

The Justice Department obtained
a temporary court order

forbidding theTi mes from
publishing further installments

on the grounds
of national security.

But soon, both theBoston Globe

and theWashington Pos t were
also printing excerpts.

On June 30, 1971,

the United States
Supreme Court,

citing the First Amendment,

ruled six to three
that theTimes had the right

to publish
the stolen documents.

And I went down into the basement

to wait for the presses
to start to roll,

and they had these huge
round reams of paper.

And, finally,
the presses started to roll.

And it was just an exquisite
moment of vindication

of the freedom
of the press in this country

and how important it is.

That changed

our whole attitude
toward government.

Up until then,
the president wouldn't lie.

After then, they always lie.

The day the presses began to roll again,

Nixon ordered
attorney general John Mitchell

to try to discredit Daniel Ellsberg,
who had just

been indicted
by a federal grand jury

for theft and conspiracy

under the Espionage Act
of 1917.

Nixon feared Ellsberg possessed more classified documents

that would show
that he himself had lied

about the secret bombing
of Cambodia and Laos,

and he believed
that Ellsberg had had help

and wanted to know the names
of his co-conspirators.

The president
created a private,

clandestine investigative unit
within the White House.

It came to be called
"The Plumbers."

John Ehrlichman,
one of Nixon's closest aides,

eventually ordered them
to burglarize the office

of Ellsberg's
Los Angeles psychiatrist

in search of material

with which he could be
blackmailed into silence.

Nixon may have privately feared
something else as well.

He was told that the safe
at another think tank,

the Brookings Institution in Washington,
D.C.,

contained files that might
reveal the secret role

his campaign had played
in torpedoing the peace talks

on the eve of his election
three years earlier,

which President Johnson
had then considered treason.

Nixon wanted his "plumbers"
to break into Brookings,

crack the safe,
and remove the files.

None of it was legal.

Nixon did not care.

The Brookings break-in would never take place.

The burglars would be unable

to find Ellsberg's file
in his doctor's office.

But Nixon's obsession
with his enemies

would be the undoing
of his presidency.

Once a month, I have a dream

that I'm... I'm back...
I'm back in basic training.

But I'm the age I am now,

which is way too old
to be in the military.

But, you know,
somehow I've gotten a waiver,

and I'm going
through all the training,

and there's some major war
going on.

And I'm going to get there,
and I'm going to be a hero

and vindicate myself
and be taken back by my country.

Jack Todd had crossed into Canada in early 1970,

rather than take part

in what he believed
to be a dishonorable war.

He found himself living
in a strange underground world

of deserters and draft evaders

and the disaffected Canadians
who gathered around them.

In 1971,
he was living in Montreal,

restless and often depressed,

increasingly alienated
from his country,

but also anxious always
for news from home,

and eager to know
how his boyhood friends

from Scottsbluff, Nebraska,
were doing.

One, named Ron Bales,

had lived just down the street.

And, uh...
my mother sent me a letter, um,

and I remember taking
the clipping out of it.

I had walked up to Mount Royal
in Montreal to read the letter.

And the clipping was from
theScottsbluff Star-Herald,

and it was about Ron
being killed in Vietnam.

Why?
Why?

It was long after we knew
how wrong the war was,

and guys like Ron were still dying,
you know.

Why?

The government today
restricted the use

of the weed killer 2,4,5-T
on the ground

that the chemical has caused
birth defects

in some laboratory animals.

Since 1962, American and South Vietnamese forces

had sprayed some 20 million
gallons of herbicides

over roughly one quarter
of South Vietnam.

The idea had been
to reduce casualties

by clearing areas
around U.S. installations,

and to deny the enemy crops
and forest cover.

The most frequently used
defoliant was Agent Orange,

which contained 2,4,5-T.

When environmentalists convinced

the Nixon administration
to ban the weed killer

on American farms,

the Pentagon
had reluctantly agreed

to stop using Agent Orange
in Vietnam.

The ecological damage defoliants
did was obvious.

The damage done to soldiers
and civilians

would be the subject
of angry debate for decades.

Opposition to the Saigon government

is not just Viet Cong.

