1
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:04,790
(faint voice on radio)

3
00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:13,180
We have them in sight and
we're engaging at present time.

4
00:00:13,300 --> 00:00:14,430
MAN:
Roger.

5
00:00:19,390 --> 00:00:22,600
RON FERRIZZI:
Helicopters are
phenomenal machines.

6
00:00:22,690 --> 00:00:25,070
You could float in the air.

7
00:00:25,150 --> 00:00:26,780
You can be like God.

8
00:00:33,950 --> 00:00:36,740
I flew below 500 feet.

9
00:00:36,870 --> 00:00:39,910
Above 500 feet was a kill zone.

10
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,670
You better be below 200 feet,
the lower the better.

11
00:00:47,050 --> 00:00:48,510
My job was to get shot at.

12
00:00:48,630 --> 00:00:50,300
My job was to draw enemy fire.

13
00:00:50,380 --> 00:00:52,010
I was a duck, a decoy.

14
00:00:53,130 --> 00:00:54,760
I got shot at a lot.

15
00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:56,930
I engaged the enemy a lot.

16
00:00:57,010 --> 00:00:59,720
(voice on helicopter radio)

17
00:00:59,810 --> 00:01:02,310
(gunfire)

18
00:01:03,900 --> 00:01:07,520
You're screaming as loud as you
can to try to cover up the sound

19
00:01:07,610 --> 00:01:09,690
of the incoming bullets

20
00:01:09,780 --> 00:01:11,400
because when they pass
by your ear

21
00:01:11,490 --> 00:01:12,900
you could hear
the popping sound.

22
00:01:13,030 --> 00:01:15,820
You don't hear the gunshot.

23
00:01:15,910 --> 00:01:17,910
That a 50-caliber
just opened up on you,

24
00:01:18,030 --> 00:01:20,580
shooting a half-inch
piece of lead flying at you...

25
00:01:20,700 --> 00:01:21,710
And the aircraft was... vroom!

26
00:01:23,790 --> 00:01:26,420
You're flying,
you're 90 degrees the other way

27
00:01:26,540 --> 00:01:28,500
and you're-you're shooting
yourself down

28
00:01:28,590 --> 00:01:30,420
because the rotor blades
are right in front of you

29
00:01:30,510 --> 00:01:32,340
and you're trying
to keep the gun from jamming

30
00:01:32,470 --> 00:01:34,840
because you're running around
like this.

31
00:01:34,930 --> 00:01:37,140
And if your gun jams,
you're done.

32
00:01:43,810 --> 00:01:48,400
NARRATOR:
Vietnam was the first
real helicopter war.

33
00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:53,700
Helicopter pilots flew
more than 36 million sorties.

34
00:01:53,780 --> 00:01:57,570
Their crews scattered propaganda
leaflets over the enemy

35
00:01:57,700 --> 00:02:02,040
and poured lethal fire
into their positions;

36
00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:06,540
carried troops and supplies
and artillery into battle;

37
00:02:06,620 --> 00:02:10,960
and lifted the wounded off
the battlefield so swiftly

38
00:02:11,050 --> 00:02:15,510
that most reached a field
hospital within 15 minutes.

39
00:02:21,220 --> 00:02:24,430
Ron Ferrizzi, a policeman's son

40
00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:27,730
from the Swampoodle neighborhood
of North Philadelphia,

41
00:02:27,810 --> 00:02:31,520
got to Vietnam
in November of 1967.

42
00:02:31,610 --> 00:02:34,610
He was a crew chief
in a scout helicopter

43
00:02:34,690 --> 00:02:36,570
with the 1st Air Cavalry,

44
00:02:36,650 --> 00:02:41,830
flying out of Landing Zone Two-
Bits in the Central Highlands.

45
00:02:41,910 --> 00:02:44,750
One day, after returning
from a combat mission,

46
00:02:44,870 --> 00:02:48,960
he was approached
by a journalist.

47
00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:50,670
FERRIZZI:
And there was this...

48
00:02:50,790 --> 00:02:53,760
there was a beautiful woman.

49
00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:56,970
You know, round eye woman...
statuesque, round eye woman

50
00:02:57,050 --> 00:03:01,640
with nice hair
and she looked pretty.

51
00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:03,970
Wow!

52
00:03:04,060 --> 00:03:06,810
She said, "Can I ask you
a couple of questions?

53
00:03:06,890 --> 00:03:09,350
"What was it like out there?

54
00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:12,190
"How does it feel that
a 50-caliber just opened up

55
00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:15,030
shooting a half-inch
piece of lead at you?"

56
00:03:16,950 --> 00:03:19,030
When you... it's hard
to describe.

57
00:03:19,110 --> 00:03:22,240
It's shitty.

58
00:03:22,330 --> 00:03:25,870
I mean, isn't it... isn't it
apparent what it's like?

59
00:03:26,830 --> 00:03:28,670
You want to know what it's like?

60
00:03:28,750 --> 00:03:29,960
Go look at it.

61
00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:30,960
Go out there.

62
00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:32,840
Go see the bodies.

63
00:03:32,920 --> 00:03:34,630
I was ready to whack her.

64
00:03:34,710 --> 00:03:36,260
I wanted to blast her.

65
00:03:36,340 --> 00:03:37,380
I was ready to... whoa!

66
00:03:37,510 --> 00:03:38,470
"You want to know
what it's like?

67
00:03:38,550 --> 00:03:39,470
"Boom! There it is.

68
00:03:39,550 --> 00:03:40,760
"I'll give it to you right now!

69
00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:42,300
"You want to feel it?
You want to see it?

70
00:03:42,390 --> 00:03:43,970
"I'll give it to you
if that's what you want.

