VIETNAM: A Television History is a 13-part documentary film series produced for public television by WGBH Boston, in cooperation with Central Independent Television/United Kingdom, and Antenne-2/France, and in association with LRE Productions. A six year project from conception to completion, the series carefully analyzes the costs and consequences of war in Vietnam for everyone involved, beginning with early history, through the French colonial period, and up to the fall of Saigon and unification of the country in 1975. Executive producer Richard Ellison, chief correspondent Stanley Karnow, and Director of Media Research Lawrence Lichty, with some 60 consultants and four production units, comprised the production team, centered at WGBH in Boston. Its members garnered hundreds of interviews, researched 70 film archives worldwide, and traveled the length of Vietnam to create perhaps the most exhaustive historical documentary series in television history.

PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

January 20, 1961: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet anyhardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty...

September 2, 1963: ...These people who say that we ought to withdraw from Vietnam are wholly wrong, because if we withdrew from Vietnam, the Communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya would go, and all of Southeast Asia would be under the control of the Communists and under the domination of the Chinese...

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, August 3, 1965

If this little nation goes down the drain and can't maintain her independence, ask yourself, what's going to happen to all the other little nations?

TIGER SQUADRON HELICOPTER GUNSHIP CROSSTALK

Voice #1: This is Roger 26 receiving fire 9:00, yellow smoke, 200 meters, automatic weapons, over.

Voice #2: This is 21...

NARRATOR

Lyndon Johnson inherited America's commitment to an anti-Communist government in South Vietnam, and 16,000 military advisers. Some were more than advisers in the war against the Communist-led insurgents, the Vietcong.

TIGER SQUADRON CROSSTALK

Voice #2: Tigerlee, Tigerlee, Tiger 6, Tiger 6

Voice #1: This is 26.

Voice #1: This is 26. We have some people running along the dikes. Actually the canal is perpendicular to the one you're attacking now. They have on black uniforms, estimate approximately three zero. Do you have them in sight? Over.

Voice #2: This is 23. Roger. We have them in sight. We are engaging them at the present time.

Voice #1: Roger.

Voice #2: Good job. I saw you splatter one right in the back with a rocket.

Voice #1: Roger. Got lucky I guess.

NARRATOR

Johnson's main concern at the time was not this growing war in Asia, but another war at home.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, January 1964

And this administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.

NARRATOR

Few American presidents have been as successful as Johnson in promoting their

programs in Congress. He later called his "The Great Society."

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, June 1964

We are going to build a great society, where no man or woman are the victim of fear or poverty or hatred. Where every man and woman has a chance for fulfill-ment and prosperity and hope.

NARRATOR

But there was Vietnam. As Johnson took office, peasants, often helped by the Vietcong, destroyed the strategic hamlets designed to isolate them from the Vietcong. President Diem had built them, but now Diem was dead. And the structure he had created with American support was being smashed.

General Minh had ousted Diem with American approval. He lasted three months. General Khanh, with American blessing, took over in a bloodless coup. The political turmoil deepened.

NARRATOR

President Johnson offered America's full support to this new, untried leader.

ROBERT MCNAMARA

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. General Taylor and I have known General Khanh for a considerable period of time. He has our admiration, our respect and our complete support.

NARRATOR

McNamara barnstormed South Vietnam with Khanh, trying to promote him to his own people. Privately McNamara was gloomy. He warned Johnson that the Vietcong controlled 40 percent of the countryside.

ROBERT MCNAMARA

We are here to emphasize that the United States will maintain its interest and its presence in your country. There is no question whatsoever of our abandon-ing that interest. We'll stay for as long as it takes. We shall provide whatever help is required to win the battle against the Communist insurgents.

NARRATOR

To the Communists in Hanoi, America's presence in the South was yet another act of foreign aggression. They recalled 1,000 years of struggle against foreign invaders: Chinese, Japanese, French. And now they faced Americans.

NARRATOR

Ho Chi Minh stepped up his support for the Vietcong at the same time Johnson renewed the American commitment to defeat them. Each responded to the chaos in the South with new resolve.

