- 11 years ago
Documentary (1970) 80 minutes ~ Color
The Communist threat at its zenith, in Vietnam, is the focus of this video, hosted by John Wayne, with interviews of Lowell Thomas and Sgt. Barry Sadler.
Director: Robert F. Slatzer
Stars: Mark Clark, Martha Raye, Barry Sadler, Lowell Thomas, John Wayne, William C. Westmoreland, Sam Yorty
The Communist threat at its zenith, in Vietnam, is the focus of this video, hosted by John Wayne, with interviews of Lowell Thomas and Sgt. Barry Sadler.
Director: Robert F. Slatzer
Stars: Mark Clark, Martha Raye, Barry Sadler, Lowell Thomas, John Wayne, William C. Westmoreland, Sam Yorty
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:01:00♪♪
00:01:28Ladies and gentlemen, a long time ago Abraham Lincoln made a statement.
00:01:33To sin by silence when you should speak out makes cowards of men.
00:01:39It's time we spoke out about Vietnam and the most obvious, yet the most ignored threat
00:01:45ever faced by free people in the history of the world.
00:01:49The street demonstrators demand that we get out of South East Asia so that there will
00:01:54be peace.
00:01:56Where do they get the idea that there will be peace just because we quit?
00:02:00We can't stop the war by giving up.
00:02:02And we sure can't settle anything by trying to bargain with a winning enemy at the peace
00:02:07table.
00:02:08This is a war that was going on a long time before Vietnam and will go on whether we pull
00:02:13out or not.
00:02:14We can't stop the war by giving up.
00:02:18And the way it is now, we're not programmed to win because of the politicians and civilians
00:02:23that we've let stick their nose in it.
00:02:27Listen to this young fella.
00:02:29I'm flying helicopters commercially in Alaska now.
00:02:33Not long ago I was flying them in Vietnam.
00:02:35I was there to fight the communists and try to win.
00:02:38But our politicians wouldn't let us.
00:02:41What kind of a war is this that we're not supposed to win?
00:02:45Truth of the matter is, it's not a separate war at all.
00:02:49It's only one battle in a bigger, long, drawn-out attack that's been going on for over 50 years.
00:02:55And it's a war we're losing, not only on battlefields, but out on street corners, college campuses,
00:03:02in the offices of some of our most influential so-called statesmen.
00:03:06Now, all men of good will certainly want peace.
00:03:10But do we want peace at any price, peace without freedom?
00:03:13We all know that this country has, with good will, has stumbled a few times and made a mistake or two.
00:03:21Can't go back and do anything about that.
00:03:24But as Mr. Lincoln once said, I wish I'd been there when the horse was stole,
00:03:29but I reckon I can find the tracks when I do get there.
00:03:33Seems to me the horse is already stole, so we better get back and pick up the tracks.
00:03:40To give you that background, we have a man who really knows.
00:03:43Someone who was there when all the important history was being made since World War I.
00:03:49He has the facts firsthand from leaders and the generals themselves.
00:03:53Here he is, a great newspaper man, Mr. Lowell Thomas.
00:03:58Hello, everybody.
00:03:59This is Lowell Thomas.
00:04:01To chat with you for a moment about what we all seem to agree is just about the most important subject of our time.
00:04:09And to those of you who are fairly young, perhaps it is more important to you than to the rest of us.
00:04:17I'm sure you all remember the words of the father of our country, George Washington, who was a fairly wise man.
00:04:24He said, the best way to prepare for peace is to be ready for war.
00:04:31World War I was the beginning of what the whole of mankind hoped would lead to a permanent world peace.
00:04:37It seems like the height of folly now, hard for us to understand, impossible, in fact, to comprehend.
00:04:44But after the war was over, the Allies began to disband their armies, break up their navies, melt down their guns.
00:04:55In the confusion at the end of World War I, a group of dedicated men came to power in Russia.
00:05:02The leader of the group, Nikolai Lenin, head of the Bolshevik, or majority communist party.
00:05:09He knew the free nations of the world desperately wanted peace.
00:05:13He also knew his ideology, communism, could use this as a tool against them.
00:05:20Part of his plan to achieve worldwide supremacy was to instruct communist followers in all countries to protest for peace.
00:05:27A disarmed nation then would be ripe for plucking.
00:05:33As soon as hostilities ceased at the end of World War I, the Allies, who had stopped the Kaiser's war machine, stopped it cold.
00:05:41Alas, they began to disband their armies and navies.
00:05:44After all, Germany had been the only nation with ambitions to expand, and Germany was smashed for good.
00:05:51Or was it?
00:05:54No one at the peace tables had ever heard of a Lance Corporal in one of the Bavarian regiments, a chap known as Adolf Schickelgruber, later to be known as Adolf Hitler.
00:06:06It's hard to believe that a lowly Lance Corporal with a funny moustache could ever get far.
00:06:12But in less than 15 years, there he was, head of a rearmed Germany with plans to conquer the world.
00:06:20Distinguished men like the lone eagle Charles Lindbergh and the fabulous Jimmy Doolittle told us what was going on in Central Europe, told us what Hitler was doing.
00:06:30And we paid little or no attention.
00:06:32Ah, but life was too dear and peace too sweet to rock the boat, so few raised a hand to do anything at the time.
00:06:42So in 1938, with the most powerful war machine in the world up to that time, Hitler marched on Austria.
00:06:52The next year, 1939, he marched on Czechoslovakia.
00:06:57Now England began to get the message.
00:07:03We all know how Chamberlain went from London to Munich with his umbrella and came back saying, this means peace in our time.
00:07:16But no sooner had this conference been concluded than Hitler made a pact with Russia, and then they both attacked Poland.
00:07:25The next step was the Blitz on the West.
00:07:44With the Nazis and the communists in collusion, their representatives here in America stepped up their propaganda
00:07:54and began shouting to us, disarm, disarm.
00:07:58No harm will ever come to America.
00:08:00Meanwhile, peace talks had so reduced U.S. power that when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, you all remember that some of our old battleships lined up there either were sunk or beached.
00:08:12And we had, for all practical purposes, lost our Pacific fleet.
00:08:17It appeared as though it was almost too late, but we did get down to the agonizing business of rebuilding for a counterattack.
00:08:26And the history books show that in spite of all obstacles, we finally, we finally did win.
00:08:47After that followed those usual negotiations between the winner and the loser.
00:09:00But even while we were winning, certain American leaders, perhaps fooled by Stalin, they arranged things so we lost nearly as much as we gained, possibly more.
00:09:11As our troops rushed in triumph through Germany, they got the words to slow down, slow down, let the Russians move in, let the Russians take over East Germany, take over the great city of Berlin.
00:09:24Today, a nation of people who love communism so well that they have to be walled in and kept in with guns.
00:09:31They are a tragic monument to those people who seek to appease the enemy.
00:09:42In meetings at Yalta with Lenin's cunning successor, Stalin, the Russians managed to take over all of Eastern Europe, much of Asia.
00:09:52We know what happened in the Far East and how they put it over on China.
00:10:00And so the stage was set for Korea and a little later on for Vietnam.
00:10:09In 1945, everybody thought the war was over, but our real enemy was still going strong.
00:10:16This was a so-called ally that we had let take East Germany and Berlin.
00:10:22I'm not speaking of the Russian people and I won't speak of the Chinese people.
00:10:28I'm speaking of the communist conspiracy.
00:10:32So many of the great Americans of the last generation are no longer with us to give us the firsthand account of what happened behind the scenes, behind the false front of communist cooperation after the war.
00:10:46We are fortunate that one of the greatest leaders, the conqueror of the Nazis in Italy, is here and can tell it like it was when it came to getting along with the Reds.
00:10:59This is General Mark Clark.
00:11:01After the end of World War II, the fighting stopped in Italy and I took the surrender of the German forces there.
