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Documentary, The Vietnam War - Se1 - Ep06 - Things Fall Apart (January 1968 - July 1968)
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00:00:00Major support for the Vietnam War was provided by members of the Better Angels Society, including Jonathan and Jeannie Levine, Diane and Hal Brierly, Amy and David Abrams, John and Catherine Debs, the Fullerton Family Charitable Fund, the Montrone Family, Linda and Stuart Resnick,
00:00:25the Perry and Donna Gokin Family Foundation, the Lynch Foundation, the Roger and Rosemary Enrico Foundation, and by these additional funders.
00:00:36Major funding was also provided by David H. Koch, the Blavatnik Family Foundation, the Park Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Charitable Trusts,
00:00:53the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Ford Foundation Just Films, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by viewers like you. Thank you.
00:01:08Bank of America proudly supports Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's film, The Vietnam War.
00:01:20Because fostering different perspectives and civil discourse around important issues furthers progress, equality, and a more connected society.
00:01:29Go to bankofamerica.com slash betterconnected to learn more.
00:01:38The American Aviation Show.
00:01:49This is 2-3 of Roger. We haven't been signed to work at no present time.
00:02:01Roger.
00:02:04Good job, please.
00:02:05Helicopters are phenomenal machines.
00:02:09You can float in the air.
00:02:13You can be like God.
00:02:21I flew below 500 feet.
00:02:25Above 500 feet was a kill zone.
00:02:28You better be below 200 feet.
00:02:30The lower, the better.
00:02:31My job was to get shot at.
00:02:36My job was to draw an enemy fire.
00:02:38I was a duck, a decoy.
00:02:40I got shot at a lot.
00:02:42I engaged the enemy a lot.
00:02:51You're screaming as loud as you can
00:02:53to try to cover up the sound of the incoming bullets.
00:02:57Because when they pass by your ear,
00:02:59you can hear the popping sound.
00:03:01You don't hear the gunshot
00:03:02that a .50 caliber just opened up
00:03:05when you're shooting a half-inch piece of lead
00:03:07flying at you.
00:03:08And the aircraft will also...
00:03:09You're flying.
00:03:12You're 90 degrees the other way
00:03:14and you're shooting yourself down
00:03:16because the rotor blades are in front of you
00:03:18and you're trying to keep the gun from jamming
00:03:20because you're running around like this.
00:03:23If your gun jams, you're done.
00:03:24Vietnam was the first real helicopter war.
00:03:37Helicopter pilots flew more than 36 million sorties.
00:03:42Their crews scattered propaganda leaflets over the enemy
00:03:45and poured lethal fire into their positions,
00:03:49carried troops and supplies and artillery into battle
00:03:53and lifted the wounded off the battlefield so swiftly
00:03:58that most reached a field hospital within 15 minutes.
00:04:02Ron Ferrisi, a policeman's son
00:04:12from the Swamp Poodle neighborhood of North Philadelphia,
00:04:15got to Vietnam in November of 1967.
00:04:19He was a crew chief in a scout helicopter
00:04:22with the 1st Air Cavalry,
00:04:24flying out of landing zone two bits
00:04:27in the Central Highlands.
00:04:28One day, after returning from a combat mission,
00:04:33he was approached by a journalist.
00:04:36And there was this, uh...
00:04:39It was a beautiful woman.
00:04:41You know, a round-eyed woman,
00:04:43statuesque, round-eyed woman with nice hair.
00:04:46And she looked pretty.
00:04:49Wow.
00:04:51She said,
00:04:52Can I ask you a couple questions?
00:04:54What was it like out there?
00:04:55How does it feel
00:04:58that a .50 caliber just opened up
00:04:59shooting a half-inch piece of lead at you?
00:05:04When you...
00:05:05It's hard to describe.
00:05:07It's shitty.
00:05:10I mean, isn't it...
00:05:11Isn't it apparent what it's like?
00:05:15You want to know what it's like?
00:05:16Go look at it.
00:05:17Go out there.
00:05:18Go see the bodies.
00:05:20I was ready to whack her.
00:05:23I wanted to blast her.
00:05:23I was ready to...
00:05:24You want to know what it's like?
00:05:26Boom!
00:05:26There it is.
00:05:27I'll give it to you right now.
00:05:28You want to feel it?
00:05:29You want to see it?
00:05:30I'll give it to you.
00:05:31That's what you want?
00:05:32Is that what you want?
00:05:34I don't want to tell you what it's like
00:05:35because I don't want to remember it.
00:05:38That's the insanity that it brings out.
00:05:40I don't want to know what it's like to believe.
00:05:41Don't let the eyes out.
00:05:45I came out.
00:05:50That's what you want to know what it is.
00:06:00I don't want to know.
00:06:00You want to see it again.
00:06:00It's not my fear.
00:06:01I don't want to know what it's like.
00:06:02Do you want to know what it's like?
00:06:02The enemy has been defeated in battle after battle.
00:06:14He continues to hope that America's will to persevere can be broken.
00:06:21Well, he is wrong.
00:06:241968 would prove to be a watershed year in the history of the Vietnam War and the United States.
00:06:37As the year began, there were 485,600 American troops in Vietnam.
00:06:45And American leaders promised that victory was finally in sight, that there really was light at the end of the tunnel.
00:06:54But then North Vietnam would mount a massive offensive that would result in a terrible defeat for them,
00:07:06that in the long run would turn out to have been a still greater victory.
00:07:12America itself would be convulsed by assassinations and battles in the streets over the war and civil rights.
00:07:20An American president, a master politician used to getting things done,
00:07:27would continue to find himself besieged by problems he could not solve.
00:07:33Robert Kennedy, the brother of the slain president who had escalated American presence in Vietnam,
00:07:43wrote an editorial that year that seemed to speak for many.
00:07:48Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, he said, quoting the poet William Butler Yeats.
00:07:54General Westmoreland, when you said that you'd never been more encouraged in the four years that you've been in Vietnam,
00:08:22some critics, on the other hand, have never been more discouraged.
00:08:27I wonder if you could detail one or two or three things that caused you to be so encouraged.
00:08:32I could quote a number of meaningful statistics, such as the roads that are being opened,
00:08:39increasing number of enemies that have been killed, and other statistical information,
00:08:45which suggests that we are making progress and we are winning.
00:08:48And I find an attitude of confidence and growing optimism.
00:08:54It prevails all over the country.
00:08:57And to me, this is the most significant evidence I can give you
00:09:01that constant real progress is being made.
00:09:04On the evening of January 1st, 1968, Ho Chi Minh broadcast a poem over Radio Hanoi.
00:09:22Communist commanders took this to mean that the ultimate battle,
00:09:34the general offensive and general uprising they had been planning for months, was imminent.
00:09:40Party First Secretary, Le Xuan, who had insisted on the offensive and had purged those opposed,
00:09:50believed it would finally bring about an end to the war.
00:09:54Viet Cong units supported by North Vietnamese troops were to simultaneously attack cities and bases all over the South.
00:10:03The people of South Vietnam would rise up and overthrow the Saigon government,
00:10:13just as the Vietnamese had risen up against the Japanese in August of 1945.