COLONEL BUI TIN

During the final months of 1963, Diem was shot and Kennedy was assassinated. So the situation in the South changed. Just at that time, President Ho Chi Minh called on all Vietnamese to double their efforts to help the people in the South. The resistance forces in the South were still very weak and badly equipped. In certain areas, they had trouble recruiting troops. Therefore, we decided that well-equipped and larger forces had to be sent to the South.

NARRATOR

Hanoi decided to escalate the war. And the Vietcong stepped up their attacks in the countryside.

JAMES THOMSON (National Security Council Staff)

When Lyndon Johnson inherited the presidency, he inherited many things, but one of them was the legacy of the Vietnam War and the Democratic president's felt-need not to lose one square foot of territory to communism, particularly in Asia. To draw the line, to hold the line and to keep the presidency there-by, because if you lose, the final domino in the domino sequence is not some Asian country, it's the presidency itself.

NARRATOR

In 1964 the pressure on Johnson to hold the line against communism came from Republican conservatives. In July they nominated Senator Barry Goldwater for president. He was an outspoken anti-Communist.

SENATOR BARRY GOLDWATER, July 1964

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice...

NARRATOR

Johnson wanted a big victory. And he wanted to keep Vietnam out of the campaign. As early as May he had his aides draft a resolution of Congressional support for the war effort.

JAMES THOMSON

It was discovered, however, in researching the Senate that the introduction of such a resolution would cause a very major filibuster by two or three strong opponents of the war at the time and, therefore, do more harm than good, create not consensus but conflict. Therefore, by June 15, 1964, the idea of a resolution had been shelved.

NARRATOR

In late July, the U.S.S. Maddox, a destroyer on an intelligence mission, sailed into the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam. It was later joined by the U.S.S. Turner Joy. These two destroyers became involved in an incident which brought the Congressional resolution off the shelf. The Navy explained the incident this way:

U.S. NAVY FILM

In international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, destroyers of the United States Navy are assigned routine patrols from time to time. Sunday, August the 2, 1964, the destroyer Maddox was on such a patrol. Shortly after noon, the calm of the day is broken as general quarters sound.

In a deliberate and unprovoked action, three North Vietnam PT boats unleash a torpedo attack against the Maddox. At once, the enemy patrol boats are brought under fire by the destroyer.

NARRATOR

The film charged an unprovoked attack. But it left out crucial facts. Early in the morning of July 31, unmarked South Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked two North Vietnamese island bases -- part of a covert operation supported by the CIA. The next night the Maddox was cruising up the coast, at one point as close as five miles. It changed course. And early on August 2 was ten miles off one of the islands raided earlier. North Vietnam's patrol boats attacked the Maddox six hours later.

Hanoi linked the Maddox to the South Vietnamese raids.

NARRATOR

At the time Secretary McNamara stressed that the Maddox was simply on a routine patrol.

ROBERT MCNAMARA

No, it has no special relationship to any operations in that area. We're carrying routine patrols of this kind on all over the world all the time.

U.S. NAVY FILMFollowing the Sunday attack, the Maddox is joined by the U.S.S. Turner Joy. As directed by the President of the United States, the Maddox and Turner Joy resume patrol operations in the Gulf of Tonkin. On the night of August the 4th, North Vietnamese patrol boats strike again, as filmed in this re-creation.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, August 1964

The Determination of all Americans to carry out our full commitments to the people and to the government of South Vietnam will be redoubled by this outrage. Yet our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. We Americans know, although others appear to forget, the risk of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war.

NARRATOR

For the first time, American aircraft bombed North Vietnam. The retaliation came after the second incident -- an incident Hanoi has always denied.

GENERAL PHUNG THE TAI

On the night of August 4, the United States made public that so-called "Gulf of Tonkin incident." But the story was a fabrication, created by the U.S. National Security Council. Even as the National Security Council met, American aircraft were being sent to destroy several areas of our country. In reality, the second Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened.

RAY CLINE

At that time, I felt it was questionable whether the second incident took place. I simply was not sure. It was not until after a number of days of collation of reports from the field had taken place that many of the reports which seemed to relate to the second incident were proved either to be unsound or to relate to the first incident.

