1 00:00:00,866 --> 00:00:03,000 ANNOUNCER: Major support for "The Vietnam War" 2 00:00:03,001 --> 00:00:06,500 was provided by members of The Better Angels Society, 3 00:00:06,501 --> 00:00:10,465 including Jonathan and Jeannie Lavine, 4 00:00:10,466 --> 00:00:13,365 Diane and Hal Brierley, 5 00:00:13,366 --> 00:00:15,766 Amy and David Abrams, 6 00:00:15,767 --> 00:00:18,265 John and Catherine Debs, 7 00:00:18,266 --> 00:00:21,166 the Fullerton Family Charitable Fund, 8 00:00:21,167 --> 00:00:23,233 the Montrone Ffamily, 9 00:00:23,234 --> 00:00:25,565 Lynda and Stewart Resnick, 10 00:00:25,566 --> 00:00:28,332 the Perry and Donna Golkin Family Foundation, 11 00:00:28,333 --> 00:00:29,332 the Lynch Foundation, 12 00:00:29,333 --> 00:00:32,200 the Roger and Rosemary Enrico Foundation, 13 00:00:32,201 --> 00:00:35,633 and by these additional funders. 14 00:00:35,634 --> 00:00:37,533 Major funding was also provided 15 00:00:37,534 --> 00:00:39,265 by David H. Koch... 16 00:00:41,566 --> 00:00:43,765 The Blavatnik Family Foundation... 17 00:00:46,100 --> 00:00:48,533 The Park Foundation, 18 00:00:48,534 --> 00:00:50,700 the National Endowment for the Humanities, 19 00:00:50,701 --> 00:00:52,899 the Pew Charitable Trusts, 20 00:00:52,900 --> 00:00:55,566 the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 21 00:00:55,567 --> 00:00:58,332 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 22 00:00:58,333 --> 00:01:01,000 the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, 23 00:01:01,001 --> 00:01:03,200 the Ford Foundation JustFilms, 24 00:01:03,201 --> 00:01:05,632 by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 25 00:01:05,633 --> 00:01:07,599 and by viewers like you. 26 00:01:07,600 --> 00:01:08,733 Thank you. 27 00:01:13,266 --> 00:01:15,400 ANNOUNCER: Bank of America proudly supports 28 00:01:15,401 --> 00:01:20,299 Ken Burns' and Lynn Novick's film "The Vietnam War" 29 00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:22,700 because fostering different perspectives 30 00:01:22,701 --> 00:01:25,299 and civil discourse around important issues 31 00:01:25,300 --> 00:01:27,599 furthers progress, equality, 32 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:29,599 and a more connected society. 33 00:01:34,066 --> 00:01:38,099 Go to bankofamerica.com/ betterconnected to learn more. 34 00:01:51,390 --> 00:01:57,023 (HELICOPTER BLADES BEATING, GROWING LOUDER) 35 00:02:01,155 --> 00:02:02,855 (HELICOPTER BLADES STOP BEATING) 36 00:02:03,756 --> 00:02:05,355 (WIND WHIPPING, BULLET WHIZZING) 37 00:02:08,790 --> 00:02:09,855 (GUNFIRE) 38 00:02:09,956 --> 00:02:11,589 (EXPLOSION) 39 00:02:13,290 --> 00:02:15,023 (HELICOPTER BLADES BEATING, INDISTINCT VOICES) 40 00:02:17,689 --> 00:02:19,922 (GUNFIRE, DISTORTED SCREAMING) 41 00:02:22,490 --> 00:02:25,255 (DISTORTED MARINE CORPS HYMN PLAYING) 42 00:02:26,422 --> 00:02:27,890 (ELECTRONIC HUM) 43 00:02:30,355 --> 00:02:38,290 (MARINE CORPS HYMN PLAYING, CROWD CHEERING) 44 00:02:39,523 --> 00:02:42,255 KARL MARLANTES: Coming home from Vietnam 45 00:02:42,355 --> 00:02:46,155 was close to as traumatic as the war itself. 46 00:02:48,089 --> 00:02:51,056 For years, nobody talked about Vietnam. 47 00:02:51,155 --> 00:02:52,355 (GUNFIRE) 48 00:02:52,456 --> 00:02:54,123 (MARCHING BAND PLAYING) 49 00:02:54,223 --> 00:02:55,755 We were friends with a young couple 50 00:02:55,855 --> 00:03:00,556 and it was only after 12 years that the two wives were talking. 51 00:03:00,655 --> 00:03:04,022 Found out that we both had been Marines in Vietnam. 52 00:03:04,123 --> 00:03:06,623 Never said a word about it. 53 00:03:06,723 --> 00:03:08,422 Never mentioned it. 54 00:03:08,522 --> 00:03:10,589 And the whole country was like that. 55 00:03:12,189 --> 00:03:14,922 It was so divisive. 56 00:03:15,023 --> 00:03:19,956 And it's like living in a family with an alcoholic father. 57 00:03:20,056 --> 00:03:22,390 (WHISPERING): "Shh, we don't talk about that." 58 00:03:22,490 --> 00:03:24,755 (GUNFIRE) 59 00:03:24,855 --> 00:03:26,755 Our country did that with Vietnam. 60 00:03:26,855 --> 00:03:29,589 It's only been very recently that, I think, 61 00:03:29,689 --> 00:03:32,355 that, you know, the baby boomers are finally starting to say, 62 00:03:32,456 --> 00:03:33,723 "What happened? 63 00:03:33,822 --> 00:03:35,155 What happened?" 64 00:03:35,255 --> 00:03:38,490 ("A FAMILIAR TASTE" BY TRENT REZNOR & ATTICUS ROSS PLAYING) 65 00:03:44,890 --> 00:03:46,855 HENRY KISSINGER: What we need now in this country 66 00:03:46,956 --> 00:03:51,255 is to heal the wounds and to put Vietnam behind us. 67 00:03:51,355 --> 00:03:54,490 ("A FAMILIAR TASTE" CONTINUES) 68 00:04:03,456 --> 00:04:04,723 RICHARD NIXON: The killing 69 00:04:04,822 --> 00:04:06,623 in this tragic war must stop. 70 00:04:08,822 --> 00:04:10,089 ("A FAMILIAR TASTE" CONTINUES) 71 00:04:17,290 --> 00:04:19,922 LYNDON JOHNSON: General Westmoreland's strategy 72 00:04:20,023 --> 00:04:21,689 is producing results. 73 00:04:21,790 --> 00:04:25,956 The enemy is no longer closer to victory. 74 00:04:27,956 --> 00:04:29,956 ("A FAMILIAR TASTE" CONTINUES) 75 00:04:33,290 --> 00:04:35,189 ROBERT MCNAMARA: No matter how you measure it, 76 00:04:35,290 --> 00:04:38,155 we're better off than we thought we would be at this time. 77 00:04:43,590 --> 00:04:46,355 REPORTER: You have been less than candid 78 00:04:46,456 --> 00:04:50,056 as to how deeply we are involved in Vietnam. 79 00:04:50,155 --> 00:04:51,756 We have increased our assistance 80 00:04:51,855 --> 00:04:53,889 to the government, its logistics. 81 00:04:53,990 --> 00:04:56,355 We have not sent combat troops there. 82 00:04:56,456 --> 00:05:00,122 DWIGHT EISENHOWER: You have a row of dominoes set up 83 00:05:00,223 --> 00:05:02,323 and you knock over the first one 84 00:05:02,422 --> 00:05:04,256 and the last one, certainly it will go over. 85 00:05:04,355 --> 00:05:06,523 HARRY TRUMAN: If aggression is successful in Korea, 86 00:05:06,622 --> 00:05:09,090 we can expect it to spread throughout Asia and Europe 87 00:05:09,189 --> 00:05:10,389 and to this hemisphere. 88 00:05:12,790 --> 00:05:16,523 ("A FAMILIAR TASTE" CONTINUES) 89 00:05:26,389 --> 00:05:29,155 ("A HARD RAIN'S A-GONNA FALL" BY BOB DYLAN PLAYING) 90 00:05:32,490 --> 00:05:38,956 # Oh where have you been, my blue-eyed son? # 91 00:05:39,056 --> 00:05:43,189 # And where have you been, my darling young one? # 92 00:05:45,155 --> 00:05:47,887 MAX CLELAND: Viktor Frankl, who survived the death camps 93 00:05:47,888 --> 00:05:52,523 in World War II, wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning. 94 00:05:52,622 --> 00:05:54,956 DYLAN: # I've walked and I've crawled on six... # 95 00:05:55,056 --> 00:05:57,689 CLELAND: You know, "To live is to suffer. 96 00:05:57,790 --> 00:06:02,256 To survive is to find meaning in suffering." 97 00:06:02,355 --> 00:06:06,790 And for those of us who suffered because of Vietnam, 98 00:06:06,889 --> 00:06:11,122 that's been our quest ever since. 99 00:06:11,223 --> 00:06:17,756 DYLAN: # And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard # 100 00:06:17,855 --> 00:06:19,822 # It's a hard # 101 00:06:19,922 --> 00:06:24,389 # It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall # 102 00:06:24,490 --> 00:06:28,523 NARRATOR: America's involvement in Vietnam began in secrecy. 103 00:06:28,622 --> 00:06:33,523 It ended, 30 years later, in failure, 104 00:06:33,622 --> 00:06:36,855 witnessed by the entire world. 105 00:06:36,956 --> 00:06:39,790 DYLAN: # And what did you see, my darling young one? # 106 00:06:39,889 --> 00:06:43,056 NARRATOR: It was begun in good faith by decent people 107 00:06:43,155 --> 00:06:45,723 out of fateful misunderstandings, 108 00:06:45,822 --> 00:06:50,256 American overconfidence, and Cold War miscalculation. 109 00:06:50,355 --> 00:06:55,689 And it was prolonged because it seemed easier to muddle through 110 00:06:55,790 --> 00:06:58,822 than admit that it had been caused by tragic decisions, 111 00:06:58,922 --> 00:07:01,956 made by five American presidents, 112 00:07:02,055 --> 00:07:04,889 belonging to both political parties. 113 00:07:04,990 --> 00:07:06,889 DYLAN: # I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleeding # 114 00:07:06,990 --> 00:07:08,790 NARRATOR: Before the war was over, 115 00:07:08,889 --> 00:07:12,555 more than 58,000 Americans would be dead. 116 00:07:12,655 --> 00:07:17,456 At least 250,000 South Vietnamese troops died 117 00:07:17,555 --> 00:07:20,055 in the conflict, as well. 118 00:07:20,155 --> 00:07:24,090 So did over a million North Vietnamese soldiers 119 00:07:24,189 --> 00:07:25,655 and Viet Cong guerrillas. 120 00:07:25,756 --> 00:07:28,655 DYLAN: # Sharp swords in the hands of young children # 121 00:07:28,756 --> 00:07:30,956 # And it's a hard... # 122 00:07:31,056 --> 00:07:34,090 NARRATOR: Two million civilians, north and south, 123 00:07:34,189 --> 00:07:36,056 are thought to have perished, 124 00:07:36,155 --> 00:07:39,590 as well as tens of thousands more in the neighboring states 125 00:07:39,689 --> 00:07:41,490 of Laos and Cambodia. 126 00:07:41,590 --> 00:07:44,056 (HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING) 127 00:07:44,155 --> 00:07:48,290 For many Vietnamese, it was a brutal civil war; 128 00:07:48,389 --> 00:07:51,756 for others, the bloody climactic chapter 129 00:07:51,855 --> 00:07:55,355 in a century-old struggle for independence. 130 00:07:55,456 --> 00:08:00,523 DYLAN: # And what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son? # 131 00:08:00,622 --> 00:08:02,956 NARRATOR: For those Americans who fought in it, 132 00:08:03,055 --> 00:08:05,922 and for those who fought against it back home, 133 00:08:06,023 --> 00:08:09,523 as well as for those who merely glimpsed it on the nightly news, 134 00:08:09,622 --> 00:08:13,323 the Vietnam War was a decade of agony, 135 00:08:13,422 --> 00:08:18,922 the most divisive period since the Civil War. 136 00:08:19,023 --> 00:08:23,889 Vietnam seemed to call everything into question... 137 00:08:23,990 --> 00:08:28,422 the value of honor and gallantry; 138 00:08:28,523 --> 00:08:33,056 the qualities of cruelty and mercy; 139 00:08:33,155 --> 00:08:37,623 the candor of the American government; 140 00:08:37,722 --> 00:08:41,490 and what it means to be a patriot. 141 00:08:43,355 --> 00:08:47,922 DYLAN: # Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are forgotten # 142 00:08:48,023 --> 00:08:50,155 NARRATOR: And those who lived through it 143 00:08:50,255 --> 00:08:53,155 have never been able to erase its memory, 144 00:08:53,255 --> 00:08:56,322 have never stopped arguing about what really happened, 145 00:08:56,422 --> 00:09:01,990 why everything went so badly wrong, who was to blame, 146 00:09:02,090 --> 00:09:04,789 and whether it was all worth it. 147 00:09:08,389 --> 00:09:10,937 BAO NINH: _ 148 00:09:17,338 --> 00:09:19,731 _ 149 00:09:20,032 --> 00:09:22,758 _ 150 00:09:24,009 --> 00:09:28,113 _ 151 00:09:28,114 --> 00:09:32,324 _ 152 00:09:32,825 --> 00:09:36,355 _ 153 00:09:37,856 --> 00:09:41,150 _ 154 00:09:42,051 --> 00:09:44,380 _ 155 00:09:44,381 --> 00:09:48,190 _ 156 00:09:48,193 --> 00:09:49,990 DYLAN: # And it's a hard # 157 00:09:50,090 --> 00:09:55,056 # It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall # 158 00:10:00,656 --> 00:10:02,123 (SONG ENDS) 159 00:10:06,855 --> 00:10:11,922 (SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE PLAYING "PEOPLE AND FIGHTERS UNITE") 160 00:10:30,956 --> 00:10:35,230 BAO NINH: _ 161 00:10:35,231 --> 00:10:39,950 _ 162 00:10:41,822 --> 00:10:45,255 NARRATOR: The French conquest of Indochina began with an attack 163 00:10:45,355 --> 00:10:50,956 on the ancient Vietnamese port of Danang in 1858. 164 00:10:51,056 --> 00:10:54,490 It took 50 years to lay claim to the whole region... 165 00:10:54,590 --> 00:10:59,156 Laos and Cambodia, as well as the 1,200-mile-long area 166 00:10:59,255 --> 00:11:02,523 that would come to be called Vietnam. 167 00:11:05,289 --> 00:11:08,289 All of it was ruled by a French governor-general 168 00:11:08,389 --> 00:11:10,690 from his palace in Hanoi. 169 00:11:12,389 --> 00:11:15,722 The French largely lived on plantation estates, 170 00:11:15,822 --> 00:11:20,056 and in cities, like Saigon, made to look as much as possible 171 00:11:20,156 --> 00:11:22,255 like those at home. 172 00:11:23,590 --> 00:11:26,755 Most did not even bother to learn the language 173 00:11:26,855 --> 00:11:28,789 spoken by their subjects. 