- 7/7/2025
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00:00:00Helicopters are phenomenal machines you can float in the air you can be like God
00:00:30I flew below 500 feet above 500 feet was a kill zone you better be below 200 feet the lower the
00:00:43better my job was to get shot at my job was draw enemy fire I was a duck decoy I got shot at a lot I
00:00:54engaged enemy a lot you're screaming as loud as you can to try to cover up the sound of the incoming
00:01:08bullets because when they pass by your ear you can hear the popping sound you don't hear the gunshot
00:01:15that a 50 caliber just opened up when shooting a half-inch piece of lead flying at you and the
00:01:21aircraft was a plane you're flying you're 90 degrees the other way and you're you're shooting
00:01:28yourself down because the rotor blades are running funny and you're trying to keep the gun from jamming
00:01:32because you're running around like this if your gun jams you're done
00:01:37Vietnam was the first real helicopter war helicopter pilots flew more than 36 million sorties their
00:01:54crews scattered propaganda leaflets over the enemy and poured lethal fire into their positions carried
00:02:03troops and supplies and artillery into battle and lifted the wounded off the battlefield so swiftly
00:02:10that most reached a field hospital within 15 minutes
00:02:15Ron Farisi a policeman's son from the swamp poodle neighborhood of North Philadelphia
00:02:27got to Vietnam in November of 1967 he was a crew chief and a scout helicopter with the first air
00:02:36cavalry flying out of landing zone two bits in the central highlands one day after returning from a
00:02:44combat mission he was approached by a journalist and there was this uh it was a beautiful woman you
00:02:54know a round-eyed woman statuesque round-eyed woman with nice hair and she looked pretty wow she said can I ask you a couple questions what was it like out there how does it feel that a 50 caliber just opened up shooting a half inch piece of lead at you
00:03:14when it's hard to describe it's shitty
00:03:20I mean isn't it isn't it apparent what it's like
00:03:25you want to know what it's like go look at it go out there go see the bodies
00:03:31I was ready to whack her now I wanted to blast her I was ready to blow you want to know what it's
00:03:38like boom there it is I'll give it to you right now you want to feel it you want to see it I'll give it to you
00:03:43that's what you want is that what you want I don't want to tell you what it's like because I don't
00:03:48want to remember it that's the insanity that it brings out
00:04:13the enemy has been defeated in battle after battle he continues to hope that America's will to persevere can be broken
00:04:32well he is wrong
00:04:371968 would prove to be a watershed year in the history of the Vietnam War and the United States
00:04:49as the year began there were 485,600 American troops in Vietnam and American leaders promised that victory
00:05:00was finally in sight that there really was light at the end of the tunnel
00:05:06but then North Vietnam would mount a massive offensive that would result in a terrible defeat for them
00:05:18that in the long run would turn out to have been a still greater victory
00:05:23America itself would be convulsed by assassinations and battles in the streets over the war and civil rights
00:05:32an American president a master politician used to getting things done would continue to find
00:05:41himself besieged by problems he could not solve
00:05:45Robert Kennedy the brother of the slain president who had escalated American presence in Vietnam
00:05:55wrote an editorial that year that seemed to speak for many mere anarchy is loosed upon the world he said
00:06:04quoting the poet William Butler Yeats things fall apart the center cannot hold
00:06:25general Westmoreland when you said that you'd never been more encouraged in the four years that you've been in Vietnam
00:06:35some critics on the other hand have never been more discouraged
00:06:39I wonder if you could detail one or two or three things that cause you to be so encouraged
00:06:45I could quote a number of meaningful statistics such as the roads that are being opened
00:06:50increasing number of enemies that have been killed and other statistical information
00:06:57which suggests that we are making progress and we are winning
00:07:01and I find an attitude of confidence and growing optimism
00:07:06it prevails all over the country
00:07:08and to me this is the most significant evidence I can give you
00:07:13that constant real progress is being made
00:07:16on the evening of January 1st 1968 Ho Chi Minh broadcast a poem over Radio Hanoi
00:07:34communist commanders took this to mean that the ultimate battle
00:07:46the general offensive and general uprising they had been planning for months was imminent
00:07:52party first secretary Lê Xuân who had insisted on the offensive and had purged those opposed
00:08:01believed it would finally bring about an end to the war
00:08:05Viet Cong units supported by North Vietnamese troops were to simultaneously attack cities and bases all over the south
00:08:15Lê Xuân promised those troops that when the fighting started
00:08:19the people of South Vietnam would rise up and overthrow the Saigon government
00:08:24just as the Vietnamese had risen up against the Japanese in August of 1945
00:08:32with Saigon defeated the Americans would have no choice but to withdraw from Vietnam
00:08:38the surprise attacks would begin at the end of the month at the start of the lunar new year celebration called Tet
00:08:45The Viet Cong were already infiltrating scores of cities and towns
00:08:52tens of thousands of North Vietnamese troops were now in place in South Vietnam
00:09:00tons of smuggled Chinese and Soviet-made weapons had been spirited towards intended targets in sandpans and flower carts and false bottom trucks and then buried in paddy fields and garbage dumps and cemeteries and
00:09:17until the moment came for them to be retrieved
00:09:36the exact year
00:10:04More than 10,000 American military and civilian intelligence officers were at work in South Vietnam.
00:10:12And here and there, hints of what was to come filtered up the chain of command.
00:10:19Enemy units were moving around in inexplicable ways.
00:10:23Captured enemy reports described coming attacks on different cities.
00:10:28Eleven agents were caught in the city of Quinyon, carrying pre-recorded tapes calling on the local people to rise up against the Saigon government.
00:10:38All of these things were saying to us, something's going to happen, but we don't know exactly what.
00:10:45General Westmoreland thought he knew.
00:10:49I believe that the enemy will attempt a countrywide show of strength just prior to Tet, he cabled Washington.
00:10:56With Que San being the main event.
00:10:59Some 30,000 North Vietnamese troops had gathered near Que San, the westernmost strongpoint below the DMZ, that was being held by just 6,000 Marines.
00:11:13Westmoreland believed North Vietnam wanted to isolate and annihilate the U.S. forces there.
00:11:19Just as the Viet Minh had done to the French at the NBN Phu 14 years earlier.
00:11:24Enemy attacks elsewhere, Westmoreland was sure, would only be a diversion.
00:11:31One American general, Frederick C. Wyand, was not so sure.
00:11:37He was able to persuade Westmoreland to let him pull half his troops back from the Cambodian border,
00:11:43to take up defensive positions outside Saigon, just in case.
00:11:49This is an underground bunker at Que San, one of the few cement havens left from the earlier days of the war,
00:11:55when the Special Forces held its base.