This is what intelligence analysis is all about, and in a military situation, quite often the commanding officers -- in this case, the President of the United States -- don't wait for the details to be settled if they feel they are in a critical situation with a danger of military conflict. They make decisions without waiting for the intelligence detail.

BILL MOYERS (Presidential Aide)

He felt that it represented, if not an escalation of the war on their part, at least a punch in the nose in a way that would humiliate a great power if it didn't respond. All of this went through his mind. And he also saw it as one dramatic way in which after weeks and months of seeming indecision, he could convey to Hanoi, to Saigon, and to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, that you were not dealing with a softie.

MAN-ON-THE-STREET INTERVIEWS

First Man: Well, I think that President Johnson has done the correct thing. I really do.

Second Man: I don't think that he could have done otherwise. Especially whenthey attacked the American flag, yeah.

Third Man: I'm behind him on it. I'm not for Johnson. I'm for Goldwater. But I'm behind him on this.

JAMES THOMSON

The minute incident number one happened, the attack on our ships, the resolution was brought right back off the shelf, put right to Congress and of course, after incident number two, sailed through with virtually no dissent. A blank check.

NARRATOR

Senator William Fulbright, persuaded that the second incident had occurred, whisked the resolution through Congress in two days.

SENATOR WILLIAM FULBRIGHT, September 1964

Well, I think it's a very clear demonstration of the unity of the country behind the policies that are being followed by the President in South Vietnam, and more specifically, of the action that was taken in response to the attack upon our destroyers. It shows a practically unanimous approval. It was unani-mous in the House, and only two dissented in the Senate.

SENATOR WAYNE MORSE

Being in the minority never proves that you're wrong. In fact, history is going to record that Sen. Greuning and I voted in the interest of the American people this morning when we voted against this resolution.

And I'd have the American people remember what this resolution really is. It's a resolution which seeks to give the President of the United States the power to make war without a declaration of war.

NARRATOR

Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Congress gave the President full authority for military action in Southeast Asia. Backed by both political parties, Johnson had removed the war as an issue from the campaign.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, October 1964

In the White House for the last 20 years, five Presidents from both parties have adopted a bi-partisan foreign policy. That bi-partisan foreign policy has kept us out of war and it's kept us at peace, and it's left your boy at home. And that's the way it ought to be...

And that's the way it's going to be after November the 3rd.

BILL MOYERS

Johnson didn't seek a wider war. He didn't want a wider war. He knew the war would engulf everything that he wanted to do in this country. At the same time, he also knew that if he didn't fulfill what he thought was an honorable commitment from the United States to South Vietnam, his administration could be lost as well.

Barry Goldwater began after the nomination to try to be Mr. Moderate, Mr. Respectable. He tried to stand more in the center of the Republican Party than on the far right.

And the President said to me one day, "We've got to remind people of what Barry Goldwater was B.C. -- Before the Convention."

LYNDON B. JOHNSON CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL

Girl in Campaign "Daisy Commercial": Five, seven, six, six, eight, nine, nine.

Commercial Voice: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one,zero.

Lyndon B. Johnson: These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God's children can live. Or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.

Commercial Voice: Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are toohigh for you to stay home.

NARRATOR

Thus Johnson portrayed Goldwater as irresponsible and himself as the candidate of restraint. He won a landslide victory.

On the eve of the election, the Vietcong attacked an American airbase near Saigon. They destroyed aircraft used in operations against them. More planes had been sent after the Tonkin incidents. Escalation was breeding escalation.

AMBASSADOR MAXWELL TAYLOR

I recommended a retaliatory air strike for the bombing of Bienhoa airbase which was occupied largely by American aircraft, and the losses in personnel were all American. This was the first time the enemy had ever, had ever attacked a major military installation of the Americans. It was a change of tactics. It shouldn't be shrugged off, I thought, as just another thing -- incident of the war. It was something new, and it was an excellent reason to have a retaliatory strike.

NARRATOR

American carriers were poised. But President Johnson refused his ambassador's recommendation to bomb North Vietnam. The Vietcong attacked again.