00:11:08I went into Austria as the American occupation commander and high commissioner.
00:11:13Russian armies were there in Austria as well, and I sat on a quadripartite meeting with the Russians and the British, the French, and ourselves in order to implement the agreement that the nations had made at Potsdam,
00:11:25which was to bring about free and independent and democratic Austria once more.
00:11:30Saw firsthand the duplicity of the Soviets, how they looted, killed, murdered, and that they couldn't be believed.
00:11:38I found that every constructive move and suggestion we made to help Austria was vetoed by the Soviets.
00:11:46Then I went with Burns to the Conference of Foreign Ministers in England and then with Marshall into Moscow.
00:11:51And there again, I saw the difficulty, the almost impossibility of doing business with the Russians unless you do it from a position of extreme force and you never compromise and you never show weakness.
00:12:03For where they see weakness, they despise it and exploit it.
00:12:07And when they see strength and determination, that's when they sit up and take notice.
00:12:12In the aftermath of the war, the Reds managed to grab off East Germany and all the countries that are now on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.
00:12:22And for the next big move to encircle the world, they looked east, to Asia.
00:12:27There are a lot of garbled accounts of what really happened when the East began to go red.
00:12:35But we have the number one authority with us who can give it to us straight.
00:12:40This is a man who is more familiar with Asian communism than anyone else in America today.
00:12:46He is General Albert C. Wedemeyer, former U.S. commander in the Far East.
00:12:50He sat and listened to Mao Tse-Tung tell how they, the Reds, were going to take over China.
00:12:57The general warned the State Department at that time that we should support Chiang Kai-shek if we didn't want the biggest country in the world with 700 million people to be lost to communism.
00:13:09Unfortunately, nobody was listening.
00:13:12Well, listen to him now.
00:13:14General Albert C. Wedemeyer.
00:13:16I have spent 10 years in the Orient, living in China, the Philippines, and in India.
00:13:24Experiences and observations in those areas provide the basis for my ideas and suggestions about the Vietnam War.
00:13:34At the close of World War II, the Soviet Union accelerated plans for the conquest of the Far East.
00:13:41In 1946, the Republic of China, Japan, and Thailand were the only independent nations in that area.
00:13:49Moscow planned to exploit the industrial know-how of Japan, the vast pool of manpower in China, and the natural resources in Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Melanesian Islands.
00:14:04During General MacArthur's wise and courageous administration, communist efforts to communize Japan were successfully blocked.
00:14:12The Soviet Union then turned its attention to mainland China.
00:14:16With the connivance of the Red Chinese leaders, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, mainland China, an area greater in extent than the United States, and 700 million people, were drawn within the orbit of the Soviet Union in 1949.
00:14:30The loss of China to the tyranny of communism was a black mark on the escutcheon of the United States.
00:14:37Instead of supporting our loyal World War II ally, Chiang Kai-shek, the United States government adopted a hands-off policy, which was dramatized by the then Secretary of State's announcement, quote,
00:14:50We will let the dust settle out there, end of quote.
00:14:53You and I know that the dust was settled in Korea and is now being settled in Vietnam with American blood.
00:15:01Chiang Kai-shek and his government were compelled to withdraw to Formosa, where they maintained a strong bastion against communist advance.
00:15:10I believe then and do now that we should have continued our support of the strongly anti-communist government of nationalist China.
00:15:18Had we done so, the United States would not today experience an uneasy peace in Korea and a costly war in Vietnam.
00:15:28Of course, the next communist move in their continuous war on the free world was Korea.
00:15:34And after General MacArthur was pulled out for being too tough on the commies, General Mark Clark was ordered to Korea to pick up the pieces.
00:15:43He soon found out he was faced again with the same old problems when it came to dealing with the Reds.
00:15:50General Mark Clark.
00:15:52President Truman sent me out to the Far East to take command during the Korean War, the last year and a half.
00:15:58And there I saw them again.
00:15:59I saw them this time on the field of battle.
00:16:02I saw how treacherous they were, how they murdered our prisoners of war, and how they could not be relied upon to carry out any of their promises or live up to the rules of the Geneva
00:16:12Convention concerning prisoners or conduct of war.
00:16:18The so-called Korean War was the first evidence since the pullback from Berlin of a no-win policy.
00:16:25Apparently, Hitler was the last enemy we were supposed to put up a fight against.
00:16:30General Clark found out that he had to try to wage war with one or maybe both hands tied.
00:16:37The fighting was severe at that time.
00:16:38The Chinese had entered the war, and there were many limitations that were placed upon me as the commander-in-chief.
00:16:45I could not hit, for example, the bridges over the Yellow River, over which the killers came with their paraphernalia, their ammunition, their tanks, and whatnot, to kill our men.
00:16:55It seemed to me that that was completely wrong, that we should not take out those bridges, and that would make it more difficult for the enemy to maintain his position in the field.
00:17:06We were not able to hit the city of Pyongyang because there were munition plants that were hidden within it.
00:17:13We did not hit certain power plants that provided power for North China and Manchuria.
00:17:19But in spite of all the difficulties, a kind of peace was finally arranged in Korea.
00:17:24At that time, we'd never heard of a place called Vietnam, which was to be the next red battle in their long war against the free world.
00:17:34Vietnam was then a part of the French colonial possession known as Indochina.
00:17:39The reports were that the Indochinese were fighting for independence from the French.
00:17:44This may have been so, but it was also a good excuse for a communist takeover to switch the ruling powers from France to the Reds.
00:17:53The so-called revolution was headed by a character with a funny beard and an unfunny reputation as a terrorist.
00:18:01His name was Ho Chi Minh.
00:18:03He was what the historians call a dedicated revolutionary.
00:18:08Ho was born in 1890 and was a communist even as a young man.
00:18:13He was so active that he helped form the French Communist Party in 1920.
00:18:18All during the 30s, the Kremlin used him to ferment trouble in the Orient and aided him in building up a fanatic following.
00:18:27When he died in 1969, the London Daily Telegraph debunked the picture of Ho as a simple patriot.
00:18:35I quote, there are always men who for one reason or another will rhapsodize on the qualities of even the worst tyrant.
00:18:45Ho Chi Minh's record for cold blooded and often bestial murder of men, women and children ranks him beside Hitler and Stalin for sure atrocity.
00:18:55Unquote.
00:18:57Now, during Ho's career, he was paraded around the communist world where the masses were trotted out to give him a big reception wherever he went.
00:19:07He was bedded by such red liners as India's Krishna Menon, of course, by the then big boss of communism, Nikita Khrushchev, as well as all the secondary world wheels of the party.
00:19:21Ho made his biggest effort at a place called Dien Bien Phu, where he besieged the French army.
00:19:28The United States was asked to bring an airstrike in against red positions.
00:19:32The United States refused.
00:19:34In any event, the French cause was probably doomed because the leftist French government forced their army to fight a no win war as General Clark had been forced to fight in Korea.
00:19:46So Ho was able to inflict a humiliating defeat on the French.
00:19:50At the Geneva Peace Conference, which followed, it was agreed that Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam would be independent nations.
00:19:59However, Vietnam was partitioned temporarily and the two areas divided by the 17th parallel.
00:20:06The north area to be under the control of the communist stooge Ho Chi Minh and the south to be under the former French puppet, Cao Dai.
00:20:16Immediately after the Geneva conference, Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Cong followers launched an extensive and brutal campaign of subversion and guerrilla action.
00:20:27More than 50,000 South Vietnamese, including village officials, teachers, merchants and law enforcement officers, were kidnapped, mutilated or killed by the Viet Cong guerrillas.
00:20:42Too often, our own information media, TV, radio and the press are responsible for a wide held impression that the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong are the good guys.
00:20:58And we, the South Vietnamese, the South Koreans and Americans are the bad guys.