00:11:57It is dark, dark, dreary.
00:12:00I feel something in the air.
00:12:03I'm about to build up.
00:12:04I don't know, you can almost kill them working around you at night.
00:12:10Who?
00:12:11The NBA.
00:12:14On January 21st, the North Vietnamese began shelling Que San.
00:12:20The U.S. forces at the U.S. forces at the U.S. forces at the U.S.
00:12:38Westmoreland gave this to the U.S. force, the U.S. forces at the U.S.
00:12:42I don't know what I'm going to do.
00:13:12When he learned of the attack on Khaesan,
00:13:29Lyndon Johnson made the Joint Chiefs sign a pledge
00:13:32that the base would never fall.
00:13:35I don't want any damn din bin foo, he said.
00:13:39The president had a scale model of the battlefield
00:13:42installed in the White House
00:13:44so that he could follow the fighting there hour by hour.
00:13:52But Westmoreland's and Johnson's basic assumption was wrong.
00:13:57Khaesan was the sideshow.
00:14:00The attacks on cities and towns
00:14:02that were about to begin throughout South Vietnam
00:14:06would be the main event.
00:14:09But First Secretary Lei's one's basic assumptions
00:14:16were about to be tested, too.
00:14:20For the coming offensive to succeed,
00:14:22the South Vietnamese army, the ARVN,
00:14:25would have to collapse,
00:14:27and the people of the South
00:14:29would have to join the revolution.
00:14:31All our thinking was focused on finishing off the enemy,
00:14:47one North Vietnamese general remembered.
00:14:49We were intoxicated by that thought.
00:14:53All our thinking was focused on finishing off the enemy,
00:14:58one North Vietnamese general remembered.
00:15:00We were intoxicated by that thought.
00:15:04A job was prepared by the people of the country.
00:15:06The young people of the country were prepared
00:15:08and they had to return to the border.
00:15:10There were many places
00:15:12that they left the territories
00:15:14in the river.
00:15:15They had to kill the river and
00:15:17shoot the river and shoot the river.
00:15:17They'd say they had to turn to the river.
00:15:18They had to turn back to the river.
00:15:19I don't have to go back to the war anymore.
00:15:32Okay, we've got our three wounded GIs on board.
00:15:36At least one of them has hit pretty bad.
00:15:39FedEx got a busy, busy few minutes ahead of him before we get back.
00:15:45As the date for the Tet Offensive approached,
00:15:48the war continued for the hundreds of thousands of Americans in country.
00:15:56I did see the reality of war.
00:15:59A real education for a young doctor.
00:16:05The war seemed to be going very well from our point of view.
00:16:11The war seemed to be going just fine, thank you.
00:16:15Captain Hal Kushner was a 26-year-old recent graduate of medical school from Danville, Virginia.
00:16:23The father of a three-year-old girl with another baby on the way.
00:16:27He had volunteered to serve in Vietnam and became a flight surgeon with the 1st Air Cavalry.
00:16:36And I was supposed to give a lecture on the dangers of night flying, ironically, and I did.
00:16:41We had terrible weather that night.
00:16:45And it was dark, and it was rainy, and it was windy.
00:16:49As we were flying, I saw that we had drifted west of the highway, and I knew that was wrong.
00:16:55In the fog and rain, Kushner's helicopter slammed into a mountain.
00:17:05And the next thing I knew, I was hanging upside down in a burning helicopter.
00:17:11Major Porcello was dead.
00:17:13I just jumped away from the helicopter, and it just went whoosh, and it just burned up.
00:17:20There was an M60 machine gun on the helicopter, and the rounds were cooking off, and it was exploding.
00:17:28And one or several of the rounds went through my shoulder, my left shoulder.
00:17:33On the ground, I saw Warrant Officer Bedworth, and he was hurt very badly.
00:17:42I took some branches and splinted his leg.
00:17:47So the rule is you wait with the aircraft until you get rescued.
00:17:53And we just sat there.
00:17:55So we waited one day.
00:17:58We waited two days.
00:18:00We had no food or water.
00:18:01On the morning of the third day, Bedworth died.
00:18:06And he just slipped away.
00:18:09It was very, very sad.
00:18:12And I thought that my best choice was to leave the aircraft and try to go down the mountain.
00:18:19It took the wounded Kushner four hours to stagger down the hill.
00:18:23When he finally reached level ground, he looked back up and saw two American helicopters hovering above the crash site.
00:18:34Their pilots did not see him.
00:18:36And I saw this peasant working in a rice paddy, and he saw me, and I had captain's bars, and a Caduceus, a medical symbol on my collar.
00:18:50And he said, Da Wee Boxee, Da Wee Boxee, Captain Doctor.
00:18:56He took me about another mile to a little hooch, a little house.
00:19:00And he sat me down on the front of it, and he brought out a can of condensed milk.
00:19:08And as I was eating this stuff, it was just the best stuff I've ever eaten in my whole life.
00:19:13I hear another person say, Da Wee Boxee, Da Wee Boxee, surrender, no kill.
00:19:22There was a squad of Viet Cong there, and I put my one arm up, and he shot me with an M2 carbine.
00:19:31And I think he was more nervous than I was.
00:19:34And he shot me right where the M60 had shot me, and it went right through my neck and came out the back.
00:19:40And they tied my arms very tightly in commo wire.
00:19:45He went through my wallet, and he took my Geneva Convention card, which was white with a red cross, and he tore it up.
00:19:53And he said, in English, no POW, criminal, criminal.
00:20:01So then they took my boots, and we started marching.
00:20:05And then we walked for a month, 30 days, almost always at night.
00:20:15And my feet were just lacerated.
00:20:19I didn't think I could possibly survive.
00:20:22And there was no time to survive.
00:20:27So, these guys got to know that when I was preparing for a big straw for the city,
00:20:32the leadership of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power.
00:20:37We were to go outside the city.
00:20:41We walked into the city.
00:20:42Chúng taeens over the city, for a day.
00:20:45and I think that we can do this.
00:20:52By January 30th, an informal 36-hour truce for Tet was in effect.
00:20:59Thousands of ARVN troops had gone home for the holiday.
00:21:05The enemy had not.
00:21:09They all ate the Tet.
00:21:13There was a Tet, a chicken, and a chicken.
00:21:18The Tet was very delicious and happy.
00:21:24After that, we went to Sài Gòn,
00:21:29and went to the west of Sài Gòn.
00:21:33That same day, Marine Corporal Roger Harris
00:21:38was scheduled to fly out of Vietnam.
00:21:42His 13-month tour was over.
00:21:45But he and his unit were still hunkered down
00:21:48under constant shelling at Camp Carroll,
00:21:51just south of the DMZ.
