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- 6/20/2025
Category
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TVTranscript
00:00:00Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
00:00:30Coming home from Vietnam was close to as traumatic as the war itself.
00:01:00For years, nobody talked about Vietnam.
00:01:07We were friends with a young couple, and it was only after 12 years that the two wives
00:01:13were talking, found out that we both had been Marines in Vietnam.
00:01:18Never said a word about it, never mentioned it.
00:01:22And the whole country was like that.
00:01:25It was so divisive.
00:01:29And it's like living in a family with an alcoholic father.
00:01:33Shh, we don't talk about that.
00:01:38Our country did that with Vietnam.
00:01:40It's only been very recently that I think that the baby boomers are finally starting
00:01:45to say, what happened?
00:01:48What happened?
00:01:54What we need now in this country is to heal the wounds and to put Vietnam behind us.
00:02:06The killing in this tragic war must stop.
00:02:18General Westmoreland's strategy is producing results.
00:02:32General Westmoreland's strategy is producing results.
00:02:35No matter how you measure it, we're better off than we thought we would be at this time.
00:02:49You have been less than candid as to how deeply we are involved in Vietnam.
00:03:03We have increased our assistance to the government, its logistics.
00:03:07We have not sent combat groups there.
00:03:10You have a row of dominoes set up and you knock over the first one and the last one certainly
00:03:16little over.
00:03:17If aggression is successful in Korea, we can expect it to spread throughout Asia and Europe
00:03:22and to this hemisphere.
00:03:46Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
00:03:49And where have you been, my darling young one?
00:03:56Victor Frankel, who survived the death camps in World War II, wrote a book called Man's
00:04:04Search for Meaning.
00:04:06You know, to live is to suffer.
00:04:11To survive is to find meaning in suffering.
00:04:15And for those of us who suffered because of Vietnam, that's been our quest ever since.
00:04:24And it's hard, it's hard, it's hard, it's hard, it's hard, it's hard rain.
00:04:37America's involvement in Vietnam began in secrecy.
00:04:43It ended 30 years later in failure, witnessed by the entire world.
00:04:50And what did you see, my darling young one?
00:04:53It was begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence,
00:05:01and Cold War miscalculation.
00:05:04And it was prolonged because it seemed easier to muddle through than admit that it had been
00:05:10caused by tragic decisions made by five American presidents belonging to both political parties.
00:05:20Before the war was over, more than 58,000 Americans would be dead.
00:05:26At least 250,000 South Vietnamese troops died in the conflict as well.
00:05:33So did over a million North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong guerrillas.
00:05:44Two million civilians, North and South, are thought to have perished,
00:05:49as well as tens of thousands more in the neighboring states of Laos and Cambodia.
00:05:56For many Vietnamese, it was a brutal civil war.
00:06:01For others, the bloody climactic chapter in a century-old struggle for independence.
00:06:09And what do you do now, my blue-eyed son?
00:06:13For those Americans who fought in it, and for those who fought against it back home,
00:06:19as well as for those who merely glimpsed it on the nightly news,
00:06:23the Vietnam War was a decade of agony,
00:06:27the most divisive period since the Civil War.
00:06:33Vietnam seemed to call everything into question.
00:06:38The value of honor and gallantry.
00:06:42The qualities of cruelty and mercy.
00:06:46The candor of the American government.
00:06:50Where the home in the valley meets the damp...
00:06:52And what it means to be a patriot.
00:06:55Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are forgotten.
00:07:01And those who lived through it have never been able to erase its memory,
00:07:06have never stopped arguing about what really happened,
00:07:09why everything went so badly wrong,
00:07:12who was to blame,
00:07:15and whether it was all worth it.
00:07:17It went from the mountains so all souls can see it.
00:07:21The time has been around 40 years.
00:07:23The time has been around 40 years.
00:07:25Until I start sinking.
00:07:27And I'll know my soul.
00:07:30Even the former soldiers of Vietnam.
00:07:33I want to avoid that.
00:07:35I want to fight.
00:07:37I want to fight.
00:07:39I want to fight.
00:07:41And it's hard.
00:07:43It's hard rain.
00:07:47I'm going to fall.
00:07:48And it's hard.
00:07:49It's hard rain.
00:07:50I'm going to fall.
00:07:51It's a hard, it's a hard rain, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall.
00:08:21It's a hard rain that's gonna fall.
00:08:43The French conquest of Indochina began with an attack on the ancient Vietnamese port of Da Nang in 1858.
00:09:04It took 50 years to lay claim to the whole region, Laos and Cambodia,
00:09:10as well as the 1,200 mile long area that would come to be called Vietnam.
00:09:19All of it was ruled by a French governor general from his palace in Hanoi.
00:09:25The French largely lived on plantation estates,
00:09:29and in cities like Saigon, made to look as much as possible like those at home.
00:09:37Most did not even bother to learn the language spoken by their subjects.
00:09:42Instead, they installed a series of puppet emperors
00:09:46and employed a network of French-speaking Vietnamese officials,
00:09:50mandarins, willing to carry out their wishes.
00:09:56The French put their subjects to work, building roads and canals, railroads and bridges.
00:10:05The Vietnamese people did not take easily to French occupation,
00:10:24just as they had fought against earlier invasions by the Chinese.
00:10:29By the early 20th century, nationalism was on the rise.
00:10:34But anyone who dared resist colonial rule risked exile, prison or the guillotine.
00:10:44They controlled everything.
00:10:47They resourced from our country.
00:10:50But mostly, they took our independence and our freedom.
00:10:56When I was a small child, I got a nationalism already from school.
00:11:02And I always looked at the French as my enemy.
00:11:07My enemy.
00:11:09My enemy.
00:11:10My enemy.
00:11:14My enemy.