NGUYEN THANH XUAN

At the end of November, I was given the order to attack the Brink's Hotel which housed high American officers. All the crimes committed by the Americans were directed from this nerve center. I sat in a nearby cafe to wait for the explosion, which occurred at exactly five forty-five on the afternoon of December 24, the anniversary of the founding of the People's Army of Vietnam. Our commanders had ordered us to attack the place when the most Americans were there. And it was precisely as we had expected, since they were at the Brink's Hotel to plan their Christmas activities. Many Americans had also gone there from the Rex Hotel. As a result, the attack succeeded and we were never detected.

NARRATOR

The Christmas Eve attack was the second major assault on Americans in two months. Ambassador Taylor called once more for a bombing strike against the North. Again, Johnson refused.

MAXWELL TAYLOR

Again, recommended retaliation, got turned down. I felt reasonably sure, who wants to bomb Santy Claus?

NARRATOR

Four days after the Vietcong team blew up the Brink's Hotel, two Vietcong regiments prepared to strike the village of Binh Gia near Saigon. They inflicted the first of a series of devastating defeats on Saigon's army.

GENERAL WILLIAM C. WESTMORELAND

This was the use of battalion sized units, reinforced battalion sized units, by the enemy, and the successful use that I feared would spread and was perhaps the beginning of a gradual movement toward a major effort, using not guerrillas, not small units, but large units.

DEAN RUSK (Secretary of State)

It was not until we were presented with a larger war that the decisions then had to be made as to whether we would let them get what they were after or whether we would make a greater effort ourselves.

NARRATOR

National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy already favored a greater effort when he arrived in Saigon in early February 1965. He had recently urged the President to bomb North Vietnam.

MCGEORGE BUNDY (February, 1965)The President has asked me to extend the New Year's greeting to all the people of Vietnam and to express his conviction that the Year of the Snake can be one in which security and prosperity grow in Vietnam.

NARRATOR

While McGeorge Bundy was in Saigon, the Vietcong attacked an American outpost at Pleiku, in the Central Highlands. It was the third attack on Americans in three months. Eight died. One hundred twenty-six were wounded.

MCGEORGE BUNDY

We found our friends in Washington on the wire, and they wanted our recommen-dation. It took us a little while to concert a view which was that this episode did call for a reply.

NEWSREEL, February 1965

In the first raid, land-based planes were forced back by the weather, but the carrier jets completed their strike with the loss of one American plane. Later, photo-reconnaissance flights prove that much of the staging area had been completely destroyed.

The confrontation between the Reds and the West was the most critical since the Gulf of Tonkin incident last summer, when the U.S. replied just as swiftly to North Vietnam PT boat attacks.

NARRATOR

A few days later, Johnson gave the green light to sustained bombing in North Vietnam. He hoped to bolster Saigon's morale. But there was a coup attempt in Saigon on February 19. The bombing was to begin the next day coordinated with the Saigon government. Ambassador Taylor cancelled it. The government was in turmoil. In fact, it had been in turmoil for months. When Khanh took advan-tage of the Tonkin incidents the previous August to tighten his grip, students had rioted. Buddhists also protested. But demonstrating Buddhists threatened the Catholics. They staged a sit-down strike. After ten days, Khanh formed a triumvirate to try to rule South Vietnam. Four days later, Khanh resigned. He said he was ill.

SAIGON INTERVIEW, September 1964

Reporter: Who is the man who can lead Vietnam to victory?

Nguyen Oanh: Well, I think you've got me there.

NARRATOR

Acting Prime Minister Nguyen Oanh, a Harvard-educated economist, lasted three days. Then Khanh returned.

GENERAL KHANH, August 1964

Although I have not yet quite recovered from my illness, I do my best to return today to assume the responsibility of leading the government in these critical times.

NARRATOR

A week later, in mid-September, there was a coup attempt.

JACK VALENTI

The thing that worried Johnson -- and constantly worried him -- was the instabili-ty of the South Vietnamese government. I guess you might call -- the coat of arms of the Vietnamese government was a turnstyle, for God's sake. And, and I remember very vividly somebody would come in his office and say, "Looks like there's a coup beginning in Vietnam." There'd be another coup. You know, coups were like fleas on a dog, and Johnson said, "I don't want to hear any more about this coup shit. I've had enough of it, and we've got to find a way to stabilize those people out there."