00:21:55Once I had my orders, I said goodbye to all my friends,
00:21:59and then I went over to the landing zone.
00:22:04So when the helicopters come in,
00:22:06I put the body bags on the helicopter,
00:22:10and I got on with the bodies.
00:22:13We landed in Dong Ha, which was Division Headquarters,
00:22:16and we got about 200 meters from the airstrip.
00:22:19The airstrip started getting hit.
00:22:22I'm just thinking personally that God realizes
00:22:28that he made a mistake because some of the guys
00:22:30that got killed over with me were good Christians
00:22:33that never had sex, didn't swear, you know.
00:22:36And, you know, I've been this sinner.
00:22:39And I'm thinking God realized he made a mistake.
00:22:42He killed the Christians, and I got away.
00:22:45And so now death is following me.
00:22:48And they told us that in another hour or so
00:22:50a plane was going to come in.
00:22:53When it came in, then the artillery started coming in.
00:22:56You know, we jumped on and took off.
00:23:01And it landed in Danang.
00:23:03And then the sun came up and went to the airstrip,
00:23:05and we boarded airplanes, and we were sitting there.
00:23:08Everybody's giving each other pounds,
00:23:10just like, I'm slapping fire, we made it.
00:23:13And then all of a sudden,
00:23:15the airstrip starts getting hit.
00:23:21And artillery's coming in.
00:23:24And I'm thinking, it's all coming after me.
00:23:28It's all about me.
00:23:30You know, God doesn't want me to make it out of here.
00:23:34In the early morning hours of January 31, 1968,
00:23:4084,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops
00:23:45attacked 36 of South Vietnam's 44 provincial capitals,
00:23:50dozens of American and Arvin military bases,
00:23:53and the six largest cities in the country,
00:23:56including Hue, Da Nang, and Saigon.
00:24:01Their goal, their commanders told them,
00:24:04was to crack the sky and shake the earth.
00:24:20In Saigon, General Westmoreland mistook the first explosions
00:24:24as holiday firecrackers.
00:24:26His deputy commander, General Creighton W. Abrams,
00:24:33was asleep, and his aides did not bother to wake him.
00:24:38Not a single top commander was present at Pentagon East,
00:24:42the sprawling MACV headquarters at Tan Sanut Air Base
00:24:46on the outskirts of Saigon,
00:24:48when mortars and rockets began cratering the runways.
00:24:52What a end of center!
00:24:54TDO keep on coming too easy.
00:24:56TL doesn't deal any better!
00:24:58TDO keep on coming too easy.
00:24:59TDO näch�!
00:25:00When I went to the first airport, it started to be the morning sun.
00:25:07According to the partnership, the car was brought to me to the United States.
00:25:12But there was no car.
00:25:30Viet Cong soldiers spread out to attack specific targets in and around the capital.
00:25:41The war had come to the streets of Saigon.
00:25:46Had General Wyand not insisted on stationing troops around the city, Saigon itself would
00:25:52have been in far greater danger.
00:25:55We heard gunfire, and our first reaction was, must be another coup d'état.
00:26:06And then we heard that the Viet Cong had attacked Saigon and was still attacking.
00:26:12It came as a total shock, because we always thought Saigon was safe.
00:26:18The safest place in all of South Vietnam.
00:26:25One Viet Cong squad made it all the way to the presidential palace, but was stopped by
00:26:32South Vietnamese tanks.
00:26:35The survivors holed up in a building across the street and were shot by Arvin troops and
00:26:43American MPs.
00:26:48All over Saigon, nothing was going according to plan.
00:26:55Viet Cong units were taking heavy losses from U.S. troops and determined South Vietnamese forces.
00:27:06Are you?
00:27:18Yes.
00:27:18Yes.
00:27:19Are you?
00:27:19Yes.
00:27:20Yes.
00:27:20Yes.
00:27:21Yes.
00:27:22Let me do it.
00:27:23Yes.
00:27:24My colleague is here to go.
00:27:25Yes.
00:27:26Yes.
00:27:27Yes.
00:27:28Please go.
00:27:29Please look down.
00:27:30Yes.
00:27:31Yes.
00:27:31Yes.
00:27:32Yes.
00:27:33Yes.
00:27:33Yes.
00:27:34Yes.
00:27:34Yes.
00:27:35Yes.
00:27:36This is the main Vietnamese language radio station in Saigon.
00:28:06Right now, there are an undisclosed number of VC inside occupying the station.
00:28:11The Viet Cong managed to seize South Vietnam's national radio station
00:28:15and prepared to broadcast a taped message from Ho Chi Minh,
00:28:20calling upon the people to rise up.
00:28:24But a technician radioed to the transmitting tower to cut them off
00:28:28and broadcast Viennese waltzes and Beatles songs instead.
00:28:36Turn off your mind, relax, and close down the gate.
00:28:42This is not dying.
00:28:46This is not dying.
00:28:48Let's listen to the color of your dreams.
00:28:55It is not living.
00:28:59It is not living.
00:29:03The Saigon suburb of Vien Hoa was under attack, too.
00:29:21Enemy forces were assaulting both the airbase there and Long Binh,
00:29:26the largest American installation in Vietnam.
00:29:29There were V.C. moving on the house, moving everywhere.
00:29:38A lot of shooting, a lot of confusion going on.
00:29:42And we were shooting out the window, and my wife was reloading.
00:29:47When we ran out of ammunition, we'd slide the magazine down the tiles,
00:29:54and she was down there at the other end,
00:29:57filling them up and sliding them back.
00:30:00Viet Cong commandos managed to slip through the wire at Long Binh
00:30:04and blow up a huge ammunition dump.
00:30:08A mushroom cloud rose above the airfield,
00:30:11so vast that some of the Americans thought there had been a nuclear explosion.
00:30:17The blast blew off the door of Brady's building.
00:30:20They went up against the wire in Long Binh and paid a frightful price.
00:30:31They were just layers of bodies.
00:30:34The Americans just cut them down.
00:30:35Hi, this is Johnny Carson.
00:30:40As you know, this is usual starting time for the Tonight Show.
00:30:43But because of the critical war situation in Vietnam,
00:30:46especially around Saigon,
00:30:48NBC, for the next 15 minutes,
00:30:49is going to bring you a special news program via satellite.
00:30:53Just after midnight their time,
00:30:54a band of Viet Cong raiders blew up a power installation
00:30:57and attacked two police stations in Saigon.
00:30:59It all amounts to the most ambitious series of communist attacks yet mounted,
00:31:04spreading violence into at least 10 provincial capitals,
00:31:07plus American air bases and civilian installations
00:31:10stretching the entire length of the country.