71
00:03:44,060 --> 00:03:45,770
Is that what you want?"

72
00:03:45,850 --> 00:03:47,480
I don't want to tell you
what it's like

73
00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:49,020
because I don't want
to remember it.

74
00:03:49,140 --> 00:03:52,560
That's the insanity
that it brings out.

75
00:04:04,740 --> 00:04:08,540
(Big Brother and the Holding
Company playing "Summertime")

76
00:04:21,970 --> 00:04:26,510
LYNDON JOHNSON:
The enemy has been defeated
in battle after battle.

77
00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:30,810
He continues to hope that
America's will to persevere

78
00:04:30,940 --> 00:04:32,440
can be broken.

79
00:04:34,650 --> 00:04:38,230
Well, he is wrong.

80
00:04:38,360 --> 00:04:40,450
JANIS JOPLIN:
♪ Summer...

81
00:04:40,570 --> 00:04:44,870
NARRATOR:
1968 would prove to be
a watershed year

82
00:04:44,990 --> 00:04:49,750
in the history of the Vietnam
War and the United States.

83
00:04:49,870 --> 00:04:51,710
As the year began,

84
00:04:51,830 --> 00:04:56,840
there were 485,600
American troops in Vietnam

85
00:04:56,960 --> 00:04:59,300
and American leaders promised

86
00:04:59,380 --> 00:05:01,840
that victory was finally
in sight,

87
00:05:01,970 --> 00:05:05,850
that there really was "light
at the end of the tunnel."

88
00:05:05,970 --> 00:05:10,770
JOPLIN:
♪ Don't you cry...

89
00:05:10,850 --> 00:05:14,850
NARRATOR:
But then, North Vietnam would
mount a massive offensive

90
00:05:14,940 --> 00:05:18,270
that would result in
a terrible defeat for them,

91
00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:21,110
that in the long run
would turn out to have been

92
00:05:21,190 --> 00:05:24,490
a still-greater victory.

93
00:05:24,610 --> 00:05:28,370
America itself would be
convulsed by assassinations

94
00:05:28,450 --> 00:05:32,620
and battles in the streets
over the war and civil rights.

95
00:05:34,870 --> 00:05:36,330
An American president,

96
00:05:36,460 --> 00:05:39,960
a master politician used
to getting things done,

97
00:05:40,050 --> 00:05:43,630
would continue to find himself
besieged by problems

98
00:05:43,720 --> 00:05:46,760
he could not solve.

99
00:05:46,840 --> 00:05:48,720
JOPLIN:
♪ You're gonna rise...

100
00:05:48,810 --> 00:05:51,680
NARRATOR:
Robert Kennedy, the brother
of the slain president

101
00:05:51,810 --> 00:05:55,310
who had escalated
American presence in Vietnam,

102
00:05:55,440 --> 00:06:00,270
wrote an editorial that year
that seemed to speak for many.

103
00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:04,200
"Mere anarchy is loosed upon
the world," he said,

104
00:06:04,280 --> 00:06:08,030
quoting the poet
William Butler Yeats.

105
00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:12,040
"Things fall apart;
the center cannot hold."

106
00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,920
JOPLIN:
♪ No, no, no, don't you cry

107
00:06:19,340 --> 00:06:25,170
♪ Cry.

108
00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:30,850
General Westmoreland,
when you said

109
00:06:30,970 --> 00:06:32,600
that you'd never been more
encouraged

110
00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:35,640
in the four years
that you have been in Vietnam,

111
00:06:35,770 --> 00:06:37,190
some critics, on the other hand,

112
00:06:37,310 --> 00:06:39,440
have never been more
discouraged.

113
00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:42,030
I wonder if you could detail
one or two or three things

114
00:06:42,110 --> 00:06:44,740
that cause you
to be so encouraged.

115
00:06:44,860 --> 00:06:48,030
I could quote a number
of meaningful statistics

116
00:06:48,110 --> 00:06:51,120
such as the roads
that are being opened,

117
00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:54,540
increasing number of enemy
that have been killed

118
00:06:54,660 --> 00:06:58,000
and other statistical
information,

119
00:06:58,080 --> 00:06:59,540
which suggests
that we are making progress

120
00:06:59,670 --> 00:07:01,040
and we are winning.

121
00:07:01,130 --> 00:07:06,720
And I find an attitude of
confidence and growing optimism.

122
00:07:06,840 --> 00:07:09,090
It prevails
all over the country.

123
00:07:09,180 --> 00:07:11,720
And, to me, this is the most
significant evidence

124
00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:17,440
I can give you that constant,
real progress is being made.

125
00:07:21,270 --> 00:07:24,730
(man speaking Vietnamese)

126
00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:29,360
NARRATOR:
On the evening
of January 1, 1968,

127
00:07:29,450 --> 00:07:33,740
Ho Chi Minh broadcast
a poem over Radio Hanoi.

128
00:07:34,740 --> 00:07:39,000
HO CHI MINH:

129
00:07:42,710 --> 00:07:44,750
NARRATOR:
Communist commanders
took this to mean

130
00:07:44,840 --> 00:07:46,760
that the ultimate battle,

131
00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:49,510
the General Offensive
and General Uprising

132
00:07:49,630 --> 00:07:54,140
they had been planning
for months, was imminent.

133
00:07:54,260 --> 00:07:56,850
Party First Secretary Le Duan,

134
00:07:56,970 --> 00:07:59,520
who had insisted
on the offensive

135
00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:02,110
and had purged those opposed,

136
00:08:02,190 --> 00:08:05,900
believed it would finally
bring about an end to the war.