00:10:20With Saigon defeated, the Americans would have no choice but to withdraw from Vietnam.
00:10:26The surprise attacks would begin at the end of the month,
00:10:31at the start of the Lunar New Year celebration called Tet.
00:10:36The Viet Cong were already infiltrating scores of cities and towns.
00:10:56Tens of thousands of North Vietnamese troops were now in place in South Vietnam.
00:11:01Tens of smuggled Chinese and Soviet-made weapons had been spirited towards intended targets
00:11:09in sandpans and flower carts and false-bottomed trucks,
00:11:14and then buried in paddy fields and garbage dumps and cemeteries
00:11:18until the moment came for them to be retrieved.
00:11:22.
00:11:47more than 10 000 american military and civilian intelligence officers were at work in south
00:11:58vietnam and here and there hints of what was to come filtered up the chain of command enemy units
00:12:07were moving around in inexplicable ways captured enemy reports described coming attacks on different
00:12:14cities 11 agents were caught in the city of quinyan carrying pre-recorded tapes calling on the local
00:12:22people to rise up against the saigon government all of these things were saying to us something's
00:12:29going to happen but we don't know exactly what general westmoreland thought he knew i believe
00:12:37that the enemy will attempt a country-wide show of strength just prior to tet he cabled washington
00:12:43with caisson being the main event some 30 000 north vietnamese troops had gathered near caisson
00:12:52the westernmost strong point below the dmz that was being held by just 6 000 marines westmoreland
00:13:01believed north vietnam wanted to isolate and annihilate the u.s forces there just as the viet min had done
00:13:08to the french at the nbn fu 14 years earlier enemy attacks elsewhere westmoreland was sure would
00:13:17only be a diversion one american general frederick c wyand was not so sure he was able to persuade westmoreland
00:13:26to let him pull half his troops back from the cambodian border to take up defensive positions outside saigon
00:13:34just in case this is an underground bunker at caisson one of the two cement havens left from the earlier
00:13:42days of the war when the special forces held its base it is dark dark dreary feel something in the air
00:13:49about the build up i don't know you can you can almost feel them working around you at night
00:13:57uh who uh the nba on january 21st the north vietnamese began shelling caisson
00:14:07so the
00:14:28The United States is called the United States.
00:14:32They said that this is the decision of the United States.
00:14:39Then, Vietnam started to bring all the forces to the other countries.
00:14:58When he learned of the attack on Kaysan,
00:15:17Lyndon Johnson made the Joint Chiefs sign a pledge
00:15:20that the base would never fall.
00:15:22I don't want any damn Din Bin Fu, he said.
00:15:26The president had a scale model of the battlefield
00:15:30installed in the White House
00:15:32so that he could follow the fighting there hour by hour.
00:15:39But Westmoreland's and Johnson's basic assumption was wrong.
00:15:45Kaysan was the sideshow.
00:15:48The attacks on cities and towns
00:15:50that were about to begin throughout South Vietnam
00:15:53would be the main event.
00:15:56But First Secretary Lei's one's basic assumptions
00:16:04were about to be tested too.
00:16:07For the coming offensive to succeed,
00:16:10the South Vietnamese army, the ARVN,
00:16:13would have to collapse
00:16:14and the people of the South
00:16:16would have to join the revolution.
00:16:19All our thinking was focused on finishing off the enemy,
00:16:32one North Vietnamese general remembered.
00:16:34We were intoxicated by that thought.
00:16:40All our thinking was focused on finishing off the enemy,
00:16:46one North Vietnamese general remembered.
00:16:49We were intoxicated by that thought.
00:16:53The people of the country were forced to win.
00:16:54The battle of the country was in the North Vietnamese general
00:16:58and they were forced to destroy the enemy,
00:17:00and they got to attack the enemy.
00:17:02But we were forced to escape the enemy.
00:17:03We were forced to escape the enemy.
00:17:04The F
00:17:10Okay, we've got our three wounded G.I.s on board.
00:17:24At least one of them has hit pretty bad.
00:17:28FedEx got a busy, busy few minutes ahead of him before we get back.
00:17:33As the date for the Tet Offensive approached,
00:17:35the war continued for the hundreds of thousands of Americans in country.
00:17:44I did see the reality of war, a real education for a young doctor.
00:17:52The war seemed to be going very well from our point of view.
00:17:59The war seemed to be going just fine, thank you.
00:18:02Captain Hal Kushner was a 26-year-old recent graduate of medical school
00:18:09from Danville, Virginia, the father of a three-year-old girl
00:18:14with another baby on the way.
00:18:16He had volunteered to serve in Vietnam
00:18:18and became a flight surgeon with the 1st Air Cavalry.
00:18:24And I was supposed to give a lecture on the dangers of night flying, ironically,
00:18:29and I did, and we had terrible weather that night.
00:18:34And it was dark, and it was rainy, and it was windy.
00:18:37As we were flying, I saw that we had drifted west of the highway,
00:18:42and I knew that was wrong.
00:18:45In the fog and rain, Kushner's helicopter slammed into a mountain.
00:18:50And the next thing I knew,
00:18:56I was hanging upside down in a burning helicopter.
00:18:59Major Porcello was dead.
00:19:02I just jumped away from the helicopter,
00:19:04and it just went whoosh, and it just burned up.
00:19:07There was an M60 machine gun on the helicopter,
00:19:12and the rounds had been cooking off, and it was exploding.
00:19:16And one or several of the rounds went through my shoulder,
00:19:20my left shoulder.
00:19:23On the ground, I saw Warrant Officer Bedworth,
00:19:26and he was hurt very badly.
00:19:30I took some branches and splinted his leg.
00:19:34So the rule is, you wait with the aircraft
00:19:39until you get rescued, and we just sat there.
00:19:43So we waited one day.
00:19:46We waited two days.
00:19:48We had no food or water.
00:19:51On the morning of the third day, Bedworth died,
00:19:54and he just slipped away.
00:19:58It was very, very sad.
00:19:59And I thought that my best choice
00:20:03was to leave the aircraft
00:20:05and try to go down the mountain.
00:20:08It took the wounded Kushner four hours
00:20:10to stagger down the hill.
00:20:12When he finally reached level ground,
00:20:15he looked back up
00:20:16and saw two American helicopters
00:20:19hovering above the crash site.
00:20:22Their pilots did not see him.
00:20:25And I saw this peasant
00:20:30working in a rice paddy,
00:20:32and he saw me,
00:20:34and I had captain's bars,
00:20:36and I'm Caduceus,
00:20:37a medical symbol on my collar.
00:20:39And he said,
00:20:40Daiwi Bak Si,
00:20:41Daiwi Bak Si,
00:20:42Captain Doctor.
00:20:45He took me about another mile
00:20:48to a little hooch,
00:20:50a little house,
00:20:50and he sat me down
00:20:52on the front of it,
00:20:53and he brought out
00:20:54a can of condensed milk.
00:20:57And as I was eating this stuff,
00:20:59it was just the best stuff
00:21:00I've ever eaten
00:21:01in my whole life.