00:31:13None had greater psychological impact
00:31:15than the assault on the American embassy in Saigon.
00:31:20In the first few hours of the fighting,
00:31:2319 specially trained commandos
00:31:26had blasted their way into the sprawling compound
00:31:29of the United States embassy.
00:31:33There's a rush.
00:31:35They're rushing the embassy.
00:31:38That's fire coming from the other side of the street now.
00:31:41Outside the embassy.
00:31:42They're exchanging across the street.
00:31:43You can see the tracer bullets going past.
00:31:47That's outside the embassy.
00:31:48This is Waco, roger.
00:31:55Can you get in the gates?
00:31:57The gate's open, and can you take a force in there
00:31:59and clean out that embassy like now?
00:32:01Go!
00:32:02Go!
00:32:02Go!
00:32:03Go!
00:32:03Go!
00:32:04Go!
00:32:04Go!
00:32:05Go!
00:32:05Go!
00:32:06Go!
00:32:07Go!
00:32:08Go!
00:32:09Go!
00:32:10Go!
00:32:11Go!
00:32:12Go!
00:32:13Go!
00:32:14Go!
00:32:15Go!
00:32:16Go!
00:32:17Go!
00:32:18Go!
00:32:19Go!
00:32:20Go!
00:32:21Go!
00:32:22Go!
00:32:23Go!
00:32:24Go!
00:32:25Go!
00:32:26Go!
00:32:27Go!
00:32:28Go!
00:32:29Go!
00:32:30Go!
00:32:31Go!
00:32:32Go!
00:32:33Go!
00:32:34Go!
00:32:35Go!
00:32:36Go!
00:32:37Go!
00:32:38All of the intruders were eventually killed or captured.
00:32:42What a sight, a small frog hopping through a pool of blood that's issuing from the head of a Viet Cong lying on the green grassy lawn of the U.S. Embassy.
00:33:01An American Marine and four army MPs were killed at the embassy.
00:33:29General, how would you assess yesterday's activities and today's?
00:33:35What is the enemy doing?
00:33:36Are these major attacks?
00:33:37That's EOD setting off a couple of M-79 duds, I believe.
00:33:44The enemy, very deceitfully, has taken advantage of the Tet Truce in order to create maximum consternation.
00:34:00In my opinion, this is diversionary.
00:34:03Early wire service dispatches reported incorrectly that the Viet Cong had made it inside the embassy itself.
00:34:12Embassy ID cards were found on some of the Viet Cong.
00:34:15And the first television footage did little to reassure the American public.
00:34:20Saigon's secure right now?
00:34:23Saigon's secure, as far as I know.
00:34:25There's no more fighting in the street?
00:34:27There may be some in the outskirts, too.
00:34:29I'm not sure.
00:34:30I don't know if they're sure of them.
00:34:33No.
00:34:35Saigon was far from secure.
00:34:38Where's the vão?
00:34:40That's how easy they wanted.
00:34:42Get out!
00:34:46Come on!
00:34:48Let's go!
00:34:55The Viet Cong.
00:35:02Viet Cong assassination squads, some guided by North Vietnamese spies, moved through the
00:35:16streets with orders to kill what they called blood enemies of the people.
00:35:24Bureaucrats, intelligence officers, ARVN commanders, and ordinary soldiers home on leave, and their families.
00:35:35I went home to visit my parents and I found them kind of huddling their house.
00:35:41The door shut, the window shut, very dark.
00:35:45They were very afraid because our house was located near a slum and we always assumed that
00:35:51there were a lot of Viet Cong agents living among the poor, where they could hide very easily,
00:35:59and that they were going to come out and look for government officials, military personnel
00:36:05to kill.
00:36:07So my parents were very afraid.
00:36:21They worked a lot.
00:36:23The most famous is the most famous shooting of Trần Ban Kiềm, and the captain of Trần Ban Hương,
00:36:28who was the president of Trần Ban Kiềm.
00:36:32On the second day of the fighting, a Viet Cong agent named Nguyen Van Lem was brought
00:36:55before Nguyen Ngoc Luan, the head of the South Vietnamese National Police.
00:37:01As an AP photographer and an NBC cameraman watched, Luan ordered another officer to shoot
00:37:08the captive.
00:37:09When he hesitated, Luan did the job himself.
00:37:13And Lan said that, I executed you, and he, he draw his, they call 45 and put him, and put
00:37:25him, put him there.
00:37:27The Chief of South Vietnam's National Police Force, Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Luan was
00:37:34waiting for us.
00:37:34Good morning, Mr. President.
00:37:41We need guidance this morning, sir.
00:37:47Guidance?
00:37:49Guidance?
00:37:50Is that all you want?
00:37:51Yes, sir.
00:37:52No quotation?
00:37:53That's right.
00:37:54No attribution?
00:37:55No connection?
00:37:56That's right.
00:37:57Give it absolutely none.
00:37:58Give it absolutely none.
00:37:59Absolutely none.
00:38:00Your press is lying like drunken sailors every day.
00:38:04First thing I wake up this morning, was trying to figure out after seeing CBS, watching the
00:38:11networks, reading the morning papers, was how can we win, possibly win, and survive as a
00:38:18nation and have to fight the press's lies.
00:38:23Yes, sir.
00:38:24I'm trying to protect my country, and they're all whipping me.
00:38:25Not a son of a bitch said a word about Ho Chi Man.
00:38:26They talk about us bombing.
00:38:27Yet these sons of bitches come in and bomb our embassy, and 19 of them try to raid on,
00:38:30all 19 get killed.
00:38:32And yet they blame the embassy.
00:38:33I don't understand it.
00:38:34We think we've killed 20,000.
00:38:35We think we've lost 400.
00:38:36We think that, of course, it's bad to lose anybody, any one of the 400.
00:38:44But we think that the good Lord has been so good to us that it will be the best of us.
00:38:48We think that, of course, it's bad to lose anybody, any one of the 400.
00:38:58but we think that the good lord has been so good to us that it is a major dramatic victory and i
00:39:05think what would have happened if i'd lost 20 000 and they'd lost 400 i ask you that oh it's been
00:39:11terrible it appears that a mortar or a rocket shell came in and all this blood on my pants
00:39:19i guess i'm i'm hit well this is the streets of saigon and that's where the war is now
00:39:29howard tuckner nbc news
00:39:34the american press focused almost entirely on the fighting in saigon but the ted offensive was
00:39:42happening almost everywhere most assaults were being quickly beaten back by arvin and american
00:39:50forces everywhere the enemy was suffering terrible losses
00:40:12one of our members of the country was in the Quảng Trì and we were able to kill them in a few days
00:40:23and we were able to kill them around 600 and they were killed over 300
00:40:29and they were killed by about 100
00:40:33The Americans called in massive air and artillery firepower to dislodge a Viet Cong regiment
00:40:52from the city of Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta.