174 00:11:28,889 --> 00:11:32,523 Instead they installed a series of puppet emperors 175 00:11:32,623 --> 00:11:34,190 and employed a network 176 00:11:34,289 --> 00:11:38,090 of French-speaking Vietnamese officials... mandarins... 177 00:11:38,190 --> 00:11:40,255 willing to carry out their wishes. 178 00:11:43,655 --> 00:11:48,023 The French put their subjects to work building roads and canals, 179 00:11:48,123 --> 00:11:50,623 railroads and bridges. 180 00:11:51,956 --> 00:11:55,292 BAO NINH: _ 181 00:11:55,293 --> 00:11:59,813 _ 182 00:11:59,814 --> 00:12:02,381 _ 183 00:12:03,482 --> 00:12:05,582 _ 184 00:12:06,922 --> 00:12:09,623 NARRATOR: The Vietnamese people did not take easily 185 00:12:09,722 --> 00:12:11,156 to French occupation, 186 00:12:11,255 --> 00:12:14,023 just as they had fought against earlier invasions 187 00:12:14,123 --> 00:12:15,722 by the Chinese. 188 00:12:15,822 --> 00:12:19,922 By the early 20th century, nationalism was on the rise. 189 00:12:20,023 --> 00:12:25,322 But anyone who dared resist colonial rule risked exile, 190 00:12:25,422 --> 00:12:27,855 prison, or the guillotine. 191 00:12:30,355 --> 00:12:32,783 TRAN NGOC TOAN (SPEAKING ENGLISH): _ 192 00:12:33,284 --> 00:12:36,250 _ 193 00:12:37,851 --> 00:12:42,850 _ 194 00:12:43,351 --> 00:12:49,600 _ 195 00:12:49,601 --> 00:12:54,130 _ 196 00:12:55,631 --> 00:12:57,231 _ 197 00:12:58,755 --> 00:13:03,410 LAM QUANG THI: _ 198 00:13:04,111 --> 00:13:09,080 _ 199 00:13:09,881 --> 00:13:13,170 _ 200 00:13:17,389 --> 00:13:19,322 (HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING) 201 00:13:21,755 --> 00:13:24,889 JOHN MUSGRAVE: My hatred for them was pure. 202 00:13:24,990 --> 00:13:26,822 Pure. 203 00:13:26,922 --> 00:13:29,956 I hated them so much. 204 00:13:30,056 --> 00:13:31,456 And I was so scared of them. 205 00:13:31,556 --> 00:13:33,590 (GUNFIRE) 206 00:13:35,956 --> 00:13:38,190 Boy, I was terrified of them. 207 00:13:46,755 --> 00:13:49,655 And the scareder I got, the more I hated them. 208 00:13:52,590 --> 00:13:55,822 I was an 18-year-old Marine rifleman with the ink still wet 209 00:13:55,922 --> 00:13:57,990 on my high school diploma. 210 00:13:58,090 --> 00:14:00,523 I didn't want to shame myself in front of my buddies. 211 00:14:02,656 --> 00:14:04,556 But I was so scared. 212 00:14:04,656 --> 00:14:07,456 I felt like I was hanging onto my honor by my fingernails 213 00:14:07,556 --> 00:14:09,190 the whole time I was there. 214 00:14:14,322 --> 00:14:17,389 ("LA MARSEILLAISE" PLAYING) 215 00:14:19,755 --> 00:14:22,056 (CROWD CHEERING) 216 00:14:23,956 --> 00:14:26,090 NARRATOR: In the spring of 1919, 217 00:14:26,190 --> 00:14:29,289 as the victorious Allied Powers met in Paris 218 00:14:29,389 --> 00:14:33,090 to rebuild a world shattered by the Great War, 219 00:14:33,190 --> 00:14:36,889 President Woodrow Wilson headed the American delegation 220 00:14:36,990 --> 00:14:39,389 housed in the Hotel Crillon. 221 00:14:42,255 --> 00:14:46,056 One day, a tall, slender, 29-nine-year-old man 222 00:14:46,155 --> 00:14:48,623 appeared with a petition for the president 223 00:14:48,722 --> 00:14:52,655 he and other Vietnamese nationalists had written. 224 00:14:52,755 --> 00:14:56,222 Inspired by Wilson's declaration 225 00:14:56,322 --> 00:14:59,190 that the interests of colonial peoples should be given 226 00:14:59,289 --> 00:15:02,556 equal weight with those of their European rulers, 227 00:15:02,656 --> 00:15:07,956 the man was asking that this principle be applied to his homeland. 228 00:15:08,176 --> 00:15:12,909 The president's secretary promised to show it to Wilson, 229 00:15:13,009 --> 00:15:16,576 but there is no evidence that he ever did. 230 00:15:16,676 --> 00:15:19,176 His name was Nguyen Tat Thanh, 231 00:15:19,276 --> 00:15:23,176 but he was now living under an alias, Nguyen Ai Quoc... 232 00:15:23,276 --> 00:15:25,842 "Nguyen the Patriot." 233 00:15:27,143 --> 00:15:29,310 During his long, shadowy career, 234 00:15:29,409 --> 00:15:33,110 he would adopt some 70 different pseudonyms, 235 00:15:33,210 --> 00:15:36,275 finally settling on "the most enlightened one"... 236 00:15:36,375 --> 00:15:39,710 Ho Chi Minh. 237 00:15:39,810 --> 00:15:42,586 DUONG VAN MAI: Ho Chi Minh was a man 238 00:15:42,587 --> 00:15:45,009 who succeeded in projecting an image 239 00:15:45,110 --> 00:15:49,110 of somebody who was totally dedicated to freeing 240 00:15:49,210 --> 00:15:53,576 his country and his people from foreign domination 241 00:15:53,676 --> 00:15:57,643 to the point that he sacrificed his own well-being, 242 00:15:57,743 --> 00:16:01,676 his own life, not having a family of his own. 243 00:16:03,076 --> 00:16:05,576 To Vietnamese, that's a big sacrifice 244 00:16:05,676 --> 00:16:08,409 because to us everybody needs a family. 245 00:16:10,375 --> 00:16:13,110 NARRATOR: Ho Chi Minh was born in 1890, 246 00:16:13,210 --> 00:16:16,076 the son of a minor official in the French regime. 247 00:16:16,176 --> 00:16:19,076 After taking part in a demonstration 248 00:16:19,176 --> 00:16:20,743 against the puppet emperor 249 00:16:20,842 --> 00:16:22,676 and the Frenchmen who pulled his strings, 250 00:16:22,776 --> 00:16:26,842 Ho was expelled from school and marked for arrest. 251 00:16:28,942 --> 00:16:34,243 He left Vietnam in 1911 and remained in exile for 30 years. 252 00:16:35,810 --> 00:16:39,009 He served as a cook's helper aboard a French liner, 253 00:16:39,110 --> 00:16:41,842 and visited New York and Boston, 254 00:16:41,942 --> 00:16:47,009 where he worked for a time as a pastry chef at the Parker House. 255 00:16:47,110 --> 00:16:52,375 He shoveled snow in London, tinted photographs in Paris. 256 00:16:53,842 --> 00:16:58,042 There, Ho Chi Minh joined the French Socialist Party. 257 00:16:58,143 --> 00:17:01,610 But when he discovered the anti-colonial writings of Lenin, 258 00:17:01,710 --> 00:17:03,708 he became a communist. 259 00:17:05,243 --> 00:17:07,142 He was invited to Moscow to study, 260 00:17:07,243 --> 00:17:10,208 underwent training as a Soviet agent, 261 00:17:10,310 --> 00:17:13,676 was sometimes criticized for being a nationalist first, 262 00:17:13,775 --> 00:17:15,610 a communist second, 263 00:17:15,708 --> 00:17:18,642 and then was dispatched to China 264 00:17:18,743 --> 00:17:21,909 to organize a cell of other Vietnamese exiles 265 00:17:22,010 --> 00:17:26,575 and help establish the Indochinese Communist Party. 266 00:17:26,676 --> 00:17:30,310 Through it all, "He was taut and quivering," 267 00:17:30,409 --> 00:17:33,642 a friend remembered, "with only one thought... 268 00:17:33,743 --> 00:17:36,575 his country, Vietnam." 269 00:17:37,842 --> 00:17:40,676 (AIR RAID SIREN BLARING) 270 00:17:40,775 --> 00:17:41,975 (BOMBS WHISTLING, EXPLODING) 271 00:17:42,075 --> 00:17:43,275 (SHOUTING) 272 00:17:46,310 --> 00:17:50,342 (GUNFIRE, EXPLOSIONS) 273 00:17:50,533 --> 00:17:56,932 NARRATOR: By 1940, much of the world was at war again. 274 00:18:03,333 --> 00:18:07,200 Germany had seized most of Western Europe, 275 00:18:07,299 --> 00:18:09,200 including France. 276 00:18:12,700 --> 00:18:14,432 Imperial Japan threatened 277 00:18:14,533 --> 00:18:16,565 many of the European colonies in Asia, 278 00:18:16,665 --> 00:18:20,499 and occupied Vietnam, where they permitted their allies, 279 00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:22,165 the collaborationist French, 280 00:18:22,266 --> 00:18:24,966 to continue to oversee their colony. 281 00:18:28,132 --> 00:18:31,632 To some Vietnamese, the coming of the Japanese 282 00:18:31,732 --> 00:18:36,266 seemed to signal a welcome end to white colonial rule. 283 00:18:36,365 --> 00:18:39,632 But Ho Chi Minh, still in exile in China, 284 00:18:39,732 --> 00:18:43,100 saw the Japanese as alien invaders, 285 00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:45,632 no more welcome than the French. 286 00:18:45,732 --> 00:18:48,966 They were only interested in exploiting his country 287 00:18:49,065 --> 00:18:54,732 and seizing Vietnamese crops to fill their own rice bowls. 288 00:18:54,833 --> 00:18:57,165 The time had come, he said, 289 00:18:57,266 --> 00:19:00,900 to rally "patriots of all ages and all types, 290 00:19:00,999 --> 00:19:05,065 peasants, workers, merchants and soldiers" 291 00:19:05,165 --> 00:19:08,865 to defeat the Japanese and the collaborationist French. 292 00:19:12,632 --> 00:19:18,165 In February of 1941, after three decades away from his homeland, 293 00:19:18,266 --> 00:19:22,299 Ho Chi Minh slipped back across the Chinese border into Vietnam 294 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:26,665 and set up headquarters near the remote village of Pac Bo 295 00:19:26,766 --> 00:19:29,533 in a limestone cave at the side of a mountain 296 00:19:29,632 --> 00:19:32,333 he named for Karl Marx, 297 00:19:32,432 --> 00:19:37,900 overlooking a jungle stream he named for his hero, Lenin. 298 00:19:40,266 --> 00:19:42,900 There, he founded a revolutionary movement, 299 00:19:42,999 --> 00:19:46,732 which he called the Vietnam Independence League... 300 00:19:46,833 --> 00:19:49,466 the Viet Minh. 301 00:19:50,632 --> 00:19:54,155 TRAN NGOC TOAN (SPEAKING ENGLISH): _ 302 00:19:54,956 --> 00:19:58,210 _ 303 00:19:58,211 --> 00:20:01,120 _ 304 00:20:02,132 --> 00:20:05,299 NARRATOR: To build and lead a fighting force for his revolution, 305 00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,033 Ho called upon Vo Nguyen Giap, 306 00:20:08,132 --> 00:20:10,533 a one-time teacher of French history 307 00:20:10,632 --> 00:20:14,299 who had instructed the children of Hanoi's elite. 308 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:17,966 Giap was an early convert to communism, 309 00:20:18,065 --> 00:20:21,432 whose life-long hatred for the French intensified 310 00:20:21,533 --> 00:20:24,833 when they beat his wife to death in prison. 311 00:20:24,932 --> 00:20:29,132 Inspired by Napoleon, Lawrence of Arabia, 312 00:20:29,232 --> 00:20:32,799 and the communist Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, 313 00:20:32,900 --> 00:20:35,200 Giap had already begun to develop 314 00:20:35,299 --> 00:20:39,565 a distinctive theory of warfare that relied on guerrilla tactics 315 00:20:39,665 --> 00:20:44,665 until a full-scale conventional attack could be mounted. 316 00:20:44,766 --> 00:20:48,799 In the fight for independence which he believed was coming, 317 00:20:48,900 --> 00:20:55,565 his armies, Giap said, would be "everywhere and nowhere." 318 00:20:56,265 --> 00:20:57,832 DUONG VAN MAI: The reason Vietnamese 319 00:20:57,833 --> 00:20:59,500 had always resort to guerrilla warfare 320 00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:02,165 was because we were a small country. 321 00:21:02,266 --> 00:21:07,499 And it was just a way of fight the weak against the strong. 322 00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:11,165 Don't fight unless you're sure you can win, 323 00:21:11,266 --> 00:21:14,600 and surprise is a big element. 324 00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,966 Choose your own battle. 325 00:21:24,665 --> 00:21:28,833 MIKE HEANEY: I had about 26 guys that day out of 45. 326 00:21:28,932 --> 00:21:31,266 We were always somewhat understrength. 327 00:21:31,365 --> 00:21:33,665 And this day we were quite understrength. 328 00:21:35,299 --> 00:21:37,200 My platoon's on point. 329 00:21:42,266 --> 00:21:43,932 MAN: Go, go, go, go, go! 330 00:21:44,033 --> 00:21:46,799 HEANEY: And all of a sudden the very point man, 331 00:21:46,900 --> 00:21:50,365 the first guy in the column, said, "VC on the trail. 332 00:21:50,466 --> 00:21:51,732 VC on the trail." 333 00:21:53,900 --> 00:21:57,232 - Before I had a chance to digest this... - (GUNSHOT) 334 00:21:57,333 --> 00:21:58,900 ... he went down, shot right through the chest. 335 00:21:58,999 --> 00:22:01,299 (GUNFIRE) 336 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,966 And what was a very well-laid ambush erupted. 337 00:22:05,065 --> 00:22:08,432 (EXPLOSION, GUNFIRE) 338 00:22:13,999 --> 00:22:15,999 (GUNFIRE, SHOUTING) 339 00:22:16,270 --> 00:22:18,469 I knew I'd lost a bunch of guys. 340 00:22:18,570 --> 00:22:22,770 I said a prayer to God saying, basically, 341 00:22:22,870 --> 00:22:25,302 "If you need any more guys from my platoon, take me. 342 00:22:25,402 --> 00:22:27,270 Don't take any more of my men." 343 00:22:27,370 --> 00:22:30,735 As soon as I said it, I freaked myself out and said, 344 00:22:30,835 --> 00:22:34,902 "Holy shit. Can I take that prayer back?" 345 00:22:37,235 --> 00:22:39,735 (GUNFIRE, PLANE ENGINE ROARING) 346 00:22:41,235 --> 00:22:44,902 (EXPLOSION, ALARM RINGING) 347 00:22:45,303 --> 00:22:48,736 NARRATOR: By the spring of 1945, 348 00:22:48,835 --> 00:22:54,170 more than three years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 349 00:22:54,269 --> 00:22:57,402 the United States government was looking for allies 350 00:22:57,503 --> 00:22:59,570 behind the lines in Vietnam. 