00:21:07The red liners from all countries had a ball castigating the United States, but no one ever complained about the almost daily Viet Cong mortaring of towns and the killing of civilians.
00:21:21Well, anyway, to give you an idea of how popular Ho and his crowd were after they kicked out the French,
00:21:29the Geneva conference gave all Vietnamese 300 days to go either north or south to the red or non-red areas.
00:21:38Word of this opportunity to make a choice was supposed to be circulated in every village and town in the land.
00:21:44While Ho understandably made no effort to broadcast this information, over 1,200,000 people who found themselves in the communist north streamed south to freedom below the 17th parallel.
00:21:57This rush was still in progress when the 300 days were up and Ho dropped the bamboo curtain.
00:22:04But in spite of the fact that he lowered the boom on them officially, the continual defection of North Vietnamese and defection from the supposedly dedicated Viet Cong goes on to this day.
00:22:17From before 1960, U.S. advisors were aiding the South Vietnamese.
00:22:22We had in the area what was known as the Military Assistance Command.
00:22:27We are fortunate to be able to hear from a man who was in charge almost from the beginning, General Paul Harkin.
00:22:35From February 8th, 1962 until June 1964, I was the commander of the United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam.
00:22:45In that capacity, I commanded all the United States forces in South Vietnam, the Army, the Navy, Air Force, and Marines.
00:22:55We had no combat, American combat troops in Vietnam at that time.
00:22:59Our role was strictly advisory.
00:23:02In that capacity, we trained the Army, Navy, and Air Force of the Vietnamese Armed Forces.
00:23:08You have probably heard people say that the United States shouldn't be over there in the first place, that it's an immoral war, that we are there illegally.
00:23:18The record shows that after the partition of Vietnam, President Eisenhower promised the government of South Vietnam all possible aid.
00:23:27At the Geneva Conference, the North Vietnamese agreed not to bless people south of the 17th parallel.
00:23:35But when the Viet Cong started infiltrating and slaughtering village leaders, administrators, and school teachers, the president of South Vietnam asked for our help.
00:23:45He didn't ask Russia.
00:23:47He didn't ask Communist China.
00:23:50He asked the United States of America if we could assist in stopping Communist aggression and helping build up the resources of his country.
00:23:59This is when my headquarters, the Military Assistance Command, was established.
00:24:03The South Vietnamese didn't have quite enough forces to protect all the villages at once.
00:24:08We started in 1961 what we called the Strategic Hamlet Program, which simply meant a trained local force to protect the local people from Communist infiltration.
00:24:20For the American advisors, the situation was frustrating in the extreme.
00:24:24They would aid a village in building a school, and on the first dark night, the Viet Cong guerrillas would destroy it by mortar fire with mortars made in Russia or Communist China.
00:24:34In the back country, other Americans were helping to distribute food, medicine, and needed supplies.
00:24:40Special forces played an active part in training the South Vietnamese soldiers, as well as the mountain yard people in the highlands.
00:24:48The special forces, a new unit in our services, is called the Green Berets.
00:24:56One of the best known of these is Sergeant Barry Sadler.
00:25:00We have a big job in Vietnam.
00:25:03The villagers in both the Mekong and the highlands are constantly threatened by the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies,
00:25:10and often recruited into their armed forces, sometimes with use of propaganda, promises, lies.
00:25:20When that fails, they don't hesitate to use force, terrorism, even to butchering entire villages as an example to those who won't listen to their friendly persuasion.
00:25:33And when they use force, they use these, modern weapons made in Communist China and the Soviet Union, their Communist allies.
00:25:48I spent a great deal of my time in Vietnam working as a medic.
00:25:53I worked in the villages with the people, and they needed help.
00:25:58And over a period of years, the health of these people has been greatly improved by the U.S. medics in the field.
00:26:05You can't get to really know the people of Vietnam by staying around Saigon.
00:26:10Saigon's a big city with four and a half million people in it, and with worse traffic than you'll find in New York.
00:26:18The marketplaces are crowded and filled with black market goods, everything from American coffee to opium.
00:26:25And like all cities in a war zone, the profiteers are after the buck.
00:26:31But south of Saigon lies the Delta, 28,000 square miles of the richest rice land in the world, rice land the Communists want.
00:26:43Here's a housewife out catching poisonous snakes for the family dinner, and glad to get them.
00:26:51Where the Viet Cong mortared or burned a village, we came in to collect the refugees and ferry them to a new, more secure area,
00:26:59one that was safe from the guerrillas, at least for the time being.
00:27:05Of course, the roads were mined or under possible mortar attack, and the villagers had to be moved in airborne operations.
00:27:12And everything went, including burial urns, which contained the ashes of their ancestors,
00:27:18because these people always carry their dead with them.
00:27:25More and more aircraft were needed, but as we seemed to be getting somewhere, it so infuriated the Communists that they stepped up their attacks on these unarmed, innocent people.
00:27:36Whole villages were burned to the ground.
00:27:39Farmers were mortared and machine-gunned in their rice paddies while trying to gather their crops.
00:27:44The attacks became more and more vicious and fanatical.
00:27:48It seemed incredible, but the knowledge of these terror tactics didn't inflame the free world against the Communists.
00:27:55But unbelievably, criticism of our operations began to mount.
00:28:00It was frustrating for a soldier, halfway around the world fighting a war, and it seemed like the enemy was the good guy in the white hats.
00:28:09It was as if the American public were only getting the information the Reds wanted them to.
00:28:14In fact, I'd say the press had been more help to the enemy than a fresh division.
00:28:18To the Americans in the mid-60s, the situation really became explosive.
00:28:25Though the troops were told to avoid combat, we were losing more and more advisers all the time.
00:28:33In the summer of 64, some of our destroyers were patrolling in the Gulf of Tonkin, and two of them were fired upon by North Vietnamese gunboats.
00:28:44A man who is in a unique position to see the whole thing develop is Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, former Commander-in-Chief of Pacific Operations.
00:28:55Admiral Sharp.
00:28:56In early 1965, President Johnson decided that U.S. combat troops were necessary in South Vietnam to keep the country from being overrun by the Communists.
00:29:09So that is how it started.
00:29:11Our objectives are clear and honorable.
00:29:14They are simply to prevent the success of North Vietnamese aggression, to prevent Viet Cong terror, and to allow the country to live in peace and freedom.
00:29:29While our objectives are correct, the methods we have used to achieve them leave much to be desired.
00:29:36We inserted our forces piecemeal, and then, worst of all, we never used our tremendous air and naval power effectively.
00:29:45Before the Admiral goes on, notice that just as with the Berlin pullback in World War II, and the hamstringing of the military during the Korean mess,
00:29:56the no-win policy dictated by behind-the-scene powers in Washington is again in force,
00:30:02and has been ever since President Kennedy committed us to this no-win conflict.
00:30:09From the beginning, we should have closed the harbor of Haiphong and prevented all the vital imports from reaching that area.
00:30:17Instead, we permitted them to import all the necessities of war without any difficulties whatsoever, despite the fact that we controlled the seas.
00:30:29This was a great mistake, of course, and immeasurably increased the casualties that our side incurred.
00:30:37One of the best features of a naval blockade, or a blockade by mining, is that there are very few casualties involved.
00:30:45The country which is blockaded against simply doesn't get the supplies they need, and thus their capacity to fight is greatly reduced.
00:30:55Whenever we fight the Communists, they seem to have help from somebody on our side.
00:31:00Somebody always wants to bend over backwards to avoid getting tossed with them, doing them any damage.
00:31:06I can't figure this as an innocent attitude, especially since the Reds tell us continually exactly what they're going to do.
00:31:15Now, Lenin said war is simply a continuation of politics by other means.
00:31:20He's admitting that if they can't convert you by peaceful means, they'll just switch to violence and pull a gun on you.
00:31:27He also said something else in that book.