00:40:56Afterwards, a reporter quoted an American major as having said,
00:41:01it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.
00:41:08Right now, the Navy and the Army boats that also bring supplies up the Perfume River
00:41:15are having to undergo heavy, small arms and mortar fire as they turn the bend in the river here around Wei itself.
00:41:22And the landing zone on this, the south side of the river, has been under almost constant mortar and small arms fire.
00:41:28And today, at any rate, Wei is cut off.
00:41:35The longest, bloodiest battle of the Tet Offensive was being fought in the streets of one of the country's loveliest cities,
00:41:43the former imperial capital, Wei.
00:41:50The Perfume River divided Wei in two.
00:42:06The enemy, North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas, had taken over both sides of the city.
00:42:13Only the American advisors' compound on the south bank and the 1st Arvin Division headquarters
00:42:21within the thick-walled citadel on the north side held out against them.
00:42:25TRUMPH
00:42:33.
00:42:35.
00:42:37That's why all the forces have a secret force in the city from a long time ago.
00:42:45That's the place where the rescue forces were able to conquer a half of the city.
00:42:52At that time, the rescue forces were able to conquer the city.
00:42:58And that's why people think that they will completely conquer the city.
00:43:04Prime Corporal Bill Earhart was at the end of his tour and was preparing to go home.
00:43:10But when his company was ordered to relieve the besieged American compound in whey,
00:43:16he chose to go with his comrades.
00:43:19I had spent 12 months in Vietnam looking for somebody to shoot at, and there was nobody there.
00:43:26And then all of a sudden, it seemed like here's every NVA in the world
00:43:33trying to kill me and my pals.
00:43:35It was an entirely different kind of fight.
00:43:49Earhart and his unit endured a bloody ambush,
00:43:53finally fought their way through to the MACV compound,
00:43:57and then began days of brutal block-by-block battle
00:44:01to retake the surrounding neighborhoods.
00:44:04Every house became a battlefield.
00:44:07It was exhilarating, Earhart remembered.
00:44:21I was scared, utterly witless, but it was the greatest adrenaline high I'd ever experienced.
00:44:28It was ugly, ugly fighting.
00:44:34You literally have to clear houses, a room at a time, a floor at a time, a house at a time.
00:44:40And then you go to the next one.
00:44:42When the had to shoot at, there was a German man.
00:44:47When they were just starting from, they would kill me.
00:44:50Then they would kill me.
00:44:51Then we would kill him, then we would kill him.
00:44:54For example, they would kill him.
00:44:55Then they would kill him so he would kill him.
00:44:58After that, I was able to kill him.
00:45:01They would kill him.
00:45:03About 3 metres.
00:45:05After that, I was able to kill him.
00:45:07When I hit the ground, I hit the ground.
00:45:10I was able to beat the ground,
00:45:12and I was able to beat the ground.
00:45:18I was able to beat the ground.
00:45:37February 5th, I was wounded by a B-40 rocket.
00:45:45I was utterly stone deaf.
00:45:52Under any other circumstances, I would have been evacuated.
00:45:55But I could see, I could walk, and I could shoot.
00:46:00So I stayed.
00:46:07The fighting continued.
00:46:37We had to blow our way through every wall of every house,
00:46:42one Marine remembered.
00:46:44It's a shame we had to damage such a beautiful city.
00:46:52Of course, all these civilians have been herded into the university.
00:46:56They had all gone there to get the hell away from having grenades thrown in their living rooms.
00:47:01And one of the guys comes in and says,
00:47:04I found this girl who will fuck us all for sea rations.
00:47:10And I'm thinking, wait, we're in the middle of this big battle.
00:47:14And I'm going to go and...
00:47:17But I'm 19 years old, and my buddies are going to...
00:47:21And I just...
00:47:24I demonstrated to myself how little courage I actually had.
00:47:30I've lived with it ever since.
00:47:32But I did it because I wasn't going to say,
00:47:36you guys, we shouldn't do something like this.
00:47:39Even more than the killings,
00:47:44the thing I think I'm most ashamed of.
00:47:47When I think back on the time I spent there,
00:47:51I think it's because my mother's a woman.
00:47:57My wife's a woman.
00:47:59My daughter's a woman.
00:48:01Somebody gets shot.
00:48:12Not a good thing.
00:48:14You see somebody running away.
00:48:17Could have been a VC.
00:48:20That woman...
00:48:23Nah.
00:48:26I had every opportunity to say no.
00:48:30The next day, in the midst of still another firefight,
00:48:36a lieutenant in a jeep pulled up in front of the building
00:48:39from which Earhart and five fellow marines were firing at the enemy.
00:48:44Come on, Earhart, he shouted.
00:48:47Chopper's on the LZ right now.
00:48:50You want to go home or not?
00:48:54From the helicopter that lifted him up
00:48:56and away from the ruined, smoking city,
00:48:59he could see a farmer and his water buffalo working a flooded field,
00:49:04and women in conical hats carrying twin baskets,
00:49:08hurrying along between the paddies as if there were no war.
00:49:17Back in Wei, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops
00:49:21now found themselves trapped inside the city.
00:49:44It would take two weeks for the Marines to fight their way across the river to support
00:49:53the Arvin, who had stubbornly kept the enemy from overwhelming their division headquarters
00:49:59in the Citadel.
00:50:14What's the hardest part of it?
00:50:22Not knowing where they are, that's the worst thing.
00:50:25Riding around and running in the sewers and the gutters, anywhere.
00:50:28Be anywhere.
00:50:29Just hoping to stay alive from day to day.
00:50:31Hope everybody just wants to go back home and go to school.
00:50:34That's about it.
00:50:35You lost any friends?
00:50:36Quite a few.
00:50:37We lost one the other day, good buddy.
00:50:39Oh, thank you.
00:50:44Come on, come on.
00:50:45Come on!
00:50:46Come on!
00:50:47Come on!
00:50:48Come on!
00:50:49Come on!
00:50:50Come on!
00:50:51Come on!
00:50:52Come on!
00:50:53Come on!
00:50:54Come on!
00:50:55Come on!
00:50:56Then that's how it's been difficult.
00:50:59The two of us all have been killed.
00:51:01It causes a lot of pain.
00:51:06They have been killed.
00:51:09If they were killed 25 or 26 at night,
00:51:11we can't be killed.
00:51:12They had to run away.
00:51:13We have to get rid of it.
00:51:15It's clear.