00:21:02I hear another person say,
00:21:05Daiwi Bak Si,
00:21:06Daiwi Bak Si,
00:21:07surrender, no kill.
00:21:10There was a squad of Viet Cong there,
00:21:13and I put my one arm up,
00:21:15and he shot me
00:21:17with an M2 carbine.
00:21:18And I think he was
00:21:21more nervous than I was.
00:21:23And he shot me
00:21:23right where the M60
00:21:25had shot me,
00:21:26and he went right
00:21:26through my neck
00:21:27and came out the back.
00:21:29And they tied my arms
00:21:30very tightly in commo wire.
00:21:34He went through my wallet,
00:21:35and he took my
00:21:36Geneva Convention card,
00:21:37which was white
00:21:38with a red cross,
00:21:39and he tore it up.
00:21:41And he said,
00:21:43in English,
00:21:45no POW,
00:21:47criminal,
00:21:47criminal.
00:21:50So,
00:21:51then they took my boots,
00:21:52and we started marching.
00:21:55And then we walked
00:21:56for a month.
00:21:59Thirty days,
00:22:01almost always at night.
00:22:04And my feet were
00:22:05just lacerated.
00:22:08I didn't think
00:22:08I could possibly
00:22:09survive.
00:22:10I was just
00:22:12going on.
00:22:17And they said,
00:22:17I was going to
00:22:18get out of my mind.
00:22:18They were
00:22:19prepared for a
00:22:20big investigation
00:22:21in the city.
00:22:23To the
00:22:24to the
00:22:24to the
00:22:25to the
00:22:25to the
00:22:26to the
00:22:26to the
00:22:27to the
00:22:28to the
00:22:29to the
00:22:30They had to go to the city in a natural way.
00:22:35And I think that they could do it like that.
00:22:40By January 30th, an informal 36-hour truce for Tet was in effect.
00:22:48Thousands of ARVN troops had gone home for the holiday.
00:22:54The enemy had not.
00:22:56They all had to eat Tet.
00:23:01There were Tet, there were meat, and there were bread, and there were bread.
00:23:07The Tet was very delicious and happy.
00:23:12The night later, we went back to Sài Gòn and went to the west of Sài Gòn.
00:23:21That same day, Marine Corporal Roger Harris was scheduled to fly out of Vietnam.
00:23:31His 13-month tour was over, but he and his unit were still hunkered down under constant
00:23:38shelling at Camp Carroll, just south of the DMZ.
00:23:42Once I had my orders, you know, I said goodbye to all my friends, and then I went over to
00:23:50the landing zone.
00:23:53So when helicopters come in, I put the body bags on the helicopter, and I got on with
00:23:59the bodies.
00:24:02We landed in Dong Ha, which was division headquarters, and we got about 200 meters from the airstrip.
00:24:09The airstrip started getting hit.
00:24:13I'm just thinking personally that God realizes that he made a mistake because some of the
00:24:19the guys that got killed over with me were good Christians that never had sex, didn't
00:24:23swear, you know, and, you know, I've been this sinner, and I'm thinking God realized he made
00:24:29a mistake.
00:24:30He killed the Christians, and I got away.
00:24:34And so now death is following me.
00:24:37And they told us that in another hour or so a plane was going to come in.
00:24:41When it came in, and the artillery started coming in, you know, we jumped on and took off.
00:24:49And it landed in Da Nang, and then the sun came up and went to the airstrip, and we boarded
00:24:55airplanes, and we were sitting there.
00:24:57We were just giving each other pounds, just, you know, slapping fire, we made it.
00:25:02And then all of a sudden, the airstrip starts getting hit, and artillery's coming in.
00:25:13And I'm thinking, it's all coming after me, it's all about me, you know.
00:25:20God doesn't want me to make it out of here.
00:25:24In the early morning hours of January 31, 1968, 84,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops
00:25:33attacked 36 of South Vietnam's 44 provincial capitals, dozens of American and Arvin military
00:25:41bases, and the six largest cities in the country, including Hue, Da Nang, and Saigon.
00:25:50Their goal, their commanders told them, was to crack the sky and shake the earth.
00:25:57In Saigon, General Westmoreland mistook the first explosions as holiday firecrackers.
00:26:13His deputy commander, General Creighton W. Abrams, was asleep, and his aides did not bother to
00:26:25wake him.
00:26:26Not a single top commander was present at Pentagon East, the sprawling MACV headquarters at Tan
00:26:33Sanut Air Base on the outskirts of Saigon, when mortars and rockets began cratering the runways.
00:26:40.
00:26:47.
00:26:52.
00:26:55.
00:26:59.
00:27:03.
00:27:05.
00:27:20.
00:27:21.
00:27:22.
00:27:24.
00:27:25.
00:27:26.
00:27:27.
00:27:28.
00:27:35.
00:27:49.
00:27:50.
00:27:57.
00:28:11.
00:28:12.
00:28:13.
00:28:20.
00:28:22.
00:28:36.
00:28:37.
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00:28:52.
00:28:53.
00:28:54.
00:28:55.
00:28:56.
00:28:57.
00:28:58Go, go, go!
00:29:28This is the main Vietnamese language radio station in Saigon.
00:29:47Right now, there are undisclosed number of VC inside occupying the station.
00:29:53The Viet Cong managed to seize South Vietnam's national radio station and prepared to bring
00:29:58broadcast a taped message from Ho Chi Minh, calling upon the people to rise up.
00:30:06But a technician radioed to the transmitting tower to cut them off, and broadcast Viennese
00:30:12waltzes and Beatles songs instead.
00:30:28It is not dying, but listen to the color of your dreams.
00:30:37It is not living, it is not living.
00:30:45The Saigon suburb of Vien Hoa was under attack too.
00:31:03Enemy forces were assaulting both the air base there and Long Binh, the largest American
00:31:09installation in Vietnam.
00:31:12There were VCs moving on the house, moving everywhere, a lot of shooting, a lot of confusion
00:31:22going on.
00:31:24And we were shooting out the window, and my wife was reloading.
00:31:30When we ran out of ammunition, we'd slide the magazine down the tiles, and she was down
00:31:36there at the other end, filling them up and sliding them back.
00:31:42Viet Cong commandos managed to slip through the wire at Long Binh and blow up a huge ammunition
00:31:48dump.
00:31:49A mushroom cloud rose above the airfield, so vast that some of the Americans thought there
00:31:56had been a nuclear explosion.
00:31:59The blast blew off the door of Brady's building.
00:32:05They went up against the wire in Long Binh and paid a frightful price.
00:32:11They were just layers of bodies.
00:32:14Americans just cut them down.
00:32:19Hi, this is Johnny Carson.
00:32:21As you know, this is usual starting time for the Tonight Show.
00:32:24But because of the critical war situation in Vietnam, especially around Saigon, NBC for
00:32:30the next 15 minutes is going to bring you a special news program via satellite.
00:32:34Just after midnight their time, a band of Viet Cong raiders blew up a power installation
00:32:39and attacked two police stations in Saigon.