NARRATOR

That proved difficult. Khanh turned the government over to civilians in the fall, but continued to intrigue as head of the armed forces. The political turmoil intensified. In February, with Ambassador Taylor's approval, Khanh's own military colleagues rebelled against him and banished him to the United Nations. Though a stable government remained elusive, the campaign of bombing North Vietnam began. It was called "Rolling Thunder."

WILLIAM BUNDY

We thought that at a certain point -- and in conjunction with a situation within the South that was turned around -- it would be a decisive thing in getting Hanoi to say, "Alright, we can't get there now, we will fall back, not abandon the objective of taking over the South, but drop it for now." We never had the view that bombing would bring about quick results; certainly not on the essentially measured scale that was actually carried out. We thought it would cut down the amount of the infiltration -- that by hitting the supply lines, you'd make it much more difficult.

GEORGE BALL

I had been a director of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey at the, toward the end of the Second World War. And we'd made a detailed study of the effects of strategic bombing on not only the German war economy, but on the psychology of the German people. I was convinced that we were not going to achieve our will by bombing the North; that in the first place, it was a fairly primitive industrial society, and that there weren't the kind of targets that were adapted for strategic bombing. And secondly, I was convinced that we would never break the will of a determined people by simply bombing; and in fact, we would probably tend to unite them more than ever.

NARRATOR

The Thanh Hoa Bridge, 80 miles from Hanoi, was an important target in the spring of 1965. It was bombed and repaired, year after year.

GENERAL WILLIAM WESTMORELAND

When the bombing program started, I realized that the airfields -- and we had three jet-capable airfields -- were extremely vulnerable. If that strategy was to be a viable one, we had to protect those airfields. I feared that the Vietnamese did not have the capability of protecting the American aircraft on those airfields, and therefore, my first request for troops was associated with protecting the airfields.

NARRATOR

The President granted Westmoreland's request with little debate. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines landed to protect the air base at Danang. The decision to deploy these first Marines was not part of a plan for a massive troop buildup. But 200,000 troops would be committed by the end of the year.

AMBASSADOR MAXWELL TAYLOR

My opinion was: Let's not bring any ground forces in until we have to. Once you get into this business, how do you turn back?" No one was blind about the danger of that first soldier, marine coming ashore. I certainly wasn't. Once that decision was made and the Marines started coming ashore, as far as I was concerned, that's that. Let's go, boys, as fast as we can receive these troops logistically and have a real mission for them.

NARRATOR

Three weeks after the Marines landed, the Vietcong attacked the American Embassy in Saigon.

NEWSREEL, March 1965

Voice #1: We need a stretcher over here!

Voice #2: Stretcher?

Voice #3: Right over here is one!

Voice #4: I want some help over here!

PRESS CONFERENCE, April 1965

Reporter: Mr. Secretary...more Americans?

Robert McNamara: No, principally logistical support, arms, munitions, training assistance.

Reporter: As many as 5,000 sir? We've heard this report...

Robert McNamara: No, I'm not discussing primarily additional personnel.

NARRATOR

In early April, Johnson tried to keep the troop deployments a secret. In fact, two additional Marine battalions had already hit the beach as Secretary McNamara spoke. Others followed, week by week, with little fanfare. Seventy-two thousand troops were committed that spring.

DEAN RUSK

One of the reasons for this gradualness in our buildup of resistance in South Vietnam was due to the fact that we did not want to present Moscow and Hanoi with a major new situation during any given week, which would require them to go through an orgasm of decision-making based upon worldwide strategic considerations. And so each week was not all that different than the week before.

NARRATOR

In early April, Johnson also changed the mission of troops. The passive defense of air bases lasted less than a month.

NEWSREEL, April 1965

Reporter: When the Marines were first landed at Danang, we were told that the objective was to defend the air base. How do you resolve that, sir with your statements in Saigon that their objective is to kill the Vietcong -- to seek them out and kill them?

General Wallace Greene, Jr., Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps: Well, I did say that; I think that goes along with our objective, our mission, our assignment to defend that big complex at Danang and Phu Bai. You can't defend a place like that by sitting on your ditty-box. You've got to get out and aggressively patrol. And that's what our people are doing. And the one thing I emphasized to them while I was out there was to find these Vietcong and kill them.