00:51:17At that time, we felt hurt.
00:51:23We had to sacrifice, but we couldn't get rid of it.
00:51:29We had to get rid of it.
00:51:33We had to get rid of it and get rid of it.
00:51:37But at the end, we couldn't get rid of it.
00:51:40After 26 days of bitter, bloody fighting,
00:51:44the flag of South Vietnam flew again above the citadel.
00:51:50The surviving North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
00:51:53were finally permitted by their commanders to pull out of the city.
00:51:58Some 6,000 civilians had died in the rubble.
00:52:03Of the city's 135,000 citizens,
00:52:07110,000 had lost their homes.
00:52:13All that was left of way, one reporter wrote,
00:52:17was ruins divided by a river.
00:52:22The biggest fact is that the stated purposes of the general uprising,
00:52:28a military victory or a psychological victory, have failed.
00:52:34The attack on the radio station started at 2.30 in the morning,
00:52:38but none of the raiders...
00:52:40Night after night for weeks.
00:52:42American television screens had been filled with images of blood
00:52:46and violence and devastation the public had rarely seen before.
00:52:52The enemy was nowhere.
00:52:54But it was one photograph that for many people
00:52:58would come to define the Tet Offensive.
00:53:02I remember he was wearing a checked shirt.
00:53:08And the photographer had come up very close
00:53:12and had pressed his shutter just as the officer pulled his trigger.
00:53:19So camera and gun went off together,
00:53:22and you could see the man's head bulging at the side
00:53:26where the bullet was about to come out.
00:53:30We were there, face-to-face with this man
00:53:33who is dying right now, dead.
00:53:36It's a devastating thing to see,
00:53:39and I think many Americans begin to ask themselves,
00:53:42are we supporting the wrong guys here?
00:53:45And it sort of brings home, I think, to the dinner table,
00:53:49or the breakfast table, if you see it in the papers,
00:53:52the brutality of this war
00:53:54and the fact that it looks like it's never going to end.
00:53:57But what we know is the price that we pay for that picture.
00:54:04It was a turning point.
00:54:06Because that put the Americans to position and said,
00:54:10hey, look, we want to spend money
00:54:12and the lives of our young people to protect such a system.
00:54:24For a month, Hal Kushner's captors had made him walk deeper
00:54:29and deeper into the Central Highlands,
00:54:31always moving at night
00:54:33so that they would not be spotted from the air.
00:54:37They took me to this place that I assume was a hospital.
00:54:42It was just a series of caves,
00:54:44but there were a lot of wounded lying around.
00:54:47And this female nurse came out and inspected my wound,
00:54:55and then she gave me a bamboo stick to bite on.
00:54:59She laid me down and she gave me this bamboo stick to bite on,
00:55:02and then she took this rifle-cleaning rod
00:55:04and she heated it up in a fire until it was red-hot.
00:55:08And she took it and put it through my wound, through and through.
00:55:13And it really hurt.
00:55:15It really, really, really hurt.
00:55:18And then she put mercurochrome on the wound,
00:55:21and she gave me an aspirin towel.
00:55:25And I thought, what else can they do to me?
00:55:31Krishna would eventually arrive at a remote jungle camp,
00:55:35joining a handful of other American prisoners.
00:55:41And this Vietnamese officer came to me and he spoke English,
00:55:44and it was the first real English speaker that I had seen.
00:55:47And he had a little reel-to-reel tape recorder,
00:55:50battery-powered tape recorder.
00:55:52And he asked me to make a message to my family
00:55:55to let them know that I was safe,
00:55:57and I could do that if I would make a statement against the war.
00:56:02And I told him with great bravado that I would rather die
00:56:07than make a statement against my country.
00:56:09And he said to me,
00:56:11you will find dying is very easy.
00:56:16Living will be the difficult thing.
00:56:19Living is the difficult thing.
00:56:22In early March, two weeks after Wei had finally been recaptured,
00:56:31Second Lieutenant Phil Joya of the 82nd Airborne Division
00:56:35led his platoon along the Perfume River,
00:56:38looking for weapons that might have been buried
00:56:41by the retreating enemy.
00:56:43Joya's Sergeant Ruben Torres saw something sticking up
00:56:48from the sandy soil.
00:56:51It was an elbow.
00:56:53So to us, it seemed as though this was going to be a grave
00:56:57where the enemy had buried some of his own people
00:57:01on the withdrawal from Wei.
00:57:03Sergeant Torres said, you know, sir,
00:57:05I think we better start to dig here.
00:57:07We found the first body, and it was a woman.
00:57:11She was wearing a white blouse and black trousers.
00:57:17She had her hands tied behind her back,
00:57:19and she'd been shot in the back of the head.
00:57:22Next to her was a child who had also been shot.
00:57:26The next person coming up was another woman.
00:57:31At that point, it was clear that this wasn't enemy
00:57:34North Vietnamese or Viet Cong.
00:57:36Before they abandoned the city,
00:58:03the Communists had systematically executed at least 2,800 people
00:58:09they called hooligans and reactionaries.
00:58:14Hanoi would always deny that any innocent civilians had been killed.
00:58:33The U.S. had been killed by the U.S. in the U.S.
00:58:36but there could be people who have been killed.
00:58:39So it became a disaster.
00:58:42That was a bad thing in the war.
00:58:52In the U.S. we had a strong fight against the U.S.
00:58:57in the U.S.
00:58:59The U.S.
00:59:06The U.S. might have been told.
00:59:09It could be this and others might have been told.
00:59:12It could be a true truth.
00:59:16So the U.S. would have been told as to to say.
00:59:20President Johnson insisted that the Tet Offensive had been
00:59:29a devastating defeat for the Communists.
00:59:34Militarily, he was right.
00:59:36The basic assumptions on which the North Vietnamese
00:59:39mounted their offensive had all proved to be wrong.
00:59:44Hanoi's leaders had assumed the Arvin would crumble,
00:59:47that South Vietnamese soldiers would come over to their side.
00:59:53Instead, not a single unit defected.
00:59:58The civilian populace Hanoi expected to rise up
01:00:02may have been unhappy with their government,
01:00:05but they had little sympathy for Communism.
01:00:09And when the fighting began, they had hidden in their homes
01:00:13to escape the fury in the streets.
01:00:17I think it was a big mistake.
01:00:18I think it was a big mistake.
01:00:19I think it was a big mistake.
01:00:20North Vietnamese General Va Nguyen Xaap, who had opposed the offensive from the beginning,
01:00:38later remembered that Tet had been a costly lesson,
01:00:43paid for in blood and bone.