00:31:30He said that the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with the United States is unthinkable.
00:31:40One or the other must triumph in the end.
00:31:43Now, Lenin's school of political warfare in Moscow teaches that war is to the hilt between Communism and the free world.
00:31:52It is inevitable.
00:31:54Now, don't take my word for it.
00:31:57Just get one of these books and read it for yourself.
00:32:01If you want to know how they're doing so far, let's take a look.
00:32:06They have East Europe.
00:32:09They're around Cuba on one side and getting ready to break out in Korea on the other, and about to wear us to a nub in Vietnam.
00:32:17All the patience of a nation or a fighting man will wear out.
00:32:23If your own side won't let you win, since that's what the Reds want, it makes you wonder who's controlling our destiny.
00:32:31The boys on the firing line are the most frustrated of all.
00:32:35Listen to a man who not long ago was flying a gunship in Vietnam.
00:32:40We were never really allowed to go on the offensive.
00:32:43We were constantly clearing out areas, only to let the Viet Cong go back in as soon as we had moved out.
00:32:50On the search and destroy missions, we would burn up an area with lead or lay down a base of fire, as the term is.
00:32:57Then the troops were lifted in.
00:33:00The boys would be landed and take off into the brush after the Viet Cong.
00:33:04When the guys in the ground were at work, the expression, smoking them out, was an appropriate description of how they operated.
00:33:12Later, after they'd swept the area, we'd come back and pick them up and fly them back to the base.
00:33:18It would be anywhere from two days to two months.
00:33:21One thing great about the chopper, we would be able to get the wounded to the hospital in a matter of minutes.
00:33:27We ranged the delta, looking for infiltrators.
00:33:30But the trouble was, just as in the city streets, the markets are on the waterfront,
00:33:36the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese look alike, and you can't tell them apart until it's too late.
00:33:43The SAMPAMs below contained concealed guerrilla terrorists, armed to the teeth and loaded down with grenades.
00:33:50Our night photo planes told us that during the night they had slipped in from Cambodia.
00:33:56But due to the political restrictions, we couldn't hit them.
00:34:00One thing bad about the war, we couldn't shoot until they fired at us first.
00:34:05A lot of my buddies never got a chance to fire back.
00:34:08It's tough when a politician has a hold of your trigger finger.
00:34:12Sometimes we found their boats hidden in marshy areas covered with reeds.
00:34:17These were destroyed because the area was off-limits to the local populace.
00:34:23Once the troops uncovered an ammunition assembly plant that was actually below the surface of this swampy terrain,
00:34:30the troops found a lot of grenades and explosives with Chinese markings,
00:34:35the products of munitions factories in Red China.
00:34:39When an area became heavily overrun with Viet Cong, we would pinpoint them and call in the Air Force.
00:34:46With our let the enemy shoot first policy,
00:34:49we saved a lot of American lives by not having to drop our ground soldiers into the hot spots.
00:34:56But the bearded, bleeding hearts at home and lefty politicians soon put a stop to this.
00:35:02I guess we weren't supposed to hurt the enemy.
00:35:05The kind of war we were forced to fight was bound to get us nowhere.
00:35:10But worst of all, the guys on the ground might take an area or a hill with great loss of blood and life.
00:35:17They would have to withdraw and might have to take it all over again three months later.
00:35:23We all felt more and more frustrated as time went by.
00:35:27Now I can understand why so many of the people at home wanted us to call it quits and bring the troops home.
00:35:32Most Americans at home are honestly concerned.
00:35:36But unlike any other war that we were ever involved in, we have a communist-inspired front in our streets
00:35:44working on the sympathies of a lot of honest people.
00:35:47They claim they're simply going all out for peace, while a lot of them burn the American flag,
00:35:53stamp it into the ground, while waving the flag of the Viet Cong,
00:35:58who have tortured and killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians,
00:36:02whose only crime was that they resisted joining the Red Ranks.
00:36:06Would you call a person who backed the enemy a peace advocate or a member of the enemy's forces?
00:36:13Well, someone who backs our forces, who has traveled to Vietnam many times,
00:36:18who has gone to all the combat zones to entertain the fighting men,
00:36:23and one of the best-loved stars of the American public is Martha Ray.
00:36:28She can tell it like it is.
00:36:30Martha Ray.
00:36:31Thank you, Duke, from one Green Beret to another.
00:36:35I have just returned from my eighth trip overseas with our troops,
00:36:38and I'm now preparing for my ninth trip.
00:36:41As I say, getting my gear together to go back home with my family,
00:36:44and they're also your family, too.
00:36:47Our troops are shocked at the attitude of college officials and others who stoutly maintain
00:36:53there is no organized direction to the rowdiness,
00:36:56that all the demonstrations are spontaneous and unorganized.
00:37:02You may rest assured these servicemen are not deceived.
00:37:06The Reds have declared in no uncertain terms that they are going to destroy the morale character
00:37:12of a generation of young Americans,
00:37:14and when they have finished, there will be nothing left for us to defend ourselves against them.
00:37:23And they're doing a pretty thorough job on some of our kids.
00:37:27And while this is happening, they won't let us defend ourselves in the manner that all great military minds advocate.
00:37:35To attack, strike the enemy in his own territory.
00:37:38We keep coming back to this as the central problem in our war on communism.
00:37:44Let Admiral Sharp tell it to you the way he saw it.
00:37:47The major problem was that we were restricted in the targets that we could hit.
00:37:54We started in the southern part of North Vietnam and gradually worked north.
00:38:01With the result that the North Vietnamese, with the Soviets' assistance,
00:38:07were permitted to build up their defenses around Hanoi and Hai Phong,
00:38:13so that when our planes eventually got into the Hanoi-Hai Phong area,
00:38:18they were met by the most concentrated and accurate air defenses that any country has ever faced.
00:38:25Even so, with the very heavy defenses and with the restrictions on our air attacks,
00:38:31we were still able to damage North Vietnam to the extent that in the fall of 1967,
00:38:37they were in great difficulty.
00:38:40Had we been allowed to go on in 1968 and hit the targets that needed to be hit,
00:38:47and keep the targets down that we had already hit,
00:38:50the war would certainly have been over by the end of 1968.
00:38:56If you aren't sufficiently convinced by the Admiral, listen to one of the Navy bomber pilots.
00:39:02I think I'm speaking for 99% of all the men that have been to Vietnam,
00:39:07whether in a flying status or on the ground,
00:39:10when I say that it's one of the most frustrating experiences a man,
00:39:13particularly a fighting man, could go through.
00:39:16I think I can say that all of us who went over there,
00:39:18and I know all of us that were together in my particular group,
00:39:22went over there with an exhilarated feeling that they were going to go into battle
00:39:27and do the job that had to be done.
00:39:28They were going to be allowed to get to the targets.
00:39:31And of course, we always go in with a feeling that we want to help the men on the ground as much as we can.
00:39:36And we do this by bombing the necessary targets, the logistics lines,
00:39:41the munitions dumps, the petroleum stations,
00:39:44that prevent the enemy from getting this stuff down into South Vietnam
00:39:47and using it against our men and our allies of South Vietnamese.
00:39:52But it wasn't long until we realized that because of the political restrictions
00:39:56that were placed upon this particular war,
00:39:59it was to be similar to the Korean War, only probably worse,
00:40:04and that we were not allowed to get to these targets
00:40:06that we knew were necessary targets and vital targets,
00:40:09to destroy them and to prevent these supplies and enemy equipment
00:40:13and enemy soldiers from getting into South Vietnam.
00:40:16We knew that they were going down there.
00:40:18We knew how they were getting down there.
00:40:21We knew where the targets were.
00:40:23But there was so much frustration in it when we came back
00:40:26and we told the people back on the carriers,
00:40:28the air intelligence people, the admirals' war room,
00:40:32that these targets were there, that we'd like to go bomb them.