How many governments

actually care
for the Vietnamese people?

The student antiwar, anti-American movement

is larger than its small
demonstrations indicate.

You don't need military aid...

...to promote democracy
in Vietnam.

To return
to the Vietnamese people

their right that...

their right to speak freely.

You don't need even one penny.

You don't need
to consult the White House,

you don't need to care
about the American media,

you don't need French,
you don't need Chinese,

you don't need Americans.

If you really care for Vietnam
then you turn back inside.

South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu

was campaigning for reelection.

The Americans
had insisted on it

and urged him
not to rig the race,

for fear it would
resemble too closely

the fraudulent
communist "elections"

routinely denounced
by the United States.

But Thieu made sure

no serious candidates
ran against him,

and claimed to have won
94% of the vote.

It became known
as "the one-man election,"

and added to the ranks

of what was called
the "Third Force":

South Vietnamese hoping
for a negotiated settlement

and an end to the bloodshed.

By the middle of 1971,

Nixon and Kissinger
were looking for a way

to get all U.S. troops
out of Vietnam

before his
re-election campaign began

the following year,

but to do so without causing

Saigon to fall too soon.

At the secret talks in Paris,

Kissinger had offered his
North Vietnamese counterpart,

Le Duc Tho,
the most significant concessions

the United States had yet made:

North Vietnam could
keep its troops in the South-

tens of thousands of them.

And in exchange for the release
of American prisoners of war,

all American troops

would be withdrawn
within seven months.

Le Duc Tho countered
with a new offer of his own:

Hanoi would
release the prisoners

simultaneously with
the departure of U.S. forces.

But he still insisted
that Washington remove

President Thieu from power.

Kissinger was encouraged
that the North Vietnamese

seemed, for the first time,
to be negotiating seriously.

He could almost "taste peace,"
he told a friend.

Thieu knew nothing

about the new American
concessions to Hanoi.

He was worried
about something else.

NBC News interrupts regular programming

to bring you a special report.

The announcement I shall
now read is being issued

simultaneously in Peking
and in the United States.

Richard Nixon,

famous for the ferocity
of his anticommunism,

astonished the world
by announcing

that he was planning to restore
relations with China

that had been severed
for more than two decades.

The United States
had gone to war in Vietnam

in part to block
Chinese expansionism.

What would Nixon's visit mean
for Thieu's future

or for that of his country?

Thieu was afraid he knew.

"America has been
looking for a new mistress,"

he told an aide,

"and now Nixon
has discovered China.

"He does not want to have
the old mistress around.

Vietnam has become
old and ugly."

I believe it was in the fall of 1971.

And they called us out
and they hung a bed sheet

and they had a projector
and they showed us

color and
black and white movies

of these protests
in Washington.

And in the same film

it showed John Kerry.

And I remember
he was very articulate,

very, very well spoken,

very fluent

and a good spokesman

for his cause.

Someone has to die
so that President Nixon

won't be-
and these are his words-

"the first president
to lose a war."

And I remember very well,

he's sitting
with his fatigue jacket

and long hair

and testifying about atrocities

and war crimes that...

we perpetrated.

Cut off limbs, blown up bodies,

randomly shot at civilians...

But I was shocked by what he said.

And I didn't believe it.

I didn't believe it at all.

I mean, I'm sophisticated to know,
and I knew then,

that bad things happen in war
and they happen on both sides,

and I had seen the evidence of the other side too,
also.

And I knew it.

And...
but still, to hear the testimony

and to hear it used as a weapon

against our further prosecution
of this war

that we were suffering for
was very powerful indeed.

A few months later

Kushner got
an even bigger shock.

VALERIE KUSHNER
My son has no father.

This Christmas Day we celebrate
the birth of a son to Mary

and this Christmas Day
some other mother's son

will die in Vietnam.

That death takes away
all that was taught to us

by Christ's birth.

The whole time I was in the South

I never got one letter,
one bit of information.

When I got to North Vietnam
I got no letter,

no bit of information,
nothing.

Then,
I think it may have been Christmas of '71,

my wife wrote an op-ed piece
in theNew York Times.

She had become
politically active.