00:11:32my hatred for them was pure
00:11:38pure
00:11:40I hated them so much
00:11:42and I was so scared of them
00:11:46boy I was terrified of them
00:11:52and the scareder I got
00:12:02the more I hated them
00:12:04I was an 18 year old marine rifleman with the ink still wet on my high school diploma
00:12:11I didn't want to shame myself in front of my buddies
00:12:14but I was so scared
00:12:18I felt like I was hanging on to my honor by my fingernails
00:12:21the whole time I was there
00:12:32in the spring of 1919
00:12:40as the victorious allied powers met in Paris
00:12:43to rebuild a world shattered by the great war
00:12:46President Woodrow Wilson headed the American delegation
00:12:51housed in the Hotel Crion
00:12:53one day a tall slender 29 year old man
00:13:00appeared with a petition for the president
00:13:02he and other Vietnamese nationalists had written
00:13:06inspired by Wilson's declaration
00:13:10that the interests of colonial peoples
00:13:12should be given equal weight
00:13:14with those of their European rulers
00:13:16the man was asking that this principle
00:13:19be applied to his homeland
00:13:21the president's secretary promised to show it to Wilson
00:13:26but there is no evidence that he ever did
00:13:29his name was Wintat Tan
00:13:32but he was now living under an alias
00:13:35Wintai Kwak
00:13:37Wint the Patriot
00:13:39during his long shadowy career
00:13:43he would adopt some 70 different pseudonyms
00:13:46finally settling on the most enlightened one
00:13:50Ho Chi Minh
00:13:52Ho Chi Minh was a man who succeeded in projecting
00:13:58an image of somebody who was totally dedicated
00:14:01to freeing his country and his people
00:14:05from foreign domination
00:14:07to the point that he sacrificed his own well-being
00:14:11his own life
00:14:12not having a family of his own
00:14:15to Vietnamese that's a big sacrifice
00:14:19because to us everybody needs a family
00:14:22Ho Chi Minh was born in 1890
00:14:26the son of a minor official in the French regime
00:14:30after taking part in a demonstration
00:14:33against the puppet emperor
00:14:34the Frenchman who pulled his strings
00:14:37Ho was expelled from school
00:14:39and marked for arrest
00:14:43he left Vietnam in 1911
00:14:45and remained in exile for 30 years
00:14:50he served as a cook's helper aboard a French liner
00:14:53and visited New York and Boston
00:14:56where he worked for a time as a pastry chef at the Parker House
00:15:00he shoveled snow in London
00:15:03tinted photographs in Paris
00:15:06there Ho Chi Minh joined the French Socialist Party
00:15:11but when he discovered the anti-colonial writings of Lenin
00:15:15he became a communist
00:15:17he was invited to Moscow to study
00:15:21underwent training as a Soviet agent
00:15:24was sometimes criticized for being a nationalist first
00:15:27a communist second
00:15:29and then was dispatched to China
00:15:32to organize a cell of other Vietnamese exiles
00:15:36and help establish the Indo-Chinese Communist Party
00:15:40through it all
00:15:42he was taught and quivering
00:15:44a friend remembered
00:15:45with only one thought
00:15:47his country
00:15:49Vietnam
00:15:50by 1940
00:16:07much of the world was at war again
00:16:10Germany had seized most of Western Europe
00:16:21including France
00:16:23Imperial Japan threatened many of the European colonies in Asia
00:16:31and occupied Vietnam
00:16:32where they permitted their allies
00:16:34the collaborationist French
00:16:36to continue to oversee their colony
00:16:39to some Vietnamese
00:16:44the coming of the Japanese
00:16:45seemed to signal a welcome end
00:16:48to white colonial rule
00:16:50but Ho Chi Minh
00:16:52still in exile in China
00:16:54saw the Japanese as alien invaders
00:16:57no more welcome than the French
00:16:59they were only interested
00:17:01in exploiting his country
00:17:03and seizing Vietnamese crops
00:17:05to fill their own rice bowls
00:17:07the time had come
00:17:11he said
00:17:11to rally patriots of all ages
00:17:14and all types
00:17:15peasants
00:17:16workers
00:17:16merchants
00:17:17and soldiers
00:17:18to defeat the Japanese
00:17:20and the collaborationist French
00:17:23in February of 1941
00:17:29after three decades away from his homeland
00:17:32Ho Chi Minh slipped back
00:17:34across the Chinese border into Vietnam
00:17:36and set up headquarters
00:17:38near the remote village of Poc Ba
00:17:40in a limestone cave
00:17:42at the side of a mountain
00:17:44he named for Karl Marx
00:17:46overlooking a jungle stream
00:17:49he named for his hero
00:17:51Lenin
00:17:52there he founded a revolutionary movement
00:17:57which he called
00:17:58the Vietnam Independence League
00:18:00the Viet Minh
00:18:02everybody want to join the Viet Minh
00:18:06with the fight
00:18:07mostly nobody know about the Viet Minh
00:18:11as a communist organization
00:18:14to build and lead a fighting force
00:18:18for his revolution
00:18:19Ho called upon
00:18:21Va Win Zapp
00:18:22a one-time teacher
00:18:23of French history
00:18:24who had instructed
00:18:26the children of Hanoi's elite
00:18:28Zapp was an early convert
00:18:31to communism
00:18:32whose lifelong hatred
00:18:33for the French
00:18:34intensified
00:18:35when they beat his wife
00:18:36to death
00:18:37in prison
00:18:38inspired by Napoleon
00:18:42Lawrence of Arabia
00:18:43and the communist
00:18:44Chinese revolutionary
00:18:45Mao Zedong
00:18:46Zapp had already begun
00:18:48to develop
00:18:49a distinctive theory
00:18:51of warfare
00:18:51that relied on guerrilla tactics
00:18:54until a full-scale
00:18:56conventional attack
00:18:57could be mounted
00:18:58in the fight for independence
00:19:01which he believed was coming
00:19:03his army, Zapp said
00:19:05would be everywhere
00:19:06and nowhere
00:19:08the reason Vietnamese
00:19:11had always resort
00:19:12to guerrilla warfare
00:19:14was because we were
00:19:15a small country
00:19:16and it was just a way
00:19:18of fighting the weak
00:19:19against the strong
00:19:20don't fight unless
00:19:24you're sure you can win
00:19:25and surprise is a big element
00:19:29choose your own battle
00:19:32I had about 26 guys that day
00:19:42out of 45
00:19:42we were always
00:19:44somewhat under strength
00:19:45and this day
00:19:46we were quite under strength
00:19:48my platoon's on point
00:19:51and all of a sudden
00:19:59the very point man
00:20:01the first guy in the column
00:20:03said
00:20:03VC on the trail
00:20:04VC on the trail
00:20:06before I had a chance
00:20:09to digest this
00:20:10he went down
00:20:12shot right through the chest
00:20:13and what was a very
00:20:17well-laid ambush
00:20:18erupted
00:20:19I knew I'd lost a bunch
00:20:32of guys
00:20:32I said a prayer
00:20:33to God
00:20:34saying
00:20:35basically
00:20:37if you need any more
00:20:38guys from my platoon
00:20:39take me
00:20:39don't take any more
00:20:40of my men
00:20:41as soon as I said it
00:20:43I freaked myself out
00:20:45I said
00:20:45holy shit
00:20:45can I take that prayer back
00:20:48by the spring of 1945
00:21:02more than three years
00:21:04after the Japanese attack
00:21:06on Pearl Harbor
00:21:07the United States
00:21:09government
00:21:10was looking for allies
00:21:11behind the lines
00:21:12in Vietnam
00:21:13the Americans
00:21:14were hoping
00:21:15to find a way
00:21:15to undermine
00:21:16Japanese forces there
00:21:18when they were contacted
00:21:20by Ho Chi Minh