00:32:42It all amounts to the most ambitious series of communist attacks yet mounted, spreading
00:32:45violence into at least ten provincial capitals, plus American air bases and civilian installations,
00:32:51stretching the entire length of the country.
00:32:54None had greater psychological impact than the assault on the American embassy in Saigon.
00:33:02In the first few hours of the fighting, 19 specially trained commandos had blasted their way
00:33:09into the sprawling compound of the United States embassy.
00:33:13There's a rush.
00:33:16They're rushing the embassy.
00:33:20That's fire coming from the other side of the street now.
00:33:22Outside the embassy.
00:33:23They're exchanging across the street.
00:33:25You can see the tracer bullets going past.
00:33:27That's outside the embassy.
00:33:32This is Waco.
00:33:36Roger.
00:33:37Can you get in the gate now?
00:33:39The gate's open and can you take a force in there and clean out that embassy light now?
00:33:43The gate's open, the gate is open.
00:33:45It's over.
00:33:46Get in the gate.
00:33:48Get in the gate.
00:33:50Go, on!
00:33:51Go, no, no, no.
00:33:56Apparently, the Viet Cong are trapped in the basement of this side building.
00:34:03An incredible situation.
00:34:03Building an incredible situation.
00:34:11Heavy firing, incoming and outgoing.
00:34:15Don North ABC News at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.
00:34:19All of the intruders were eventually killed or captured.
00:34:26What a sight.
00:34:28A small frog hopping through.
00:34:30A pool of blood that's issuing from the head of a Viet Cong
00:34:36lying on the green grassy lawn of the U.S. Embassy.
00:34:42An American Marine and four Army MPs were killed at the embassy.
00:34:45An American Marine and four Army MPs were killed at the embassy.
00:34:57General, how would you assess yesterday's activities and today's?
00:35:03What is the enemy doing?
00:35:05What is the enemy doing?
00:35:06Are these major attacks?
00:35:08That's EOD setting off a couple of M-79 duds, I believe.
00:35:14The enemy very deceitfully has taken advantage of the Tet Truce in order to create maximum consternation.
00:35:20In my opinion, this is diversionary.
00:35:21Early wire service dispatches reported incorrectly.
00:35:23That the Viet Cong had made it inside the embassy itself.
00:35:27The Viet Cong had made it inside the embassy itself.
00:35:29The Viet Cong had made it inside the embassy itself.
00:35:30The Viet Cong had taken advantage of the Tet Truce in order to create maximum consternation.
00:35:44In my opinion, this is diversionary.
00:35:45Early wire service dispatches reported incorrectly that the Viet Cong had made it inside the embassy itself.
00:35:53Embassy ID cards were found on some of the Viet Cong.
00:35:57And the first television footage did little to reassure the American public.
00:36:02Is Saigon secure right now?
00:36:05Saigon's secure, as far as I know.
00:36:07There's no more fighting in the street.
00:36:09There may be some on the outskirts still.
00:36:11I'm not sure.
00:36:12I'm not sure.
00:36:15I'm not sure in the outskirts.
00:36:16Saigon was far from secure.
00:36:42Viet Cong assassination squads, some guided by North Vietnamese spies, moved through the
00:36:57streets with orders to kill what they called blood enemies of the people.
00:37:05Bureaucrats, intelligence officers, ARVN commanders, and ordinary soldiers home on leave, and their families.
00:37:16I went home to visit my parents and I found them kind of huddled in their house.
00:37:23The door shut, the windows shut, very dark.
00:37:26They were very afraid because our house was located near a slum, and we always assumed
00:37:33that there were a lot of Viet Cong agents living among the poor, where they could hide very
00:37:39easily, and that they were going to come out and look for government officials, military
00:37:46personnel to kill.
00:37:49So my parents were very afraid.
00:37:51Viet Conganiers, military military forces, and the military officer had worked hard.
00:38:01The military force of the T4 military forces were now acting very well.
00:38:05Very famous men who were shooting for Trần Băn Kiểm and interpreted the President of Trần
00:38:07Băn Hương, when the President of the T4 Navy was fired.
00:38:14The first planes fought by Trần Băn Kiểm, in the last one, is the former Prime Minister.
00:38:20On the second day of the fighting, a Viet Cong agent named Nguyen Van Lem was brought before Nguyen Nhat Luan, the head of the South Vietnamese National Police.
00:38:42As an AP photographer and an NBC cameraman watched, Luan ordered another officer to shoot the captive.
00:38:50When he hesitated, Luan did the job himself.
00:39:09The Chief of South Vietnam's National Police Force, Brigadier General Nguyen Nhat Luan, was waiting for him.
00:39:20Good morning, Mr. President.
00:39:24Hi Jack.
00:39:25We need guidance this morning, Sir.
00:39:29Guidance? Is that all you want?
00:39:32Good morning, Mr. President.
00:39:39Hi, Jack.
00:39:40We need guidance this morning, sir.
00:39:43Guidance? Is that all you want?
00:39:45Yes, sir.
00:39:46No quotation?
00:39:47That's right.
00:39:47No attribution?
00:39:48No connection?
00:39:49That's right.
00:39:50Give it absolutely none.
00:39:51Absolutely none.
00:39:52Your press is lying like drunken sailors every day.
00:39:57First thing I waked up this morning was trying to figure out,
00:40:00after seeing CBS, watching the networks, reading the morning papers,
00:40:05was how can we win, possibly win, and survive as a nation
00:40:09and have to fight the press's lies.
00:40:12I'm trying to protect my country, and they're all whipping me.
00:40:15Not a son of a bitch said a word about Ho Chi Man.
00:40:18They talk about us bombing.
00:40:20Yet these sons of bitches come in and bomb our embassy,
00:40:23and 19 of them try to raid on them.
00:40:24All 19 get killed, and yet they blame the embassy.
00:40:28I don't understand it.
00:40:31We think we've killed 20,000.
00:40:33We think we've lost 400.
00:40:34We think that, of course, it's bad to lose anybody,
00:40:38any one of the 400.
00:40:40But we think that the good Lord has been so good to us
00:40:43that it is a major, dramatic victory.
00:40:46And I think what would have happened if I'd lost 20,000
00:40:49and they'd lost 400.
00:40:50I ask you that.
00:40:52Oh, this has been terrible.
00:40:54It appears that a mortar or a rocket shell came in,
00:40:57and all this blood on my pants,
00:41:02and I guess I'm hit.
00:41:04Well, this is the streets of Saigon,
00:41:07and that's where the war is now.
00:41:11Howard Tuckner, NBC News.
00:41:13The American press focused almost entirely
00:41:19on the fighting in Saigon.
00:41:22But the Tet Offensive was happening almost everywhere.
00:41:27Most assaults were being quickly beaten back
00:41:30by ARVN and American forces.
00:41:34Everywhere, the enemy was suffering terrible losses.
00:41:38But it's did not say anything.
00:41:45But anyway, again,
00:41:46we went through Los Angeles and it was stosers.
00:41:51There were six sergeant bombardments.
00:41:56bay.com
00:41:57It encourages us to take all values to advance.