The families of POWs

overwhelmingly supported
the Nixon administration.

Valerie Kushner did not,

and the North Vietnamese
were quick

to exploit her antiwar views.

They broadcast a message

they had permitted her husband
to record for her.

It was the first time
she had heard his voice

in four years.

KUSHNER
I received the glasses, Val,

and my eyes
have improved considerably.

Please let me know
about Brother John.

He or she is almost four now,

and he or she is old enough
to understand

where Daddy is
and that I love him or her

immeasurably
despite our never meeting.

I calculate that T-Bird
is now in second grade,

and I know she is doing well.

She is a grown-up lady now

and I hope you have plans for
piano or ballet lessons soon.

Happy eighth birthday,
dear T-Bird,

and Merry Christmas.

When I left you
I promised to come home

before you were five.

I didn't fulfill that promise,
but when I do return,

I will never leave you again.

His optimism about the whole
situation amazes me.

I'm just very happy

that he can't see
this morning's newspaper.

Because I-I don't
have the same optimism

or the same confidence
in this government

that he seems to have.

President Nixon's visit to China in February of 1972

not only alarmed
President Thieu,

it worried Hanoi as well.

The North Vietnamese
remembered how Ho Chi Minh

had felt betrayed in 1954

when Moscow and Beijing
had compelled them

to sign the Geneva Accords,
dividing Vietnam in two.

Now,
they were concerned that warmer relations

between the United States
and China

might soon mean
less support from Beijing.

Nixon was also planning
to travel to Moscow

to meet with Soviet premier
Leonid Brezhnev,

seeking to ease tensions

with North Vietnam's
other communist patron.

Before that summit took place,
First Secretary Le Duan,

the man who headed
the Politburo in Hanoi,

decided to undertake
a new kind of offensive.

It would be conventional warfare
this time,

and on a scale
he had never before attempted.

Le Duan had
several goals in mind:

to strengthen his hand
at the peace talks

by altering the military balance
of power

in South Vietnam,

to show that the ARVN
could not stand on their own,

and to convince the Soviets
and the Chinese

his revolution
was still worth supporting.

The assault began on March 30,
1972.

14 North Vietnamese
infantry divisions-

more than 120,000 men-

now, for the first time,

supported by hundreds of
Soviet and Chinese-made tanks

and other armored vehicles,
attacked on three fronts:

across the demilitarized zone,

in the Central Highlands

and west of Saigon.

Americans would call it
"The Easter Offensive."

To the South Vietnamese,

it would be remembered
as "The Summer of Flames."

The South Vietnamese Army knew this day was coming:

the day without Americans.

It was to be the big test,

both for them

and for President Nixon's
Vietnamization program.

The results in so far
are not encouraging.

Whole battalions of
the government's third division

joined the refugees
on the road south.

They had been outnumbered,
overpowered, overwhelmed.

An entire ARVN regiment

surrendered at Camp Carroll.

North Vietnamese troops

then swiftly overran
Quang Tri Province,

driving tens of thousands of
terrified refugees southward.

They nearly cut South Vietnam
in half

through the Central Highlands

and drove toward Saigon,
hoping to seize large areas

along the Cambodian border.

It looked as if
it were going to be

a total defeat for the ARVN.

There were only 60,000
U.S. military personnel

left in South Vietnam,

and very few of them
were combat troops.

Suddenly,
the survival of everything Nixon and Kissinger

had worked for was in peril.

They had to do something-
and fast.

Nixon ordered up Operation Linebacker-

massive air attacks

on the advancing
North Vietnamese.

"The bastards
have never been bombed

"like they're going to be this time,"
he said.

The most crucial battle
of the Easter Offensive

was fought at An Loc,

a city that commanded Route 13,

a paved highway
that led directly to Saigon,

just 60 miles away.

North Vietnamese artillery fire

and a massive infantry
and armor attack

drove the city's ARVN defenders

into an area
less than a mile square.

Repeated efforts to reinforce
and resupply them failed.

The ARVN bravely held out.

The number one thing we did

was coordinate the air strikes.