00:40:34They were just as frustrated as we were
00:40:36because they had to then send a message back to Washington
00:40:39to get permission to bomb these targets.
00:40:41And this permission never came.
00:40:44I recall when they were first setting up the missile sites over there.
00:40:47Missiles at that time had been used against American aircraft
00:40:50flying over North Vietnam.
00:40:52But we came back and told the responsible people on the carrier
00:40:55that these missile sites were going up,
00:40:57that we could see them down there, they were getting prepared,
00:40:59that we ought to go back and bomb them.
00:41:02But once again, our hands were tied, the admirals' hands were tied.
00:41:05They had to go back to Washington through channels with a message.
00:41:09And the message came back, no, we could not bomb the missile sites
00:41:13until the time came that two of our planes were shot down
00:41:16with these missiles on a night mission or an early evening mission.
00:41:19And the whole thing was they tried to give the indication
00:41:22that they had not known ahead of time that these missile sites were there.
00:41:25And of course, this is frustrating to a man to see his friends,
00:41:28roommates, the people that he has gone through training with
00:41:31go down in a situation knowing full well
00:41:34that it could have been prevented long before
00:41:36had the politicians allowed you to do so.
00:41:39Now, when I say restrictions, once again,
00:41:41when I say restrictions such as these,
00:41:43we could fly over enemy airfields where the planes were sitting on the airfield.
00:41:47We knew what they were there for, but we couldn't harm them.
00:41:51These same planes could come up behind our aircraft
00:41:53and shoot them down and climb back down on the deck,
00:41:56and we were not permitted to go after them once they got to that airfield.
00:42:00There was even such a restriction at the particular time that I was there
00:42:03that you could not shoot an enemy aircraft until he had fired at you,
00:42:06which is to say that if he didn't shoot you down first,
00:42:09then you had a chance at him.
00:42:11I wish that some of the liberal senators
00:42:13had taken a negative stand in this situation
00:42:16to promote their own political ambitions,
00:42:19could be put in the same spot as our boys overseas
00:42:23with one arm tied behind them, or maybe two,
00:42:26to face this treacherous enemy.
00:42:29One time, we couldn't bomb convoys.
00:42:31Finally, we were cleared to go on these particular targets,
00:42:34but only so long as they were on a roadway.
00:42:36It doesn't matter if you knew that this particular convoy
00:42:39was carrying munitions, supplies, going into South Vietnam.
00:42:44We knew their routes.
00:42:44We knew where they were going, down Route 1 through Magea Pass.
00:42:48And as far as bomb shortages, at that time, Mr. McNamara,
00:42:52who was Secretary of Defense, was decrying
00:42:55that there was no substance to the information
00:42:58that we were experiencing a shortage of bombs, aircraft,
00:43:02or flyers in the Vietnam area.
00:43:04And Congressman Mitchell had been on the carrier
00:43:08and had personally seen these missions where
00:43:11we were taking off, loading with maybe 1 5th a bomb load
00:43:15an aircraft that could carry 24 of this particular type bomb.
00:43:18We were carrying maybe four of these bombs.
00:43:20On some days, instead of carrying bombs to a target
00:43:23that clearly called for bombs, we'd be carrying rockets.
00:43:26And when you'd ask your deck officer why we were doing this,
00:43:29he would say, because we don't have enough bombs
00:43:31to last the rest of the month if we carry them all on every load
00:43:35or if we load the planes fully.
00:43:37So it was obvious to us that we were sending out
00:43:40five planes on a mission or four planes that
00:43:43were loaded with maybe a fourth or a fifth of the load of bombs
00:43:46when we could have sent one or two planes with a full load
00:43:50and gotten the same job done with a minimum risk of lives
00:43:53and equipment.
00:43:54Of course, you're talking about a $3.5 million aircraft,
00:43:57in case you're not interested in the lies involved.
00:44:00But this is a thing that was frustrating to us, you see.
00:44:05Our only concern was that we could get in
00:44:07and be allowed to do the job.
00:44:09When you send men into war, you should send them in there
00:44:12with the idea that they're risking their lives.
00:44:15And for risking those lives, they
00:44:16should be allowed to do the job, to take the action that's
00:44:19necessary to minimize the risk of their lives
00:44:23and to get to the enemy and get the job done
00:44:27in a minimum amount of time and get back
00:44:29their homes and their families where they want to be.
00:44:31And this hasn't been done in Vietnam.
00:44:33And the only way that we're going
00:44:35to come to a successful conclusion over there
00:44:39is to defeat the enemy.
00:44:41Just as bad as a no-win restriction, maybe worse,
00:44:46is the policy of helping the enemy
00:44:48to get goods and munitions with which to defeat it.
00:44:53Does that sound idiotic?
00:44:55Well, listen to a young Green Beret named
00:44:57Peter Stark, who lost both legs below the knees in Vietnam.
00:45:02The only way to break communist will
00:45:04is to break the communist back.
00:45:07To do this, you must eliminate their access
00:45:09to that material which they need to wage the war.
00:45:14You must eliminate their means.
00:45:15The United States has never significantly
00:45:17attempted to eliminate their means of war
00:45:20with which they kill American soldiers in South Vietnam.
00:45:24We have assured their main supplier
00:45:25of war goods, the Soviet Union and its satellite
00:45:29nations, its colonies, which supplies
00:45:3280% of all the North Vietnamese war material.
00:45:35We have assured the Soviet bloc countries
00:45:36that we will not interfere in their shipment of war goods
00:45:40to the North Vietnamese enemy.
00:45:42At the same time that we have assured them
00:45:44we will not interfere with this shipment,
00:45:47we have continued our policy of trading with the Soviet bloc,
00:45:51of sending strategic materials to the Soviet enemy.
00:45:56For example, in 1966, the United States
00:46:00sent the Soviet Union the entire technical specifications
00:46:04which they needed to build a glycerol plant.
00:46:07Glycerol is used in the manufacture of explosives.
00:46:11I think everybody's heard of nitroglycerin.
00:46:14Specifically in Vietnam, glycerol
00:46:16is used as a detonator in booby traps.
00:46:18Over 50% of all American casualties
00:46:21suffered in South Vietnam have come from booby traps.
00:46:26I do not think it can be satisfactorily
00:46:28explained to a man who has lost his eyesight because
00:46:33of a booby trap, or to the parents of a man who
00:46:38has been killed on a booby trap in South Vietnam,
00:46:42why the government that sent this man to South Vietnam
00:46:45refuses to interfere not only with the enemy receiving
00:46:51this type of weapon, but actually
00:46:52helps the enemy to produce it.
00:46:55Screaming example, late 1969, we loaned Sweden $50 million.
00:47:02Early 1970, Sweden loans $45 million directly to Hanoi.
00:47:09For those of us who have been there,
00:47:11Vietnam is not a phony war.
00:47:15It was and is a very real war.
00:47:19It is not a limited war because there is no such thing
00:47:22as limited death.
00:47:24We're glad to have fought in Vietnam,
00:47:27for the United States of America,
00:47:28and for freedom of the South Vietnamese people.
00:47:31Many of my friends, your sons, your husbands, your brothers,
00:47:35and in some cases your fathers, have
00:47:37died fighting a communist enemy in Asia.
00:47:40You should be very proud of these men.
00:47:42They were good men.
00:47:44They died young for the freedom of others.
00:47:46No more can be asked from any man.
00:47:49They were willing to fight because they
00:47:51know that on that day that Americans are not
00:47:53willing to fight for their freedom.
00:47:56On that day, America will no longer have its own freedom.
00:48:02Many people have not been informed of the fact
00:48:06that Vietnam is more than just an isolated, fresh fire
00:48:10war halfway around the world.
00:48:12It has a much deeper meaning than that.
00:48:14Vietnam is one battle in a war for the world.