00:21:21and so it was decided
00:21:24to drop
00:21:24an OSS team
00:21:26in to meet
00:21:27with the Vietnam
00:21:28men leadership
00:21:29Paul Hoagland
00:21:32was the medic
00:21:33on the team
00:21:34and the first thing
00:21:36he was told
00:21:37was that
00:21:37he must attend
00:21:38to their leader
00:21:39who was desperately sick
00:21:40so he was taken
00:21:42to a grass shack
00:21:43where a bewhiskered
00:21:45skinny man
00:21:46lay in a bundle
00:21:47of straw
00:21:48desperately ill
00:21:49and that was Ho Chi Minh
00:21:51the OSS
00:21:55the secret
00:21:56the secret
00:21:56wartime precursor
00:21:57of the CIA
00:21:58supplied
00:21:59Ho's
00:22:00ragtag gorillas
00:22:01with arms
00:22:02and marveled
00:22:03at how quickly
00:22:04they learned
00:22:04to handle them
00:22:05Ho Chi Minh
00:22:07began to call
00:22:08his followers
00:22:09the Viet American Army
00:22:11and praised
00:22:12the United States
00:22:13as a champion
00:22:14of democracy
00:22:15that would surely
00:22:17help them end
00:22:18colonial rule
00:22:19we saw
00:22:21the American
00:22:22coming
00:22:23and when
00:22:24we look at
00:22:25the Americans
00:22:26we consider
00:22:27them
00:22:28as a kind
00:22:29of free man
00:22:31liberating
00:22:32the people
00:22:33they have
00:22:34liberated
00:22:34Europe already
00:22:35meanwhile
00:22:38famine gripped
00:22:39the northern part
00:22:40of the country
00:22:41hundreds of thousands
00:22:43of Vietnamese
00:22:44were dying
00:22:44of starvation
00:22:45while Japanese
00:22:47storehouses
00:22:48were filled
00:22:49with rice
00:22:49in those days
00:22:53garbage was collected
00:22:54by people
00:22:55pushing carts
00:22:56and my mother
00:22:57remembers that
00:22:58every morning
00:23:00she would see
00:23:01these garbage carts
00:23:02going around
00:23:03and people picking up
00:23:04dead bodies
00:23:05and throwing them
00:23:06on the carts
00:23:07it was incredible
00:23:09and people
00:23:10who lived through it
00:23:11would never
00:23:12never forgot
00:23:13Zwang von Mai's
00:23:15father
00:23:15was the deputy
00:23:16governor
00:23:17of a province
00:23:18east of Hanoi
00:23:19the son
00:23:20and grandson
00:23:21of mandarins
00:23:22who had all
00:23:23served the French
00:23:24he and his wife
00:23:25had 17 children
00:23:27parents who had
00:23:30children
00:23:31who were
00:23:32plump
00:23:33were very afraid
00:23:34of their children
00:23:34being stolen
00:23:35and killed
00:23:36and it was
00:23:39really like
00:23:40hell on earth
00:23:41the government
00:23:43didn't have a clue
00:23:44on how to deal
00:23:45with this calamity
00:23:46but Ho Chi Minh did
00:23:50he directed
00:23:51the Viet Minh
00:23:52to break into
00:23:53the Japanese
00:23:53storehouses
00:23:54wherever they could
00:23:55and distribute
00:23:56the rice
00:23:57to the people
00:23:58they were hailed
00:24:01as saviors
00:24:02when an atomic bomb
00:24:19destroyed Hiroshima
00:24:20and three days later
00:24:22a second one
00:24:23destroyed Nagasaki
00:24:24Japanese surrender
00:24:26seemed imminent
00:24:27Ho Chi Minh
00:24:30called upon
00:24:31all Vietnamese
00:24:32to rise up
00:24:33and take over
00:24:34their own country
00:24:35before the free French
00:24:36could reestablish
00:24:38their old
00:24:38colonial regime
00:24:39they did
00:24:42in cities
00:24:43and towns
00:24:44across the country
00:24:45on September 2nd
00:24:501945
00:24:51the same day
00:24:52the Japanese
00:24:53formally surrendered
00:24:55hundreds of thousands
00:24:56of Vietnamese
00:24:57streamed into
00:24:58Ba Dinh Square
00:24:59in Hanoi
00:25:00to see
00:25:01for the first time
00:25:02the mysterious
00:25:03leader of the
00:25:04Vietnam
00:25:05and hear him
00:25:07proclaim
00:25:07Vietnam's
00:25:09independence
00:25:09with an OSS officer
00:25:17standing nearby
00:25:18Ho Chi Minh
00:25:19began with the words
00:25:20of Thomas Jefferson
00:25:22all men
00:25:24are created equal
00:25:25they are endowed
00:25:27by their creator
00:25:28with certain
00:25:29unalienable rights
00:25:30but among these
00:25:32are life
00:25:33liberty
00:25:34and the pursuit
00:25:36of happiness
00:25:36ho Chi Minh
00:26:00had great hopes
00:26:01that the US
00:26:03would support
00:26:04the Vietnam desire
00:26:06for independence
00:26:06not necessarily
00:26:07by intervening
00:26:09but by doing
00:26:11what it could
00:26:12to support
00:26:14an independence movement
00:26:15Ho Chi Minh's hopes
00:26:18for American support
00:26:19were calculated
00:26:20but understandable
00:26:22President Franklin Roosevelt
00:26:25had promised
00:26:26a post-war world
00:26:27that would respect
00:26:28the rights
00:26:29of all peoples
00:26:30to choose
00:26:31the form of government
00:26:32under which they live
00:26:33but Roosevelt
00:26:37was dead now
00:26:38and his successor
00:26:39Harry Truman
00:26:40had inherited
00:26:41a very different world
00:26:43the alliance
00:26:45with the Soviet Union
00:26:46that had won
00:26:47the Second World War
00:26:48had collapsed
00:26:50the Soviets
00:26:51now occupied
00:26:52the Eastern European
00:26:53countries
00:26:54they had overrun
00:26:55and hoped
00:26:56to spread
00:26:57their influence
00:26:58farther
00:26:58into Iran
00:26:59Turkey
00:27:00and the Mediterranean
00:27:01a new Cold War
00:27:05had begun
00:27:06French President
00:27:09Charles de Gaulle
00:27:10warned
00:27:10that if the United States
00:27:12insisted on independence
00:27:14for her colonies
00:27:15France might have
00:27:16no choice
00:27:17but to fall
00:27:18into the Russian orbit
00:27:20the United States
00:27:23must do nothing
00:27:24to undercut
00:27:24the restoration
00:27:25of France's empire
00:27:27including Vietnam
00:27:29there were hardly
00:27:35any Americans
00:27:35in Vietnam
00:27:37you know
00:27:37State Department people
00:27:38counselor officials
00:27:40a few businessmen
00:27:42hardly anyone
00:27:44from this country
00:27:45knew where Vietnam
00:27:46was located
00:27:47George Wicks
00:27:49was part of
00:27:50a seven-man OSS
00:27:51mission
00:27:51sent to Saigon
00:27:53the largest city
00:27:54in the South
00:27:55the United States
00:27:57was officially neutral
00:27:58hoping the French
00:28:00and Viet Minh
00:28:00could reach
00:28:01some peaceful solution
00:28:03on their own
00:28:04Allied leaders
00:28:06had agreed
00:28:07temporarily
00:28:07to divide Vietnam
00:28:09into two separate zones
00:28:11Nationalist Chinese troops
00:28:13were to handle
00:28:14things in the North
00:28:15British colonial troops
00:28:17would try to perform
00:28:18the same task
00:28:19in the South
00:28:20where rival factions
00:28:22including the French
00:28:23and Viet Minh
00:28:24were already fighting
00:28:26in the streets
00:28:27of Saigon
00:28:28no one was in charge
00:28:31on both sides
00:28:34there was brutality
00:28:35and atrocity
00:28:36and violence
00:28:37it wasn't quite
00:28:40a civil war
00:28:40but it was getting
00:28:41very close
00:28:42to civil war
00:28:42in the streets
00:28:43of Saigon
00:28:43Lieutenant Colonel
00:28:47Peter Dewey
00:28:47the 28-year-old
00:28:49commander
00:28:49of the OSS
00:28:50in Saigon
00:28:51tried to make
00:28:52sense of it all
00:28:53right from the start
00:28:55he was in touch
00:28:56with everybody
00:28:56not only the French
00:28:58but very soon
00:28:59he established
00:29:00a connection
00:29:00with various
00:29:01Vietnamese groups
00:29:03the Viet Minh
00:29:04soon established