General Hollingsworth
went to General Abrams

and begged
for all the B-52s he could get,

and on the 10th and 11th of May,

he planned a B-52 strike
every 50 minutes for 24 hours.

In the end,

American airpower
made the difference.

The North Vietnamese
and their armored columns,

massed in the open,

proved easy targets
for American pilots.

"This,"
one American advisor said,

"was the kind of war
we came to fight."

PHAM LUC:

The North Vietnamese suffered 10,000 casualties

at An Loc alone

and lost most of their tanks
and heavy artillery.

The bottom line was that all the air power

in the world would
not make a difference

if the ARVN hadn't
stood and fought.

They had held Kon Tum,
they had held An Loc,

they had re-taken Quang Tri.

They had taken the best
that the North Vietnamese

had to throw at them.

So I thought if we continue
to maintain that support,

perhaps they had a chance.

The Easter Offensive, to me,

showed that the
South Vietnamese could fight,

but only up to a certain point.

So, my question would be,

what would happen when
the Americans left

with their B-52s, you know?

Americans may have approved of the renewed use

of American air power
to stop the communist advance

into the South,

but Nixon had also ordered
American planes to resume

sustained bombing
of North Vietnam,

which had been halted since
the Johnson administration.

Some saw the new bombing,
which vastly exceeded

all previous campaigns,

as evidence that a war Nixon had
promised was winding down

was once again being escalated.

The bombing campaign

was much more extensive

than the bombing campaign
under Lyndon Johnson.

And from a standpoint

of pressuring them
to make concessions

at the negotiating table,

historically,
that's how you did it.

Only it didn't work
with these guys.

They took the pounding.

Le Minh Khue, who had served four years

as a Youth Volunteer
on the Ho Chi Minh trail,

was now back home
in North Vietnam.

LE MINH KHUE:

Among the thousands of South Vietnamese

who lost their lives
in the Easter Offensive

was the brother
of Phan Quang Tue.

I had a brother, Tuan.

And we were raised together.

He would have been now 67.

When his plane was shot down

and later on they weren't
able to recover him,

his body, so he disappeared,

he was missing in action,
he was 26 years old.

He has his full life
ahead of him.

Tuan never had a chance to live his life.

And I can never
overcome the feeling,

as to himself

and his generation,

sacrifice their lives for what?

And the frustrating thing is
that even Vietnamese themself

do not seem to value that loss.

There's only one way to stop the killing.

That is to keep the weapons
of war out of the hands

of the international outlaws
of North Vietnam.

Throughout the war in Vietnam,

the United States has
exercised a degree of restraint

unprecedented
in the annals of war...

Le Duan's Easter Offensive, like Tet,

had been a great gamble.

So was Nixon's next move.

The massive North Vietnamese
assault had failed,

the president said,

but it could never have been
mounted in the first place

without weapons and supplies
provided by China

and the Soviet Union.

Accordingly,
he ordered 11,000 mines laid

in North Vietnamese waters
to block further access

to Haiphong harbor.

It was something the Joint
Chiefs had been asking for

for years.

The scheduled summit
with the Soviets

was just two weeks away,

and some advisors
had urged the president

not to take any action
that directly threatened

Soviet ships,
for fear they would cancel it.

Nixon thought he had
to take the risk.

And so he spoke
directly to Moscow.

Let us not slide back
toward the dark shadows

of a previous age.

We do not ask you
to sacrifice your principles

or your friends,

but neither should you
permit Hanoi's intransigence

to blot out the prospects
we together

have so patiently prepared.

Nixon's gamble paid off.

The Soviets and
the Chinese denounced

the president's action,
but then did nothing.

On May 26,
the United States and the Soviet Union signed

an historic Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty,

the first agreement
to limit nuclear armaments

since the Cold War began.

For the Soviet Union,
for China,

as well
as for the United States,

Vietnam's significance
was steadily receding.

I know.

On the morning of June 8, 1972,

Nick Ut,
a 21-year-old South Vietnamese photographer

working
for the Associated Press,

was accompanying ARVN troops
on Highway One,

moving toward a village
called Trang Bang,

to dislodge
North Vietnamese forces

that had occupied it
during the Easter Offensive.