351 00:22:59,670 --> 00:23:01,769 The Americans were hoping to find a way 352 00:23:01,870 --> 00:23:05,135 to undermine Japanese forces there 353 00:23:05,236 --> 00:23:08,402 when they were contacted by Ho Chi Minh. 354 00:23:08,503 --> 00:23:10,303 DONALD GREGG: And so it was decided to drop 355 00:23:10,402 --> 00:23:15,402 an OSS team in to meet with the Viet Minh leadership. 356 00:23:17,835 --> 00:23:21,070 Paul Hoagland was the medic on the team. 357 00:23:21,170 --> 00:23:24,769 And the first thing he was told was that he must attend 358 00:23:24,870 --> 00:23:26,702 to their leader, who was desperately sick. 359 00:23:26,803 --> 00:23:29,769 So he was taken to a grass shack 360 00:23:29,870 --> 00:23:34,202 where a bewhiskered, skinny man lay on a bundle of straw, 361 00:23:34,303 --> 00:23:35,835 desperately ill. 362 00:23:35,936 --> 00:23:37,570 And that was Ho Chi Minh. 363 00:23:40,003 --> 00:23:44,635 NARRATOR: The OSS, the secret wartime precursor of the CIA, 364 00:23:44,736 --> 00:23:47,902 supplied Ho's ragtag guerrillas with arms 365 00:23:48,003 --> 00:23:52,803 and marveled at how quickly they learned to handle them. 366 00:23:52,902 --> 00:23:55,602 Ho Chi Minh began to call his followers 367 00:23:55,702 --> 00:23:59,902 the "Viet-American Army," and praised the United States 368 00:24:00,003 --> 00:24:01,902 as a "champion of democracy" 369 00:24:02,003 --> 00:24:05,170 that would surely help them end colonial rule. 370 00:24:06,436 --> 00:24:09,900 BUI DIEM (SPEAKING ENGLISH): _ 371 00:24:09,901 --> 00:24:12,771 _ 372 00:24:12,772 --> 00:24:17,490 _ 373 00:24:17,491 --> 00:24:19,720 _ 374 00:24:19,721 --> 00:24:22,300 _ 375 00:24:23,436 --> 00:24:28,003 NARRATOR: Meanwhile, famine gripped the northern part of the country. 376 00:24:28,102 --> 00:24:30,003 Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese 377 00:24:30,102 --> 00:24:32,070 were dying of starvation 378 00:24:32,170 --> 00:24:35,402 while Japanese storehouses were filled with rice. 379 00:24:38,436 --> 00:24:40,436 DUONG VAN MAI: In those days, garbage was collected 380 00:24:40,535 --> 00:24:42,670 by people pushing carts. 381 00:24:42,769 --> 00:24:47,370 And my mother remembers that every morning she would see 382 00:24:47,469 --> 00:24:49,370 these garbage carts going around 383 00:24:49,469 --> 00:24:53,436 and people picking up dead bodies and throwing them on the cart. 384 00:24:53,535 --> 00:24:55,070 It was incredible. 385 00:24:55,170 --> 00:24:58,702 And people who lived through it never, never forgot. 386 00:24:58,983 --> 00:25:03,449 NARRATOR: Duong Van Mai's father was the deputy governor 387 00:25:03,550 --> 00:25:05,715 of a province east of Hanoi, 388 00:25:05,815 --> 00:25:08,250 the son and grandson of mandarins 389 00:25:08,350 --> 00:25:10,983 who had all served the French. 390 00:25:11,082 --> 00:25:14,416 He and his wife had 17 children. 391 00:25:14,515 --> 00:25:19,250 DUONG VAN MAI: Parents who had children who were, you know, plump, 392 00:25:19,350 --> 00:25:21,782 were very afraid of their children being stolen 393 00:25:21,882 --> 00:25:24,315 and killed. 394 00:25:24,416 --> 00:25:27,515 And it was really like hell on earth. 395 00:25:27,616 --> 00:25:31,082 The government didn't have a clue on how to deal 396 00:25:31,183 --> 00:25:33,282 with this calamity. 397 00:25:34,850 --> 00:25:36,149 NARRATOR: But Ho Chi Minh did. 398 00:25:36,250 --> 00:25:38,483 He directed the Viet Minh 399 00:25:38,582 --> 00:25:41,850 to break into the Japanese storehouses wherever they could 400 00:25:41,949 --> 00:25:46,082 and distribute the rice to the people. 401 00:25:46,183 --> 00:25:48,750 They were hailed as saviors. 402 00:25:51,282 --> 00:25:52,882 (ENGINE STARTS) 403 00:25:59,916 --> 00:26:01,050 (EXPLOSION) 404 00:26:03,616 --> 00:26:06,782 NARRATOR: When an atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima, 405 00:26:06,882 --> 00:26:10,416 and three days later a second one destroyed Nagasaki, 406 00:26:10,515 --> 00:26:13,550 Japanese surrender seemed imminent. 407 00:26:15,582 --> 00:26:19,149 Ho Chi Minh called upon all Vietnamese to rise up 408 00:26:19,250 --> 00:26:21,183 and take over their own country 409 00:26:21,282 --> 00:26:23,649 before the Free French could reestablish 410 00:26:23,750 --> 00:26:26,250 their old colonial regime. 411 00:26:26,350 --> 00:26:31,449 They did, in cities and towns across the country. 412 00:26:34,983 --> 00:26:37,882 On September 2, 1945, 413 00:26:37,983 --> 00:26:40,750 the same day the Japanese formally surrendered, 414 00:26:40,850 --> 00:26:43,750 hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese 415 00:26:43,850 --> 00:26:48,649 streamed into Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi to see for the first time 416 00:26:48,750 --> 00:26:51,983 the mysterious leader of the Viet Minh 417 00:26:52,082 --> 00:26:56,715 and hear him proclaim Vietnam's independence. 418 00:26:56,815 --> 00:27:00,250 (HO CHI MINH SPEAKING VIETNAMESE) 419 00:27:00,350 --> 00:27:04,949 NARRATOR: With an OSS officer standing nearby, 420 00:27:05,050 --> 00:27:09,015 Ho Chi Minh began with the words of Thomas Jefferson: 421 00:27:09,116 --> 00:27:11,649 "All men are created equal. 422 00:27:11,750 --> 00:27:14,550 They are endowed by their creator 423 00:27:14,649 --> 00:27:17,750 with certain unalienable rights; 424 00:27:17,850 --> 00:27:20,515 that among these are life, liberty 425 00:27:20,616 --> 00:27:22,815 and the pursuit of happiness." 426 00:27:25,515 --> 00:27:29,171 DONG SI NGUYEN: _ 427 00:27:29,172 --> 00:27:35,172 _ 428 00:27:35,173 --> 00:27:37,783 _ 429 00:27:38,384 --> 00:27:41,320 _ 430 00:27:41,321 --> 00:27:43,661 _ 431 00:27:45,282 --> 00:27:47,582 GEORGE WICKES: Ho Chi Minh had great hopes 432 00:27:47,683 --> 00:27:53,050 that the U.S. would support the Vietnam desire for independence, 433 00:27:53,149 --> 00:27:54,916 not necessarily by intervening 434 00:27:55,015 --> 00:27:58,782 but by doing what it could 435 00:27:58,882 --> 00:28:02,515 to support an independence movement. 436 00:28:02,616 --> 00:28:06,315 NARRATOR: Ho Chi Minh's hopes for American support were calculated 437 00:28:06,416 --> 00:28:09,315 but understandable. 438 00:28:09,416 --> 00:28:13,315 President Franklin Roosevelt had promised a postwar world 439 00:28:13,416 --> 00:28:16,483 that would "respect the rights of all peoples 440 00:28:16,582 --> 00:28:19,550 to choose the form of government under which they live." 441 00:28:22,382 --> 00:28:26,215 But Roosevelt was dead now, and his successor, Harry Truman, 442 00:28:26,315 --> 00:28:30,082 had inherited a very different world. 443 00:28:30,183 --> 00:28:32,515 The alliance with the Soviet Union 444 00:28:32,616 --> 00:28:36,416 that had won the Second World War had collapsed. 445 00:28:36,515 --> 00:28:40,149 The Soviets now occupied the Eastern European countries 446 00:28:40,250 --> 00:28:44,815 they had overrun, and hoped to spread their influence farther, 447 00:28:44,916 --> 00:28:49,616 into Iran, Turkey, and the Mediterranean. 448 00:28:49,715 --> 00:28:54,015 A new cold war had begun. 449 00:28:54,116 --> 00:28:56,683 French president Charles De Gaulle warned 450 00:28:56,782 --> 00:28:59,850 that if the United States insisted on independence 451 00:28:59,949 --> 00:29:03,616 for her colonies, France might have no choice 452 00:29:03,715 --> 00:29:07,050 but to "fall into the Russian orbit." 453 00:29:07,149 --> 00:29:10,550 The United States must do nothing to undercut 454 00:29:10,649 --> 00:29:16,050 the restoration of France's empire, including Vietnam. 455 00:29:20,116 --> 00:29:23,616 WICKES: There were hardly any Americans in Vietnam, you know... 456 00:29:23,715 --> 00:29:26,649 State Department people, consular officials, 457 00:29:26,750 --> 00:29:28,949 a few businessmen. 458 00:29:29,050 --> 00:29:31,015 Hardly anyone from this country 459 00:29:31,116 --> 00:29:32,882 knew where Vietnam was located. 460 00:29:32,983 --> 00:29:37,683 NARRATOR: George Wickes was part of a seven-man OSS mission 461 00:29:37,782 --> 00:29:41,116 sent to Saigon, the largest city in the south. 462 00:29:41,215 --> 00:29:44,683 The United States was officially neutral, 463 00:29:44,782 --> 00:29:47,550 hoping the French and Viet Minh could reach 464 00:29:47,649 --> 00:29:51,183 some peaceful solution on their own. 465 00:29:51,282 --> 00:29:54,782 Allied leaders had agreed temporarily to divide Vietnam 466 00:29:54,882 --> 00:29:57,350 into two separate zones. 467 00:29:57,449 --> 00:30:01,616 Nationalist Chinese troops were to handle things in the north. 468 00:30:01,715 --> 00:30:05,183 British colonial troops would try to perform the same task 469 00:30:05,282 --> 00:30:08,082 in the south, where rival factions, 470 00:30:08,183 --> 00:30:12,282 including the French and Viet Minh, were already fighting 471 00:30:12,382 --> 00:30:15,282 in the streets of Saigon. 472 00:30:15,382 --> 00:30:17,750 WICKES: No one was in charge. 473 00:30:17,850 --> 00:30:23,616 On both sides, there was brutality and atrocity and violence. 474 00:30:23,715 --> 00:30:26,250 It wasn't quite a civil war 475 00:30:26,350 --> 00:30:28,215 but it was getting very close to civil war 476 00:30:28,315 --> 00:30:30,550 in the streets of Saigon. 477 00:30:31,019 --> 00:30:33,986 NARRATOR: Lieutenant Colonel Peter Dewey, 478 00:30:34,085 --> 00:30:37,452 the 28-year-old commander of the OSS in Saigon, 479 00:30:37,553 --> 00:30:40,152 tried to make sense of it all. 480 00:30:40,252 --> 00:30:42,986 WICKES: Right from the start he was in touch with everybody... 481 00:30:43,085 --> 00:30:45,819 not only the French, but very soon he established 482 00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:50,085 a connection with various Vietnamese groups. 483 00:30:50,185 --> 00:30:53,185 The Viet Minh soon established themselves 484 00:30:53,286 --> 00:30:55,720 as the most successful. 485 00:30:55,819 --> 00:30:58,620 NARRATOR: Dewey, who spoke fluent French, 486 00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:01,652 brokered talks between a Viet Minh spokesman 487 00:31:01,752 --> 00:31:05,452 and the senior French representative in the city. 488 00:31:05,553 --> 00:31:10,319 His efforts infuriated British general Douglas Gracey, 489 00:31:10,420 --> 00:31:13,353 who commanded Allied forces in the south. 490 00:31:13,452 --> 00:31:16,319 Gracey was convinced that French control 491 00:31:16,420 --> 00:31:19,252 should be reimposed as soon as possible. 492 00:31:19,353 --> 00:31:22,685 By conferring with the Viet Minh, Gracey said, 493 00:31:22,786 --> 00:31:27,252 Colonel Dewey had become a "subversive" force. 494 00:31:27,353 --> 00:31:28,685 (GUNFIRE) 495 00:31:28,786 --> 00:31:32,286 The violence in and around Saigon escalated. 496 00:31:34,286 --> 00:31:37,019 Colonel Dewey urgently cabled his superiors: 497 00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,620 Vietnam "is burning," he wrote. 498 00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,220 "The French and British are finished here 499 00:31:43,319 --> 00:31:45,853 and the United States," he concluded, 500 00:31:45,952 --> 00:31:48,120 "ought to clear out of Southeast Asia." 501 00:31:48,220 --> 00:31:49,819 (GUNFIRE) 502 00:31:52,452 --> 00:31:56,885 Two days later, September 26, 1945, 503 00:31:56,986 --> 00:31:58,486 he set out for the airport, 504 00:31:58,585 --> 00:32:03,486 prepared to fly to OSS headquarters. 505 00:32:03,585 --> 00:32:08,585 At a roadblock, the Viet Minh mistook Dewey for a Frenchman 506 00:32:08,685 --> 00:32:10,720 and opened fire. 507 00:32:10,819 --> 00:32:12,220 (GUNFIRE) 508 00:32:12,319 --> 00:32:15,519 He was killed instantly. 509 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:19,720 WICKES: Ho Chi Minh wrote to the United States 510 00:32:19,819 --> 00:32:23,819 lamenting the death of Dewey, whom he recognized 511 00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:27,786 as a person sympathetic to his cause. 512 00:32:27,885 --> 00:32:30,619 It seemed a terrible irony that Dewey, 513 00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:33,286 who was doing what he could to help 514 00:32:33,385 --> 00:32:37,052 the Vietnamese independence movement should have been killed 515 00:32:37,153 --> 00:32:39,420 by the Vietnamese by a mistake. 