00:29:06themselves
00:29:06as the most successful
00:29:08Dewey
00:29:11who spoke fluent French
00:29:12brokered talks
00:29:13between a Viet Minh
00:29:15spokesman
00:29:15and the senior
00:29:16French representative
00:29:17in the city
00:29:18his efforts
00:29:21infuriated
00:29:22British General
00:29:23Douglas Gracie
00:29:24who commanded
00:29:25Allied forces
00:29:26in the South
00:29:26Gracie was convinced
00:29:29that French control
00:29:30should be reimposed
00:29:31as soon as possible
00:29:33by conferring
00:29:34with the Viet Minh
00:29:35Gracie said
00:29:36Colonel Dewey
00:29:37had become
00:29:38a subversive force
00:29:39the violence
00:29:43in and around
00:29:44Saigon
00:29:45escalated
00:29:45Colonel Dewey
00:29:48urgently cabled
00:29:49his superiors
00:29:50Vietnam
00:29:52is burning
00:29:53he wrote
00:29:54the French
00:29:55and British
00:29:56are finished here
00:29:57and the United States
00:29:58he concluded
00:29:59ought to clear out
00:30:00of Southeast Asia
00:30:02two days later
00:30:07September 26th
00:30:091945
00:30:10he set out
00:30:12for the airport
00:30:12prepared to fly
00:30:14to OSS headquarters
00:30:16at a roadblock
00:30:19the Viet Minh
00:30:20mistook Dewey
00:30:21for a Frenchman
00:30:22and opened fire
00:30:24he was killed
00:30:27instantly
00:30:28Ho Chi Minh
00:30:32wrote
00:30:32to the United States
00:30:33lamenting
00:30:34the deaths
00:30:35of Dewey
00:30:36whom he recognized
00:30:37as a person
00:30:39sympathetic
00:30:39to his cause
00:30:40it seemed
00:30:42a terrible irony
00:30:43that Dewey
00:30:44who was
00:30:45doing what he could
00:30:46to help
00:30:47the Vietnamese
00:30:47independence movement
00:30:48should have been killed
00:30:51by the Vietnamese
00:30:51by a mistake
00:30:52an elderly
00:31:05African-American woman
00:31:08answered the door
00:31:09I think she knew
00:31:15the instant she saw us
00:31:17why we were there
00:31:18and the Padres
00:31:22said
00:31:23I'm terribly sorry
00:31:26to inform you
00:31:28but
00:31:28your son
00:31:29was killed
00:31:31in Vietnam
00:31:31and she just sat down
00:31:34it didn't still work
00:31:35and the
00:31:39her husband
00:31:40says
00:31:41no there's a mistake
00:31:42he comes back
00:31:43with this letter
00:31:44and he said
00:31:45look see
00:31:45we got a yes stream
00:31:47our son
00:31:48was still love
00:31:49yesterday
00:31:49and the chaplain
00:31:53looked at the letter
00:31:54and he said
00:31:55it's a week old
00:31:56I think your son
00:31:58was killed
00:31:58on the day
00:31:59he wrote this letter
00:32:00in the fall
00:32:10of 1945
00:32:11a week after
00:32:12Colonel Dewey's death
00:32:13fresh French troops
00:32:15began arriving
00:32:16in Saigon
00:32:17taking over
00:32:18from the British
00:32:19they quickly
00:32:21established
00:32:22control of the city
00:32:23and set out
00:32:24to reoccupy
00:32:25the entire country
00:32:27Ho Chi Minh
00:32:30hoped somehow
00:32:31to achieve independence
00:32:32without a war
00:32:33with France
00:32:34and he still hoped
00:32:35the United States
00:32:36would intervene
00:32:37you never had an empire
00:32:39never exploited
00:32:41the Asian peoples
00:32:42he would tell
00:32:43a visiting American journalist
00:32:44do not be blinded
00:32:46by this issue
00:32:47of communism
00:32:48he did not want
00:32:51to fight the French
00:32:52as an enemy
00:32:53of America
00:32:54and in fact
00:32:56I saw
00:32:56the letters
00:32:57he wrote
00:32:59to President Truman
00:33:01saying
00:33:02we believe
00:33:03in the same things
00:33:04you believe
00:33:04those letters
00:33:06I saw
00:33:07in the CIA files
00:33:08they had never
00:33:10been given
00:33:11to President Truman
00:33:12in June of 1946
00:33:19Ho Chi Minh
00:33:20returned to Paris
00:33:22in a fruitless attempt
00:33:23to get the French
00:33:24to live up to a promise
00:33:25they had made
00:33:26of increased autonomy
00:33:28for his country
00:33:29while Ho was away
00:33:32General Zopp
00:33:33began consolidating
00:33:34communist control
00:33:36of the revolution
00:33:37he conducted
00:33:39a merciless purge
00:33:40of members
00:33:41of rival
00:33:41nationalist parties
00:33:43and people
00:33:43he called
00:33:44reactionary saboteurs
00:33:46landlords
00:33:48and moneylenders
00:33:49Trotskyites
00:33:51and Catholics
00:33:51men and women
00:33:53accused
00:33:53of collaborating
00:33:54with the French
00:33:55hundreds were shot
00:33:57drowned
00:33:58buried alive
00:34:00I saw
00:34:01that the government
00:34:02was killed
00:34:04by the people
00:34:05they did not really
00:34:07fight for the people
00:34:08but they fought
00:34:08for the international society
00:34:10but it was just
00:34:11fighting for the international society
00:34:12on December 19th
00:34:151946
00:34:16after months
00:34:18of building tension
00:34:19fighting broke out
00:34:20in Hanoi
00:34:21between the Viet Minh
00:34:22and the French
00:34:23the Viet Minh
00:34:24and the French
00:34:27the Viet Minh
00:34:29proved no match
00:34:30for French firepower
00:34:31Ho, Zopp
00:34:38and their comrades
00:34:39slipped out of the city
00:34:41and returned
00:34:42to their mountain stronghold
00:34:44far to the north
00:34:45those who have rifles
00:34:48will use their rifles
00:34:50Ho declared
00:34:51in a radio address
00:34:52calling for a nationwide guerrilla war
00:34:55those who have swords
00:34:57will use swords
00:34:59those who have no swords
00:35:01will use spades
00:35:03or sticks
00:35:04the other who have no
00:35:34But the country Ho Chi Minh hoped to unite was itself bitterly divided.
00:35:41Families were being torn apart.
00:35:44Despite her father's position in the French government,
00:35:48Zhuang von Mai's sister felt compelled to answer Ho's call.
00:35:54My older sister, Trang, was married to a man who had great sympathy for the Viet Minh.
00:36:02And by that time, Ho Chi Minh had evacuated his government to the mountain base.
00:36:08So my sister and her husband tricked all the way from Hanoi toward the base
00:36:13in order to join the resistance against the French.
00:36:19So the Vietnam War was really a civil war, down to the family level.
00:36:32France poured thousands of men into Vietnam.
00:36:36French regulars, European mercenaries, and colonial troops from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Senegal,
00:36:44who fought alongside an army of Cambodians, Laotians, and anti-communist Vietnamese.
00:36:52French forces managed to occupy most of the large towns and province capitals
00:37:01and established hundreds of isolated outposts.
00:37:07The French also set out to try to win over rural Vietnamese
00:37:11through a program they called pacification,
00:37:16pacification, building dikes, schools, and roads, and vaccinating children.
00:37:25The French would pacify a village,
00:37:28and during the daytime, they could control it.
00:37:32But at night, the Viet Minh would come back,
00:37:34and so it was never completely secure.
00:37:40My father would shake his head and said,
00:37:43you know, pacification is really futile,
00:37:45because it's like trying to hold sand in your fingers.
00:37:52The Viet Minh mined roads,
00:37:55blew up bridges and railroads,
00:37:58ambushed French patrols,
00:38:00and then disappeared.
00:38:04French soldiers sometimes took revenge on the nearest village,
00:38:10burning homes, raping women,
00:38:13executing men suspected of aiding the Viet Minh.