137
00:08:05,980 --> 00:08:10,360
Viet Cong units supported
by North Vietnamese troops

138
00:08:10,450 --> 00:08:13,830
were to simultaneously
attack cities and bases

139
00:08:13,910 --> 00:08:15,740
all over the South.

140
00:08:15,870 --> 00:08:19,620
Le Duan promised those troops
that when the fighting started,

141
00:08:19,710 --> 00:08:22,960
the people of South Vietnam
would rise up

142
00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:25,460
and overthrow
the Saigon government,

143
00:08:25,550 --> 00:08:28,840
just as the Vietnamese had risen
up against the Japanese

144
00:08:28,970 --> 00:08:32,180
in August of 1945.

145
00:08:32,300 --> 00:08:36,760
With Saigon defeated, the
Americans would have no choice

146
00:08:36,890 --> 00:08:39,770
but to withdraw from Vietnam.

147
00:08:39,890 --> 00:08:42,980
The surprise attacks would begin
at the end of the month,

148
00:08:43,100 --> 00:08:49,320
at the start of the Lunar New
Year celebration called Tet.

149
00:08:50,190 --> 00:08:53,160
HO HUU LAN:

150
00:09:01,330 --> 00:09:04,250
NARRATOR:
The Viet Cong were
already infiltrating

151
00:09:04,380 --> 00:09:07,170
scores of cities and towns.

152
00:09:07,250 --> 00:09:10,340
Tens of thousands
of North Vietnamese troops

153
00:09:10,420 --> 00:09:13,760
were now in place
in South Vietnam.

154
00:09:13,840 --> 00:09:18,180
Tons of smuggled Chinese
and Soviet-made weapons

155
00:09:18,260 --> 00:09:22,350
had been spirited towards
intended targets in sampans

156
00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:25,400
and flower carts and
false-bottomed trucks,

157
00:09:25,480 --> 00:09:30,860
and then buried in paddy fields
and garbage dumps and cemeteries

158
00:09:30,940 --> 00:09:33,910
until the moment came
for them to be retrieved.

159
00:09:34,950 --> 00:09:38,490
LE VAN CHO:

160
00:10:04,440 --> 00:10:06,940
NARRATOR:
More than 10,000
American military

161
00:10:07,060 --> 00:10:09,520
and civilian intelligence
officers were at work

162
00:10:09,610 --> 00:10:11,860
in South Vietnam,

163
00:10:11,940 --> 00:10:15,610
and here and there,
hints of what was to come

164
00:10:15,700 --> 00:10:18,200
filtered up the chain
of command.

165
00:10:18,280 --> 00:10:22,080
Enemy units were moving around
in inexplicable ways;

166
00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:25,370
captured enemy reports described
coming attacks

167
00:10:25,500 --> 00:10:26,670
on different cities;

168
00:10:26,750 --> 00:10:30,590
11 agents were caught
in the city of Qui Nhon

169
00:10:30,710 --> 00:10:34,670
carrying prerecorded tapes
calling on the local people

170
00:10:34,760 --> 00:10:37,890
to rise up against
the Saigon government.

171
00:10:38,010 --> 00:10:40,220
All of these things
were saying to us,

172
00:10:40,300 --> 00:10:41,810
"Something's going to happen."

173
00:10:41,930 --> 00:10:44,180
But we don't know exactly what.

174
00:10:44,270 --> 00:10:48,190
NARRATOR:
General Westmoreland
thought he knew.

175
00:10:48,270 --> 00:10:50,190
"I believe that the enemy
will attempt

176
00:10:50,270 --> 00:10:53,940
a country-wide show of strength
just prior to Tet,"

177
00:10:54,070 --> 00:10:58,450
he cabled Washington, "with Khe
Sanh being the main event."

178
00:10:58,570 --> 00:11:00,370
("Voodoo Chile" by the Jimi
Hendrix Experience playing)

179
00:11:00,450 --> 00:11:02,990
Some 30,000 North Vietnamese
troops had gathered

180
00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:07,540
near Khe Sanh, the westernmost
strongpoint below the DMZ

181
00:11:07,620 --> 00:11:11,380
that was being held
by just 6,000 Marines.

182
00:11:11,500 --> 00:11:14,710
Westmoreland believed North
Vietnam wanted to isolate

183
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:17,840
and annihilate
the U.S. forces there,

184
00:11:17,930 --> 00:11:22,180
just as the Viet Minh had done
to the French at Dien Bien Phu

185
00:11:22,310 --> 00:11:24,390
14 years earlier.

186
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:28,640
Enemy attacks elsewhere,
Westmoreland was sure,

187
00:11:28,730 --> 00:11:30,940
would only be a diversion.

188
00:11:31,060 --> 00:11:35,740
One American general, Frederick
C. Weyand, was not so sure.

189
00:11:35,820 --> 00:11:39,610
He was able to persuade
Westmoreland to let him pull

190
00:11:39,700 --> 00:11:42,530
half his troops back
from the Cambodian border

191
00:11:42,620 --> 00:11:48,620
to take up defensive positions
outside Saigon just in case.

192
00:11:48,710 --> 00:11:51,130
ROBERT GORALSKI:
This is an underground bunker
at Khe Sanh,

193
00:11:51,210 --> 00:11:53,040
one of two cement havens left

194
00:11:53,130 --> 00:11:54,500
from the earlier days of the war

195
00:11:54,590 --> 00:11:56,260
when the Special Forces
held this base.

196
00:11:56,340 --> 00:11:59,010
It is dark, dank, dreary.

197
00:11:59,130 --> 00:12:05,100
You feel something in the air,
about the buildup.

198
00:12:05,180 --> 00:12:06,560
I don't know, you could...