Ut was beginning
to put his cameras away,

ready to return to Saigon,

when he saw a South Vietnamese
fighter suddenly dip down

toward the fleeing refugees,

whom the pilot mistook
for the enemy.

Ut drove the badly burned girl, Kim Phuc,

and several other
injured children

to a hospital in Saigon.

She had been burned
over 30% of her body.

Then,
Ut raced to the AP darkroom

to find out
what he had caught on film.

His photo editor in Saigon told him

they could not send the picture
out on the wire,

because the girl was naked.

But then Ut's boss,

the legendary
combat photographer Horst Faas,

saw the pictures.

UT:

Nick Ut's photograph appeared

on front pages around the world

and won the Pulitzer Prize.

For many Americans,

even many of those
who had supported the war,

the image seemed to signal
that enough was enough.

Kim Phuc would survive.

She eventually left Vietnam
and settled outside Toronto.

I introduce
Valerie Kushner of Virginia

to second the nomination
of George McGovern.

Mr. Chairman, Democrats,

my participation
in this convention is a tribute

to the reforms instituted
by the Democratic Party,

for I am a woman,
and I am under 30.

But I also represent
an even smaller minority:

the wives of Americans
who are missing

or imprisoned in Southeast Asia.

Valerie Kushner,

hoping to get her husband, Hal,
home as soon as possible,

had become an ardent supporter
of the candidacy

of Senator George McGovern
of South Dakota.

A decorated bomber pilot
in World War II,

McGovern had called
for an early end

to the bombing of the North,

a halt to Congressional funding
for the war,

and immediate withdrawal

from Vietnam
once the POWs were released.

I knew that he would bring
my husband home.

But even more important,
he will bring America home.

And it is for that reason

that I am proud
to second the nomination

of our next president,
Senator George S. McGovern.

By the time her candidate

finally accepted
the nomination,

it was 2:48 in the morning.

Most Americans were asleep.

McGOVERN: During four administrations of both parties,

a terrible war has been
charted behind closed doors.

I want those doors opened,

and I want that war closed.

McGovern's campaign quickly collapsed.

He botched the selection
of his running mate,

and secretly asked an aide
in Paris

to talk with the
North Vietnamese about POWs,

and then denied he'd meddled
in the peace process.

Organized labor,

traditionally the Democrats'
most reliable ally,

refused to endorse
the party's candidate

for the first time in 20 years.

McGovern's poll numbers eroded
steadily over the summer.

Still, hoping to find material

that might be used
to smear the opposition,

Nixon's aides had already
authorized the Plumbers

to make another break-in,

this time at Democratic
National Headquarters

in the Washington, D.C.,
apartment complex

called the Watergate.

They had been caught.

One of the most fascinating and exotic stories

ever to come out of Washington,
D.C.,

is the talk
of the Capitol today.

Five men were arrested
early Saturday

while trying to install
eavesdropping equipment

at the Democratic
National Committee.

And it turns out
that one of them has an office

in the headquarters
of the Committee

for the Re-Election
of the President.

𝄞 It's a wonder,
wonder woman 𝄞

𝄞 You're so wild
and wonderful 𝄞

𝄞 'Cause it seems whenever

𝄞 We're together

𝄞 The planets all...

Barbarella- Jane Fonda was...

was one of our major fantasies.

You know?
I mean, major fantasies.

And, uh, we couldn't believe it

when that fantasy
went to North Vietnam.

She was held to a different
standard of conduct

by being our fantasy,
you know, our dream girl.

It's like our dream girl
betrayed us.

𝄞 Where have all the young men gone?
𝄞

𝄞 They are all in uniform

𝄞 When will they ever learn?

𝄞 When will they ever learn?
𝄞

𝄞 Where have all...

Over the years, a steady stream

of Americans opposed to the war
would visit Hanoi,

including the folk singer
Joan Baez,

David Dellinger
of the War Resisters League,

the writer Susan Sontag,

and Tom Hayden of
the Indochina Peace Campaign.

But no visitor
made more headlines

than the actress Jane Fonda.

During two weeks
in the summer of 1972,

she broadcast at least
ten times over Radio Hanoi,

denouncing American POWs

for having committed
war crimes,

urging the North Vietnamese
to hold out

against American imperialism.