00:48:19It is a battle we are losing, not on the field of battle,
00:48:23but here at home.
00:48:25The Soviet empire is expanding.
00:48:27The communists are deftly serious about their stated goal
00:48:31of world conquest, very serious as Hitler
00:48:35and his National Socialist Party were about world conquest.
00:48:40All Americans must remember that the Soviet enemy is only
00:48:4420 minutes away by rocket.
00:48:46Finally, there was a great hue and cry
00:48:49to get the Reds to the so-called peace table.
00:48:54After all proved to the contrary over the years,
00:48:57some people still believed you could talk the Reds out
00:49:00of taking over our country.
00:49:02Now, to get the enemy to talk peace,
00:49:04you usually bear down hard on him
00:49:06so that he's had enough and wants to get out.
00:49:10Not us, not our State Department,
00:49:13not our Defense Department.
00:49:15We did just the opposite.
00:49:16We made it easy on the communists
00:49:18by stopping the bombing altogether.
00:49:21Let Admiral Sharp comment on that.
00:49:24Then in March of 1968, it was decided
00:49:28to halt the bombing of the vital areas of North Vietnam
00:49:31in order to entice the Vietnamese to come
00:49:35to the conference table to negotiate a peace.
00:49:38Before the North Vietnamese even got to the conference table
00:49:42and started negotiating, we had stopped
00:49:44all bombing of North Vietnam.
00:49:47So here was a country with tremendous air power
00:49:50allowing an adversary to fight from a sanctuary.
00:49:53Were the communists going to negotiate
00:49:55under those conditions?
00:49:57Certainly not.
00:49:59They were going to delay meaningful negotiations,
00:50:02hoping that our natural impatience to end the war
00:50:05would get the better of us, and we
00:50:07would make concessions to them, which would result
00:50:09in victory for their side.
00:50:11Indeed, when our bombing was cut back in March of 1968,
00:50:16the communists proclaimed it a victory.
00:50:18And a victory it really was.
00:50:20So now we have been negotiating in Paris for over two years.
00:50:25And what have the results been?
00:50:27Absolutely nothing.
00:50:28We have made concession after concession,
00:50:31and the North Vietnamese have offered absolutely nothing
00:50:34in return.
00:50:36They have simply used the Paris meetings
00:50:38as a propaganda platform from which
00:50:41to declare that the United States is
00:50:43the aggressor in the war, that we must pull out
00:50:46all of our troops before they will consider
00:50:48any meaningful negotiations.
00:50:51So this is what we face as a result of our all-out efforts
00:50:55to bring them to the conference table.
00:50:57What do the men who have to do the fighting
00:50:59think about the so-called peace negotiations?
00:51:03Right now, we have people that think that you
00:51:06can talk with the communists.
00:51:08I think history proves that you cannot.
00:51:10I've looked at this enough, and I'm
00:51:12sure that people that are much more experienced
00:51:14in the field of negotiating with the communists
00:51:16will tell you the same thing.
00:51:18The only time the communists come to the peace table
00:51:20is when they feel that they have something to gain there
00:51:23or for stalling.
00:51:25And this means that they have more time
00:51:27to build up their troops in the field
00:51:30and to get more ammunition, more troops into the battle
00:51:34and play publicity and propaganda,
00:51:36particularly when you have a situation like we
00:51:39have in this country now, where people are expressing
00:51:42their opposition to the war.
00:51:44And of course, I can understand some of this opposition,
00:51:46because the way the politicians have used it,
00:51:49they've left themselves wide open for opposition.
00:51:52But the fact remains that the only way
00:51:54to stop the communist action in Southeast Asia
00:51:58is from a position of unassailable strength.
00:52:01That's the only thing they understand.
00:52:03Those of us who have fought in Vietnam,
00:52:05the peace talks have always been, at best, futile,
00:52:09at worst, tragic, tragic for those soldiers in South
00:52:12Vietnamese who have been killed because
00:52:15of the improper and incorrect use of the combination
00:52:19of military and diplomatic means.
00:52:21Correct diplomacy, correct negotiations
00:52:24are used to shorten a war, not to prolong a war.
00:52:28The great statesmen that our nation has had in the past
00:52:32have been those statesmen with the courage and resolution
00:52:35to allow their military to do that job for which
00:52:39the military is established.
00:52:42Great statesmen are not people who hamstring the military
00:52:46and prolong the decision.
00:52:48Peace negotiation and peace depend on two things.
00:52:53One is the will of the enemy.
00:52:55The other is the means of the enemy.
00:52:57You must either destroy the enemy will
00:52:59or destroy the means the enemy has.
00:53:02Now, the United States has always had the means.
00:53:05The men and material successfully wage the war in Vietnam
00:53:09and win.
00:53:11However, at the policy level, we have never
00:53:13had the desire to win.
00:53:15We have never had the will to win.
00:53:18The North Vietnamese communists, on the other hand,
00:53:20have never had the material or manpower
00:53:23to defeat the United States soldiers
00:53:25on the field of battle.
00:53:26Their leadership, however, has the will to win.
00:53:30They have the will, the desire, and the determination
00:53:33to conquer South Vietnam.
00:53:35Communists are determined men.
00:53:37They're very serious men.
00:53:39They're very brutal men.
00:53:41At this point, I think we should let General Clark tell us
00:53:44how he managed to get the Reds to the peace table in Korea.
00:53:48So after being at Panmunjom, being
00:53:51in charge of the negotiations there,
00:53:53and our people being insulted almost daily,
00:53:56I finally pled with my government
00:53:57to let me break off the negotiations at Panmunjom
00:54:01and place on the conference table
00:54:03a reasonable American position, one upon which
00:54:06we could sign an armistice.
00:54:09And finally, Washington permitted me to do so.
00:54:11We walked out.
00:54:13And then I called in my commanders, the Navy, the Air,
00:54:15and the Army.
00:54:17And we sat around for days.
00:54:18How could we hurt the enemy within the limitations imposed
00:54:22upon us?
00:54:23And one by one, with the exception of permission
00:54:25to bomb the Yalu River bridges, I
00:54:28had these limitations taken off.
00:54:30Our hands were untied.
00:54:32And we hit the dams.
00:54:34And we took out their power.
00:54:36We hit their dams and inundated their fields.
00:54:39We attacked Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea,
00:54:43after notifying the people that we were coming.
00:54:46And we just pounded them until they hurt them.
00:54:48And then about three months later,
00:54:50Kim Il-sung sent me a message and said,
00:54:53let's go back to the conference table.
00:54:55And let's trade prisoners of war and our sick and wounded.
00:54:58That's something we had asked to do many months before.
00:55:02So then we got down to business and began
00:55:04to work on an armistice.
00:55:06Then General Eisenhower, my old West Point comrade,
00:55:10came over as the president-elect.
00:55:12And we had our plans to present to him,
00:55:14and I presented them to him, how we could win the war
00:55:18by the use of naval and air power primarily.
00:55:22I'm not a believer in slugging it out man for man
00:55:25on the field of battle with communists,
00:55:27because the American GI is a very precious commodity.
00:55:31And the communists don't care how many of their men they kill.
00:55:35So not having had the determination to win that war,
00:55:39we got busy as I was directed, and we signed an armistice.
00:55:43Now, that armistice was violated by the communists the next day
00:55:46and has been violated by them ever since.
00:55:50And as I signed that Korean armistice,
00:55:52I was convinced that had we stepped out
00:55:55and had the courage to win in our first test of arms
00:55:58with communism and win decisively,
00:56:01we would not be in the predicament and the mess
00:56:03we find ourselves in at the present time in Vietnam.
00:56:07What's the answer?
00:56:09One political leader who hasn't kept silent
00:56:12is Alaskan Senator C.I. Lewis.
00:56:15He went to Vietnam to see for himself.
00:56:19Our liberal press has not seen fit to spotlight his remarks.