199
00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:09,480
you could almost feel them
working around you at night.

200
00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:10,900
Who?

201
00:12:10,980 --> 00:12:12,900
Uh, the NVA.

202
00:12:14,690 --> 00:12:16,480
NARRATOR:
On January 21,

203
00:12:16,610 --> 00:12:19,650
the North Vietnamese began
shelling Khe Sanh.

204
00:12:19,740 --> 00:12:21,490
(mortar shrieks)

205
00:12:21,610 --> 00:12:23,870
(explosions, shouting)

206
00:12:28,160 --> 00:12:31,250
CAO XUAN DAI:

207
00:13:01,900 --> 00:13:09,330
("You Keep Me Hangin' On"
by Vanilla Fudge playing)

208
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:21,420
(song continues, gunfire,
men shouting)

209
00:13:25,470 --> 00:13:29,010
NARRATOR:
When he learned of the attack
on Khe Sanh,

210
00:13:29,140 --> 00:13:32,140
Lyndon Johnson made
the Joint Chiefs sign a pledge

211
00:13:32,270 --> 00:13:34,270
that the base would never fall.

212
00:13:34,350 --> 00:13:38,520
"I don't want any damn
'Dinbinphoo,'" he said.

213
00:13:38,610 --> 00:13:42,780
The president had a scale-model
of the battlefield installed

214
00:13:42,900 --> 00:13:46,200
in the White House so that he
could follow the fighting there

215
00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:48,530
hour by hour.

216
00:13:48,620 --> 00:13:50,540
("You Keep Me Hangin' On"
continues)

217
00:13:50,660 --> 00:13:56,210
NARRATOR:
But Westmoreland's and Johnson's
basic assumption was wrong.

218
00:13:56,330 --> 00:13:59,000
Khe Sanh was the sideshow;

219
00:13:59,090 --> 00:14:03,090
the attacks on cities and towns
that were about to begin

220
00:14:03,220 --> 00:14:07,220
throughout South Vietnam
would be the main event.

221
00:14:12,930 --> 00:14:16,190
But First Secretary Le Duan's
basic assumptions

222
00:14:16,270 --> 00:14:19,440
were about to be tested, too.

223
00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:21,780
For the coming offensive
to succeed,

224
00:14:21,900 --> 00:14:26,280
the South Vietnamese Army, the
ARVN, would have to collapse,

225
00:14:26,410 --> 00:14:28,370
and the people of the South

226
00:14:28,450 --> 00:14:31,160
would have to join
the revolution.

227
00:14:32,830 --> 00:14:36,080
LE CONG HUAN:

228
00:14:54,390 --> 00:14:58,270
NARRATOR:
"All our thinking was focused
on finishing off the enemy,"

229
00:14:58,400 --> 00:15:01,070
one North Vietnamese general
remembered.

230
00:15:01,150 --> 00:15:05,740
"We were intoxicated
by that thought."

231
00:15:06,610 --> 00:15:08,950
HUY DUC:

232
00:15:32,300 --> 00:15:35,270
MORTON DEAN:
Okay, we've got our three
wounded GIs on board.

233
00:15:35,350 --> 00:15:38,440
At least one of them
is hit pretty bad.

234
00:15:38,560 --> 00:15:42,060
Medic's got a busy, busy few
minutes ahead of him

235
00:15:42,150 --> 00:15:43,770
before we get back.

236
00:15:43,900 --> 00:15:47,610
NARRATOR:
As the date for the
Tet Offensive approached,

237
00:15:47,740 --> 00:15:50,410
the war continued for the
hundreds of thousands

238
00:15:50,530 --> 00:15:53,740
of Americans in country.

239
00:15:55,490 --> 00:15:58,210
HAL KUSHNER:
I did see the reality of war,

240
00:15:58,330 --> 00:16:02,080
a real education
for a young doctor.

241
00:16:04,300 --> 00:16:08,510
The war seemed to be going very
well from our point of view.

242
00:16:10,630 --> 00:16:15,220
The war seemed to be going
just fine, thank you.

243
00:16:15,310 --> 00:16:20,060
NARRATOR:
Captain Hal Kushner was
a 26-year-old recent graduate

244
00:16:20,140 --> 00:16:23,650
of medical school
from Danville, Virginia.

245
00:16:23,770 --> 00:16:25,610
The father of
a three-year-old girl,

246
00:16:25,730 --> 00:16:27,940
with another baby on the way,

247
00:16:28,030 --> 00:16:30,360
he had volunteered to serve
in Vietnam

248
00:16:30,450 --> 00:16:35,580
and became a flight surgeon
with the 1st Air Cavalry.

249
00:16:35,700 --> 00:16:37,410
KUSHNER:
And I was supposed to give

250
00:16:37,490 --> 00:16:40,370
a lecture on the dangers
of night flying, ironically.

251
00:16:40,460 --> 00:16:41,420
And I did.

252
00:16:41,500 --> 00:16:44,960
We had terrible
weather that night.

253
00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:48,840
And it was dark and it was rainy
and it was windy.

254
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:50,220
As we were flying

255
00:16:50,300 --> 00:16:53,640
I saw that we had drifted west
of the highway.

256
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:56,930
And I knew that was wrong.

257
00:16:57,010 --> 00:16:58,930
NARRATOR:
In the fog and rain,

258
00:16:59,020 --> 00:17:02,940
Kushner's helicopter slammed
into a mountain.

259
00:17:05,650 --> 00:17:07,570
KUSHNER:
And the next thing I knew

260
00:17:07,690 --> 00:17:10,650
I was hanging upside down
in a burning helicopter.

261
00:17:10,740 --> 00:17:13,660
Major Porcella was dead.