00:42:00There's someone in space,
00:42:01till one point in Nicole.
00:42:03So we could kill someone in targets.
00:42:05We had about 600 people, so we had over 300 people.
00:42:11We were killed by about 100 people.
00:42:15But when I told her, the government,
00:42:18the government had all died.
00:42:21It was horrible.
00:42:25The Americans called in massive air and artillery firepower
00:42:30to dislodge a Viet Cong regiment from the city of Ben Tre,
00:42:34in the Mekong Delta.
00:42:37Afterwards, a reporter quoted an American major as having said,
00:42:41it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.
00:42:49Right now, the Navy and the Army boats
00:42:53that also bring supplies up the Perfume River
00:42:56are having to undergo heavy, small arms and mortar fire
00:42:59as they turn the bend of the river here around the way itself.
00:43:03And the landing zone on this, the south side of the river,
00:43:05has been under almost constant mortar and small arms fire.
00:43:09And today, at any rate, Hue is cut off.
00:43:16The longest, bloodiest battle of the Tet Offensive
00:43:19was being fought in the streets of one of the country's loveliest cities,
00:43:24the former imperial capital, Hue.
00:43:27The Perfume River divided Hue in two.
00:43:33The enemy, North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas,
00:43:39had taken over both sides of the city.
00:43:42Only the American advisers compound on the south bank
00:43:46and the 1st Arvin Division headquarters within the thick-walled citadel
00:43:48on the north side held out against them.
00:43:52The infantry, the German guerrillas,
00:43:53the French cavalry, the German guerrillas,
00:43:54had taken over both sides of the city.
00:43:55The quarter-cut-tell corps who were also killed
00:43:56the German warren.
00:43:57The American advisers compound on the south bank
00:43:59and the 1st Arvin division headquarters
00:44:01within the thick-walled citadel on the north side held out against them.
00:44:05the north side held out against them.
00:44:35Marine Corporal Bill Earhart was at the end of his tour and was preparing to go home.
00:44:51But when his company was ordered to relieve the besieged American compound in way, he chose to go with his comrades.
00:45:00I had spent 12 months in Vietnam looking for somebody to shoot at, and there was nobody there.
00:45:08And then all of a sudden, it seemed like here's every NVA in the world trying to kill me and my pals.
00:45:17It was an entirely different kind of fight.
00:45:30Earhart and his unit endured a bloody ambush, finally fought their way through to the MACV compound,
00:45:38and then began days of brutal block-by-block battle to retake the surrounding neighborhoods.
00:45:45Every house became a battlefield.
00:45:58It was exhilarating, Earhart remembered.
00:46:02I was scared, utterly witless.
00:46:05But it was the greatest adrenaline high I'd ever experienced.
00:46:11It was ugly, ugly fighting.
00:46:15You literally have to clear houses a room at a time, a floor at a time, a house at a time.
00:46:21And then you go to the next one.
00:46:22And then you go to the next one.
00:46:23And then you go to the next one.
00:46:28And people areание of God followers more than Sultanah.
00:46:31They got back in time.
00:46:32There was no idea I couldn't get risk ofれない from my working
00:46:34Then I had to finish here.
00:46:35And when I was looking
00:46:40On anything else I got hooked up
00:46:45There was no issue of further side when I was typing to him and fired him.
00:46:51But I had to chase him on the program all the way to read him on the target.
00:46:55Neither did any student Creek hunters conspicuous early bond
00:46:57I can't do it!
00:46:59I can't do it!
00:47:23February 5th, I was wounded by a B-40 rocket
00:47:28I was utterly stone deaf
00:47:34Under any other circumstances, I would have been evacuated
00:47:37But I could see, I could walk, and I could shoot
00:47:41So I stayed
00:47:57The fighting continued
00:48:13We had to blow our way through every wall of every house, one Marine remembered
00:48:26It's a shame we had to damage such a beautiful city
00:48:34Of course, all these civilians have been herded into the university
00:48:38They had all gone there to get the hell away from having grenades thrown in their living rooms
00:48:43And one of the guys comes in and says
00:48:46I found this girl who will fuck us all for sea rations
00:48:51And I'm thinking, wait, we're in the middle of this big battle
00:48:57And I'm gonna go and...
00:49:00But I'm 19 years old and my buddies are gonna...
00:49:04And I just...
00:49:06I...
00:49:08Demonstrated to myself how little courage I actually had
00:49:12I've lived with it ever since
00:49:14But I...
00:49:16I did it because I wasn't gonna say
00:49:18You guys...
00:49:19We shouldn't do something like this
00:49:22Even more than the...
00:49:25Killings...
00:49:26The thing I think I'm most ashamed of
00:49:29When I think back on...
00:49:32The time I spent there
00:49:34Um...
00:49:35I think it's because...
00:49:38My mother's a woman
00:49:40My wife's a woman
00:49:42My daughter's a woman
00:49:43Somebody gets shot...
00:49:54Not a good thing
00:49:56You see somebody running away...
00:49:59Could have been a VC
00:50:02That woman...
00:50:05Nah...
00:50:08I had every opportunity to say no
00:50:14The next day...
00:50:16In the midst of still another firefight...
00:50:18A lieutenant in a jeep pulled up in front of the building
00:50:21From which Earhart and five fellow marines were firing at the enemy
00:50:26Come on, Earhart, he shouted
00:50:29Chopper's on the LZ right now
00:50:32You wanna go home or not?
00:50:36From the helicopter that lifted him up and away from the ruined smoking city
00:50:41He could see a farmer and his water buffalo working a flooded field
00:50:46And women in conical hats carrying twin baskets
00:50:50Hurrying along between the paddies as if there were no war
00:50:59Back in Wei, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops
00:51:03Now found themselves trapped inside the city
00:51:06They had to find a trail from the river to find a dead man
00:51:09To find that on the river to find a dead man
00:51:10They were going to find a dead man
00:51:12To find a dead man
00:51:14The river to find a dead man
00:51:15It would take two weeks for the marines to fight their way across the river to support the Arvin
00:51:32across the river to support the Arvin,
00:51:35who had stubbornly kept the enemy from overwhelming
00:51:39their division headquarters in the citadel.
00:52:02That's the hardest part of it.
00:52:05Not knowing where they are, that's the worst thing.
00:52:07Riding around and running the sewers and the gutters,
00:52:09anywhere, be anywhere.
00:52:12Just hoping to stay alive from day to day.
00:52:14I hope everybody just wants to go back home and go to school.
00:52:16That's about it.
00:52:17You lost any friends?
00:52:19Quite a few.
00:52:19We lost one the other day, good buddy.
00:52:22Oh, thanks.
00:52:22Thanks, really.
00:52:32Are you still alive?
00:52:50All right.
00:52:54That's why I was here.
00:53:00After 26 days of bitter, bloody fighting,
00:53:02the flag of South Vietnam flew again, above the city.
00:53:23After 26 days of bitter, bloody fighting,
00:53:26the flag of South Vietnam flew again, above the citadel.
00:53:32The surviving North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
00:53:35were finally permitted by their commanders to pull out of the city.