00:38:16The Viewers also took the view of the P ernest.
00:38:21If I was in 1948 in my survive,
00:38:25the�� infect we produced the Passengera
00:38:26and the Passengera started to use the Passengera
00:38:28to use the Passengera into a Zieh station,
00:38:28like the闘 andfills was riveting the house,
00:38:32the Passengera settled.
00:38:33The Passengera and the Passengera settled on the Passengera
00:38:34had been killed.
00:38:36The Passengera was murdered.
00:38:40The Passengera was murdered.
00:38:42When I was young, I saw a story
00:38:42that I was a little boy,
00:38:44It has been deep in my heart, in my heart.
00:38:55But the Communists proved every bit as ruthless as the French.
00:39:00It is better to kill even those who might be innocent, one commander said,
00:39:05than to let a guilty person go.
00:39:08And they specifically targeted anyone who had links to the French.
00:39:14Once my father started working for the French, then he was a target,
00:39:19especially the higher he rose, the bigger target he became.
00:39:24A Vietnamese agent actually came in with a pistol to shoot him,
00:39:29but at the last moment decided not to.
00:39:32At the last moment, we saw that the Vietnamese people
00:39:39had to kill people in Vietnam,
00:39:43in the United States,
00:39:45and killed them,
00:39:47and killed them,
00:39:51and killed them in a way,
00:39:53and killed them in a way,
00:39:55and killed them in a way,
00:39:57and killed them in a way,
00:39:59and killed them in a way.
00:40:00We have lived in a way of 12-foot.
00:40:12French casualties continued to mount.
00:40:16There are days when we are so discouraged
00:40:18that we would like to give it all up,
00:40:20a French soldier wrote his mother.
00:40:22Convoys under attack.
00:40:25Roads cut.
00:40:26Firing in all directions every night.
00:40:29The indifference at home.
00:40:31Well, I was there, I had the opportunity to call my mother, you know.
00:40:44And I was telling my mother what was happening over there,
00:40:49and I was telling her, you know,
00:40:51she shouldn't believe what she sees in the newspaper,
00:40:54and she's on television because we're losing the war.
00:40:57I said,
00:40:59you'll probably never see me again
00:41:01because we're the most northern outposts that the Marines have.
00:41:05You know, we could literally could look right into Vietnam.
00:41:07We could see the sparks when the guns fired on us.
00:41:10And I said,
00:41:11everybody in my unit's dying.
00:41:13I probably won't be coming back.
00:41:15And my mother said, no, you're coming back.
00:41:17She said, I talk to God every day,
00:41:19and you're special.
00:41:20You know, you're coming back.
00:41:23And I said, ma, everybody's mother thinks that they're special.
00:41:26You know, I'm putting pieces of special people in bags.
00:41:37President Truman's dramatic announcement
00:41:39that Russia had the atom secret
00:41:40caused State Departments all over the world to stir uneasily.
00:41:45We were very aware that there was a Cold War
00:41:49and that we had an enemy,
00:41:51and that enemy was the Soviet Union.
00:41:54The United States stood at one pole,
00:41:58and the Soviet Union stood at the other pole.
00:42:00It was kind of a Manichaean dynamic
00:42:03that there was evil and there was good,
00:42:05and we were good,
00:42:06and the other side was evil.
00:42:08It wasn't morally ambiguous.
00:42:10Just a few weeks after Russia became a nuclear power,
00:42:17there was more stunning news.
00:42:19Communist forces under Mao Zedong
00:42:22seized control of China.
00:42:25Separate Communist insurrections were also underway
00:42:29in the British colonies of Burma and Malaya.
00:42:33In January 1950, Mao formally recognized Ho Chi Minh's insurgency
00:42:41and agreed to provide the arms, equipment, and military training
00:42:46he had been seeking.
00:42:48The Soviets recognized the Viet Minh as well
00:42:51and also offered help.
00:42:54President Truman, who was being blamed by his political opponents
00:42:58for having lost China and having failed to contain communism,
00:43:04approved a $23 million aid program for the French in Vietnam.
00:43:10The United States was no longer neutral.
00:43:15We were caught on the horns of a dilemma
00:43:18of how can we maintain our friendship and our alliance with the French
00:43:22and support them in Indochina,
00:43:25while we as a former colony ourselves
00:43:28sympathize with the Vietnamese
00:43:30and their aspirations for freedom and independence.
00:43:37A highly trained and well-equipped North Korean army
00:43:40swarmed across the 38th parallel
00:43:42to attack unprepared South Korean defenders.
00:43:45In June of 1950,
00:43:48China's ally, Communist North Korea, invaded South Korea.
00:43:56President Truman ordered tens of thousands of American ground troops
00:44:00onto the Korean peninsula.
00:44:08The United States and its allies
00:44:10eventually pushed the invaders back north.
00:44:13Meanwhile, in southern China,
00:44:17Mao's military was beginning to turn the Viet Minh
00:44:20into a modern fighting force,
00:44:23capable of inflicting a heavy toll on the French occupiers.
00:44:35In July, the Truman administration
00:44:37quietly dispatched transport planes
00:44:40and a shipload of jeeps to Vietnam.
00:44:43Thirty-five military advisers
00:44:46went along to oversee their use.
00:44:50None of them,
00:44:51and no one in the American Embassy
00:44:53spoke a word of Vietnamese.
00:44:57But the United States
00:44:58was now officially in Vietnam.
00:45:04In October of 1950,
00:45:06hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops
00:45:09began pouring into North Korea,
00:45:11driving the allies back down the peninsula.
00:45:15As that fighting raged,
00:45:17Truman continued to increase military aid
00:45:20for the French War in Vietnam.
00:45:27If aggression is successful in Korea,
00:45:29we can expect it to spread throughout Asia and Europe
00:45:32and to this hemisphere.
00:45:37We are fighting in Korea
00:45:38for our own national security and survival.
00:45:48In the autumn of 1951,
00:45:50a young Massachusetts congressman
00:45:52named John F. Kennedy
00:45:54dined at the rooftop bar
00:45:56of the Hotel Majestic overlooking Saigon.
00:45:59As he and his party ate,
00:46:02they could hear the thunder of guns
00:46:04across the Saigon River.
00:46:08French commanders assured Kennedy
00:46:10that with more American support,
00:46:12French rule would be reestablished.
00:46:16But Kennedy spent two hours
00:46:18with Seymour Topping,
00:46:19a seasoned American reporter
00:46:21who gave him a very different perspective.
00:46:25The French were losing, he said,
00:46:27and many Vietnamese who had once admired the Americans
00:46:31were beginning to despise them
00:46:33for backing the French.
00:46:36Kennedy believed the reporter.
00:46:38Unless the United States
00:46:40could persuade the Vietnamese
00:46:42that it was as opposed to injustice
00:46:44and inequality as it was to communism,
00:46:47he told his constituents when he got home,
00:46:50the current effort would result
00:46:52in foredoomed failure.
00:47:01In 1952, General Dwight Eisenhower
00:47:07was elected president,
00:47:09in part because he promised
00:47:11to take a tougher stance on communism.
00:47:13That year, American taxpayers were footing
00:47:18more than 30% of the bill
00:47:20for the French war in Vietnam.
00:47:23Within two years,
00:47:25that number would rise to nearly 80%.
00:47:28And many of you ask this question.
00:47:35Why is the United States spending hundreds
00:47:38of millions of dollars supporting
00:47:41the forces of the French Union
00:47:43in the fight against communism in Indochina?