00:56:23Here they are.
00:56:24Well, the most brilliant military men in our country
00:56:27have said that we must win in Vietnam.
00:56:30General Mark Clark, General Al Wiedemeyer, General Paul
00:56:34Harkins, Admiral Sharp, the military commanders
00:56:38in the field have all said that there
00:56:41can be no satisfactory conclusion to the war in Vietnam
00:56:44without a military victory.
00:56:46We have the ships.
00:56:48We have the guns.
00:56:49We have the planes.
00:56:51What is lacking?
00:56:52We have the men.
00:56:53We have the courage.
00:56:55What is lacking is a will to win.
00:56:58Richard Nixon himself has said what is needed in Vietnam
00:57:02is a will to win.
00:57:04But our State Department does not have a will to win.
00:57:08In fact, they have said that they do not
00:57:11intend to win in Vietnam.
00:57:14One of our top advisors to the president, Dr. Kissinger,
00:57:20has said that military victory in Vietnam
00:57:23is neither possible nor desirable.
00:57:27This fuzzy thinking, this no-win thinking,
00:57:31has resulted in the loss of more American lives
00:57:34than either World War I or Korea.
00:57:37It's resulted in the longest war in American history,
00:57:41certainly the most frustrating war in American history.
00:57:47The question is, is this fuzzy thinking
00:57:50or is it something else?
00:57:51With Congress rests the constitutional authority
00:57:55to determine foreign policy, Congress
00:57:58must reassert its authority and determine the foreign policy.
00:58:03It must require that military decisions
00:58:07be made by military men.
00:58:10Our men on the battlefield must be given the chance to win.
00:58:15In war, there must be victory.
00:58:18Some people are demanding an abrupt pull-out.
00:58:21They seem to believe that the Reds will stop fighting
00:58:24and killing at once and that there will be instant peace.
00:58:27Well, let's hear again from General Harkin.
00:58:29If we pull out abruptly, the Reds
00:58:32will have a free hand, as they had
00:58:35when they took way in that infamous Tet Offensive.
00:58:39When they massacred and mutilated
00:58:41thousands of civilians, there will
00:58:43be a frightful massacre of those who have resisted
00:58:46communism in South Vietnam and perhaps
00:58:50in the rest of countries of Southeast Asia,
00:58:52such as Laos and Cambodia and Thailand.
00:58:56It may further open the way to infiltration
00:59:00and maybe attacks on some of the other countries,
00:59:02such as Malaya, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand,
00:59:06and the Philippines.
00:59:08The communists haven't stopped in their world offensive so far.
00:59:12I think it's tragic and unfortunate
00:59:15that the people of the United States
00:59:17must be constantly reminded that the communists have
00:59:21said they were going to surround us
00:59:23and they were going to bury us.
00:59:25They said they were going to take over Eastern Europe,
00:59:28and they have.
00:59:29They tried to come down through Greece,
00:59:31and we helped to stop them.
00:59:33They tried to come through North Korea,
00:59:35and with the aid of 15 other free nations,
00:59:37we stopped them again.
00:59:39They've taken over Cuba.
00:59:41They're very active in Latin America,
00:59:43and now they're trying to come down through Southeast Asia.
00:59:48I would say they're pretty well surrounding us.
00:59:51I think it's far better to stop them
00:59:53on some faraway distant shores than wait
00:59:56for another Pearl Harbor, or perhaps
00:59:58try to stop them on the shores of the United States.
01:00:01Tom Hayden has been called America's most decorated
01:00:05civilian to have served in Vietnam.
01:00:07He was in Hue after the Tet massacre.
01:00:10Listen to his account of how the communists exterminate
01:00:14those who oppose them.
01:00:15Tom Hayden.
01:00:17A North Vietnamese regiment captured the ancient capital
01:00:19of Hue during the Tet offensive in January of 1968.
01:00:23The North Vietnamese asked the Hue citizens to join them
01:00:25and oppose the Saigon government.
01:00:27The people of Hue said no.
01:00:30Then came the massacre.
01:00:32Over 4,000 civilian graves have been found.
01:00:35Many of them were buried alive.
01:00:37Over 1,000 people are still missing.
01:00:41Those in America who say that the people of South Vietnam
01:00:43support the communists refuse to remember Hue.
01:00:47They have forgotten Doc So, where over 100 mountain
01:00:50yards were murdered, men, women, and children.
01:00:55Here is the latest example of the popular support
01:00:58the communists have in South Vietnam.
01:01:02Saigon.
01:01:03Viet Cong troops attack a South Vietnamese village
01:01:06south of Da Nang.
01:01:08Over 75 civilians were killed and 85 wounded.
01:01:12The survivors of a Viet Cong invaded by Rien Hamlet
01:01:16stated that the enemy ran through the streets shooting
01:01:18anyone they found, throwing grenades into their homes
01:01:22and into their civilian quarters.
01:01:25But some of the news media would tell you
01:01:27that the South Vietnamese are not
01:01:28fighting for their freedom.
01:01:30That is a lie.
01:01:31I spent over two years with the people,
01:01:34and they are fighting for freedom.
01:01:36The Hue massacre should prove that many of them
01:01:38are dying for their freedom.
01:01:40We can't get out.
01:01:42We lead a vacuum.
01:01:43And in years to come, we pay 10 times the amount of blood.
01:01:48And if we get no response whatsoever
01:01:52to our stopping of the bombing and our initiatives
01:01:54towards peace, it may be that we will have to step up
01:01:57and intensify the war.
01:02:00And then if we do, I'm sure we'll
01:02:02bring the communists to the conference table,
01:02:05and we'll bring him fast.
01:02:19When it comes to the question of our pulling out,
01:02:21I think one of the most significant comments
01:02:24was made by General Von Mixon, field commander
01:02:27whose troops were surrounded and forced
01:02:29to surrender at Yen Bien Phu.
01:02:43General Von Mixon does not speak English.
01:02:46But in French, he made it clear to us
01:02:47that if the United States leaves Southeast Asia in defeat,
01:02:52on that day, the whole free world will begin to crumble.
01:02:57Ezra Taft Benson offered one solution
01:03:00that hasn't been given too much attention up to now.
01:03:03Mr. Benson.
01:03:05I recently returned from two weeks
01:03:07in war-threatened and war-torn Asia.
01:03:10The men of Vietnam, who are ready to give their all
01:03:13in the defense of freedom, who worry about reports
01:03:16from home of rioters, draft guard burners,
01:03:19and other citizens, many times more numerous,
01:03:23who seem oblivious to the threat to our freedom
01:03:26as they continue to enjoy their comfortable complacency.
01:03:30Regardless of any question of our involvement in Vietnam,
01:03:35we are there, and we are involved.
01:03:37So what do we do now?
01:03:40We should concentrate on doing whatever
01:03:42is necessary to bring our boys home.
01:03:44But before we bring them home, we
01:03:46should let them finish the job most of them
01:03:48thought they were sent there to do.
01:03:51Let the communists see what good-natured Uncle Sam can
01:03:54still do when a bully picks a fight with him.
01:04:00Drop those suicidal, limited political objectives
01:04:03and launch a massive military campaign.
01:04:06Topple the Hano regime and dictate,
01:04:08rather than negotiate, the peace terms.
01:04:12Then bring our boys home.
01:04:14Will this bring Red China into the war?
01:04:17Red China is already in the war.
01:04:20The best way to get her out of it
01:04:23is to let Chiang Kai-shek join us, as he has requested.
01:04:28He stands ready with 600,000 well-trained men
01:04:32who know how to fight under Asian conditions.
01:04:36Our no-win policy in Vietnam, instead of promoting peace,
01:04:40only sets the stage for settling the problem for the time being
01:04:44with a coalition government of communists
01:04:47and non-communists.
01:04:48And this virtually ensures continued war.