NARRATOR

A U.S. president, for the first time, had authorized ground troops for offensive operations in Vietnam. Their patrols were limited to a 50-mile radius of coastal bases. Johnson was moving with caution. But these additional troops -- and their expanded role -- were also designed to show Ho Chi Minh his determination. Five days after he committed them, Johnson made Ho an offer.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON AT JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

The vast Mekong River can provide food and water and power on a scale to dwarf even our own T.V.A.

NARRATOR

Johnson offered Ho a vast development project to benefit all of Southeast Asia if Ho would abandon his goals.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON

And we remain ready with this purpose, for unconditional discussions.

BILL MOYERS

Coming back in the helicopter from that speech in 1965 at Johns Hopkins University -- where he had promised a T.V.A. for the Mekong valley, if only Ho Chi Minh would be reasonable -- he leaned across to an assistant, put his hand on his knee, and said, "Old Ho can't turn that down. Old Ho can't turn that down." You see, if Ho Chi Minh had been George Meany, Lyndon Johnson would have had a deal.

PRESS CONFERENCE, April 1965

Reporter: Mr. Secretary, what is your reaction to the announcement from the Communist side, rejecting our offer of negotiation?

Robert McNamara: Well, we regret that. As President Johnson said Saturday, there've been many disappointments over the past week; that is one. We stand ready and willing to talk anytime, any place.

Reporter: Has our bombing attack really hurt the North Vietnamese?

Robert McNamara: I don't think there's any question but what it has. In particular, during the past two weeks, we've concentrated on bridges and the routes of communication and destroyed many of these, and this can't help but delay the movement of men and material to the Communists in the South.

NARRATOR

This film was staged by the East Germans. But the message was true. The bombing campaign was not working. Supplies from North Vietnam were reaching far into the South.

BILL MOYERS

In the spring of 1965, every report -- the CIA, the military, the embassy, independent observers who had been there -- were saying Vietnam is on the verge of collapse. And the President says, "I feel like a hitchhiker caught in a hailstorm on a Texas highway. I can't run, I can't hide, and I can't make it stop."

NARRATOR

By the spring of 1965, the war had changed. Large units of Vietcong replaced guerrillas as the main fighting force. In June they destroyed the military outpost of Dong Xoai. And much of the village. Saigon lost 800 of its best troops. The army of South Vietnam was near collapse. The civilian government

did collapse at that time. And the military took over.

NGUYEN CAO KY

I asked all of them -- 60 or 70 of them, you know, in the room. I said, "Okay -- ah, one more time. Anyone want to be prime minister?" And they said no. So Thieu said, "I propose Ky." And all of them just stood up and accept the offer. But then I, I didn't give them the answer. I said, "I have to go back and talk with my wife first." And when I told her about that offer, you know, she was not excited. She said, "Oh no! Not that job! Not as a prime minister!" Ha, ha. I'm not a good politician. I'm not a good diplomat. You know, I think all I know, the only thing I can do well is, you know, flying the airplane. I said, "Well? What can I do now?"

GENERAL WILLIAM WESTMORELAND, July 1965

I feel it's important at this juncture that we prepare for the long pull.

NARRATOR

The situation was desperate. Westmoreland conferred in July with Secretary McNamara and General Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He had asked for an immediate troop increase to 125,000 men, 200,000 by year's end.

Johnson approved the request while McNamara was in Saigon. The President then had a series of high level meetings staged as a genuine debate, to seek consensus on the decision he had quietly made.

JACK VALENTI (Presidential Aide)

I remember him turning to Wheeler, and he said to him, "You're asking for 200,000 more men now. What happens if in two, three, four years you ask me for 500,000 men?" (A very prophetic statement.) "What do you expect me to do? How can I respond to it? What makes you think Ho Chi Minh won't match us for every man we send in?" And another time to the group he said, "We've got two questions that we've got to answer. Can Westerners fight a war in Asian jungles? And, number two, how on earth can we fight a war under the direction of others whose governments topple like bowling pins?" He said, "Now somebody answer those questions for me."