Many Americans
would never forgive her

for what she did and said.

According to international law,

these men are war criminals.

That's according to law,

according
to the Nuremberg principles,

according to the Geneva Accord,
and others.

They should be tried
in front of a court

and probably executed
for what they did.

She's taken a lot of heat for what she did.

And deservedly so.

She did some things
that were terrible.

And-and, yes,

we have a right
to be pissed off at her.

But, you know,

she wasn't the only one.

She's just the only one
we fantasized about.

Four more years!

Four more years!
Four more years!

We have brought over half a million men home,

and more will be coming home.

We have ended
America's ground combat role.

No draftees
are being sent to Vietnam.

We have reduced our casualties
by 98%.

We've gone the extra mile.

In fact,
we've gone tens of thousands of miles

trying to seek a negotiated
settlement of the war.

There are three things,
however, that we have not

and that we will not offer.

We will never abandon
our prisoners of war.

And, second,

we will not join our enemies

in imposing a communist
government on our ally,

the 17 million people
of South Vietnam.

And we will never stain
the honor

of the United States of America.

Back in Paris, Henry Kissinger was determined

to hammer out a peace agreement
before Election Day.

Now Le Duc Tho
made a key concession.

Hanoi no longer insisted

that President Thieu had to go.

There was somehow this compulsion

to come to some kind
of an agreement.

I remember Le Duc Tho when
he produced the draft agreement

in October 8 of '72 to Kissinger,
saying,

"You're in a hurry, aren't you?

You want to do this quickly."

And-and the response was, "Yes."

The two sides soon had a tentative deal,

a "cease-fire in place"

to be followed within 60 days

by a complete withdrawal
of U.S. troops

and the return
of all American POWs.

The United States
stopped bombing the North.

No one had told President Thieu
any of the terms.

The day before Kissinger was to
arrive in Saigon to brief him,

Thieu was handed a document
found in an enemy bunker

in Quang Tin Province.

It was entitled "General
Instructions for Cease-Fire."

It meant that communist cadres
in an isolated province

of his own country already knew
more about what Kissinger

and Le Duc Tho had agreed to
in Paris than he did.

And imagine being given an agreement

concerning the fate of your own country and,
uh,

being told that
you really don't have

any input in the matter.

And, oh, by the way,
we didn't even yet have

the Vietnamese translation,

because that hadn't been
completed.

And we gave him
the English version.

So, I mean,
as a professional diplomat,

somebody who's been in this business all my life,
uh,

I've got to tell you,
that just an awful lot

of diplomatic rules
were broken there.

Thieu refused to accept the terms.

Allowing North Vietnamese troops
to remain in the South

would be the death
of his country.

Nonetheless,
after Kissinger returned home

12 days before the election,

he told the press,
"Peace is at hand."

On November 7, 1972,

Richard Nixon won
a stunning victory.

He was reelected with more
than 60% of the popular vote-

521 electoral votes
to McGovern's 17.

He took every single state
except Massachusetts

and the District of Columbia.

Now,
the president resolved to rid himself

of Vietnam completely before
his second inauguration.

To calm Thieu's fears
of what was to come,

Nixon launched
another massive airlift

of military equipment
to South Vietnam.

"If we had given this aid
to the North Vietnamese,"

one American general said,

"they could have fought us
for the rest of the century."

The Paris peace talks resumed.

But then,
Le Duc Tho suddenly announced

he needed to return to Hanoi
for consultation.

We could only conclude that maybe they were

having some doubts
about whether

they wanted to go through
with the agreement,

because we had sent
so many supplies

to Saigon
in the intervening weeks.

There turned out to be dissension

on the communist side as well.

Hanoi, like Washington,
had not bothered to consult

with its southern comrades.

It had dropped the two demands
that meant the most

to the Viet Cong- the removal of Thieu,
and the release

of some 30,000
of their prisoners.

"Hanoi's message was clear,"

one bitter
Viet Cong official said.

"It cared more about
American prisoners of war

than it did for us."