01:04:52You know, our troops overseas, they ask for so very little.
01:04:57And yet they give, and give, so very, very much.
01:05:02Nobody wants a war.
01:05:04God knows that.
01:05:06And especially our troops that are fighting one over there.
01:05:10But as long as they are fighting a war over there,
01:05:12the least we can do back home here
01:05:15is just to give them the support, the love, the dignity,
01:05:22and the respect that they, our flag, and our country deserve.
01:05:30And that's all they ask of you.
01:05:33So we come back to the men who fight the battle.
01:05:36Or are we all involved in the battle?
01:05:39Listen to Captain Wilson.
01:05:41I went to Vietnam to fight communism.
01:05:43And when you get to the base of it,
01:05:45that's what Vietnam is all about, communist aggression.
01:05:48Communist aggression not only in Vietnam,
01:05:50but in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and all the areas
01:05:54of Southeast Asia.
01:05:55We have communist aggression right here in America,
01:05:57right in the streets every day.
01:05:59And it's evident in the newspapers
01:06:00if you read them closely.
01:06:02Wherever we can fight communist aggression,
01:06:04we owe it to our country to do so.
01:06:06Communism is America's number one enemy.
01:06:09It has been for years, and it will be for years to come.
01:06:12The only way to solve the problem in Vietnam
01:06:15is to take it to the base of the problem,
01:06:17and that is into the cities and towns of North Vietnam.
01:06:21We do not need to send troops into North Vietnam.
01:06:25The job can be done from the air.
01:06:27We knew it when I was over there,
01:06:29and we know it still today.
01:06:31You have to take your aircraft, the munitions at hand,
01:06:34and go to North Vietnam and bomb the targets and the facilities
01:06:38that they use to wage war against the other bordering
01:06:41countries.
01:06:43This is the only thing that the communists understand.
01:06:46You do it from an unassailable position of strength.
01:06:49You let them know that you mean business.
01:06:51You bomb their facilities that they use to wage war.
01:06:54You make it so unpleasant for them at home
01:06:57that they have to keep their troops at home
01:06:59to look after the business at hand,
01:07:00and they cannot afford to send them across other countries'
01:07:03borders, violating the sovereignty of these countries.
01:07:05This is the only thing that the communists understand.
01:07:08It's the only way to deal with it.
01:07:10It cannot be done at the conference table.
01:07:12This is the only way to win the war in Vietnam.
01:07:16The choice made for us nearly 200 years ago
01:07:19by our founding fathers is now up for review
01:07:22in Vietnam and everywhere else, in the Mekong Delta
01:07:27and in the halls of the Congress of the United States of America.
01:07:31There are over 3 million Americans
01:07:33who have been and fought in Vietnam.
01:07:35We have seen communism in action.
01:07:38We have seen what might be termed relevant communism.
01:07:42We have seen Marx and Lenin taken off the library shelf
01:07:46and put on the backs of the people.
01:07:49We will never surrender to communism
01:07:52because we know what it is.
01:07:55There will be no Viet Cong in the United States of America.
01:07:59We will fight.
01:08:00We know that there is a possibility
01:08:03that we may not triumph, but it is not inevitable
01:08:06that the enemy triumphs if he is opposed.
01:08:10There is no fate that must fall on men, however they act.
01:08:14There is, however, a fate that falls on men
01:08:18if they refuse to act.
01:08:20We should win in Vietnam.
01:08:22We can win in Vietnam.
01:08:24We must help to extend freedom,
01:08:27not allow it to be foreclosed on us.
01:08:32This is a challenge that our generation faces.
01:08:35This must be our goal.
01:08:37Certainly we could not stand by idly
01:08:40and see the communists grab off chunks
01:08:42of the free world at will.
01:08:44Someplace we had to stop him.
01:08:47And when we decided to go into Vietnam,
01:08:50we should have decided to go in with a determination
01:08:53to win that war and to win it with the might of America,
01:08:56mostly air and naval power.
01:08:58And we had the capacity to do so.
01:09:01Now in Vietnam, I feel in this second test of arms,
01:09:06having learned a lesson in Korea,
01:09:09if I had had the decision to make,
01:09:12I would have closed the port of Haiphong.
01:09:14I would have not permitted the paraphernalia of war
01:09:17from friend and foe alike to be delivered to that port
01:09:20to kill our men eventually.
01:09:22I would have attacked with air
01:09:24every remunerative military target in North Vietnam.
01:09:29I would have knocked out their railroads
01:09:31and inundated their rice fields and taken their dams out.
01:09:34And I have found that when the communists
01:09:38come to the conclusion that they cannot win
01:09:40on the field of battle what they set out to get,
01:09:43they run to the conference table.
01:09:45It is an extension of the war with them.
01:09:48It should be obvious by now that the predicament we're in
01:09:51is not the fault of the military.
01:09:53We should have stopped the Reds in Berlin.
01:09:56We should have kept them out of Cuba.
01:09:59We should have won the war in Korea, but we didn't.
01:10:02Let's not blame the men in uniform
01:10:04for our political mistake.
01:10:07Maybe we should listen to them in time of war.
01:10:09And this certainly is war.
01:10:12They say there's no substitute for victory.
01:10:16Maybe we should also remember the words of Winston Churchill
01:10:19after Chamberlain's appeasement negotiations
01:10:22in Munich in 1939.
01:10:24Quote, the government had to choose between shame and war.
01:10:29They chose shame and they'll get war, unquote.
01:10:32They got war.
01:10:34Now let's take a look at our country.
01:10:37Today in the newspapers, on radio and TV,
01:10:40we read here and see riots on campuses and street corners.
01:10:46Crime is at all time high.
01:10:48We read about our American flag being hauled down by mobs,
01:10:52burned and stomped into the ground.
01:10:55We hear the names of these same mob leaders
01:10:57over and over from city to city.
01:11:00They wave the flag of the communist Viet Cong,
01:11:03the flag of the enemy that we're fighting in Vietnam,
01:11:06the enemy that kills our boys from ambush
01:11:09and fades away into political sanctuary.
01:11:13And at the same time here in America,
01:11:15the commies are allowed to teach in our schools,
01:11:18parade through our streets and our capital,
01:11:21while those in a high position choose to remain silent.
01:11:25With all these problems,
01:11:27I wonder what would happen in America
01:11:29if we all chose to remain silent.
01:11:32Would crime come to a halt without preventative measures?
01:11:35Would the communist underground movement
01:11:37to take over America cease?
01:11:40Would the communists leave the free nations
01:11:42of the world alone without our help?
01:11:45Will they pull back across the 17th parallel in Vietnam
01:11:48if we withdraw our troops?
01:11:51The answer is no.
01:11:53Mr. Lincoln was right when he said
01:11:55that to remain silent makes cowards of men.
01:12:00I plead with each of you to reflect
01:12:02on these facts of history.
01:12:05Then I'd like to speak for myself.
01:12:09I believe we must vote out of office
01:12:11regardless of political party,
01:12:14those politicians who seek to appease tyranny
01:12:17and promote anarchy,
01:12:19and to vote for men who are responsible
01:12:22and who will put the welfare of our country
01:12:24above their own political ambitions.
01:12:27We must stop communist rioting inside America.
01:12:30We must enforce the laws that make crime illegal.
01:12:34And if there should be another 17th parallel,
01:12:37we should not plead with the communists to get back,
01:12:41but warn them and do it only once
01:12:43to hell with world opinion.
01:12:46We must speak up and take a stand.
01:12:49Only then will this great nation of ours survive.
01:12:53♪ By some blessing
01:12:55♪ Make him one
01:12:58♪ Of America's best
01:13:01♪ He'll be a man
01:13:03♪ They'll test one day
01:13:07♪ Have him win
01:13:09♪ The Green Beret
01:13:12♪ The Green Beret
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