GEORGE BALL (Undersecretary of State)

In explaining to the President the concern that I felt about a mounting escalation, I said to him, "You know, once on the tiger's back, we can't pick the time to dismount. You're going to lose control of this situation, and this could be very serious."

BILL MOYERS

Secretary McNamara framed the three options. Option number one was to cut our losses and get out. Option number two was a middle course. Option number three was to give the military in Vietnam what it wanted. Listen to the way the first option was phrased: "cut our losses and withdraw under the best condi-tions that can be arranged. Almost certainly, conditions humiliating the United States and very damaging to our future effectiveness on the world scene." Now you're president, and you have this memorandum from the secretary of defense, and it says you can cut our losses and withdraw under the best conditions; however, it's going to make a fool of you in the world. I mean, that was an option the very framing of which presumed its rejection.

GEORGE BALL

Our reputation as a nation consisted of many things. Not the least of which was that we had some sense of perspective and, therefore, had some judgment. While many of our allied countries were beginning to think that we had, we were out of our minds to pursue such a futile war.

DEAN RUSK (Secretary of State)

Peace has been maintained because people in certain other capitals would say to themselves, "Now look, comrades, we'd better be a little careful here because those damn fool Americans just might do something about it." If that question in their minds got to be a sense of certainty that we would not do something about it, then I think we'd be exposed to very great dangers.

GEORGE BALL

I found him the most sympathetic of all of the people in the entourage. He was the one who seemed to take my cautionary views most seriously. He was the one who seemed to be probing more and more deeply for a way out. But he could never reconcile extrication with his personal commitment that he would not be the first president to lose a war.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, July 28, 1965

We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences that no one can foresee. Nor will we bluster or bully or flaunt our power. But we will not surrender. And we will not retreat. We intend to convince the Communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power. I have asked the commanding general, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression. He has told me, and we will meet his needs.

NARRATOR

There was no major address before Congress. Johnson already had his Tonkin Gulf Resolution. And there was no major announcement on prime time television. Johnson disclosed his decision in a press conference at midday.

MCGEORGE BUNDY (National Security Adviser)

I think it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the President wanted as low-keyed an announcement as he could get, and as little energetic public debate as possible.

DEAN RUSK

We did make a deliberate decision not to create a war fever in this country. You didn't see members of the armed forces or units of the armed forces parading through American cities. You didn't see pretty movie stars out selling bonds in factories and things like that -- all the things we did during World War II -- because we felt that in this nuclear world, where thousands of megatons are lying around in the hands of frail human beings, it's just too dangerous for an entire people to become too angry.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, August 3, 1965

We are going to do everything we can with our left hand, to negotiate an agreement that will allow people to breathe free independently. Independent of any ideology of ours, or of anyone else's. Give them the right of choice. And if we do that, we'll come home tomorrow.

NARRATOR

As Lyndon Johnson spoke on the White House lawn, a Marine rifle company left Danang for a cluster of hamlets nearby. Vietcong from this area had recently hit Danang in a mortar attack. And they had shot seven marines on an earlier sweep.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON

If I resist them, if I deter them, if we keep our commitment that three presidents have made -- President Eisenhower, President Kennedy and the present president -- then the people say, "Well, you should come on home. What happens there doesn't matter." If you stay there, there's some that say, "Well, you ought to get it over with in a hurry." So some want to go and blow up every-thing. Some want to come and blow up nothing and leave and get out and forget them.

We're trying to do the reasonable thing, to say that power and brute force and aggression are not going to prevail. You can't do this thing by force. Now let's sit down and reason it out, and let's try to allow these people a choice. That's what I'm trying so hard to do, and that's what I need your help on.

Why, oh why, oh why don't people concern themselves with a country that's trying to maintain her independence from aggression? That's being invaded?