Nixon ordered Kissinger
to suspend the talks,

and then he resumed the bombing
of North Vietnam

to further punish Hanoi,

and to signal to both
Hanoi and Saigon

that the United States
might use its airpower

to defend South Vietnam

even after a peace agreement
was signed.

On December 18,

Nixon unleashed round-the-clock
air strikes

that flattened targets
around Hanoi and Haiphong.

It would be remembered
as the Christmas Bombing.

And all of a sudden,

around Christmastime,

we hear an Arc Light operation,

B-52s- bom-bom-bom-bom-bom.

And it's all around,
and it is just exploding.

And everyone knew
they were B-52s.

And is...
in the two years that I was there,

that was the first time
I ever heard a bomb.

And it was close.

It was really close.

It was frightening,
but we were still cheering.

I mean,
we were cheering because something was happening.

HUY DUC:

Around the world,

antiwar demonstrators returned
to the streets.

The prime minister of Sweden
compared the United States

to Nazi Germany.

The Pope called the bombing,

which killed more than
1,600 civilians,

"the object of daily grief."

James Reston of theNew York
Times pronounced the raids

"war by tantrum."

Republican Senator
William Saxbe of Ohio said

the president had taken leave
of his senses.

North Vietnam shot down
15 B-52s,

along with 11 other aircraft.

93 crewmen were
reported missing.

45 new prisoners of war
were locked up in Hanoi,

one of whom died in captivity.

Meanwhile,
both the Chinese and the Soviets pressed Hanoi

to resume negotiations.

"The most important thing is
to let the Americans leave,"

Zhou Enlai told
a North Vietnamese official.

"The situation will change
in six months or a year."

On December 26,
Hanoi signaled its willingness

to return to Paris.

It would take just six days
to reach a final agreement.

We bombed them into accepting our concessions.

We bombed them into accepting
our concessions.

And I stand by that statement,
because, in effect,

what we did was to carry out
this massive bombing campaign

in order to basically get back
to pretty much exactly

where we were at the end
of October in '72.

President Thieu still balked at signing on.

Nixon was adamant.

Thieu had to go along with
what Washington and Hanoi

had worked out.

But without informing Congress,

the president assured
Thieu in writing

that the United States would
"respond with full force"

if the North ever violated
the agreement.

"The Americans really leave me no choice,"
Thieu said.

"Either sign
or they will cut off aid.

"On the other hand,
we have an absolute guarantee from Nixon

"to defend the country.

"I am going to agree to sign
and hold him to his word.

He is an honest man
and I am going to trust him."

On January 22, 1973,

at his ranch in the
Hill Country of Texas,

Lyndon Baines Johnson,

the president who had committed
the United States

to a ground war in Vietnam,

and had seen that war undercut
his domestic social programs

and end his political career,

died of congestive
heart failure.

The following evening,
Richard Nixon spoke to the nation.

28 years after
the United States

first became involved
in Vietnam,

it was finally getting out.

I have asked for this radio

and television time tonight

for the purpose
of announcing that we today

have concluded an agreement
to end the war

and bring peace with honor in
Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.

A cease-fire,
internationally supervised,

will begin at 7:00 p.m.
this Saturday, January 27,

Washington time.

Within 60 days
from this Saturday,

all Americans held prisoners
of war throughout Indochina

will be released.

American prisoners of war, 591 of them,

were to be released
in batches of 40.

Those who had been
in captivity the longest

were to come home first.

Today the largest contingents of
repatriated prisoners so far,

60 men, were flown from Clark

to Travis Air Force Base,
California.

Today's most dramatic moment came

when Everett Alvarez made
his happy trek down the ramp,

home at last.

For almost as long
as most Americans

have been aware of Vietnam,

Lieutenant Commander Alvarez
has been a prisoner in Hanoi.

He was shot down August 5, 1964,
during the first raids flown

in retaliation for
the Tonkin Gulf incident.

And finally, today,
he was home.

For years and years,

we dreamed of this day,
and we kept faith.

Faith in God,
in our president,

and in our country.

Hal Kushner's turn came in mid-March.

𝄞 Oh, beautiful

𝄞 For heroes proved

𝄞 In liberating strife

And they... then they called our name.