516 00:32:44,853 --> 00:32:47,353 (ELECTRONIC BUZZING, MUTED HELICOPTER BLADES BEATING) 517 00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:55,685 An elderly African-American woman answered the door. 518 00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:04,720 I think she knew the instant she saw us why we were there. 519 00:33:07,685 --> 00:33:09,819 And the padre said, uh, 520 00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:14,520 "I'm... I'm terribly sorry to inform you, 521 00:33:14,619 --> 00:33:19,786 but your son was killed in Vietnam." 522 00:33:19,885 --> 00:33:20,819 And she just sat down. 523 00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:22,552 Didn't say a word. 524 00:33:24,885 --> 00:33:28,619 Then the... her husband says, "No, there's a mistake." 525 00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:30,420 He comes back with this letter. 526 00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:32,786 And he said, "Look, see? 527 00:33:32,885 --> 00:33:37,786 We got it yesterday, my... our son was still alive yesterday." 528 00:33:37,885 --> 00:33:40,853 And the chaplain looked at the letter 529 00:33:40,952 --> 00:33:43,153 and he said, "It's a week old. 530 00:33:43,252 --> 00:33:47,685 I think your son was killed on the day he wrote this letter." 531 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:53,619 ("LA MARSEILLAISE" PLAYING) 532 00:33:55,485 --> 00:33:59,685 NARRATOR: In the fall of 1945, a week after Colonel Dewey's death, 533 00:33:59,786 --> 00:34:02,752 fresh French troops began arriving in Saigon, 534 00:34:02,853 --> 00:34:06,720 taking over from the British. 535 00:34:06,819 --> 00:34:07,985 They quickly established 536 00:34:08,086 --> 00:34:09,885 control of the city 537 00:34:09,985 --> 00:34:11,286 and set out to reoccupy 538 00:34:11,385 --> 00:34:13,186 the entire country. 539 00:34:15,085 --> 00:34:18,820 Ho Chi Minh hoped somehow to achieve independence 540 00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:20,920 without a war with France, 541 00:34:21,020 --> 00:34:24,420 and he still hoped the United States would intervene. 542 00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:28,420 "You never had an empire, never exploited the Asian peoples," 543 00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,552 he would tell a visiting American journalist. 544 00:34:31,652 --> 00:34:35,719 "Do not be blinded by this issue of communism." 545 00:34:36,020 --> 00:34:41,152 LESLIE GELB: He did not want to fight the French as an enemy of America. 546 00:34:41,252 --> 00:34:47,453 And, in fact, I saw the letters he wrote to President Truman 547 00:34:47,553 --> 00:34:51,986 saying, "We believe in the same things you believe." 548 00:34:52,085 --> 00:34:55,352 Those letters I saw in the CIA files, 549 00:34:55,453 --> 00:34:59,319 they had never been given to President Truman. 550 00:35:00,785 --> 00:35:03,486 (CHILDREN SHOUTING) 551 00:35:03,585 --> 00:35:08,185 NARRATOR: In June of 1946, Ho Chi Minh returned to Paris 552 00:35:08,285 --> 00:35:11,220 in a fruitless attempt to get the French to live up 553 00:35:11,319 --> 00:35:14,520 to a promise they had made of increased autonomy 554 00:35:14,620 --> 00:35:16,852 for his country. 555 00:35:16,953 --> 00:35:18,752 While Ho was away, 556 00:35:18,852 --> 00:35:22,220 General Giap began consolidating communist control 557 00:35:22,319 --> 00:35:23,685 of the revolution. 558 00:35:23,785 --> 00:35:26,553 He conducted a merciless purge 559 00:35:26,652 --> 00:35:29,585 of members of rival nationalist parties 560 00:35:29,685 --> 00:35:32,953 and people he called "reactionary saboteurs"... 561 00:35:33,053 --> 00:35:38,319 landlords and moneylenders, Trotskyites and Catholics, 562 00:35:38,419 --> 00:35:42,785 men and women accused of collaborating with the French. 563 00:35:42,886 --> 00:35:47,220 Hundreds were shot, drowned, buried alive. 564 00:35:47,319 --> 00:35:51,705 LAM QUANG THI: _ 565 00:35:52,306 --> 00:35:56,600 _ 566 00:35:56,601 --> 00:35:59,400 _ 567 00:36:00,352 --> 00:36:05,252 NARRATOR: On December 19, 1946, after months of building tension, 568 00:36:05,352 --> 00:36:07,553 fighting broke out in Hanoi 569 00:36:07,652 --> 00:36:10,553 between the Viet Minh and the French. 570 00:36:10,652 --> 00:36:12,419 (GUNFIRE) 571 00:36:14,819 --> 00:36:17,986 The Viet Minh proved no match for French firepower. 572 00:36:22,553 --> 00:36:28,419 Ho, Giap, and their comrades slipped out of the city 573 00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:32,453 and returned to their mountain stronghold far to the north. 574 00:36:34,685 --> 00:36:37,819 "Those who have rifles will use their rifles," 575 00:36:37,919 --> 00:36:39,919 Ho declared in a radio address 576 00:36:40,020 --> 00:36:42,852 calling for a nationwide guerrilla war. 577 00:36:42,953 --> 00:36:46,819 "Those who have swords will use swords; 578 00:36:46,919 --> 00:36:52,152 those who have no swords will use spades or sticks." 579 00:36:55,886 --> 00:37:00,630 NGUYEN NGOC: _ 580 00:37:05,231 --> 00:37:10,365 _ 581 00:37:12,866 --> 00:37:18,080 _ 582 00:37:18,081 --> 00:37:19,651 _ 583 00:37:21,773 --> 00:37:24,372 NARRATOR: But the country Ho Chi Minh hoped to unite 584 00:37:24,472 --> 00:37:27,706 was itself bitterly divided. 585 00:37:27,805 --> 00:37:30,106 Families were being torn apart. 586 00:37:30,206 --> 00:37:33,972 Despite her father's position in the French government, 587 00:37:34,072 --> 00:37:39,005 Duong Van Mai's sister felt compelled to answer Ho's call. 588 00:37:40,673 --> 00:37:44,273 DUONG VAN MAI: My older sister Thang was married 589 00:37:44,372 --> 00:37:49,405 to a man who had great sympathy for the Viet Minh. 590 00:37:49,505 --> 00:37:52,505 And by that time Ho Chi Minh had evacuated his government 591 00:37:52,606 --> 00:37:53,905 to the mountain base. 592 00:37:54,005 --> 00:37:57,639 So my sister and her husband trekked all the way 593 00:37:57,740 --> 00:37:59,972 from Hanoi toward the base 594 00:38:00,072 --> 00:38:03,673 in order to join the resistance against the French. 595 00:38:06,372 --> 00:38:08,840 So the Vietnam War was really a civil war 596 00:38:08,940 --> 00:38:10,572 down to the family level. 597 00:38:18,905 --> 00:38:22,505 NARRATOR: France poured thousands of men into Vietnam... 598 00:38:22,606 --> 00:38:26,940 French regulars, European mercenaries, and colonial troops 599 00:38:27,039 --> 00:38:30,905 from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Senegal... 600 00:38:31,005 --> 00:38:35,872 who fought alongside an army of Cambodians, Laotians, 601 00:38:35,972 --> 00:38:38,872 and anti-communist Vietnamese. 602 00:38:42,706 --> 00:38:47,005 French forces managed to occupy most of the large towns 603 00:38:47,106 --> 00:38:48,505 and province capitals 604 00:38:48,606 --> 00:38:53,572 and established hundreds of isolated outposts. 605 00:38:53,673 --> 00:38:58,340 The French also set out to try to win over rural Vietnamese 606 00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:01,805 through a program they called pacification... 607 00:39:01,905 --> 00:39:04,005 pacification... 608 00:39:04,106 --> 00:39:08,740 building dikes, schools and roads, and vaccinating children. 609 00:39:11,572 --> 00:39:13,972 DUONG VAN MAI: The French would pacify a village 610 00:39:14,072 --> 00:39:18,240 and during the daytime they could control it. 611 00:39:18,340 --> 00:39:21,840 But at night the Viet Minh would come back. 612 00:39:21,940 --> 00:39:26,072 And so it was never completely secure. 613 00:39:26,173 --> 00:39:29,606 My father would shake his head and said, you know, 614 00:39:29,706 --> 00:39:31,173 "Pacification is really futile 615 00:39:31,273 --> 00:39:35,505 because it's like trying to hold sand in your fingers." 616 00:39:38,972 --> 00:39:44,072 NARRATOR: The Viet Minh mined roads, blew up bridges and railroads, 617 00:39:44,173 --> 00:39:49,340 ambushed French patrols, and then disappeared. 618 00:39:51,673 --> 00:39:55,872 French soldiers sometimes took revenge on the nearest village, 619 00:39:55,972 --> 00:39:58,372 burning homes, raping women, 620 00:39:58,472 --> 00:40:02,673 executing men suspected of aiding the Viet Minh. 621 00:40:07,539 --> 00:40:10,300 LE CONG HUAN: _ 622 00:40:10,301 --> 00:40:17,212 _ 623 00:40:19,113 --> 00:40:24,173 _ 624 00:40:27,174 --> 00:40:33,305 _ 625 00:40:33,306 --> 00:40:38,796 _ 626 00:40:41,472 --> 00:40:43,575 NARRATOR: But the communists proved 627 00:40:43,576 --> 00:40:46,273 every bit as ruthless as the French. 628 00:40:46,372 --> 00:40:49,539 "It is better to kill even those who might be innocent," 629 00:40:49,639 --> 00:40:55,372 one commander said, "than to let a guilty person go." 630 00:40:55,472 --> 00:40:57,740 And they specifically targeted 631 00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,106 anyone who had links to the French. 632 00:41:01,206 --> 00:41:04,300 DUONG VAN MAI: Once my father started working for the French, 633 00:41:04,310 --> 00:41:07,673 then he was a target, especially the higher he rose, 634 00:41:07,773 --> 00:41:09,639 the bigger target he became. 635 00:41:09,740 --> 00:41:15,805 A Viet Minh agent actually came in with a pistol to shoot him 636 00:41:15,905 --> 00:41:19,472 but at the last moment decided not to. 637 00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:25,772 TRANG NGOC ("HARRY") HUE: _ 638 00:41:25,773 --> 00:41:31,373 _ 639 00:41:31,874 --> 00:41:35,150 _ 640 00:41:35,551 --> 00:41:41,700 _ 641 00:41:42,001 --> 00:41:46,440 _ 642 00:41:47,741 --> 00:41:52,559 _ 643 00:41:54,005 --> 00:41:55,572 (GUNFIRE) 644 00:41:58,740 --> 00:42:02,105 NARRATOR: French casualties continued to mount. 645 00:42:02,205 --> 00:42:05,040 "There are days when we are so discouraged 646 00:42:05,140 --> 00:42:07,740 that we would like to give it all up," 647 00:42:07,839 --> 00:42:09,939 a French soldier wrote his mother. 648 00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:13,205 "Convoys under attack, roads cut, 649 00:42:13,305 --> 00:42:16,406 "firing in all directions every night, 650 00:42:16,506 --> 00:42:18,439 the indifference at home." 651 00:42:28,105 --> 00:42:30,000 ROGER HARRIS: While I was there I had the opportunity 652 00:42:30,001 --> 00:42:32,939 to call my mother, you know. 653 00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,073 And I was telling my mother what was happening over there, 654 00:42:36,172 --> 00:42:39,272 and I was telling her how she shouldn't believe 655 00:42:39,372 --> 00:42:42,240 what she sees in the newspaper and sees on television 656 00:42:42,339 --> 00:42:44,973 because we're losing the war. 657 00:42:45,073 --> 00:42:47,839 I said, "And you'll probably never see me again 658 00:42:47,939 --> 00:42:50,612 because we're the most northern outpost 659 00:42:50,613 --> 00:42:52,939 that the Marines have, you know." 660 00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:54,973 We could literally... could look right into North Vietnam. 661 00:42:55,073 --> 00:42:57,006 We could see the sparks when the guns fired on us. 662 00:42:57,105 --> 00:42:59,272 And I said, "And everybody in my unit is dying. 663 00:42:59,372 --> 00:43:02,040 I probably won't be coming back." 664 00:43:02,140 --> 00:43:04,172 And my mother said, "No, you're coming back." 665 00:43:04,272 --> 00:43:08,006 She said, "I talk to God every day and you're special. 666 00:43:08,105 --> 00:43:09,939 You're coming back." 667 00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:12,272 And I said, "Ma, everybody's mother thinks 668 00:43:12,372 --> 00:43:14,573 that they're special. 669 00:43:14,672 --> 00:43:18,705 You know, I'm putting pieces of special people in bags." 670 00:43:20,073 --> 00:43:21,740 (EXPLOSION) 671 00:43:24,140 --> 00:43:25,772 ED HERLIHY: President Truman's dramatic announcement 672 00:43:25,872 --> 00:43:27,305 that Russia had the atom secret 673 00:43:27,406 --> 00:43:31,740 caused state departments all over the world to stir uneasily. 674 00:43:32,139 --> 00:43:36,172 HAL KUSHNER: We were very aware that there was a Cold War 675 00:43:36,273 --> 00:43:38,139 and that we had an enemy, 676 00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:42,273 and that enemy was the Soviet Union. 677 00:43:42,373 --> 00:43:45,440 The United States stood at one pole 678 00:43:45,540 --> 00:43:47,739 and the Soviet Union stood at the other pole. 679 00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:50,806 It was kind of a Manichean dynamic 680 00:43:50,905 --> 00:43:52,672 that there was evil and there was good. 681 00:43:52,773 --> 00:43:54,706 And we were good, and the other side was evil. 682 00:43:54,806 --> 00:43:57,873 It wasn't morally ambiguous. 