NARRATOR

Johnson called it invasion. Hanoi called it liberation. In the fall of 1965, three North Vietnamese regiments massed in the Central Highlands. Nearly two years had passed since Johnson renewed the U.S. commitment to defend South Vietnam. Nearly two years had passed since Ho Chi Minh renewed his commitment to liberate the South. Now their two armies braced for battle. Westmoreland feared the North Vietnamese would cut South Vietnam in two. He would block them with his skytroopers, the First Air Cavalry.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON

Now, America wins the wars that she undertakes; make no mistake about it. And we have declared war on ignorance and illiteracy. We have declared war on poverty. We have declared war on disease. And we have declared war on tyranny and aggression. And we not only stand for these things, but we're willing to stand up and die for these things.

NARRATOR

Westmoreland sent the Air Cavalry in search of Hanoi's army, poised in a river valley, at the foot of the Chu Pong Mountains.

For the first time, in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, Americans fought the North Vietnamese -- face to face.

For the first time, B-52s supported troops in the field.

And for the first time, to Americans, Vietnam meant a major new war.

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, January 12, 1966

How many men who listen to me tonight have served their nation in other wars? How very many are not here to listen? The war in Vietnam is not like these other wars. Yet, finally, war is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in this world. For we have children to teach, and we have sick to be cured, and we have men to be freed. There are poor to be lifted up, and there are cities to be built, and there is a world to be helped. Yet, we do what we must. I am hopeful, and I will try with the best I can, with every-thing I've got, to end this battle and to return our sons to their desires. Yet, as long as others will challenge America's security, and test the dearness of our beliefs with fire and steel, then we must stand, or see the promise of two centuries tremble.

Credits

Written and Produced by AUSTIN HOYT

Associate Producer MARILYN HORNBECK

Film Editor ERIC NEUDEL

Narrator WILL LYMAN

Film Research JANET HAYMAN

Assistant Editor ALFREDO PORTILLA

Camera PETER HOVING

Additional Camera
GERRY PINCHES
WERNER BUNDSCHUH

Sound Recordists
ALLAN BYER
FLORA MOON
JOHN H. MOSS
LESLIE OTIS
STEVE PHILLIPS
PAUL RUSNAK

Assistant Camera
BILL COOPER
ROGER HAYDOCK
MICHAEL PENLAND
JULIAN WHITE
DICK WILLIAMS

Sound Mixer FRANK CUNNINGHAM

Film Archives
CBS NEWS
EDUCATIONAL AND TELEVISION FILMS, UK
HEARST METROTONE NEWS
JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY
METROMEDIA PRODUCERS CORP.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
NBC NEWS
POLITICAL COMMERCIAL ARCHIVE
ROGER PIC COLLECTION
STUDIO H & S, BERLIN
US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AIR FORCE, ARMY, MARINES and NAVY ARCHIVES
VISNEWS LIBRARY

Special Thanks to
ABC NEWS
LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY
US ARMY CENTER FOR MILITARY HISTORY

Archivist KENN RABIN

Additional Film Research BRADLEY BORUM

Unit Production Manager JAN LANGMACK

Post Production Supervisors
TONY PRIANO
CYNTHIA MEAGHER KUHN

Post Production Assistant ALISON SMITH

Production Secretary KARAN SHELDON

Publicity SARA ALTHERR

Titles and Graphic Design CHRIS PULLMAN

Translator NGO VINH LONG

Sound Effects CINESOUND EFFECTS LIBRARY, UK

Video Enhancement AUBREY STEWART

Music Composed by
MICKEY HART
BILLY KREUTZMANN

Music Performed by
VIC FIRTH
MICKEY HART
ZAKIR HUSSAIN
BILLY KREUTZMANN
AIRTO MOREIRA
MERL SAUNDERS
BOBBY VEGA

Music Recorded by PHIL KAFFEL

Director of Media Research LAWRENCE LICHTY

Chief Correspondent STANLEY KARNOW

Executive Producer RICHARD ELLISON

A coproduction of WGBH Boston with Central Independent Television, UK, Antenne-2, France in association with LRE Productions

For THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Coordinating Producer DANIEL McCABE

Executive Producer MARGARET DRAIN

Major funding for the series was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, public television stations, and the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. Additional funding was provided by the George D. Smith Fund, The Christopher Reynolds Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This program was originally broadcast on PBS on October 4, 1983.

THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
is a production of WGBH/Boston.

© 1983, 1997 WGBH Educational Foundation
All rights reserved