And I walked out
in the sunlight.

And the first thing I saw
was a girl in a miniskirt.

She was a reporter for one
of the news organizations.

I'd never seen
a real-life miniskirt.

𝄞 And mercy more than life

And there was a table with the Vietnamese

and American authorities
on one side,

and there was a brigadier general,
Air Force general

in Class A uniform.

And he looked magnificent.

And I looked at him...

and he had breadth,

he had thickness
that we didn't have.

And his hair was...
he had on a garrison cap.

And his hair was
plump and moist,

and our hair was like straw,
you know.

It was dry and
we were skinny.

And I went out and I saluted,

which was a courtesy
that had been denied us

for so many years.

And he saluted me, and he...

I shook hands
with him and he hugged me,

he actually hugged me,

and he said,
"Welcome home, Major.

We're glad to see you, doctor."

And the tears were
streaming down his cheeks.

And it was just
a-a powerful moment.

𝄞 For purple mountains

𝄞 Majesty

And then this liaison officer they called

that came out and got me
and escorted me on this C-141.

It was this beautiful white
airplane with a flag.

An American flag
on the tail and USAF.

𝄞 America

𝄞 You know

𝄞 God done shed
his grace on thee 𝄞

And they had these real cute flight nurses on there.

They were all tall and blonde and,
you know,

they-they were just gorgeous.

And we got on this thing and,
and she said,

this nurse-
we sat in these seats and she said,

"We have anything you want,
you know.

"Do... what do you want?"

And I-I wanted a Coke
with crushed ice

and some chewing gum.

𝄞 You know, I wish had somebody to help me sing this 𝄞

𝄞 America

𝄞 America
𝄞 America

𝄞 I love you, America

𝄞 God shed
𝄞 You see

𝄞 My God,
he done shed 𝄞 His grace

𝄞 His grace on thee
𝄞 On thee

𝄞 And you ought to
love him for it 𝄞

𝄞 'Cause he, he, he,
he crowned thy good 𝄞

𝄞 He told me he would

𝄞 With brotherhood

𝄞 From sea

𝄞 To shining

𝄞 Shining sea
𝄞 Sea

𝄞 Oh, Lord

𝄞 Oh, Lord!

𝄞 I thank you, Lord

𝄞 Shining sea.

Within a few days of Hal Kushner's release,

the last American combat troops
would leave Vietnam.

But they would leave behind
many unanswered questions.

How long could the South
Vietnamese government survive?

What was the value
of American promises,

and American sacrifice?

And how long would it take
for the wounds of war to heal?

𝄞 Mother, mother

𝄞 There's too many
of you crying 𝄞

𝄞 Brother, brother, brother

𝄞 There's far too many
of you dying 𝄞

𝄞 You know
we've got to find a way 𝄞

𝄞 To bring some
loving here today 𝄞

𝄞 Yeah

𝄞 Father, father

𝄞 We don't need to escalate

𝄞 You see,
war is not the answer 𝄞

𝄞 For only love
can conquer hate 𝄞

𝄞 You know
we've got to find a way 𝄞

𝄞 To bring some
loving here today 𝄞

𝄞 Oh

𝄞 Picket lines
𝄞 Sister

𝄞 And picket signs
𝄞 Sister

𝄞 Don't punish me
𝄞 Sister

𝄞 With brutality
𝄞 Sister

𝄞 Talk to me
𝄞 Sister

𝄞 So you can see
𝄞 Sister

𝄞 Oh,
what's going on 𝄞 What's going on

𝄞 What's going on
𝄞 What's going on

𝄞 Yeah,
what's going on 𝄞 What's going on

𝄞 Ah,
what's going on 𝄞 What's going on

𝄞 Ah
𝄞 Right on

𝄞 Whoo! Right on, brother

Hey, man, what's your name?
Whoo!

𝄞 Right on, baby

Right on.
𝄞 Right on

Whoo!
𝄞 Whoo

𝄞 Right on, baby

Whoo!

𝄞 Right on, baby

𝄞 Come on

𝄞 Right on

𝄞 Whoo! Right on

𝄞 Go slow

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