262
00:17:13,740 --> 00:17:16,370
I just jumped away
from the helicopter,

263
00:17:16,450 --> 00:17:20,620
and it just went whoosh,
and it just burned up.

264
00:17:20,700 --> 00:17:23,580
There was an M60 machine gun
on the helicopter

265
00:17:23,710 --> 00:17:27,840
and the rounds had... cooking
off and it was exploding.

266
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:31,760
And one or several of the rounds
went through my shoulder,

267
00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:33,010
my left shoulder.

268
00:17:34,970 --> 00:17:38,310
On the ground I saw
Warrant Officer Bedworth.

269
00:17:38,390 --> 00:17:41,480
And he was hurt very badly.

270
00:17:41,560 --> 00:17:46,480
I took some branches
and splinted his leg.

271
00:17:46,610 --> 00:17:53,030
So the rule is you wait with the
aircraft until you get rescued.

272
00:17:53,110 --> 00:17:54,570
And we just sat there.

273
00:17:54,700 --> 00:17:57,240
So we waited one day.

274
00:17:57,320 --> 00:17:59,080
We waited two days.

275
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:02,540
We had no food or water.

276
00:18:02,620 --> 00:18:06,330
On the morning of the
third day, Bedworth died.

277
00:18:06,420 --> 00:18:09,340
And he just slipped away.

278
00:18:09,420 --> 00:18:10,920
It was very, very sad.

279
00:18:12,630 --> 00:18:16,510
And I thought that my best
choice was to leave the aircraft

280
00:18:16,590 --> 00:18:19,010
and try to go down the mountain.

281
00:18:19,100 --> 00:18:21,810
NARRATOR:
It took the wounded Kushner
four hours

282
00:18:21,930 --> 00:18:24,600
to stagger down the hill.

283
00:18:24,690 --> 00:18:28,150
When he finally reached level
ground, he looked back up

284
00:18:28,270 --> 00:18:32,570
and saw two American helicopters
hovering above the crash site.

285
00:18:33,940 --> 00:18:36,910
Their pilots did not see him.

286
00:18:40,910 --> 00:18:43,120
KUSHNER:
And I saw this peasant
working in a rice paddy.

287
00:18:43,250 --> 00:18:45,250
And he saw me.

288
00:18:45,370 --> 00:18:49,000
And I had captain's bars and
a Caduceus, a medical symbol,

289
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:50,880
on my collar.

290
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:53,760
And he said
(speaking Vietnamese).

291
00:18:53,840 --> 00:18:55,880
Captain, doctor.

292
00:18:56,010 --> 00:19:01,890
He took me about another mile to
a little hooch, a little house,

293
00:19:02,010 --> 00:19:04,890
and he sat me down
on the front of it

294
00:19:04,980 --> 00:19:08,230
and he brought out a can
of condensed milk.

295
00:19:08,310 --> 00:19:10,770
And as I was eating the stuff--

296
00:19:10,900 --> 00:19:13,820
it was just the best stuff I've
ever eaten in my whole life--

297
00:19:13,940 --> 00:19:18,740
I hear another person say,
"(repeating Vietnamese phrase).

298
00:19:18,860 --> 00:19:21,280
"Surrender, no kill."

299
00:19:21,410 --> 00:19:24,750
There was a squad
of Viet Cong there.

300
00:19:24,830 --> 00:19:27,410
And I put my one arm up.

301
00:19:27,540 --> 00:19:31,380
And he shot me
with an M2 carbine.

302
00:19:31,500 --> 00:19:33,500
And I think he was more nervous
than I was.

303
00:19:33,590 --> 00:19:37,130
And he shot me right
where the M60 had shot me.

304
00:19:37,220 --> 00:19:40,340
And it went right through
my neck and came out the back.

305
00:19:40,430 --> 00:19:44,890
And they tied my arms
very tightly in commo wire.

306
00:19:45,020 --> 00:19:48,770
He went through my wallet and he
took my Geneva Convention card,

307
00:19:48,850 --> 00:19:51,060
which was white
with a red cross.

308
00:19:51,150 --> 00:19:52,560
And he tore it up.

309
00:19:52,650 --> 00:19:58,320
And he said, in English,
"No P.O.W.

310
00:19:58,450 --> 00:20:00,360
Criminal.
Criminal."

311
00:20:00,450 --> 00:20:03,910
So then they took my boots.

312
00:20:04,030 --> 00:20:07,450
And we started marching.

313
00:20:07,540 --> 00:20:09,920
And then we walked for a month.

314
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:16,590
30 days, almost always at night.

315
00:20:16,710 --> 00:20:20,180
And my feet were
just lacerated.

316
00:20:20,260 --> 00:20:23,600
I didn't think
I could possibly survive.

317
00:20:28,930 --> 00:20:31,690
NGUYEN NGOC:

318
00:20:52,670 --> 00:20:54,290
NARRATOR:
By January 30,

319
00:20:54,380 --> 00:20:59,420
an informal 36-hour truce
for Tet was in effect.

320
00:20:59,510 --> 00:21:04,140
Thousands of ARVN troops had
gone home for the holiday.

321
00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:08,520
The enemy had not.

322
00:21:09,770 --> 00:21:12,940
NGUYEN VAN TONG:

323
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:39,250
NARRATOR:
That same day,
Marine Corporal Roger Harris

324
00:21:39,340 --> 00:21:42,670
was scheduled
to fly out of Vietnam.

325
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:45,680
His 13-month tour was over.

326
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:49,010
But he and his unit were
still hunkered down

327
00:21:49,140 --> 00:21:54,770
under constant shelling at Camp
Carroll, just south of the DMZ.