01:00:45Of the 84,000 enemy troops who are estimated to have taken part in the Tet Offensive,
01:01:13More than half, as many as 58,000 men and women, most of them Viet Cong, are thought to have been killed or wounded or captured.
01:01:26The American military command celebrated the Tet Offensive as a victory.
01:01:31You know, they finally came at us and we blew them away, which was basically true.
01:01:36But the administration had been telling the American public, for most of the end of 67 and for the first month of 1968, that the war was being won.
01:01:47That the NLF and the North Vietnamese were ground down to such an extent that we could see the end of the war, a victory.
01:01:57The Tet Offensive has forced our generals to reevaluate their...
01:02:00So when Tet hit, it contradicted everything that the administration and the Saigon country team had been telling the American public through its journalists for the previous four or five months.
01:02:13John Lawrence, CBS News, Saigon.
01:02:17It broke the will of the United States to fight that war.
01:02:21It was such a shock that it stripped away the last vestiges of the fiction and fanciful interpretations that had led us down this primrose path into disaster.
01:02:36After that, nobody could be convinced.
01:02:38And then the most ferocious possible argument erupted inside the U.S. government, because the hawks on the war were saying Tet was North Vietnam's last gasp.
01:02:57It was their last shot at winning the war, and they failed.
01:03:02We beat them, and that's the end of them.
01:03:05And we said, after all these years of war, if that's what they are able to do, we ought to learn some lesson about their commitment to this war as well, and the cost to us.
01:03:21On March 10th, the New York Times reported that the Army was requesting 206,000 additional troops for Vietnam.
01:03:30But if the United States had been winning the war, many Americans asked, if Tet had in fact been a disaster for the enemy, why were still more men needed?
01:03:43More and more members of the president's own party now felt free to express their doubts.
01:03:49Our enemy has finally shattered the mask of official illusion, Senator Robert Kennedy said.
01:03:57Unable to defeat him or break his will, we must actively seek a peaceful settlement.
01:04:05Walter Cronkite, the respected anchor of the CBS Evening News, had come home from covering the Tet Offensive, convinced victory was no longer possible.
01:04:16We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.
01:04:28To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.
01:04:37To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism.
01:04:42To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, if unsatisfactory, conclusion.
01:04:50But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.
01:05:07This is Walter Cronkite. Good morning.
01:05:09In 1966 and 67 and again in 68, most recently, we hear the same hollow claims of progress and of advance toward victory.
01:05:21The fact is, however, as we know from events of recent weeks, events which one is almost saddened to report, that the NMA has become bolder than ever.
01:05:30On the evening of March 12th, President Johnson watched the returns come in from the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, where he was facing an unexpected challenge.
01:05:43The most recent poll had suggested he would beat Eugene McCarthy 2-1, but Johnson won just 49.6% of the vote against 41.9% for his opponent, even though most of those who voted against the president actually wanted him to prosecute the war more vigorously.
01:06:06Johnson knew he was in trouble, and there was more to come.
01:06:15I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man.
01:06:18Just four days after the New Hampshire primary, Robert F. Kennedy declared his candidacy for the presidency, and polls suggested he was more popular than Lyndon Johnson.
01:06:31About what must be done, I run because it is now unmistakably clear that we can change these disastrous, divisive policies only by changing the men who are now making them.
01:06:48I think what we've got to do, too, is get out of the posture of just being the war candidate that McCarthy has put us in, and Bobby's putting us in, the kids are putting us in, and the papers are putting us in.
01:07:07We've got to come up with something.
01:07:09What it is, we're out to win, but we're not out to win the war, we're out to win the peace.
01:07:17That's right.
01:07:18And that's what we did.
01:07:19But our slogan could very well be, win the peace with honor.
01:07:23But we've got to have something new and fresh that goes in there, along with the statement that we're going to win.
01:07:31Right.
01:07:32But we have to be very careful what it is we say we're going to win.
01:07:36That's right.
01:07:37They think, well, hell, that means we're just going to keep pouring men in until we win militarily.
01:07:42And that isn't what we're after, really.
01:07:45Uh, uh, we're not going to get the, uh, but we can neutralize the country the way it won't fall on me if we can go up with something.
01:07:54On March 26th, the Wise Men, a group of veteran cold warriors who had earlier urged the president to hold steady in Vietnam, now advised him to change course.
01:08:10Dean Acheson, Harry Truman's Secretary of State, spoke for the majority.
01:08:16We can no longer do the job we set out to do in the time we have left, he said, and we must begin to take steps to disengage.
01:08:27The president agreed to send just 13,500 more troops, not the 206,000 the generals had requested,
01:08:37and decided to recall William Westmoreland to Washington as Chief of Staff of the Army, replacing him with his Deputy General Creighton W. Abrams.
01:08:50His face was a, was a mask of exhaustion and defeat.
01:08:55It was very sad to see the man.
01:08:57Uh, he, he was, he was broken by it.
01:09:02On March 30th, Gallup reported that 63% of the public disapproved of Johnson's handling of the war, the lowest point of his presidency.
01:09:16The following evening, March 31st, 1968, the president asked for time on all three networks.
01:09:26Good evening, my fellow Americans.
01:09:29Tonight, I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
01:09:37Johnson announced that he had decided to stop bombing the densely populated areas around Hanoi and Haiphong,
01:09:45in the hope that North Vietnam would finally be willing to come to the negotiating table.
01:09:51Only the southern half of the country, the staging areas north of the DMZ, would continue to be targeted.
01:09:58With our hopes and the world's hopes.
01:10:00Then, he stunned the country and the world.
01:10:05I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes,
01:10:16or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the presidency of your country.
01:10:28Accordingly, I shall not see and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.
01:10:42I landed in California, taking a plane from California to Boston, and I'm feeling good because I've survived and fought for my country.
01:11:01And I got off the plane at Logan, and I stepped out there, and I'm just happy to be home.
01:11:07And, um, I had my uniform on and walked out to the curb.
01:11:13And the cabs just kept going by me.
01:11:16Kept going by me.
01:11:18And there was a state trooper that was standing there.
01:11:21And I didn't realize what was happening.
01:11:25And then he stepped in the street, and he stopped the cab, and he says,
01:11:28you have to take this man.
01:11:30You have to take this soldier.
01:11:32And the driver looked over at me, and he said, I don't want to go to Roxbury.
01:11:36They don't see me as a soldier.
01:11:39You know, they see me as a nigger.
01:11:41And I live in Roxbury.
01:11:44You know, I'm thinking, I'm a Marine.
01:11:47I'm a Marine.
01:11:48You know, I just fought for my country 13 months in a combat zone.
01:11:52And I can't get a cab to get home.
01:11:55I have some very sad news for all of you.