683 00:44:00,672 --> 00:44:04,905 NARRATOR: Just a few weeks after Russia became a nuclear power, 684 00:44:05,005 --> 00:44:06,840 there was more stunning news... 685 00:44:06,940 --> 00:44:13,239 communist forces under Mao Zedong seized control of China. 686 00:44:13,340 --> 00:44:17,206 Separate communist insurrections were also underway 687 00:44:17,306 --> 00:44:22,840 in the British colonies of Burma and Malaya. 688 00:44:22,940 --> 00:44:26,605 In January 1950, Mao formally recognized 689 00:44:26,706 --> 00:44:30,739 Ho Chi Minh's insurgency and agreed to provide the arms, 690 00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,739 equipment, and military training he had been seeking. 691 00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,840 The Soviets recognized the Viet Minh as well, 692 00:44:38,940 --> 00:44:40,739 and also offered help. 693 00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,405 President Truman, who was being blamed 694 00:44:44,505 --> 00:44:48,340 by his political opponents for having "lost" China, 695 00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:50,773 and having failed to "contain" communism, 696 00:44:50,873 --> 00:44:54,306 approved a $23 million aid program 697 00:44:54,405 --> 00:44:57,139 for the French in Vietnam. 698 00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:02,072 The United States was no longer neutral. 699 00:45:02,172 --> 00:45:05,005 SAM WILSON: We were caught on the horns of a dilemma 700 00:45:05,105 --> 00:45:07,739 of how can we maintain our friendship 701 00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,572 and our alliance with the French and support them in Indochina 702 00:45:11,672 --> 00:45:15,306 while we, as a former colony ourselves, 703 00:45:15,405 --> 00:45:18,373 sympathized with the Vietnamese and their aspirations 704 00:45:18,472 --> 00:45:20,405 for freedom and independence? 705 00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:27,572 ED HERLIHY: A highly trained and well-equipped North Korean Army 706 00:45:27,672 --> 00:45:29,806 swarmed across the 38th parallel 707 00:45:29,905 --> 00:45:31,873 to attack unprepared South Korean defenders. 708 00:45:31,972 --> 00:45:33,540 (EXPLOSION) 709 00:45:33,639 --> 00:45:37,273 NARRATOR: In June of 1950, China's ally, 710 00:45:37,373 --> 00:45:40,873 communist North Korea, invaded South Korea. 711 00:45:40,972 --> 00:45:42,405 (GUNFIRE) 712 00:45:42,505 --> 00:45:44,405 President Truman ordered 713 00:45:44,505 --> 00:45:46,773 tens of thousands of American ground troops 714 00:45:46,873 --> 00:45:48,739 onto the Korean Peninsula. 715 00:45:55,706 --> 00:45:57,605 The United States and its allies 716 00:45:57,706 --> 00:46:02,072 eventually pushed the invaders back north. 717 00:46:02,172 --> 00:46:04,472 Meanwhile in southern China, 718 00:46:04,572 --> 00:46:06,940 Mao's military was beginning to turn the Viet Minh 719 00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:10,840 into a modern fighting force, 720 00:46:10,940 --> 00:46:15,005 capable of inflicting a heavy toll on the French occupiers. 721 00:46:22,373 --> 00:46:24,139 In July, the Truman administration 722 00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,105 quietly dispatched transport planes 723 00:46:27,206 --> 00:46:29,773 and a shipload of jeeps to Vietnam. 724 00:46:29,873 --> 00:46:35,540 Thirty-five military advisors went along to oversee their use. 725 00:46:37,373 --> 00:46:40,273 None of them, and no one in the American embassy, 726 00:46:40,373 --> 00:46:44,373 spoke a word of Vietnamese. 727 00:46:44,472 --> 00:46:48,773 But the United States was now officially in Vietnam. 728 00:46:51,005 --> 00:46:53,172 In October of 1950, 729 00:46:53,273 --> 00:46:56,340 hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops 730 00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:58,605 began pouring into North Korea, 731 00:46:58,706 --> 00:47:02,739 driving the allies back down the peninsula. 732 00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:04,472 As that fighting raged, 733 00:47:04,572 --> 00:47:07,773 Truman continued to increase military aid 734 00:47:07,873 --> 00:47:10,672 for the French war in Vietnam. 735 00:47:13,905 --> 00:47:15,840 HARRY TRUMAN: If aggression is successful in Korea, 736 00:47:15,939 --> 00:47:19,173 we can expect it to spread throughout Asia and Europe 737 00:47:19,272 --> 00:47:20,506 and to this hemisphere. 738 00:47:20,606 --> 00:47:23,039 (MORTAR FIRE) 739 00:47:23,140 --> 00:47:25,606 We are fighting in Korea 740 00:47:25,705 --> 00:47:28,305 for our own national security and survival. 741 00:47:31,740 --> 00:47:34,972 ("MEAN OLD WORLD" BY T-BONE WALKER PLAYING) 742 00:47:35,073 --> 00:47:37,173 NARRATOR: In the autumn of 1951, 743 00:47:37,272 --> 00:47:39,405 a young Massachusetts congressman 744 00:47:39,506 --> 00:47:43,372 named John F. Kennedy dined at the rooftop bar 745 00:47:43,472 --> 00:47:46,106 of the Hotel Majestic overlooking Saigon. 746 00:47:46,205 --> 00:47:47,405 (DISTANT GUN FIRE) 747 00:47:47,506 --> 00:47:49,506 As he and his party ate, 748 00:47:49,606 --> 00:47:53,939 they could hear the thunder of guns across the Saigon River. 749 00:47:54,039 --> 00:47:57,073 French commanders assured Kennedy 750 00:47:57,173 --> 00:47:59,673 that with more American support, 751 00:47:59,772 --> 00:48:02,939 French rule would be re-established. 752 00:48:03,039 --> 00:48:06,606 But Kennedy spent two hours with Seymour Topping, 753 00:48:06,705 --> 00:48:08,805 a seasoned American reporter, 754 00:48:08,905 --> 00:48:11,506 who gave him a very different perspective: 755 00:48:11,606 --> 00:48:14,305 the French were losing, he said, 756 00:48:14,405 --> 00:48:18,173 and many Vietnamese, who had once admired the Americans, 757 00:48:18,272 --> 00:48:22,405 were beginning to despise them for backing the French. 758 00:48:22,506 --> 00:48:25,740 Kennedy believed the reporter. 759 00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:29,106 Unless the United States could persuade the Vietnamese 760 00:48:29,205 --> 00:48:32,772 that it was as opposed to "injustice and inequality" 761 00:48:32,872 --> 00:48:34,372 as it was to communism, 762 00:48:34,472 --> 00:48:37,439 he told his constituents when he got home, 763 00:48:37,539 --> 00:48:42,805 the current effort would result in "foredoomed failure." 764 00:48:42,905 --> 00:48:45,740 (ROSEMARY CLOONEY SINGING "COME ON-A MY HOUSE") 765 00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:51,240 # Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give you candy # 766 00:48:51,340 --> 00:48:53,205 NARRATOR: In 1952, 767 00:48:53,305 --> 00:48:56,573 General Dwight Eisenhower was elected president, 768 00:48:56,673 --> 00:48:59,472 in part because he promised to take a tougher stance 769 00:48:59,573 --> 00:49:01,606 on communism. 770 00:49:01,705 --> 00:49:05,006 That year, American taxpayers 771 00:49:05,106 --> 00:49:07,539 were footing more than 30% of the bill 772 00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:10,573 for the French war in Vietnam. 773 00:49:10,673 --> 00:49:12,772 Within two years, 774 00:49:12,872 --> 00:49:16,205 that number would rise to nearly 80%. 775 00:49:16,305 --> 00:49:19,539 CLOONEY: # Everything, everything, everything # 776 00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:21,905 RICHARD NIXON: And many of you ask this question: 777 00:49:22,006 --> 00:49:24,272 Why is the United States spending 778 00:49:24,372 --> 00:49:26,173 hundreds of millions of dollars 779 00:49:26,272 --> 00:49:30,372 supporting the forces of the French Union 780 00:49:30,472 --> 00:49:33,972 in the fight against communism in Indochina? 781 00:49:34,073 --> 00:49:36,305 I think perhaps if we go over to the map here, 782 00:49:36,405 --> 00:49:40,740 I can indicate to you why it is so vitally important. 783 00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,173 Here's Indochina. 784 00:49:43,272 --> 00:49:44,606 If Indochina falls, 785 00:49:44,705 --> 00:49:47,939 Thailand is put in almost impossible position. 786 00:49:48,039 --> 00:49:51,106 The same is true of Malaya with its rubber and tin. 787 00:49:51,205 --> 00:49:56,240 Now may I say that as far as the war in Indochina is concerned, 788 00:49:56,340 --> 00:50:00,905 that I was there, right on the battlefield, or close to it, 789 00:50:01,006 --> 00:50:03,606 and it's a bloody war, and it's a bitter one. 790 00:50:03,705 --> 00:50:08,905 (EXPLOSIONS) 791 00:50:09,006 --> 00:50:13,740 NARRATOR: By 1953, the French had been fighting for seven years. 792 00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:17,073 They had suffered over 100,000 casualties 793 00:50:17,173 --> 00:50:20,305 and failed to pacify the countryside. 794 00:50:20,405 --> 00:50:24,073 Six commanders had come and gone. 795 00:50:24,173 --> 00:50:26,340 Nevertheless, the seventh commander, 796 00:50:26,439 --> 00:50:29,472 General Henri Navarre, assured his countrymen 797 00:50:29,573 --> 00:50:31,006 that victory was near. 798 00:50:31,106 --> 00:50:34,140 "Now we can see it clearly," he said, 799 00:50:34,240 --> 00:50:38,073 "like the light at the end of the tunnel." 800 00:50:40,073 --> 00:50:43,972 Meanwhile, large parts of the French population were horrified 801 00:50:44,073 --> 00:50:46,673 by reports of French brutality 802 00:50:46,772 --> 00:50:49,472 and the widespread use of napalm... 803 00:50:49,573 --> 00:50:54,240 gelatinized petroleum that burned foliage, 804 00:50:54,340 --> 00:50:56,805 homes, and human flesh. 805 00:50:59,740 --> 00:51:03,140 When returning French troops disembarked at Marseilles, 806 00:51:03,240 --> 00:51:07,606 members of the longshoremen's union pelted them with rocks. 807 00:51:07,705 --> 00:51:10,772 Parisian leftists began to call the conflict 808 00:51:10,872 --> 00:51:14,006 "La Sale Guerre"... "The Dirty War." 809 00:51:17,705 --> 00:51:21,140 (POLICE SIRENS WAILING, PEOPLE CHANTING) 810 00:51:22,452 --> 00:51:24,753 RON FERRIZZI: The camera was a close-up, 811 00:51:24,852 --> 00:51:27,920 was over the shoulder of this storm trooper 812 00:51:28,019 --> 00:51:31,552 who had a kid by the scruff of his shirt and he smacks him. 813 00:51:31,653 --> 00:51:32,753 REPORTER: People screaming... 814 00:51:32,852 --> 00:51:34,920 FERRIZZI: At that moment in time, 815 00:51:35,019 --> 00:51:37,619 I realized that anybody who really cared for America 816 00:51:37,720 --> 00:51:39,186 was sent halfway around the world 817 00:51:39,285 --> 00:51:42,686 chasing some ghost in a jungle. 818 00:51:42,785 --> 00:51:45,820 In the meantime, my country's being torn apart. 819 00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,119 So I saw somebody who looked like my dad 820 00:51:48,220 --> 00:51:49,720 hitting somebody who looked like me. 821 00:51:49,820 --> 00:51:51,653 Whose side would I be on? 822 00:51:59,753 --> 00:52:02,253 ED HERLIHY: In Korea, three years of combat end 823 00:52:02,352 --> 00:52:06,352 as United Nations and communist negotiators at Panmunjom sign a truce. 824 00:52:06,512 --> 00:52:09,480 NARRATOR: In July of 1953, 825 00:52:09,579 --> 00:52:12,945 the Korean War ended in a negotiated settlement 826 00:52:13,045 --> 00:52:14,980 and a still-divided peninsula. 827 00:52:15,154 --> 00:52:18,455 American policymakers saw it as proof 828 00:52:18,555 --> 00:52:21,855 that communism in Asia could be contained. 829 00:52:21,955 --> 00:52:23,687 HERLIHY: And in Washington, a dramatic evening press conference... 830 00:52:23,788 --> 00:52:26,821 NARRATOR: That fall, the French indicated their willingness 831 00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:30,888 to begin talks to end the fighting in Vietnam. 832 00:52:30,987 --> 00:52:34,420 Ho Chi Minh agreed to meet. 833 00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:38,388 But before the negotiators were to convene in Geneva, 834 00:52:38,487 --> 00:52:43,487 each side sought to improve its position on the battlefield. 835 00:52:45,087 --> 00:52:47,654 General Navarre set up a fortified base 836 00:52:47,754 --> 00:52:50,620 in a remote valley in northwestern Vietnam 837 00:52:50,721 --> 00:52:55,187 called Dien Bien Phu, where he hoped to lure the Viet Minh 838 00:52:55,288 --> 00:52:57,288 into a decisive battle. 