00:53:40Some 6,000 civilians had died in the rubble.
00:53:45Of the city's 135,000 citizens,
00:53:49110,000 had lost their homes.
00:53:52All that was left of way, one reporter wrote,
00:53:58was ruins divided by a river.
00:54:02The biggest fact is that the stated purposes of the general uprising,
00:54:08a military victory or psychological victory, have failed.
00:54:13The attack on the radio station started at 2.30 in the morning.
00:54:19Night after night for weeks.
00:54:23American television screens had been filled with images of blood and violence
00:54:29and devastation the public had rarely seen before.
00:54:32The enemy was nowhere and everywhere.
00:54:36But it was one photograph that, for many people,
00:54:40would come to define the Tet Offensive.
00:54:43I remember he was wearing a checked shirt.
00:54:50And the photographer had come up very close
00:54:55and had pressed his shutter just as the officer pulled his trigger.
00:55:02So camera and gun went off together
00:55:05and you could see the man's head bulging at the side
00:55:09where the bullet was about to come out.
00:55:11We were there, face to face with this man who is dying right now, dead.
00:55:18It's a devastating thing to see.
00:55:21And I think many Americans begin to ask themselves,
00:55:24are we supporting the wrong guys here?
00:55:26And it sort of brings home, I think, to the dinner table,
00:55:31or the breakfast table if you see it in the papers,
00:55:34the brutality of this war and the fact that it looks like it's never going to end.
00:55:39But what we know is the price that we pay for that picture.
00:55:45It was a turning point.
00:55:48Because that put the Americans to position and said,
00:55:52hey, look, we want to spend money and the lives of our young people
00:55:55to protect such a system.
00:55:56For a month, Hal Kushner's captors had made him walk deeper and deeper into the central highlands,
00:56:14always moving at night so that they would not be spotted from the air.
00:56:17They took me to this place that I assume was a hospital.
00:56:24It was just a series of caves, but there were a lot of wounded lying around.
00:56:28And this female nurse came out and inspected my wound,
00:56:36and then she gave me a bamboo stick to bite on.
00:56:40She laid me down and she gave me this bamboo stick to bite on,
00:56:44and then she took this rifle-cleaning rod and she heated it up in a fire until it was red-hot.
00:56:50And she took it and put it through my wound, through and through.
00:56:55And it really hurt.
00:56:57It really, really, really hurt.
00:57:00And then she put mercurochrome on the wound,
00:57:03and she gave me an aspirin towel.
00:57:06And I thought, what else can they do to me?
00:57:12Kushner would eventually arrive at a remote jungle camp,
00:57:17joining a handful of other American prisoners.
00:57:23And this Vietnamese officer came to me and he spoke English,
00:57:26and it was the first real English speaker that I had seen.
00:57:29And he had a little reel-to-reel tape recorder,
00:57:32battery-powered tape recorder.
00:57:33And he asked me to make a message to my family to let them know that I was safe.
00:57:39And I could do that if I would make a statement against the war.
00:57:44And I told him with great bravado that I would rather die than make a statement against my country.
00:57:51And he said to me,
00:57:52you will find dying is very easy.
00:57:58Living will be the difficult thing.
00:58:02Living is the difficult thing.
00:58:08In early March, two weeks after Wei had finally been recaptured,
00:58:12Second Lieutenant Phil Joya of the 82nd Airborne Division led his platoon along the Perfume River,
00:58:21looking for weapons that might have been buried by the retreating enemy.
00:58:25Joya's Sergeant Ruben Torres saw something sticking up from the sandy soil.
00:58:31It was an elbow.
00:58:32So to us, it seemed as though this was going to be a grave where the enemy had buried some of his own people on the withdrawal from Wei.
00:58:45Sergeant Torres said, you know, sir, I think we better start to dig here.
00:58:49We found the first body and it was a woman.
00:58:54She was wearing a white blouse and black trousers.
00:58:59She had her hands tied behind her back and she'd been shot in the back of the head.
00:59:04Next to her was a child who had also been shot.
00:59:08The next person coming up was another woman.
00:59:13At that point, it was clear that this wasn't enemy North Vietnamese or Viet Cong.
00:59:17When the military went outside, the secret forces in the city had been destroyed.
00:59:28So if the people who had been killed were forced to break it out,
00:59:34they would break the secret forces back to the secret forces.
00:59:40Before they abandoned the city, the Communists had said,
00:59:46systematically executed at least 2,800 people they called hooligans and reactionaries.
00:59:57Hanoi would always deny that any innocent civilians had been killed.
01:00:01I don't know if the command was the right person to direct, or even higher than any other people.
01:00:10The soldiers killed the United States, and the U.S. troops.
01:00:14The people, the U.S. military forces, and the U.S. troops.
01:00:17But there were also people who were forced to kill us.
01:00:21And those who were persecuted.
01:00:23They became a criminal crimes.
01:00:24That was a nightmare, a bad thing in the war.
01:00:34In Huệ, it was hard,
01:00:37it was hard, it was hard, it was hard,
01:00:39it was hard for me to say that.
01:00:48I can't say that,
01:00:51It might be what I'm saying to others.
01:00:54But I believe that I'm really proud of.
01:00:58I believe that I'm very careful.
01:01:07President Johnson insisted that the Tet Offensive
01:01:10had been a devastating defeat for the Communists.
01:01:15Militarily, he was right.
01:01:18The basic assumptions on which the North Vietnamese mounted their offensive
01:01:22had all proved to be wrong.
01:01:25Hanoi's leaders had assumed the Arvin would crumble,
01:01:29that South Vietnamese soldiers would come over to their side.
01:01:33Instead, not a single unit defected.
01:01:40The civilian populace Hanoi expected to rise up
01:01:43may have been unhappy with their government,
01:01:46but they had little sympathy for Communism.
01:01:50And when the fighting began,
01:01:52they had hidden in their homes
01:01:54to escape the fury in the streets.
01:01:58And when the military came out,
01:02:00people would fall asleep.
01:02:01I think that they were very careful.
01:02:03North Vietnamese General Va Nguyen Zopp,
01:02:04who had opposed the offensive from the beginning,
01:02:07later remembered that Tet had been a costly lesson,
01:02:11paid for in blood and bone.
01:02:13.
01:02:29There have been some high-class forces of Vietnam,
01:02:32the people of Vietnam, that is a problem that has never happened.
01:02:38There are no other forces, there are no other forces,
01:02:41there are no other forces.
01:02:44There are only a few or three people.
01:02:49Of the 84,000 enemy troops who are estimated to have taken part in the Tet Offensive,
01:02:55more than half, as many as 58,000 men and women,
01:03:00most of them Viet Cong,
01:03:02are thought to have been killed or wounded or captured.
01:03:08The American military command celebrated the Tet Offensive as a victory.
01:03:13You know, they finally came at us and we blew them away,
01:03:16which was basically true.
01:03:18But the administration had been telling the American public
01:03:22for most of the end of 67 and for the first month of 1968,
01:03:27that the war was being won.