01:11:59And I think, uh, sad news for all of our fellow citizens and people who love peace all over the world.
01:12:08And that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis.
01:12:18In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States,
01:12:24it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are,
01:12:29and what direction we want to move in.
01:12:33Over the next week, African Americans, grieving, frustrated, angry,
01:12:40poured into the streets of more than 100 towns and cities,
01:12:45including New York and Oakland, Newark and Nashville,
01:12:50Chicago and Cincinnati and Baltimore,
01:12:54and in Washington, D.C., where fires came within two blocks of the White House.
01:13:01When they killed Dr. King, they just opened up the eyes of a lot of black people
01:13:07who were afraid to pick up guns.
01:13:09Now they will pick up those guns.
01:13:11We're living in a sick world.
01:13:13This racist society in which we live is that that really pulled the trigger.
01:13:18Violence breeds violence.
01:13:21Repression breeds retaliation.
01:13:23And only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our souls.
01:13:33Tens of thousands of National Guardsmen, regular Army troops and the Marines,
01:13:39including Roger Harris' stateside unit, were ordered to patrol American streets.
01:13:45And I was ready to go until I saw what they were giving out.
01:13:53I thought they were going to give us billy clubs,
01:13:55and I thought we were going to stand in front of buildings, you know,
01:13:58and protect, you know, businesses.
01:14:02And they were passing out flak jackets, helmets, M-16s with live ammunition.
01:14:07You know, the same things we had in Vietnam.
01:14:11And when I saw that, I said, I'm not going.
01:14:15I'm not going.
01:14:17I didn't make sergeant because I refused to go.
01:14:3546 Americans died.
01:14:382,600 were injured.
01:14:4120,000 were arrested.
01:14:4620,000 were arrested.
01:14:49Later that same month, anti-war students seized several buildings
01:14:53at Columbia University in Manhattan.
01:14:57The occupation lasted a week, the first time in American history
01:15:02that students forced a major university to shut down.
01:15:08Policemen eventually drove the demonstrators out of the buildings
01:15:12and sent more than 100 students to the hospital.
01:15:17The United States now appeared to be more divided than at any time since the Civil War.
01:15:25That spring, protesters also took to the streets of London, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Rio, Jakarta.
01:15:40The world seemed to be coming apart.
01:15:45President Johnson's partial bombing halt had had the desired effect.
01:16:02Hanoi agreed for the first time to talk with Washington.
01:16:20Negotiators began meeting at the Hotel Majestic in Paris.
01:16:25But the Communists had now adopted a new double policy.
01:16:30They called it talking while fighting, fighting while talking.
01:16:35On May 5th, they launched another offensive that Lei Zuan hoped would somehow achieve
01:16:46what the Tet Offensive had not.
01:16:48The enemy hit 119 targets in what came to be called Mini Tet.
01:16:54There was new fighting in the streets of Saigon.
01:17:05Half the city was now leveled.
01:17:16But the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army failed again.
01:17:21They were still no closer to overthrowing the South Vietnamese government.
01:17:26And they had suffered some 36,000 more casualties.
01:17:35For the United States, May of 1968 proved the bloodiest month of the Vietnam War.
01:17:432,416 Americans lost their lives
01:17:48in places whose names Americans back home would have a hard time remembering.
01:17:54Dai Do, Fulong, Kam Dook, Cho Long, and the Plain of Reeds.
01:18:06A total military victory is not within sight and is not around the corner.
01:18:11But in fact, it is probably beyond our grasp.
01:18:15For a time that spring, it looked as if Robert Kennedy
01:18:19might win the Democratic nomination for president.
01:18:22He pledged to bring the war to an end
01:18:27and seemed to embody the hope of bridging the growing gulf
01:18:31between black and white Americans.
01:18:34But in June, after defeating Eugene McCarthy in the California primary,
01:18:42he, too, was assassinated.
01:18:46The people we'd look up to were being taken away from us.
01:19:03It definitely put those of us who were heading off on our own,
01:19:21on a path that felt uncertain.
01:19:24When Martin Luther King was assassinated and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated,
01:19:36they made a big, huge deal about that.
01:19:39And they said that was part of the struggle of the American people against their government,
01:19:48and that there were riots in the streets.
01:19:51And the camp commander actually told us,
01:19:54you can kill 10 of us to one of you, but your people will turn against this.
01:20:01And we will be here for 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, as long as it takes.
01:20:07And unless you kill every one of us, we're going to win this war.
01:20:13And on July the 4th, we recognized it was July the 4th.
01:20:21And they would not let us sing patriotic songs.
01:20:26But sometimes we would softly sing the night.
01:20:30And we understood that despite different backgrounds,
01:20:39different socioeconomic backgrounds, different races,
01:20:42different religions, that we were Americans.
01:20:51The American people would be choosing new leadership that fall.
01:20:56And everyone seemed to agree, a British correspondent wrote,
01:21:00that whoever captures the presidency this November
01:21:03will be obliged to end the conflict within a matter of months.
01:21:08How this is to be done, or what concessions are to be made,
01:21:13is very much a matter of detail.
01:21:17Before those details were finally worked out,
01:21:20almost seven more years would pass,
01:21:23and 27,184 more Americans,
01:21:27and hundreds of thousands more Laotians, Cambodians, and Vietnamese,
01:21:33North and South, would have to die.
01:21:36We skipped the light fandango,
01:21:40and turned cartwheels across the floor.
01:21:45I was feeling kind of seasick.
01:21:49I was feeling kind of seasick.
01:21:53The crowd called out for more.
01:21:58The room was humming harder.
01:22:01The room was humming harder.
01:22:10As the ceiling flew away.
01:22:16When we call out for another dream.
01:22:22The way to broad a train.
01:22:25And so it was a fatal.
01:22:32As the military said.
01:22:38Let her face at first just go steep.
01:22:45And turn the wider shade of air.
01:22:52The room was humming harder.
01:22:56The abundance of air was in one place.
01:22:57It was a natural and a beautiful night.
01:22:59It was a beautiful night to come.
01:23:02거 맞', strikingly,
01:23:04the blue light was the same.
01:23:05It was beautiful,
01:23:06the blue light.
01:23:08And the red light by the way.
01:23:10The blue light.
01:23:11The blue light.
01:23:12It was beautiful.
01:23:13The blue light was my view in two places.
01:23:15It was a very beautiful night.
01:23:16The blue light was in the sky.
01:23:17But it was the brown light.
01:23:19The blue light was in the sky.
01:23:21And although my eyes were open, they might just as well be closed.
01:23:31So it was later, as the mirror told his tale, that her face at first just goes deep.
01:23:51Turn the wider shade of fair.
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