839 00:52:59,388 --> 00:53:02,587 Navarre was certain that superior French firepower 840 00:53:02,687 --> 00:53:07,687 and air support would crush any attack by the Viet Minh. 841 00:53:07,788 --> 00:53:10,355 He and his commanders saw no need to worry 842 00:53:10,455 --> 00:53:14,888 about the jungle-covered hills that overlooked his 11,000 men, 843 00:53:14,987 --> 00:53:17,888 dug in on the valley floor. 844 00:53:17,987 --> 00:53:22,221 The artillery commander was so confident of victory, 845 00:53:22,321 --> 00:53:26,355 he complained, "I have more guns than I need." 846 00:53:29,420 --> 00:53:32,055 General Giap saw his chance. 847 00:53:32,154 --> 00:53:36,620 "We decided to wipe out at all costs the whole enemy force 848 00:53:36,721 --> 00:53:39,654 at Dien Bien Phu," he remembered. 849 00:53:41,721 --> 00:53:45,387 To do it, he pulled off one of the greatest logistical feats 850 00:53:45,555 --> 00:53:47,487 in military history... 851 00:53:47,587 --> 00:53:50,687 a feat that would be restaged in propaganda films 852 00:53:50,788 --> 00:53:53,987 and celebrated for decades. 853 00:53:54,087 --> 00:53:57,955 A quarter of a million civilian porters... 854 00:53:58,055 --> 00:53:59,388 nearly half of them women... 855 00:53:59,487 --> 00:54:04,288 moved everything he needed for a siege, from sacks of rice 856 00:54:04,388 --> 00:54:06,555 to disassembled artillery pieces, 857 00:54:06,654 --> 00:54:09,687 on foot through the jungle. 858 00:54:09,788 --> 00:54:14,555 Giap surrounded the valley with 50,000 soldiers 859 00:54:14,654 --> 00:54:19,788 and 200 big guns, dug-in and camouflaged so well 860 00:54:19,888 --> 00:54:24,455 they could not be spotted from the air. 861 00:54:26,514 --> 00:54:30,347 On March 13, 1954, 862 00:54:30,447 --> 00:54:32,681 Viet Minh artillery on the hillsides 863 00:54:32,780 --> 00:54:36,047 began raining down 50 shells a minute 864 00:54:36,148 --> 00:54:39,114 on the French troops huddled below. 865 00:54:39,215 --> 00:54:41,380 (EXPLOSIONS) 866 00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:43,215 The airstrip was destroyed. 867 00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:49,347 The besieged troops could only be reinforced 868 00:54:49,447 --> 00:54:52,280 and resupplied by airdrop. 869 00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:57,581 The French artillery commander, 870 00:54:57,681 --> 00:55:02,648 who had underestimated his enemy, committed suicide. 871 00:55:02,828 --> 00:55:05,828 NEWSREEL NARRATOR: The airlift to Dien Bien Phu continues... 872 00:55:05,927 --> 00:55:08,360 vital men and supplies for the heroic garrison 873 00:55:08,460 --> 00:55:11,194 that has defied the massed Viet Minh onslaughts for over six weeks. 874 00:55:11,295 --> 00:55:14,295 Today, Dien Bien Phu is a human dam 875 00:55:14,395 --> 00:55:16,295 trying to stem the red tide 876 00:55:16,395 --> 00:55:18,495 that threatens to engulf Southeast Asia. 877 00:55:20,161 --> 00:55:21,104 NARRATOR: The French government 878 00:55:21,105 --> 00:55:24,495 begged President Eisenhower to intervene. 879 00:55:24,594 --> 00:55:27,895 He refused to act without Congressional approval 880 00:55:27,995 --> 00:55:30,860 and support from European allies. 881 00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:32,995 Britain said no 882 00:55:33,094 --> 00:55:36,860 and the Congress would not support unilateral action. 883 00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:38,228 JOHN F. KENNEDY: The communists 884 00:55:38,328 --> 00:55:40,895 under Ho Chi Minh are able to claim that they are fighting 885 00:55:40,995 --> 00:55:43,527 for independence and the French appear to be fighting 886 00:55:43,627 --> 00:55:45,895 for a maintain... maintenance of colonial rule. 887 00:55:45,995 --> 00:55:47,328 I therefore believe 888 00:55:47,427 --> 00:55:50,627 that before the United States moves in, in any degree, 889 00:55:50,728 --> 00:55:53,261 that independence must be granted to the people, 890 00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:55,027 that the people must support the struggle. 891 00:55:56,828 --> 00:56:00,761 NARRATOR: "I am convinced," Eisenhower confided to his diary, 892 00:56:00,860 --> 00:56:05,694 "that no military victory is possible in this theater." 893 00:56:05,795 --> 00:56:08,427 Still, without consulting Congress, 894 00:56:08,527 --> 00:56:12,360 the president had secretly sent more American transport planes, 895 00:56:12,460 --> 00:56:18,127 their markings painted over and flown by civilian contractors, 896 00:56:18,228 --> 00:56:22,795 to help resupply the desperate French troops at Dien Bien Phu. 897 00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:28,728 GELB: Everyone understood that in and of itself, 898 00:56:28,828 --> 00:56:32,360 Vietnam didn't mean very much. 899 00:56:32,460 --> 00:56:36,594 But they believed, I believed, if we lost it, 900 00:56:36,694 --> 00:56:39,527 that the rest of Asia would tumble to communism. 901 00:56:39,677 --> 00:56:44,477 EISENHOWER: You have broader considerations that might follow 902 00:56:44,577 --> 00:56:49,345 what you would call the falling domino principle. 903 00:56:49,445 --> 00:56:51,977 You have a row of dominoes set up, 904 00:56:52,077 --> 00:56:53,845 and you knock over the first one, 905 00:56:53,945 --> 00:56:57,811 and what will happen to the last one is the certainty 906 00:56:57,910 --> 00:57:00,811 that it will go over very quickly. 907 00:57:02,677 --> 00:57:04,744 (EXPLOSION) 908 00:57:08,778 --> 00:57:11,711 (MUTED GUNFIRE) 909 00:57:22,010 --> 00:57:28,045 NARRATOR: On the afternoon of May 7, 1954, after 55 days of siege, 910 00:57:28,144 --> 00:57:33,278 the exhausted French forces at Dien Bien Phu surrendered. 911 00:57:35,878 --> 00:57:40,610 They had lost 8,000 men, killed, wounded, or missing. 912 00:57:43,477 --> 00:57:47,845 General Giap had lost three times as many, 913 00:57:47,945 --> 00:57:51,077 but he had won a great victory. 914 00:57:52,110 --> 00:57:56,533 NGUYEN THOI BUNG: _ 915 00:57:56,534 --> 00:58:00,780 _ 916 00:58:00,781 --> 00:58:07,456 _ 917 00:58:08,211 --> 00:58:13,077 NARRATOR: Even Duong Van Mai's parents could not help but be impressed. 918 00:58:13,177 --> 00:58:15,211 DUONG VAN MAI: They were very proud 919 00:58:15,311 --> 00:58:17,945 that the Viet Minh had defeated the French, 920 00:58:18,045 --> 00:58:19,945 this great Western power. 921 00:58:20,045 --> 00:58:23,878 Admiration and respect on the one hand, 922 00:58:23,977 --> 00:58:26,211 but fear on the other hand. 923 00:58:26,311 --> 00:58:29,010 And fear was the stronger emotion. 924 00:58:30,711 --> 00:58:33,378 NARRATOR: "We have been caught bluffing by our enemies," 925 00:58:33,477 --> 00:58:37,177 Senate Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson said. 926 00:58:37,278 --> 00:58:42,278 "Today it is Indochina, tomorrow Asia may be in flames. 927 00:58:42,378 --> 00:58:48,477 And the day after, the Western Alliance will lie in ruins." 928 00:58:48,577 --> 00:58:51,545 DONALD GREGG: We should have seen it as the end of the colonial era 929 00:58:51,644 --> 00:58:54,744 in Southeast Asia, which it really was. 930 00:58:54,845 --> 00:58:57,211 But instead we saw it in Cold War terms, 931 00:58:57,311 --> 00:59:01,977 and we saw it as a defeat for the free world 932 00:59:02,077 --> 00:59:03,845 that was related to the rise of China. 933 00:59:03,945 --> 00:59:08,945 And it was a total misreading of a pivotal event, 934 00:59:09,045 --> 00:59:11,644 which cost us very dearly. 935 00:59:11,744 --> 00:59:13,744 (CHANTING) 936 00:59:13,845 --> 00:59:17,577 (NEWSREEL MUSIC PLAYING) 937 00:59:17,677 --> 00:59:19,644 JACK TOBIN: The former home of the League of Nations, 938 00:59:19,744 --> 00:59:21,910 Geneva, Switzerland, where East is meeting West 939 00:59:22,010 --> 00:59:23,311 in the international conference 940 00:59:23,410 --> 00:59:27,878 that may decisively affect the political future of Asia. 941 00:59:27,977 --> 00:59:31,244 NARRATOR: The day after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, 942 00:59:31,345 --> 00:59:35,010 diplomats from nine nations gathered in Geneva 943 00:59:35,110 --> 00:59:37,878 to settle the future of Vietnam. 944 00:59:37,977 --> 00:59:42,010 The talks dragged on for nearly two-and-a-half months. 945 00:59:45,045 --> 00:59:46,811 Despite their victory, 946 00:59:46,910 --> 00:59:50,577 Ho Chi Minh and General Giap could not keep fighting 947 00:59:50,677 --> 00:59:55,811 without more support from China and the Soviet Union. 948 00:59:55,910 --> 00:59:59,311 But China had lost a million men in Korea 949 00:59:59,410 --> 01:00:02,378 and did not want to become involved in another war 950 01:00:02,477 --> 01:00:04,045 along its border. 951 01:00:04,144 --> 01:00:09,878 The Soviet Union was hoping to ease tensions with the West. 952 01:00:09,977 --> 01:00:14,845 Both of Ho Chi Minh's communist patrons urged him to agree 953 01:00:14,945 --> 01:00:16,811 to a negotiated settlement, 954 01:00:16,910 --> 01:00:21,211 a partition like the one that had ended the Korean War. 955 01:00:21,311 --> 01:00:24,644 Ho had no option but to give in. 956 01:00:28,577 --> 01:00:31,345 In the end, no one was satisfied. 957 01:00:33,378 --> 01:00:38,345 Vietnam was temporarily to be divided at the 17th parallel. 958 01:00:38,445 --> 01:00:42,878 The 130,000 French-led troops stationed in the North 959 01:00:42,977 --> 01:00:45,045 were to withdraw to the South, 960 01:00:45,144 --> 01:00:49,045 and somewhere between 50,000 and 90,000 Viet Minh 961 01:00:49,144 --> 01:00:51,811 were to "re-group" to the North. 962 01:00:51,910 --> 01:00:53,677 The two halves would be separated 963 01:00:53,778 --> 01:00:58,077 by a demilitarized zone until an election could be held 964 01:00:58,177 --> 01:01:01,378 to reunify North and South Vietnam, 965 01:01:01,477 --> 01:01:06,610 an election everyone knew Ho Chi Minh would win. 966 01:01:08,177 --> 01:01:11,250 NGUYEN VAN TONG: _ 967 01:01:11,251 --> 01:01:13,280 _ 968 01:01:13,281 --> 01:01:15,281 _ 969 01:01:16,082 --> 01:01:20,092 _ 970 01:01:22,077 --> 01:01:23,445 (CHEERING) 971 01:01:23,545 --> 01:01:28,359 NGUYEN THOI BUNG: _ 972 01:01:28,360 --> 01:01:33,295 _ 973 01:01:33,296 --> 01:01:35,475 _ 974 01:01:41,010 --> 01:01:42,544 KARL MARLANTES: We had started walking up 975 01:01:42,644 --> 01:01:44,510 and we had probably gotten about a third of the way up the hill 976 01:01:44,611 --> 01:01:46,111 and then they unleashed on us. 977 01:01:46,211 --> 01:01:48,877 (EXPLOSION, GUNFIRE) 978 01:01:48,977 --> 01:01:51,111 We were in the middle of this horrible shit sandwich. 979 01:01:51,211 --> 01:01:53,211 That's what we called it. 980 01:01:54,945 --> 01:01:58,211 (EXPLOSION, GUNFIRE) 981 01:01:58,310 --> 01:02:02,178 One of the things that I learned in the war is that 982 01:02:02,278 --> 01:02:05,877 we're not the top species on the planet because we're nice. 983 01:02:08,745 --> 01:02:11,877 People talk a lot about how well the military turns, you know, 984 01:02:11,977 --> 01:02:14,678 kids into, you know, killing machines and stuff. 985 01:02:14,778 --> 01:02:17,278 And I'll always argue that it's just finishing school. 986 01:02:17,377 --> 01:02:19,144 (GUNFIRE) 987 01:02:19,245 --> 01:02:23,377 (SHOUTING) 988 01:02:25,945 --> 01:02:27,211 NEWSREEL NARRATOR: Braving the dangers 989 01:02:27,212 --> 01:02:29,611 of the open sea in tiny, rickety craft, 990 01:02:29,711 --> 01:02:32,111 thousands of Roman Catholic and Buddhist faith 991 01:02:32,211 --> 01:02:34,477 have found life impossible under the communists. 992 01:02:34,577 --> 01:02:38,044 For them, it's freedom or nothing. 993 01:02:41,211 --> 01:02:43,178 NARRATOR: Under the Geneva Accords, 994 01:02:43,278 --> 01:02:46,111 civilians living in either half of Vietnam 995 01:02:46,211 --> 01:02:48,445 who wanted to relocate to the other 996 01:02:48,544 --> 01:02:51,544 would have 300 days to do so. 997 01:02:51,644 --> 01:02:55,544 DUONG VAN MAI: My mother and father wanted to stay 998 01:02:55,644 --> 01:02:57,644 and meet my sister Thang again 999 01:02:57,745 --> 01:03:00,077 because they knew Thang would come back. 1000 01:03:00,178 --> 01:03:02,410 But on the other hand they couldn't risk that. 1001 01:03:02,510 --> 01:03:07,377 They were convinced that when Ho Chi Minh and his government 1002 01:03:07,477 --> 01:03:09,611 arrived in Hanoi, 1003 01:03:09,711 --> 01:03:13,245 my father would be the first one to be killed 1004 01:03:13,345 --> 01:03:15,211 and all of us would be persecuted. 1005 01:03:17,945 --> 01:03:19,977 And I remember the day we left. 1006 01:03:20,077 --> 01:03:23,345 I looked around and I thought, "I never come back here again." 1007 01:03:25,711 --> 01:03:27,611 It was extremely traumatic. 