328
00:21:56,650 --> 00:21:58,480
HARRIS:
Well, once I had my orders,
you know,

329
00:21:58,570 --> 00:22:00,860
I said goodbye
to all my friends.

330
00:22:00,940 --> 00:22:04,150
And then I went over
to the landing zone.

331
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,200
So when the helicopters come in,

332
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:10,160
I put the body bags
on the helicopter.

333
00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:12,450
And I got on with the bodies.

334
00:22:14,580 --> 00:22:17,170
We landed in Dong Ha,
which was division headquarters.

335
00:22:17,250 --> 00:22:20,710
And we got about 200 meters
from the airstrip,

336
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:23,300
the airstrip started
getting hit.

337
00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:29,140
I'm just thinking
personally that God realizes

338
00:22:29,260 --> 00:22:31,890
that he made a mistake because
some of the guys that got killed

339
00:22:32,020 --> 00:22:34,940
that were with me were good
Christians that never had sex,

340
00:22:35,020 --> 00:22:36,810
didn't swear, you know.

341
00:22:36,940 --> 00:22:39,690
And, you know,
I had been this sinner.

342
00:22:39,770 --> 00:22:42,690
And I'm thinking
God realized he made a mistake.

343
00:22:42,780 --> 00:22:45,860
He killed the Christians
and I got away.

344
00:22:45,950 --> 00:22:48,240
And so now
Death is following me.

345
00:22:49,910 --> 00:22:51,580
And they told us
that in another hour or so

346
00:22:51,700 --> 00:22:53,250
a plane was going to come in.

347
00:22:53,370 --> 00:22:56,750
When it came in, then the
artillery started coming in.

348
00:22:56,870 --> 00:22:59,540
And we jumped on and took off.

349
00:23:01,670 --> 00:23:03,590
And it landed in Danang.

350
00:23:03,710 --> 00:23:06,510
And then the sun came up
and we went to the airstrip

351
00:23:06,630 --> 00:23:07,590
and we boarded airplanes.

352
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:09,430
And we were sitting there.

353
00:23:09,510 --> 00:23:12,640
Everybody's giving each other
pounds and slapping five.

354
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:14,220
We made it.

355
00:23:14,310 --> 00:23:15,850
And then all of a sudden...

356
00:23:15,930 --> 00:23:19,060
(imitates whistles
and explosions)

357
00:23:19,150 --> 00:23:25,110
Danang airstrip starts getting
hit, artillery's coming in.

358
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:29,160
And I'm thinking,
"It's all coming after me."

359
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:31,950
It's all about me, you know.

360
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:34,750
God doesn't want me to make it
out of here.

361
00:23:36,410 --> 00:23:41,500
NARRATOR:
In the early morning hours
of January 31, 1968,

362
00:23:41,590 --> 00:23:46,170
84,000 Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese troops attacked

363
00:23:46,260 --> 00:23:50,840
36 of South Vietnam's
44 provincial capitals,

364
00:23:50,930 --> 00:23:54,140
dozens of American and ARVN
military bases

365
00:23:54,220 --> 00:23:57,310
and the six largest cities
in the country,

366
00:23:57,430 --> 00:24:00,650
including Hue, Danang,
and Saigon.

367
00:24:00,770 --> 00:24:02,270
(automatic gunfire)

368
00:24:02,360 --> 00:24:04,650
Their goal, their commanders
told them,

369
00:24:04,780 --> 00:24:08,240
was to "crack the sky
and shake the earth."

370
00:24:12,570 --> 00:24:16,330
(shouting, explosions)

371
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:24,670
In Saigon, General Westmoreland
mistook the first explosions

372
00:24:24,750 --> 00:24:26,420
as holiday firecrackers.

373
00:24:30,340 --> 00:24:33,850
His deputy commander,
General Creighton W. Abrams,

374
00:24:33,930 --> 00:24:38,310
was asleep, and his aides did
not bother to wake him.

375
00:24:38,430 --> 00:24:42,770
Not a single top commander was
present at "Pentagon East,"

376
00:24:42,850 --> 00:24:46,440
the sprawling MACV headquarters
at Tan Son Nhut Air Base

377
00:24:46,530 --> 00:24:48,690
on the outskirts of Saigon,

378
00:24:48,780 --> 00:24:52,740
when mortars and rockets began
cratering the runways.

379
00:25:17,310 --> 00:25:18,770
It's moving.

380
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:37,830
NARRATOR:
Viet Cong soldiers spread out
to attack specific targets

381
00:25:37,910 --> 00:25:39,620
in and around the capital.

382
00:25:39,740 --> 00:25:44,580
The war had come to the streets
of Saigon.

383
00:25:44,710 --> 00:25:48,670
Had General Weyand not insisted
on stationing troops

384
00:25:48,750 --> 00:25:50,010
around the city,

385
00:25:50,090 --> 00:25:54,130
Saigon itself would have been
in far greater danger.

386
00:25:57,050 --> 00:25:59,930
DUONG VAN MAI ELLIOTT:
We heard gunfire

387
00:26:00,020 --> 00:26:03,890
and our first reaction was,
"Must be another coup d'état."

388
00:26:03,980 --> 00:26:05,350
(gunfire)

389
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,770
And then we heard that the
Viet Cong had attacked Saigon

390
00:26:09,860 --> 00:26:11,320
and were still attacking.

391
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:15,450
It came as a total shock
because we always thought

392
00:26:15,570 --> 00:26:20,540
Saigon was safe, the safest
place in all of South Vietnam.

393
00:26:25,540 --> 00:26:28,040
NARRATOR:
One Viet Cong squad made it

394
00:26:28,130 --> 00:26:29,880
all the way to the
Presidential Palace,

395
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,220
but was stopped by
South Vietnamese tanks.