00:47:47I think perhaps if we go over to the map here,
00:47:49I can indicate to you why it is so vitally important.
00:47:53Here is Indochina.
00:47:56If Indochina falls,
00:47:58Thailand is put in almost impossible position.
00:48:01The same is true of Malaya with its rubber and tin.
00:48:05Now, may I say that as far as the war in Indochina is concerned,
00:48:09that I was there, right on the battlefield,
00:48:12or close to it,
00:48:14and it's a bloody war, and it's a bitter one.
00:48:19By 1953, the French had been fighting for seven years.
00:48:26They had suffered over 100,000 casualties
00:48:30and failed to pacify the countryside.
00:48:33Six commanders had come and gone.
00:48:36Nevertheless, the seventh commander,
00:48:39General Henri Navarre,
00:48:41assured his countrymen that victory was near.
00:48:44Now we can see it clearly, he said,
00:48:47like the light at the end of the tunnel.
00:48:53Meanwhile, large parts of the French population
00:48:56were horrified by reports of French brutality
00:48:59and the widespread use of napalm,
00:49:03gelatinized petroleum that burned foliage, homes, and human flesh.
00:49:09When returning French troops disembarked at Marseille,
00:49:16members of the Longshoremen's Union pelted them with rocks.
00:49:20Parisian leftists began to call the conflict
00:49:24La Salle Guerre, The Dirty War.
00:49:35The camera was a close-up,
00:49:38was over the shoulder of the stormtrooper
00:49:41who had a kid by the cruff of his shirt,
00:49:43and he smacked someone.
00:49:45At that moment in time, I realized that
00:49:48anybody who really cared for America
00:49:50was spent halfway around the world
00:49:52chasing some ghosts in the jungle.
00:49:54In the meantime, my country's being torn apart.
00:49:58So I saw somebody who looked like my dad
00:50:01hitting somebody who looked like me.
00:50:03Whose side would I be on?
00:50:13In Korea, three years of combat end
00:50:15as United Nations and Communist negotiators
00:50:18at Panmunjom sign a truce.
00:50:20In July of 1953,
00:50:22the Korean War ended in a negotiated settlement
00:50:26and a still divided peninsula.
00:50:28American policymakers saw it as proof
00:50:31that communism in Asia could be contained.
00:50:35And in Washington, a dramatic evening press...
00:50:37That fall, the French indicated their willingness
00:50:40to begin talks to end the fighting in Vietnam.
00:50:44Ho Chi Minh agreed to meet.
00:50:48But before the negotiators were to convene in Geneva,
00:50:52each side sought to improve its position
00:50:55on the battlefield.
00:50:58General Navarre set up a fortified base
00:51:01in a remote valley in northwestern Vietnam
00:51:04called Dien Bien Phu,
00:51:06where he hoped to lure the Viet Minh into a decisive battle.
00:51:12Navarre was certain that superior French firepower
00:51:15and air support would crush any attack by the Viet Minh.
00:51:20He and his commanders saw no need to worry
00:51:23about the jungle-covered hills
00:51:25that overlooked his 11,000 men dug in on the valley floor.
00:51:30The artillery commander was so confident of victory,
00:51:35he complained,
00:51:37I have more guns than I need.
00:51:43General Zopp saw his chance.
00:51:46We decided to wipe out, at all costs,
00:51:49the whole enemy force at Dien Bien Phu, he remembered.
00:51:55To do it, he pulled off one of the greatest logistical feats
00:51:59in military history,
00:52:01a feat that would be restaged in propaganda films
00:52:04and celebrated for decades.
00:52:08A quarter of a million civilian porters,
00:52:11nearly half of them women,
00:52:13moved everything he needed for a siege,
00:52:16from sacks of rice to disassembled artillery pieces,
00:52:20on foot, through the jungle.
00:52:24Zopp surrounded the valley with 50,000 soldiers
00:52:28and 200 big guns,
00:52:30dug in and camouflaged so well
00:52:33they could not be spotted from the air.
00:52:41On March 13, 1954,
00:52:44the Viet Minh artillery on the hillsides
00:52:46began raining down 50 shells a minute
00:52:49on the French troops huddled below.
00:52:54The airstrip was destroyed.
00:52:59The besieged troops could only be reinforced
00:53:02and resupplied by airdrop.
00:53:09The French artillery commander,
00:53:11who had underestimated his enemy,
00:53:13committed suicide.
00:53:16The airlift to Dien Bien Phu continues,
00:53:19vital men and supplies for the heroic garrison
00:53:21that has defied the massed Viet Minh onslaughts
00:53:23for over six weeks.
00:53:25Today, Dien Bien Phu is a human dam
00:53:27trying to stem the red tide
00:53:29that threatens to engulf Southeast Asia.
00:53:33The French government begged President Eisenhower
00:53:36to intervene.
00:53:37He refused to act without congressional approval
00:53:41and support from European allies.
00:53:43Britain said no.
00:53:46And the Congress would not support unilateral action.
00:53:50The communists under Ho Chi Minh are able to claim
00:53:53that they are fighting for independence
00:53:54and the French appear to be fighting
00:53:56for a maintained maintenance of colonial rule.
00:53:59I therefore believe that before the United States
00:54:01moved in in any degree,
00:54:03that independence must be granted to the people,
00:54:05that the people must support the struggle.
00:54:08I am convinced Eisenhower confided to his diary
00:54:13that no military victory is possible in this theater.
00:54:18Still, without consulting Congress,
00:54:21the President had secretly sent more American transport planes,
00:54:25their markings painted over and flown by civilian contractors
00:54:31to help resupply the desperate French troops
00:54:34at Dien Bien Phu.
00:54:40Everyone understood that in and of itself,
00:54:42Vietnam didn't mean very much.
00:54:44But they believed, I believed,
00:54:47if we lost it,
00:54:49that the rest of Asia would tumble to communism.
00:54:54You have broader considerations
00:54:56that might follow what you would call
00:54:58the falling domino principle.
00:55:03You have a row of dominoes set up,
00:55:05and you knock over the first one,
00:55:07and what will happen to the last one
00:55:09is that the certainty that it'll go over very quickly.
00:55:13On the afternoon of May 7th, 1954,
00:55:38after 55 days of siege,
00:55:41the exhausted French forces at Dien Bien Phu surrendered.
00:55:48They had lost 8,000 men,
00:55:51killed, wounded, or missing.
00:55:57General Zap had lost three times as many,
00:56:01but he had won a great victory.
00:56:04Even Zhuang Van Mai's parents could not help but be impressed.
00:56:21Even Zhuang Van Mai's parents could not help but be impressed.
00:56:25They were very proud that the Wiening had defeated the French.
00:56:31This great Western power,
00:56:33admiration and respect on the one hand,
00:56:36but fear on the other hand,
00:56:39and fear was a stronger emotion.
00:56:42We have been caught bluffing by our enemies,
00:56:46Senate Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson said.
00:56:49Today, it is Indochina.
00:56:52Tomorrow, Asia may be in flames.
00:56:55And the day after, the Western alliance will lie in ruins.
00:56:59We should have seen it as the end of the colonial era in Southeast Asia,
00:57:05which it really was.
00:57:07But instead, we saw it in Cold War terms,
00:57:10and we saw it as a defeat for the free world
00:57:14that was related to the rise of China,
00:57:17and it was a total misreading of a pivotal event,
00:57:23which cost us very dearly.
00:57:30The former home of the League of Nations,
00:57:32Geneva, Switzerland,
00:57:33where East is meeting West in the international conference
00:57:36that may decisively affect the political future of Asia.