1008 01:03:27,711 --> 01:03:32,310 It was like the ground was suddenly cut from under you. 1009 01:03:32,410 --> 01:03:37,877 NARRATOR: In the end, some 900,000 refugees, 1010 01:03:37,977 --> 01:03:41,577 including more than half of all the Catholics living in the North, 1011 01:03:41,678 --> 01:03:46,845 fled to the South, many of them aboard American ships. 1012 01:03:51,211 --> 01:03:54,778 The United States hoped somehow to encourage the building 1013 01:03:54,877 --> 01:03:57,111 of a legitimate government in the South. 1014 01:03:59,245 --> 01:04:03,945 That government was now headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. 1015 01:04:04,044 --> 01:04:06,711 Both a Roman Catholic and a Confucian 1016 01:04:06,810 --> 01:04:08,910 in a largely Buddhist country, 1017 01:04:09,010 --> 01:04:13,910 he was a celibate bachelor who had once planned to be a priest. 1018 01:04:14,110 --> 01:04:20,211 GELB: The war for us really started when we became the partner, 1019 01:04:20,311 --> 01:04:25,345 or I would say the victim, of President Diem. 1020 01:04:25,445 --> 01:04:30,378 We were going to help him turn South Vietnam into a democracy. 1021 01:04:30,477 --> 01:04:31,977 That's what he said he wanted to do. 1022 01:04:32,077 --> 01:04:33,045 And we believed him. 1023 01:04:33,744 --> 01:04:35,477 NARRATOR: Like Ho Chi Minh, 1024 01:04:35,577 --> 01:04:39,144 Diem had spent years abroad seeking support 1025 01:04:39,244 --> 01:04:42,910 for his own brand of Vietnamese nationalism. 1026 01:04:43,010 --> 01:04:46,410 He was a veteran politician whose loathing for the French 1027 01:04:46,510 --> 01:04:50,278 was matched only by his hatred for the communists, 1028 01:04:50,378 --> 01:04:54,045 who had imprisoned him and buried alive his eldest brother 1029 01:04:54,144 --> 01:04:56,510 and his nephew. 1030 01:04:56,610 --> 01:04:59,945 Diem was aloof, autocratic, 1031 01:05:00,045 --> 01:05:03,311 mistrustful of anyone much beyond his own family. 1032 01:05:03,410 --> 01:05:07,311 He also proved to be shrewd, resourceful, 1033 01:05:07,410 --> 01:05:11,445 and skilled at exploiting the weaknesses of his opponents. 1034 01:05:11,545 --> 01:05:17,477 But he faced a daunting task in creating a new country. 1035 01:05:17,577 --> 01:05:20,577 The French, who still had thousands of troops 1036 01:05:20,677 --> 01:05:24,144 stationed in the South, detested Diem. 1037 01:05:24,244 --> 01:05:28,010 Several provinces were under the sway of religious sects 1038 01:05:28,110 --> 01:05:30,477 with armies of their own. 1039 01:05:30,577 --> 01:05:34,677 Tens of thousands of Viet Minh soldiers had gone north, 1040 01:05:34,778 --> 01:05:36,878 but several thousand cadre... 1041 01:05:36,977 --> 01:05:40,311 trained and dedicated Communist Party workers... 1042 01:05:40,410 --> 01:05:46,345 had stayed behind to organize resistance in the countryside. 1043 01:05:46,445 --> 01:05:50,510 And Saigon itself was ruled by the Binh Xuyen, 1044 01:05:50,610 --> 01:05:54,010 a crime syndicate backed by the French. 1045 01:05:54,110 --> 01:05:56,311 RUFUS PHILLIPS: And the French were behind the Binh Xuyen, 1046 01:05:56,410 --> 01:05:57,811 sort of supporting them 1047 01:05:57,910 --> 01:06:00,977 because they didn't want Diem to succeed. 1048 01:06:01,077 --> 01:06:03,010 And that became the central contest. 1049 01:06:05,045 --> 01:06:07,055 NARRATOR: Some in the CIA believed 1050 01:06:07,056 --> 01:06:11,010 that Diem could be the savior of South Vietnam. 1051 01:06:11,110 --> 01:06:13,045 Others were not so sure. 1052 01:06:13,144 --> 01:06:15,278 "He is a messiah without a message," 1053 01:06:15,378 --> 01:06:18,311 one diplomat reported to Washington. 1054 01:06:18,410 --> 01:06:21,878 The U.S. ambassador agreed. 1055 01:06:21,977 --> 01:06:25,278 On April 27, 1955, 1056 01:06:25,378 --> 01:06:27,700 President Eisenhower decided 1057 01:06:27,701 --> 01:06:32,110 to end American support for Diem's regime. 1058 01:06:32,211 --> 01:06:33,177 (GUNFIRE) 1059 01:06:33,278 --> 01:06:36,477 But then Diem made an all-out assault 1060 01:06:36,577 --> 01:06:38,878 on the Binh Xuyen syndicate. 1061 01:06:38,977 --> 01:06:41,177 (SIRENS BLARING, GUNFIRE) 1062 01:06:41,278 --> 01:06:43,077 DUONG VAN MAI: Suddenly in the middle of the day 1063 01:06:43,177 --> 01:06:47,677 we heard gunfire and then we saw flames 1064 01:06:47,778 --> 01:06:50,110 and the neighborhood was burning. 1065 01:06:50,211 --> 01:06:52,395 MICHAEL FITZMAURICE: There are hundreds of dead and wounded 1066 01:06:52,396 --> 01:06:56,010 on both sides as the street fighting continues for an entire week. 1067 01:06:56,110 --> 01:06:59,345 For the United States, the situation presents a grave problem. 1068 01:07:01,278 --> 01:07:04,244 Diem finally regains control of Saigon. 1069 01:07:05,977 --> 01:07:10,244 NARRATOR: In the end, Diem's forces prevailed. 1070 01:07:10,345 --> 01:07:16,211 Eisenhower now saw no option but to stick with Diem. 1071 01:07:16,311 --> 01:07:21,677 The French then announced their intention to withdraw completely 1072 01:07:21,778 --> 01:07:27,910 from South Vietnam, ending nearly a century of occupation. 1073 01:07:28,110 --> 01:07:33,077 PHILLIPS: Diem became wildly popular because he seemed to embody 1074 01:07:33,177 --> 01:07:35,677 the nationalist cause in the South. 1075 01:07:35,777 --> 01:07:37,677 He succeeded in getting the French 1076 01:07:37,777 --> 01:07:39,710 out of Vietnam all the way. 1077 01:07:39,811 --> 01:07:43,277 And Ho Chi Minh had only got them out of the northern half. 1078 01:07:43,378 --> 01:07:45,633 NARRATOR: Flush with victory, 1079 01:07:45,634 --> 01:07:48,634 Diem called for a referendum in the South. 1080 01:07:49,277 --> 01:07:54,677 The CIA warned him not to meddle too much with the returns. 1081 01:07:55,878 --> 01:07:57,677 But when the ballots were counted, 1082 01:07:57,777 --> 01:08:03,545 Diem claimed to have won 98.2% of the vote. 1083 01:08:05,445 --> 01:08:10,978 On October 26, 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem named himself 1084 01:08:11,077 --> 01:08:16,710 the first president of the brand-new Republic of Vietnam. 1085 01:08:16,811 --> 01:08:20,611 The election to reunify the North and South 1086 01:08:20,710 --> 01:08:24,277 that had been promised at Geneva would never be held. 1087 01:08:26,378 --> 01:08:30,410 GELB: He became our ally, or rather our master, 1088 01:08:30,510 --> 01:08:33,010 because the goal of preventing 1089 01:08:33,111 --> 01:08:35,210 the communists from taking over the South 1090 01:08:35,311 --> 01:08:41,844 was so strong that we couldn't afford for him to lose. 1091 01:08:41,945 --> 01:08:44,678 So Diem started to boss us around. 1092 01:08:44,777 --> 01:08:46,777 And this was a typical relationship. 1093 01:08:46,878 --> 01:08:49,245 You need any ally you believe 1094 01:08:49,344 --> 01:08:52,277 to be the centerpiece of your foreign policy. 1095 01:08:52,378 --> 01:08:53,878 They understand that right away. 1096 01:08:53,977 --> 01:08:56,645 And the tail wags the dog. 1097 01:09:00,811 --> 01:09:03,378 ED HERLIHY: From the Far East comes a distinguished visitor. 1098 01:09:03,477 --> 01:09:06,145 President Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam is accorded 1099 01:09:06,245 --> 01:09:09,178 one of President Eisenhower's rare airport greetings, 1100 01:09:09,277 --> 01:09:11,678 as he arrives for a four-day state visit. 1101 01:09:11,777 --> 01:09:15,510 President Diem, one of America's staunchest allies in Southeast Asia, 1102 01:09:15,611 --> 01:09:18,245 will seek an increase in aid to shore up his country 1103 01:09:18,344 --> 01:09:20,145 against increasing communist pressure, 1104 01:09:20,245 --> 01:09:25,710 a request to which the president lends a sympathetic ear. 1105 01:09:25,811 --> 01:09:29,745 NARRATOR: Most politicians, Democrats as well as Republicans, 1106 01:09:29,844 --> 01:09:31,745 now seemed to share the changing views 1107 01:09:31,844 --> 01:09:33,678 of Senator John F. Kennedy. 1108 01:09:33,777 --> 01:09:37,344 South Vietnam is "our offspring," he said. 1109 01:09:37,445 --> 01:09:39,044 "We cannot abandon it." 1110 01:09:39,145 --> 01:09:43,410 If it fell, the United States would be "held responsible 1111 01:09:43,510 --> 01:09:47,811 and our prestige in Asia will sink to a new low." 1112 01:09:47,910 --> 01:09:53,245 There had never before been a South Vietnamese nation, 1113 01:09:53,344 --> 01:09:56,577 but Americans, who had rebuilt much of their own country 1114 01:09:56,678 --> 01:10:00,277 during the New Deal and had helped rebuild Western Europe 1115 01:10:00,378 --> 01:10:01,611 through the Marshall Plan, 1116 01:10:01,710 --> 01:10:06,378 were convinced they could build one nonetheless. 1117 01:10:06,477 --> 01:10:08,445 (BLOWS WHISTLE) 1118 01:10:08,544 --> 01:10:12,445 Eisenhower ordered scores of American civilians 1119 01:10:12,544 --> 01:10:16,245 to South Vietnam, full of plans for economic development 1120 01:10:16,344 --> 01:10:20,077 meant to win, he hoped, the hearts and minds 1121 01:10:20,178 --> 01:10:21,878 of the Vietnamese people. 1122 01:10:24,844 --> 01:10:27,945 But those civilians would always be outnumbered 1123 01:10:28,044 --> 01:10:29,544 by military advisors, 1124 01:10:29,645 --> 01:10:34,044 with orders to modernize, train, and equip Diem's forces, 1125 01:10:34,145 --> 01:10:39,910 now called the Army of the Republic of Vietnam... the ARVN. 1126 01:10:40,010 --> 01:10:45,445 Some ARVN officers found American methods unsuited 1127 01:10:45,544 --> 01:10:48,178 to the guerrilla war they expected to wage 1128 01:10:48,277 --> 01:10:50,410 against the communists. 1129 01:10:50,510 --> 01:10:53,178 Most American military advisors were veterans 1130 01:10:53,277 --> 01:10:54,577 of the war in Korea, 1131 01:10:54,678 --> 01:10:58,344 determined to prepare South Vietnamese forces 1132 01:10:58,445 --> 01:11:03,878 to slow a conventional invasion from the North. 1133 01:11:03,977 --> 01:11:07,577 But no one in North Vietnam 1134 01:11:07,678 --> 01:11:11,210 was planning a conventional invasion. 1135 01:11:11,311 --> 01:11:15,210 Ho Chi Minh was focused on rebuilding his country, 1136 01:11:15,311 --> 01:11:19,178 devastated by more than a decade of war. 1137 01:11:21,710 --> 01:11:25,245 The communists imposed brutal land reforms 1138 01:11:25,344 --> 01:11:27,510 modeled on those underway in China 1139 01:11:27,611 --> 01:11:32,277 with a ruthlessness that left thousands of people dead, 1140 01:11:32,378 --> 01:11:35,745 including not only landlords who had sided with the French, 1141 01:11:35,844 --> 01:11:40,111 but also many villagers who had fought with the Viet Minh. 1142 01:11:42,777 --> 01:11:46,510 Ho Chi Minh was still determined to reunite Vietnam. 1143 01:11:46,611 --> 01:11:50,811 But he worried that if he took direct military action against the South, 1144 01:11:50,910 --> 01:11:54,977 the United States would be drawn more deeply into the struggle. 1145 01:11:55,077 --> 01:11:58,510 He cautioned his comrades in the South to put their faith 1146 01:11:58,611 --> 01:12:02,378 in political agitation and avoid violence. 1147 01:12:04,811 --> 01:12:06,777 But that message rang hollow 1148 01:12:06,878 --> 01:12:11,445 among embattled Southern revolutionaries struggling to survive 1149 01:12:11,544 --> 01:12:16,445 under Diem's increasingly harsh regime. 1150 01:12:16,544 --> 01:12:21,077 In a campaign he called "Denounce the Communists," 1151 01:12:21,178 --> 01:12:24,477 Diem had imprisoned tens of thousands of citizens 1152 01:12:24,577 --> 01:12:30,710 without trial and ordered the executions of hundreds more. 1153 01:12:30,811 --> 01:12:34,710 Now, the communists took matters into their own hands 1154 01:12:34,811 --> 01:12:38,477 and began attacking South Vietnamese officials. 1155 01:12:39,510 --> 01:12:42,465 LE QUAN CONG: _ 1156 01:12:42,466 --> 01:12:45,652 _ 1157 01:12:47,153 --> 01:12:51,133 _ 1158 01:12:51,934 --> 01:12:56,700 _ 1159 01:12:58,401 --> 01:13:00,650 _ 1160 01:13:00,651 --> 01:13:02,900 _ 1161 01:13:03,301 --> 01:13:06,710 _ 1162 01:13:06,711 --> 01:13:09,500 _ 1163 01:13:09,501 --> 01:13:11,668 _ 1164 01:13:12,669 --> 01:13:15,800 _ 1165 01:13:18,178 --> 01:13:22,245 NARRATOR: As violence in South Vietnam intensified, 1166 01:13:22,344 --> 01:13:24,977 new leaders emerged in Hanoi. 1167 01:13:25,077 --> 01:13:28,445 Ho Chi Minh would remain the face of the revolution 1168 01:13:28,544 --> 01:13:32,410 around the world, but he now began to share power 1169 01:13:32,510 --> 01:13:35,678 with men who were growing impatient with his caution, 1170 01:13:35,777 --> 01:13:40,311 men about whom Americans knew almost nothing. 