396
00:26:36,510 --> 00:26:39,800
The survivors holed up in
a building across the street

397
00:26:39,930 --> 00:26:44,140
and were shot by ARVN troops
and American MPs.

398
00:26:47,850 --> 00:26:54,530
All over Saigon, nothing was
going according to plan.

399
00:26:54,610 --> 00:26:59,070
Viet Cong units were taking
heavy losses from U.S. troops

400
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,330
and determined South Vietnamese
forces.

401
00:27:11,380 --> 00:27:14,130
(shouting)

402
00:27:17,220 --> 00:27:19,010
NGUYEN THANH TUNG:

403
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:46,620
(indistinct chatter on radio)

404
00:28:00,090 --> 00:28:02,010
("The Blue Danube"
playing on radio)

405
00:28:02,100 --> 00:28:03,890
DON WEBSTER:
This is the main Vietnamese
language radio station

406
00:28:04,010 --> 00:28:05,270
in Saigon.

407
00:28:05,350 --> 00:28:08,390
And right now there are an
undisclosed number of VC inside

408
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:09,640
occupying the station.

409
00:28:09,730 --> 00:28:12,310
NARRATOR:
The Viet Cong managed to seize

410
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:15,150
South Vietnam's national
radio station

411
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:19,240
and prepared to broadcast a
taped message from Ho Chi Minh

412
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,450
calling upon the people
to rise up.

413
00:28:23,870 --> 00:28:27,040
But a technician radioed
to the transmitting tower

414
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,920
to cut them off and broadcast
Viennese waltzes

415
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,340
and Beatles songs instead.

416
00:28:33,460 --> 00:28:35,960
("Tomorrow Never Knows"
by the Beatles playing)

417
00:28:36,050 --> 00:28:41,630
♪ Turn off your mind, relax,
and float downstream ♪

418
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,010
♪ It is not dying

419
00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:49,930
♪ It is not dying

420
00:28:50,060 --> 00:28:56,820
♪ But listen to the color
of your dreams ♪

421
00:28:56,940 --> 00:29:05,530
♪ It is not living,
it is not living ♪

422
00:29:05,620 --> 00:29:07,240
(song continues)

423
00:29:15,210 --> 00:29:19,960
NARRATOR:
The Saigon suburb of Bien Hoa
was under attack, too.

424
00:29:20,050 --> 00:29:23,640
Enemy forces were assaulting
both the airbase there

425
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:25,300
and Long Binh,

426
00:29:25,390 --> 00:29:29,470
the largest American
installation in Vietnam.

427
00:29:32,020 --> 00:29:37,480
BRADY:
There were VC moving on
the house, moving everywhere.

428
00:29:37,570 --> 00:29:41,740
A lot of shooting,
a lot of confusion going on.

429
00:29:41,860 --> 00:29:44,530
And we were shooting
out the window.

430
00:29:44,610 --> 00:29:47,410
And my wife was reloading.

431
00:29:47,490 --> 00:29:49,990
When we ran out of ammunition,
we'd sli...

432
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,750
slide the magazine
down the tiles

433
00:29:53,870 --> 00:29:55,670
and she was down there
at the other end

434
00:29:55,750 --> 00:29:58,340
filling 'em up
and sliding 'em back.

435
00:30:00,380 --> 00:30:03,170
NARRATOR:
Viet Cong commandos managed
to slip through the wire

436
00:30:03,300 --> 00:30:07,640
at Long Binh and blow up
a huge ammunition dump.

437
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:11,350
A mushroom cloud rose above
the airfield,

438
00:30:11,470 --> 00:30:14,060
so vast that some of the
Americans thought there had been

439
00:30:14,140 --> 00:30:16,190
a nuclear explosion.

440
00:30:16,270 --> 00:30:19,770
The blast blew off the door
of Brady's building.

441
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:26,490
BRADY:
They went up against the wire
in Long Binh

442
00:30:26,570 --> 00:30:28,370
and paid a frightful price.

443
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:32,290
There were just layers
of bodies.

444
00:30:32,410 --> 00:30:34,910
The Americans
just cut them down.

445
00:30:37,540 --> 00:30:38,710
Hi, this is Johnny Carson.

446
00:30:38,790 --> 00:30:40,210
As you know, this is
the usual starting time

447
00:30:40,340 --> 00:30:41,630
for the<i>Tonight Show.</i>

448
00:30:41,710 --> 00:30:45,380
But because of the critical
war situation in Vietnam,

449
00:30:45,510 --> 00:30:48,600
especially around Saigon,
NBC, for the next 15 minutes,

450
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,640
is going to bring you a special
news program via satellite.

451
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:53,640
Just after midnight their time,

452
00:30:53,730 --> 00:30:56,480
a band of Viet Cong raiders
blew up a power installation

453
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:58,770
and attacked two police stations
in Saigon.

454
00:30:58,900 --> 00:31:01,520
It all amounts to the most
ambitious series

455
00:31:01,610 --> 00:31:03,440
of communist attacks
yet mounted,

456
00:31:03,570 --> 00:31:06,240
spreading violence into at least
ten provincial capitals,

457
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:09,120
plus American air bases
and civilian installations

458
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,280
stretching the entire
length of the country.

459
00:31:11,410 --> 00:31:14,250
None had greater
psychological impact

460
00:31:14,370 --> 00:31:16,960
than the assault on the
American embassy in Saigon.

461
00:31:20,210 --> 00:31:22,550
NARRATOR:
In the first few hours
of the fighting,

462
00:31:22,670 --> 00:31:26,590
19 specially trained commandos
had blasted their way

463
00:31:26,670 --> 00:31:31,220
into the sprawling compound
of the United States embassy.