01:03:29That the NLF and the North Vietnamese were ground down to such an extent
01:03:35that we could see the end of the war, a victory.
01:03:39The Tet Offensive has forced our generals to reevaluate their...
01:03:42So when Tet hit, it contradicted everything that the administration
01:03:47and the Saigon country team had been telling the American public
01:03:50through its journalists for the previous four or five months.
01:03:54John Lawrence, CBS News, Saigon.
01:03:58It broke the will of the United States to fight that war.
01:04:04It was such a shock that it stripped away the last vestiges
01:04:10of the fiction and fanciful interpretations
01:04:13that had led us down this primrose path into disaster.
01:04:17After that, nobody could be convinced.
01:04:20And then the most ferocious possible argument erupted inside the U.S. government,
01:04:28because the hawks on the war were saying Tet was North Vietnam's last gasp.
01:04:38It was their last shot at winning the war, and they failed.
01:04:43We beat them, and that's the end of them.
01:04:48And we said, after all these years of war, if that's what they are able to do,
01:04:55we ought to learn some lesson about their commitment to this war as well
01:05:01and the cost to us.
01:05:03On March 10th, the New York Times reported that the army was requesting
01:05:08206,000 additional troops for Vietnam.
01:05:12But if the United States had been winning the war, many Americans asked,
01:05:17if Tet had in fact been a disaster for the enemy, why were still more men needed?
01:05:24More and more members of the president's own party now felt free to express their doubts.
01:05:31Our enemy has finally shattered the mask of official illusion, Senator Robert Kennedy said.
01:05:37Unable to defeat him or break his will, we must actively seek a peaceful settlement.
01:05:43Walter Cronkite, the respected anchor of the CBS Evening News, had come home from covering the Tet Offensive,
01:05:54convinced victory was no longer possible.
01:05:58We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders,
01:06:02both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.
01:06:09To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence,
01:06:15the optimists who have been wrong in the past.
01:06:18To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism.
01:06:23To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, if unsatisfactory, conclusion.
01:06:30But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate,
01:06:39not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy
01:06:45and did the best they could.
01:06:48This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.
01:06:51In 1966 and 67 and again in 68, most recently we hear the same hollow claims of progress and of advance toward victory.
01:07:02The fact is, however, as we know from events of recent weeks, events which one is almost saddened to report,
01:07:09that the NMA has become bolder than ever.
01:07:12On the evening of March 12th, President Johnson watched the returns come in from the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary,
01:07:21where he was facing an unexpected challenge.
01:07:25The most recent poll had suggested he would beat Eugene McCarthy two to one.
01:07:31But Johnson won just 49.6% of the vote against 41.9% for his opponent,
01:07:40even though most of those who voted against the president actually wanted him to prosecute the war more vigorously.
01:07:49Johnson knew he was in trouble, and there was more to come.
01:07:56I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man.
01:08:00Just four days after the New Hampshire primary, Robert F. Kennedy declared his candidacy for the presidency.
01:08:09And polls suggested he was more popular than Lyndon Johnson.
01:08:13About what must be done, I run because it is now unmistakably clear
01:08:19that we can change these disastrous, divisive policies only by changing the men who are now making them.
01:08:28I 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,
01:08:45and Bobby's putting us in, and the kids are putting us in, and the papers are putting us in.
01:08:49We've got to come up with something.
01:08:52What it is, we're out to win, but we're not out to win the war. We're out to win the peace.
01:08:59That's right.
01:09:00But we've got to have something new and fresh that goes in there along with the statement that we're going to win.
01:09:12Right. But we have to be very careful what it is we say we're going to win.
01:09:17That's right.
01:09:19They think, well, hell, that means we're just going to keep pouring men in until we win militarily.
01:09:24And that isn't what we're after, really.
01:09:26We're not going to get these, but we can neutralize the country the way it won't fall on me if we can go up or something.
01:09:35On March 26th, the Wise Men, a group of veteran cold warriors who had earlier urged the president to hold steady in Vietnam,
01:09:49now advised him to change course.
01:09:52Dean Acheson, Harry Truman's Secretary of State, spoke for the majority.
01:09:58We 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.
01:10:09The president agreed to send just 13,500 more troops, not the 206,000 the generals had requested,
01:10:19and decided to recall William Westmoreland to Washington as chief of staff of the Army,
01:10:25replacing him with his Deputy General Creighton W. Abrams.
01:10:31His face was a mask of exhaustion and defeat.
01:10:37It was very sad to see the man.
01:10:40He was broken by it.
01:10:44On March 30th, Gallup reported that 63% of the public disapproved of Johnson's handling of the war,
01:10:52the lowest point of his presidency.
01:10:58The following evening, March 31st, 1968, the president asked for time on all three networks.
01:11:07Good evening, my fellow Americans.
01:11:11Tonight I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
01:11:17Johnson announced that he had decided to stop bombing the densely populated areas around Hanoi and Haiphong,
01:11:26in the hope that North Vietnam would finally be willing to come to the negotiating table.
01:11:32Only the southern half of the country, the staging areas north of the DMZ, would continue to be targeted.
01:11:40Then he stunned the country and the world.
01:11:47I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes,
01:11:57or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the presidency of your country.
01:12:10Accordingly, I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.
01:12:24I land in California, take a plane from California to Boston, and I'm feeling good because I've survived and fought for my country.
01:12:43Then I got off the plane at Logan, and I stepped out there, and I'm just happy to be home.
01:12:49And I had my uniform on and walked out to the curb, and the cabs just kept going by me, kept going by me.
01:13:00And there was a state trooper that was standing there, and I didn't realize what was happening.
01:13:06And then he stepped in the street, and he stopped the cab, and he said, you have to take this man.
01:13:12You have to take this soldier.
01:13:14And the driver looked over at me, and he said, I don't want to go to Roxbury.
01:13:19They don't see me as a soldier.
01:13:21You know, they see me as a nigger, you know, and I live in Roxbury, you know.
01:13:27And I'm thinking, I'm a Marine.
01:13:29I'm a Marine.
01:13:30You know, I just fought for my country 13 months in a combat zone, and I can't get a cab to get home.
01:13:36I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world.
01:13:51And that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Mexico.
01:13:59In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are, and what direction we want to move in.
01:14:14Over the next week, African Americans, grieving, frustrated, angry, poured into the streets of more than 100 towns and cities,
01:14:26including New York and Oakland, Newark and Nashville, Chicago and Cincinnati, and Baltimore,
01:14:36and in Washington, D.C., where fires came within two blocks of the White House.
01:14:44When they killed Dr. King, they just opened up the eyes of a lot of black people who were afraid to pick up guns.
01:14:51Now they will pick up those guns.
01:14:53We're living in a sick world.
01:14:55This racist society in which we live is that that really pulled the trigger.
01:15:00Violence breeds violence.
01:15:02Repression breeds retaliation.
01:15:05And only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our souls.
01:15:14Tens of thousands of National Guardsmen, regular Army troops, and the Marines, including Roger Harris' stateside unit, were ordered to patrol American streets.
01:15:29And I was ready to go until I saw what they were giving out.