00:57:40The day after the fall of Dien Bien Phu,
00:57:43diplomats from nine nations gathered in Geneva
00:57:46to settle the future of Vietnam.
00:57:50The talks dragged on for nearly two and a half months.
00:57:57Despite their victory, Ho Chi Minh and General Zopp
00:58:01could not keep fighting without more support
00:58:04from China and the Soviet Union.
00:58:07But China had lost a million men in Korea
00:58:11and did not want to become involved
00:58:13in another war along its border.
00:58:16The Soviet Union was hoping to ease tensions with the West.
00:58:22Both of Ho Chi Minh's communist patrons urged him
00:58:26to agree to a negotiated settlement,
00:58:28a partition like the one that had ended the Korean War.
00:58:32Ho had no option but to give in.
00:58:36In the end, no one was satisfied.
00:58:45Vietnam was temporarily to be divided at the 17th parallel.
00:58:51The 130,000 French-led troops stationed in the north
00:58:55were to withdraw to the south,
00:58:57and somewhere between 50,000 and 90,000 Viet Minh
00:59:01were to regroup to the north.
00:59:04The two halves would be separated by a demilitarized zone,
00:59:08until an election could be held
00:59:10to reunify North and South Vietnam,
00:59:14an election everyone knew Ho Chi Minh would win.
00:59:18—
00:59:19—
00:59:25—
00:59:44It's like this.
00:59:46I don't think it will be like this.
01:00:14Is that we're not the top species on the planet because we're nice
01:00:22People talk a lot about how well the military turns, you know kids into you know killing machines and stuff
01:00:28And I'll always argue that it's just finishing school
01:00:30Braving the dangers of the open sea and tiny rickety crap thousands of Roman Catholic and Buddhist faith have found life impossible under the communists
01:00:48For them it's freedom or nothing
01:00:50Under the Geneva Accords civilians living in either half of Vietnam who wanted to relocate to the other would have 300 days to do so
01:01:06My mother and father wanted to stay and meet my sister tongue again
01:01:11Because they knew tongue would come back, but on the other hand they couldn't risk that
01:01:17They were convinced that when Ho Chi Minh and his government arrived in Hanoi
01:01:22My father would be the first one to be killed and all of us would be persecuted
01:01:31And I remember the day we left I looked around I thought I never come back here again
01:01:39It was extremely traumatic it was
01:01:43Like the ground was certainly cut from under you
01:01:47In the end some 900,000 refugees
01:01:51Including more than half of all the Catholics living in the north fled to the south
01:01:57Many of them aboard American ships
01:02:04The United States hoped somehow to encourage the building of a legitimate government in the south
01:02:10That government was now headed by no ding
01:02:15Ziem
01:02:16Both the Roman Catholic and the Confucian in a largely Buddhist country
01:02:22He was a celibate bachelor who had once planned to be a priest
01:02:26The war for us really started when we became the partner or I would say the victim of President Ziem
01:02:39We were going to help him turn South Vietnam into a democracy
01:02:43That's what he said he wanted to do and we believed him
01:02:46Like Ho Chi Minh
01:02:48Ziem had spent years abroad seeking support for his own brand of Vietnamese nationalism
01:02:56He was a veteran politician whose loathing for the French was matched only by his hatred for the communists
01:03:03Who had imprisoned him and buried alive his eldest brother and his nephew
01:03:11Ziem was aloof autocratic mistrustful of anyone much beyond his own family
01:03:16He also proved to be shrewd resourceful and skilled at exploiting the weaknesses of his opponents
01:03:26But he faced a daunting task in creating a new country
01:03:31The French who still had thousands of troops stationed in the south detested Ziem
01:03:38Several provinces were under the sway of religious sects with armies of their own
01:03:43Tens of thousands of Viet Minh soldiers had gone north
01:03:48But several thousand cadre trained and dedicated communist party workers had stayed behind to organize resistance in the countryside
01:04:00And Saigon itself was ruled by the bing suyen a crime syndicate backed by the French
01:04:07And the French were behind the bing suyen sort of supporting them
01:04:11Because they didn't want Ziem to succeed
01:04:14And that became the central contest
01:04:18Some in the cia believed that Ziem could be the savior of south vietnam
01:04:24Others were not so sure
01:04:26He is a messiah without a message one diplomat reported to washington
01:04:31The u.s ambassador agreed on april 27th 1955
01:04:39President eisenhower decided to end american support for ziem's regime
01:04:47But then ziem made an all-out assault on the bing suyen syndicate
01:04:52Suddenly in the middle of the day we heard gunfire and then we saw flames and the neighborhood was burning
01:05:04There are hundreds of dead and wounded on both sides as the street fighting continues for an entire week
01:05:10For the united states the situation presents a grave problem
01:05:13Ziem finally regains control of saigon
01:05:19In the end ziem's forces prevailed
01:05:24eisenhower now saw no option but to stick with ziem
01:05:31The french then announced their intention to withdraw completely from south vietnam ending nearly a century of occupation
01:05:40Ziem became wildly popular because he seemed to embody the nationalist cause in the south
01:05:50He succeeded in getting the french out of vietnam all the way and ho chi min had only got him out of the northern half
01:05:58Flush with victory ziem called for a referendum in the south
01:06:03The cia warned him not to meddle too much with the returns
01:06:07But when the ballots were counted ziem claimed to have won 98.2 percent of the vote
01:06:19On october 26th
01:06:211955 no ding ziem named himself the first president of the brand new republic of vietnam
01:06:31The election to reunify the north and south that had been promised at geneva would never be held
01:06:37He became our ally or rather our master
01:06:44Because the goal of preventing the communism taking over the south was so strong that we couldn't afford for him to lose
01:06:55So ziem started to boss us around and this was a typical relationship
01:07:00You need any ally you believe to be the centerpiece of your foreign policy they understand that right away
01:07:08And the tail wags the dog
01:07:10From the far east comes a distinguished visitor president yo dean diem of vietnam is accorded one of president eisenhower's rare airport greetings as he arrives for a four-day state visit
01:07:25President diem one of america's staunchest allies in southeast asia
01:07:29Will seek an increase in aid to shore up his country against increasing communist pressure a request to which the president lends a sympathetic ear
01:07:36Most politicians democrats as well as republicans now seem to share the changing views of senator john f kennedy
01:07:48South vietnam is our offspring he said we cannot abandon it if it fell the united states would be held responsible
01:07:57And our prestige in asia will sink to a new low
01:08:03There had never before been a south vietnamese nation
01:08:07But americans who had rebuilt much of their own country during the new deal and had helped rebuild western europe through the marshall plan
01:08:16Were convinced they could build one nonetheless
01:08:19Eisenhower ordered scores of american civilians to south vietnam full of plans for economic development
01:08:30Meant to win he hoped the hearts and minds of the vietnamese people
01:08:38But those civilians would always be outnumbered by military advisors with orders to modernize train and equip
01:08:46Ziem's forces now called the army of the republic of vietnam the arvin
01:08:55Some arvin officers found american methods unsuited to the guerrilla war they expected to wage against the communists
01:09:04most american military advisors were veterans of the war in korea
01:09:09determined to prepare south vietnamese forces to slow a conventional invasion from the north
01:09:16But no one in north vietnam was planning a conventional invasion
01:09:25ho chi minh was focused on rebuilding his country
01:09:29devastated by more than a decade of war
01:09:36The communists imposed brutal land reforms modeled on those underway in china with a ruthlessness that left thousands of people dead
01:09:46Including not only landlords who had sided with the french
01:09:50But also many villagers who had fought with the vietnam
01:09:56Ho chi minh was still determined to reunite vietnam
01:10:00But he worried that if he took direct military action against the south the united states would be drawn more deeply into the struggle
01:10:09He cautioned his comrades in the south to put their faith in political agitation and avoid violence
01:10:19But that message rang hollow among embattled southern revolutionaries struggling to survive under ziem's increasingly harsh regime
01:10:28In a campaign he called denounce the communists
01:10:35Ziem had imprisoned tens of thousands of citizens without trial and ordered the executions of hundreds more
01:10:43Now the communists took matters into their own hands and began attacking south vietnamese officials
01:10:52Let's pray for two in Spanish
01:10:53To be continued to discuss the whole ministry of the united states
01:10:55When Edward Greenspan
01:10:55By the way, I'm from the administration
01:10:56For the entire country, I had been to establish the team
01:10:57So I want to establish the army task force
01:10:58Then I want to establish the law, to charge the way
01:11:00And eventually they can be satisfied
01:11:00Then I want to establish the police
01:11:02And then I want to establish the military action
01:11:02But I want to establish the police heroes
01:11:05There was a group of 12 men.