1171 01:13:42,445 --> 01:13:45,378 The most important proved to be a carpenter's son 1172 01:13:45,477 --> 01:13:51,577 from Quang Tri province in the South named Le Duan. 1173 01:13:51,678 --> 01:13:55,145 He had helped found the Indochinese Communist Party, 1174 01:13:55,245 --> 01:13:58,710 survived nearly ten years in a French prison, 1175 01:13:58,811 --> 01:14:01,910 and proved himself a shrewd political infighter 1176 01:14:02,010 --> 01:14:05,445 as he rose to become First Secretary of the party. 1177 01:14:07,344 --> 01:14:12,300 NGUYEN NGOC: _ 1178 01:14:12,301 --> 01:14:16,201 _ 1179 01:14:16,502 --> 01:14:21,130 _ 1180 01:14:21,931 --> 01:14:27,700 _ 1181 01:14:28,201 --> 01:14:35,660 _ 1182 01:14:40,210 --> 01:14:44,277 NARRATOR: By 1959, Le Duan and his hardline allies 1183 01:14:44,378 --> 01:14:48,311 were gaining influence within the North Vietnamese Politburo 1184 01:14:48,410 --> 01:14:51,010 and beginning to change its policy. 1185 01:14:51,111 --> 01:14:54,878 They now argued that Hanoi should do everything 1186 01:14:54,977 --> 01:14:58,077 within its power to help Southern revolutionaries 1187 01:14:58,178 --> 01:15:00,477 remove Diem by force. 1188 01:15:02,577 --> 01:15:07,800 BUI DIEM (SPEAKING ENGLISH): _ 1189 01:15:07,801 --> 01:15:13,050 _ 1190 01:15:13,351 --> 01:15:17,051 _ 1191 01:15:17,052 --> 01:15:18,812 _ 1192 01:15:18,813 --> 01:15:20,726 _ 1193 01:15:22,111 --> 01:15:25,645 NARRATOR: Now, bands of 40 to 50 armed Viet Minh 1194 01:15:25,745 --> 01:15:29,044 began slipping back home into South Vietnam, 1195 01:15:29,145 --> 01:15:32,910 following jungle paths hacked through the Laotian mountains 1196 01:15:33,010 --> 01:15:37,510 that the Americans would soon call the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 1197 01:15:43,510 --> 01:15:46,710 Violence against the Diem regime steadily accelerated. 1198 01:15:46,811 --> 01:15:48,445 (GUNFIRE) 1199 01:15:48,544 --> 01:15:50,510 (SIREN BLARING) 1200 01:15:56,645 --> 01:16:01,777 On the evening of July 8, 1959, at Bien Hoa, 1201 01:16:01,878 --> 01:16:03,710 20 miles northeast of Saigon, 1202 01:16:03,811 --> 01:16:07,945 six American military advisors were watching a movie 1203 01:16:08,044 --> 01:16:09,577 in their mess hall. 1204 01:16:11,277 --> 01:16:13,311 Viet Minh guerrillas, who had crept silently 1205 01:16:13,410 --> 01:16:16,977 into the compound, opened fire through the windows. 1206 01:16:17,077 --> 01:16:19,678 (RAPID GUNFIRE) 1207 01:16:22,645 --> 01:16:25,544 Major Dale Buis from Pender, Nebraska, 1208 01:16:25,645 --> 01:16:27,745 and Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand 1209 01:16:27,844 --> 01:16:31,245 from Copperas Cove, Texas, were killed. 1210 01:16:33,445 --> 01:16:37,745 They were the first American soldiers to die from enemy fire 1211 01:16:37,844 --> 01:16:39,745 in the Vietnam War. 1212 01:16:41,397 --> 01:16:43,964 JOHN KENNEDY: We must prove all over again, 1213 01:16:44,065 --> 01:16:49,798 to a watching world, as we sit on a most conspicuous stage, 1214 01:16:49,897 --> 01:16:51,498 whether this nation, 1215 01:16:51,597 --> 01:16:55,697 conceived as it is with its freedom of choice, 1216 01:16:55,798 --> 01:17:00,365 its breadth of opportunity, its range of alternatives, 1217 01:17:00,464 --> 01:17:02,830 can compete with the single-minded advance 1218 01:17:02,931 --> 01:17:04,597 of the communist system. 1219 01:17:04,897 --> 01:17:10,530 NARRATOR: On November 8, 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected 1220 01:17:10,631 --> 01:17:13,265 president of the United States. 1221 01:17:13,364 --> 01:17:17,097 His vice president was Senator Lyndon Johnson. 1222 01:17:17,198 --> 01:17:21,164 They had narrowly beaten Vice President Richard Nixon 1223 01:17:21,265 --> 01:17:24,498 and his running mate, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. 1224 01:17:25,965 --> 01:17:28,897 During the campaign, both Kennedy and Nixon 1225 01:17:28,998 --> 01:17:33,431 had pledged to hold the line against international communism 1226 01:17:33,530 --> 01:17:36,131 wherever it seemed to be a threat. 1227 01:17:36,230 --> 01:17:40,131 But very few Americans knew or cared about 1228 01:17:40,230 --> 01:17:42,565 what was going on in Vietnam. 1229 01:17:44,480 --> 01:17:46,680 Six weeks after Kennedy's election, 1230 01:17:46,781 --> 01:17:49,747 at a remote jungle village called Tan Lap 1231 01:17:49,848 --> 01:17:51,680 near the Cambodian border, 1232 01:17:51,781 --> 01:17:55,615 representatives of southern revolutionary groups 1233 01:17:55,715 --> 01:17:59,814 met to form a new organization to replace the Viet Minh, 1234 01:17:59,915 --> 01:18:02,781 dedicated to overthrowing Ngo Dinh Diem 1235 01:18:02,880 --> 01:18:06,781 and ousting the foreigners supporting him. 1236 01:18:06,880 --> 01:18:12,380 Behind the scenes, Le Duan and his communist comrades in Hanoi 1237 01:18:12,480 --> 01:18:16,480 were orchestrating everything. 1238 01:18:16,581 --> 01:18:18,281 The new organization would be called 1239 01:18:18,380 --> 01:18:22,615 the National Liberation Front... the NLF. 1240 01:18:24,215 --> 01:18:27,281 The armed wing of the NLF was called 1241 01:18:27,380 --> 01:18:30,047 the People's Liberation Armed Forces, 1242 01:18:30,148 --> 01:18:33,581 but its enemies in Saigon and Washington preferred 1243 01:18:33,680 --> 01:18:35,715 a more disparaging term. 1244 01:18:35,814 --> 01:18:39,180 In their eyes, the revolutionaries were 1245 01:18:39,281 --> 01:18:42,680 Communist Traitors to the Vietnamese Nation... 1246 01:18:42,781 --> 01:18:44,281 the Viet Cong. 1247 01:18:50,247 --> 01:18:55,014 (MUTED SHOUTING) 1248 01:18:57,447 --> 01:19:02,538 HUY DUC: _ 1249 01:19:03,439 --> 01:19:06,985 _ 1250 01:19:10,286 --> 01:19:14,300 _ 1251 01:19:14,301 --> 01:19:18,978 _ 1252 01:19:18,979 --> 01:19:21,830 _ 1253 01:19:23,231 --> 01:19:29,620 _ 1254 01:19:34,715 --> 01:19:37,114 JOHN KENNEDY: Let every nation know, 1255 01:19:37,215 --> 01:19:42,814 whether it wishes us well or ill, 1256 01:19:42,915 --> 01:19:48,948 that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, 1257 01:19:49,047 --> 01:19:53,915 meet any hardship, support any friend, 1258 01:19:54,015 --> 01:19:59,015 oppose any foe, to assure the survival 1259 01:19:59,114 --> 01:20:00,480 and the success of liberty. 1260 01:20:12,847 --> 01:20:15,314 TIM O'BRIEN: For me, I'd always thought of courage 1261 01:20:15,415 --> 01:20:19,915 as charging enemy bunkers or standing up under fire. 1262 01:20:20,015 --> 01:20:25,948 But just to walk, day after day from village to village 1263 01:20:26,047 --> 01:20:30,581 and through the paddies and up into the mountains, 1264 01:20:30,680 --> 01:20:34,847 just to get up in the morning and look out at the land 1265 01:20:34,948 --> 01:20:38,547 and think, "In a few minutes I'll be walking out there 1266 01:20:38,648 --> 01:20:41,780 and will my corpse be there, over there? 1267 01:20:41,881 --> 01:20:43,314 Will I lose a leg out there?" 1268 01:20:45,114 --> 01:20:48,881 Just to walk felt incredibly brave. 1269 01:20:48,980 --> 01:20:51,747 I would sometimes look at my legs as I walked, 1270 01:20:51,847 --> 01:20:54,247 thinking, how am I doing this? 1271 01:20:58,280 --> 01:21:04,415 ("A HARD RAIN'S A-GONNA FALL" BY BOB DYLAN PLAYING) 1272 01:21:04,515 --> 01:21:08,247 # Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? # 1273 01:21:10,747 --> 01:21:14,948 # And where have you been, my darling young one? # 1274 01:21:17,747 --> 01:21:21,515 # I've stumbled on the side of 12 misty mountains # 1275 01:21:24,547 --> 01:21:28,680 # I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways # 1276 01:21:31,114 --> 01:21:35,148 # I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests # 1277 01:21:37,547 --> 01:21:42,015 # I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans # 1278 01:21:44,114 --> 01:21:48,648 # I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard # 1279 01:21:50,847 --> 01:21:54,081 # And it's a hard, it's a hard # 1280 01:21:54,180 --> 01:21:58,215 # It's a hard, it's a hard # 1281 01:21:58,314 --> 01:22:03,547 # It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall # 1282 01:22:08,915 --> 01:22:13,047 # Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son? # 1283 01:22:15,648 --> 01:22:19,415 # And what did you see, my darling young one? # 1284 01:22:22,280 --> 01:22:26,715 # I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it # 1285 01:22:28,980 --> 01:22:32,715 # I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it # 1286 01:22:35,680 --> 01:22:39,648 # I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin' # 1287 01:22:42,280 --> 01:22:46,280 # I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin' # 1288 01:22:49,081 --> 01:22:52,680 # I saw a white ladder all covered with water # 1289 01:22:55,614 --> 01:22:59,480 # I saw 10,000 talkers whose tongues were all broken # 1290 01:23:02,347 --> 01:23:07,180 # I saw guns with sharp swords in the hands of young children # 1291 01:23:07,280 --> 01:23:10,515 # And it's a hard, it's a hard # 1292 01:23:10,614 --> 01:23:14,480 # It's a hard, and it's a hard # 1293 01:23:14,581 --> 01:23:20,047 # It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall # 1294 01:23:22,415 --> 01:23:25,847 # And it's a hard, it's a hard # 1295 01:23:25,948 --> 01:23:29,415 # It's a hard, and it's a hard # 1296 01:23:29,515 --> 01:23:34,680 # It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. # 1297 01:23:34,681 --> 01:23:41,681 - Synced and corrected by chamallow - - www.addic7ed.com - 1298 01:23:45,173 --> 01:23:46,700 ANNOUNCER: Learn more about the film 1299 01:23:46,773 --> 01:23:50,800 and find additional resources at PBS.org/vietnamwar 1300 01:23:50,840 --> 01:23:54,773 and join the conversation using #VietnamWarPBS. 1301 01:23:54,774 --> 01:23:57,906 "The Vietnam War" is available on Blu-ray and DVD. 1302 01:23:57,907 --> 01:23:59,572 The companion book, soundtrack, 1303 01:23:59,573 --> 01:24:02,172 and original score from the film are also available. 1304 01:24:02,173 --> 01:24:04,273 To order, visit shoppbs.org 1305 01:24:04,274 --> 01:24:06,740 or call 1-800-play-PBS. 1306 01:24:06,741 --> 01:24:10,372 Episodes of this series also available for download from iTunes. 1307 01:24:13,639 --> 01:24:15,773 ANNOUNCER: Bank of America proudly supports 1308 01:24:15,774 --> 01:24:20,672 Ken Burns' and Lynn Novick's film "The Vietnam War" 1309 01:24:20,673 --> 01:24:23,072 because fostering different perspectives 1310 01:24:23,073 --> 01:24:25,672 and civil discourse around important issues 1311 01:24:25,673 --> 01:24:27,973 furthers progress, equality, 1312 01:24:27,974 --> 01:24:29,973 and a more connected society. 1313 01:24:34,439 --> 01:24:38,473 Go to bankofamerica.com/ betterconnected to learn more. 1314 01:24:41,939 --> 01:24:43,372 ANNOUNCER: Major support for "The Vietnam War" 1315 01:24:43,373 --> 01:24:46,872 was provided by members of the Better Angels Society, 1316 01:24:46,873 --> 01:24:50,840 including Jonathan and Jeannie Lavine, 1317 01:24:50,841 --> 01:24:53,740 Diane and Hal Brierley, 1318 01:24:53,741 --> 01:24:56,139 Amy and David Abrams, 1319 01:24:56,140 --> 01:24:58,639 John and Catherine Debs, 1320 01:24:58,640 --> 01:25:01,605 the Fullerton Family Charitable Fund, 1321 01:25:01,606 --> 01:25:03,672 the Montrone Family, 1322 01:25:03,673 --> 01:25:06,005 Lynda and Stewart Resnick, 1323 01:25:06,006 --> 01:25:08,773 the Perry and Donna Golkin Family Foundation, 1324 01:25:08,774 --> 01:25:09,773 the Lynch Foundation, 1325 01:25:09,774 --> 01:25:12,639 the Roger and Rosemary Enrico Foundation, 1326 01:25:12,640 --> 01:25:16,072 and by these additional funders. 1327 01:25:16,073 --> 01:25:19,706 Major funding was also provided by David H. Koch... 1328 01:25:22,005 --> 01:25:24,206 The Blavatnik Family Foundation... 1329 01:25:26,540 --> 01:25:28,973 The Park Foundation, 1330 01:25:28,974 --> 01:25:31,139 the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1331 01:25:31,140 --> 01:25:33,340 the Pew Charitable Trusts, 1332 01:25:33,341 --> 01:25:36,005 the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 1333 01:25:36,006 --> 01:25:38,773 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 1334 01:25:38,774 --> 01:25:41,372 the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, 1335 01:25:41,373 --> 01:25:43,572 the Ford Foundation JustFilms, 1336 01:25:43,573 --> 01:25:46,005 by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1337 01:25:46,006 --> 01:25:47,973 and by viewers like you. 1338 01:25:47,974 --> 01:25:49,105 Thank you.