01:15:35I thought they were going to give us billy clubs, and I thought we were going to stand in front of buildings, you know, and protect, you know, businesses.
01:15:44And they were passing out flak jackets, helmets, M-16s with live ammunition.
01:15:49You know, the same things we had in Vietnam.
01:15:52And when I saw that, I said, I said, I'm not going. I'm not going.
01:15:58I said, I got family in Washington, D.C.
01:16:01And my company commander said, get on the truck, Marine.
01:16:08I said, I'm not going.
01:16:12I didn't make sergeant because I refused to go.
01:16:16Forty-six Americans died.
01:16:20Twenty-six hundred were injured.
01:16:23Twenty-thousand were arrested.
01:16:25Later that same month, anti-war students seized several buildings at Columbia University in Manhattan.
01:16:39The occupation lasted a week.
01:16:42The first time in American history that students forced a major university to shut down.
01:16:48Policemen eventually drove the demonstrators out of the buildings and sent more than 100 students to the hospital.
01:16:58The United States now appeared to be more divided than at any time since the Civil War.
01:17:05That spring, protestors also took to the streets of London, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Rio, Jakarta.
01:17:23The world seemed to be coming apart.
01:17:26President Johnson's partial bombing halt had had the desired effect.
01:17:55Hanoi agreed for the first time to talk with Washington.
01:18:02Negotiators began meeting at the Hotel Majestic in Paris.
01:18:07But the communists had now adopted a new double policy.
01:18:12They called it talking while fighting, fighting while talking.
01:18:16On May 5th, they launched another offensive that Lei Zuan hoped would somehow achieve what the Tet Offensive had not.
01:18:30The enemy hit 119 targets in what came to be called Mini Tet.
01:18:35There was new fighting in the streets of Saigon.
01:18:42Half the city was now leveled.
01:18:48But the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army failed again.
01:19:03They were still no closer to overthrowing the South Vietnamese government.
01:19:07And they had suffered some 36,000 more casualties.
01:19:16For the United States, May of 1968 proved the bloodiest month of the Vietnam War.
01:19:232,416 Americans lost their lives in places whose names Americans back home would have a hard time remembering.
01:19:35Dai Do, Fu Long, Kam Dook, Cho Long, and the Plain of Reeds.
01:19:48A total military victory is not within sight and is not around the corner.
01:19:54And in fact, it is probably beyond our grasp.
01:19:57For a time that spring, it looked as if Robert Kennedy might win the Democratic nomination for president.
01:20:07He pledged to bring the war to an end and seemed to embody the hope of bridging the growing gulf between black and white Americans.
01:20:16But in June, after defeating Eugene McCarthy in the California primary, he too was assassinated.
01:20:26People were stunned. People were scared.
01:20:49The people we'd look up to were being taken away from us.
01:20:54It definitely put those of us who were heading off on our own, on a path that felt uncertain.
01:21:14When Martin Luther King was assassinated and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated,
01:21:19they made a big, huge deal about that.
01:21:21They said that was part of the struggle of the American people against their government,
01:21:30and that there were riots in the streets.
01:21:33And the camp commander actually told us,
01:21:36you can kill ten of us to one of you, but your people will turn against this.
01:21:41And we will be here for ten years, or twenty years, or thirty years, as long as it takes.
01:21:49And unless you kill every one of us, we're going to win this war.
01:21:53And on July the fourth, we recognized it was July the fourth.
01:22:03And they would not let us sing patriotic songs.
01:22:06But sometimes we would softly sing at night.
01:22:09And we understood that despite different backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds,
01:22:23different races, different religions, that we were Americans.
01:22:27The American people would be choosing new leadership that fall.
01:22:38And everyone seemed to agree, a British correspondent wrote,
01:22:41that whoever captures the presidency this November will be obliged to end the conflict within a matter of months.
01:22:50How this is to be done, or what concessions are to be made, is very much a matter of detail.
01:22:57Before those details were finally worked out, almost seven more years would pass,
01:23:05and 27,184 more Americans, and hundreds of thousands more Laotians, Cambodians, and Vietnamese,
01:23:15North and South, would have to die.
01:23:18We skipped the light fandango,
01:23:25We turned cartwheels across the floor.
01:23:31I was feeling kind of seasick.
01:23:39The crowd called out for more.
01:23:42The room was humming harder.
01:23:51As the ceiling flew away.
01:23:57When we call out for another dream.
01:24:04The way to broaden the train.
01:24:07And so it was later.
01:24:08And so it was later.
01:24:17As the military told his tale.
01:24:24Let her face at first just go sleep.
01:24:28Turn the wider shade of fair.
01:24:33The way to broaden the train.
01:24:34How would the reverse end make you feel?
01:24:35The way to broaden the train.
01:24:36And so that's a beautiful way.
01:24:37By letting the moves of a liaison at the side.
01:24:38And so it keeps me feeling good.
01:24:40I did laugh as much as I did.
01:24:41I tried to stretch my head.
01:24:42I tried to clean it out.
01:24:43I did not work.
01:24:45What is it like?
01:24:47You should leave too.
01:24:49I have to identify the way to go.
01:24:51Look at me.
01:24:53And so I used to be the best.
01:24:55How would you know?
01:24:57It looks like the woman's friend.
01:24:59And so I think I'd love you.
01:25:00And although my eyes were open
01:25:07They might just as well be closed
01:25:12So it was
01:25:17As the mirror told his tale
01:25:25Let her face at first just ghostly
01:25:32Turn the whiter shade of fair
01:25:55Learn more about the film and find additional resources at pbs.org slash Vietnam War
01:26:11And join the conversation using hashtag Vietnam War PBS
01:26:15The Vietnam War is available on Blu-ray and DVD
01:26:18The companion book, soundtrack, and original score from the film are also available
01:26:23To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS
01:26:27Episodes of this series also available for download from iTunes
01:26:31Bank of America proudly supports Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's film
01:26:38The Vietnam War
01:26:40Because fostering different perspectives and civil discourse
01:26:45Around important issues furthers progress, equality, and a more connected society
01:26:53Go to bankofamerica.com slash betterconnected to learn more
01:26:59Major support for the Vietnam War was provided by members of the Better Angels Society
01:27:07Including Jonathan and Jeannie Levine
01:27:10Diane and Hal Briarley
01:27:13Amy and David Abrams
01:27:16John and Catherine Debs
01:27:19The Fullerton Family Charitable Fund
01:27:22The Montrone Family
01:27:24Linda and Stuart Resnick
01:27:26The Perry and Donna Gokin Family Foundation
01:27:29The Lynch Foundation
01:27:31The Roger and Rosemary Enrico Foundation
01:27:33And by these additional funders
01:27:36Major funding was also provided by David H. Koch
01:27:40The Blavatnik Family Foundation
01:27:45The Park Foundation
01:27:49The National Endowment for the Humanities
01:27:52The Pew Charitable Trusts
01:27:54The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
01:27:57The Andrew W. Millen Foundation
01:27:59The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
01:28:02The Ford Foundation Just Films
01:28:04By the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
01:28:07And by viewers like you
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