01:11:08There was a group of 12 men.
01:11:11They ran away from us to kill us.
01:11:14They killed us all.
01:11:17Then we told the people,
01:11:19if they were to die of death,
01:11:22we would kill them.
01:11:25That's why my parents started to die of death,
01:11:28no one would go anywhere.
01:11:30As violence in South Vietnam intensified,
01:11:36new leaders emerged in Hanoi.
01:11:39Ho Chi Minh would remain the face of the revolution
01:11:42around the world,
01:11:44but he now began to share power
01:11:46with men who were growing impatient with his caution,
01:11:50men about whom Americans knew almost nothing.
01:11:55The most important proved to be a carpenter's son
01:11:59from Quang Tri Province in the South named Lei Zuan.
01:12:05He had helped found the Indochinese Communist Party,
01:12:09survived nearly 10 years in a French prison,
01:12:12and proved himself a shrewd political infighter
01:12:15as he rose to become first secretary of the party.
01:12:20In 1951, I met Lê Duyển first.
01:12:25When we were young,
01:12:27we were young,
01:12:28we didn't learn anything.
01:12:29He was a person who was different from many other leaders.
01:12:34He brought the interest of the people of the Middle East.
01:12:39He brought the interest of the people of the Middle East.
01:12:41He brought the interest of the people of the Middle East.
01:12:43He brought the interest of the people of the Middle East.
01:12:48By 1959, Lei Zuan and his hardline allies
01:12:57were gaining influence within the North Vietnamese Politburo
01:13:01and beginning to change its policy.
01:13:05They now argued that Hanoi should do everything within its power
01:13:09to help Southern revolutionaries remove Siem by force.
01:13:16The North Vietnamese adopted a more aggressive posture.
01:13:21They did not accept the division of the country as such,
01:13:26and they would like to have the country reunified again at any cost.
01:13:32At any cost.
01:13:35Now bands of 40 to 50 armed Viet Minh
01:13:39began slipping back home into South Vietnam,
01:13:42following jungle paths hacked through the Laotian Mountains
01:13:46that the Americans would soon call the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
01:13:51Violence against the Siem regime steadily accelerated.
01:14:00On the evening of July 8, 1959, at Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon,
01:14:18six American military advisors were watching a movie in their mess hall.
01:14:24Viet Minh guerrillas who had crept silently into the compound
01:14:28opened fire through the windows.
01:14:31Major Dale Bice from Pender, Nebraska,
01:14:38and Master Sergeant Chester Avnand from Copperas Cove, Texas, were killed.
01:14:44They were the first American soldiers to die from enemy fire in the Vietnam War.
01:14:52We must prove all over again to a watching world
01:14:58as we stand on a most conspicuous stage,
01:15:02whether this nation, conceived as it is,
01:15:06with its freedom of choice, its breadth of opportunity,
01:15:11its range of alternatives,
01:15:13can compete with the single-minded advance of the communist system.
01:15:18On November 8, 1960,
01:15:21John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected President of the United States.
01:15:25His vice president was Senator Lyndon Johnson.
01:15:31They had narrowly beaten Vice President Richard Nixon
01:15:34and his running mate Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.
01:15:39During the campaign, both Kennedy and Nixon
01:15:42had pledged to hold the line against international communism,
01:15:46wherever it seemed to be a threat.
01:15:50But very few Americans knew or cared about what was going on in Vietnam.
01:15:57Six weeks after Kennedy's election,
01:16:00at a remote jungle village called Thun Lop,
01:16:03near the Cambodian border,
01:16:05representatives of Southern revolutionary groups
01:16:08met to form a new organization to replace the Viet Minh,
01:16:12dedicated to overthrowing Ngo Dinh Diem,
01:16:15and ousting the foreigners supporting him.
01:16:20Behind the scenes,
01:16:22Lei Zuan and his communist comrades in Hanoi
01:16:25were orchestrating everything.
01:16:28The new organization would be called
01:16:31the National Liberation Front, the NLF.
01:16:36The armed wing of the NLF was called
01:16:40the People's Liberation Armed Forces,
01:16:43but its enemies in Saigon and Washington
01:16:46preferred a more disparaging term.
01:16:49In their eyes, the revolutionaries were
01:16:52communist traitors to the Vietnamese nation,
01:16:55the Viet Cong.
01:16:57Their mission was an isolated
01:16:59type of opposition.
01:17:00On the other hand,
01:17:01the EU agencies were
01:17:02Implanting the fé aquellos who were
01:17:03with the French people
01:17:04who were with its enemies.
01:17:05To be able to die from this far,
01:17:06their government,
01:17:07to be able to die from this country.
01:17:08Even now,
01:17:09the European government,
01:17:10the Western government,
01:17:11to be able to lead to the United States of Canada,
01:17:13for the country,
01:17:14for the country,
01:17:15a greater extent
01:17:16and the south- segment,
01:17:17the Western countries.
01:17:19To be able to die from this country,
01:17:20France's country where the Prime Minister
01:17:21is a very good question.
01:17:22The Australian government talks about
01:17:23the şuris,
01:17:24the Russian government will be asked
01:17:25We don't know that the West can't be aware of the fact that
01:17:30what we have to say is that it is the death of our people.
01:17:37After this history, we will see that the war will be sufficient to death a lot of people like that.
01:17:48Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill,
01:17:55That we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
01:18:25For me, I'd always thought of courage as charging enemy bunkers or standing up under fire, but just to walk day after day from village to village and through the paddies and up into the mountains, just to get up in the morning and look out at the land and think in a few minutes I'll be walking out there and will my corpse be there or there?
01:18:55Oh, I lose a leg out there. Just to walk felt incredibly brave. I would sometimes look at my legs as I walked, thinking, how am I doing this?
01:19:07Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
01:19:21And where have you been, my darling young one?
01:19:28I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains. I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways. I've stepped in the middle of seven-side forests.
01:19:48I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans. I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard. And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall.
01:20:16Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son? And what did you see, my darling young one?
01:20:33I saw a new-born baby with wild wolves all around it. I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it.
01:20:46I saw a black branch with blood that kept dripping. I saw a room full of men with their hammers bleeding.
01:20:59I saw a white ladder all covered with water. I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken.
01:21:13I saw guns and chopped swords in the hands of young children. And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall.
01:21:33And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall.
01:21:48And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall.
01:21:55you
1:22:18
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