464
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:36,940
DON NORTH:
There's a... there's a rush,
they're rushing the embassy.

465
00:31:37,060 --> 00:31:39,350
That's fire coming from the
other side of the street now,

466
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:40,690
outside the embassy.

467
00:31:40,770 --> 00:31:42,360
They're exchanging
across the street.

468
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:44,280
You can see the tracer
bullets going past.

469
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,490
(explosions, gunfire, shouting)

470
00:31:46,570 --> 00:31:48,780
That's outside the embassy.

471
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:54,240
MAN (on radio):<i>
Uh, this is Waco, roger.</i>

472
00:31:54,330 --> 00:31:56,870
<i>Uh, can you get in
the gates now?</i>

473
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:58,750
<i>Are the gates open and
can you take a force in there</i>

474
00:31:58,870 --> 00:32:00,830
<i>and clean out
that embassy right now?</i>

475
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:02,880
(shouting)

476
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,060
NORTH:
Apparently the Viet Cong
are trapped in the basement

477
00:32:19,140 --> 00:32:23,400
of this side building,
an incredible situation.

478
00:32:29,820 --> 00:32:32,570
Heavy firing,
incoming and outgoing.

479
00:32:32,660 --> 00:32:36,740
Don North, ABC News,
at the U.S. embassy, in Saigon.

480
00:32:36,830 --> 00:32:42,040
NARRATOR:
All of the intruders were
eventually killed or captured.

481
00:32:43,420 --> 00:32:45,630
NORTH:
What a sight.

482
00:32:45,710 --> 00:32:49,880
A small frog hopping through
a pool of blood

483
00:32:50,010 --> 00:32:54,350
that's issuing from the head
of a Viet Cong,

484
00:32:54,470 --> 00:33:00,440
lying on the green grassy lawn
of the U.S. embassy.

485
00:33:04,940 --> 00:33:07,780
NGUYEN VAN TONG:

486
00:33:23,250 --> 00:33:27,550
NARRATOR:
An American Marine
and four Army MPs were killed

487
00:33:27,630 --> 00:33:29,170
at the embassy.

488
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,300
REPORTER:
General, how would you assess

489
00:33:33,380 --> 00:33:34,930
yesterday's activities
and today's?

490
00:33:35,010 --> 00:33:36,970
What is the enemy doing?
Are these major attacks?

491
00:33:37,060 --> 00:33:38,640
Or...
(explosion)

492
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:46,310
That's E.O.D. setting off a
couple of M-79 duds, I believe.

493
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:50,190
The enemy, very deceitfully,

494
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:53,660
has taken advantage
of the Tet truce,

495
00:33:53,740 --> 00:34:00,620
in order to, uh... create
maximum consternation.

496
00:34:00,750 --> 00:34:03,080
In my opinion,
this is diversionary...

497
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:07,040
NARRATOR:
Early wire service dispatches
reported incorrectly

498
00:34:07,130 --> 00:34:11,670
that the Viet Cong had made it
inside the embassy itself.

499
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,840
REPORTER:
Embassy ID cards were found
on some of the Viet Cong.

500
00:34:14,970 --> 00:34:17,430
NARRATOR:
And the first television footage
did little

501
00:34:17,510 --> 00:34:21,560
to reassure the American public.

502
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:23,020
REPORTER:
Is Saigon secure right now?

503
00:34:23,140 --> 00:34:26,150
Saigon's secure
as far as I know.

504
00:34:26,230 --> 00:34:27,480
There's no more
fighting in the streets?

505
00:34:27,610 --> 00:34:28,820
There may be some
in the outskirts still.

506
00:34:28,900 --> 00:34:31,730
I'm not sure, don't know.

507
00:34:31,820 --> 00:34:33,190
I'm not sure
about that, no.

508
00:34:35,070 --> 00:34:37,870
NARRATOR:
Saigon was far from secure.

509
00:34:37,950 --> 00:34:39,870
(shouting)

510
00:34:57,340 --> 00:34:59,350
(no voice)

511
00:35:04,350 --> 00:35:07,310
(distant, echoing gunfire)

512
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:08,440
(screaming)

513
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:10,440
Viet Cong assassination squads,

514
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:14,530
some guided by
North Vietnamese spies,

515
00:35:14,610 --> 00:35:18,570
moved through the streets with
orders to kill what they called

516
00:35:18,700 --> 00:35:20,580
"blood" enemies of the people...

517
00:35:20,660 --> 00:35:22,740
(gunfire, screaming)

518
00:35:22,870 --> 00:35:28,620
bureaucrats, intelligence
officers, ARVN commanders,

519
00:35:28,710 --> 00:35:33,090
and ordinary soldiers home on
leave, and their families.

520
00:35:33,170 --> 00:35:37,470
DUONG VAN MAI ELLIOTT:
I went home to visit
my parents

521
00:35:37,550 --> 00:35:41,350
and I found them kind of huddled
in their house, the doors shut,

522
00:35:41,430 --> 00:35:43,640
the windows shut, very dark.

523
00:35:43,720 --> 00:35:46,810
They were very afraid because
our house was located

524
00:35:46,930 --> 00:35:48,600
near a slum.

525
00:35:48,690 --> 00:35:52,440
And we always assumed that there
were a lot of Viet Cong agents

526
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:57,200
living among the poor where
they could hide very easily,

527
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,240
and that they were
going to come out

528
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,240
and look for
government officials,

529
00:36:03,370 --> 00:36:06,410
military personnel to kill.

530
00:36:06,540 --> 00:36:09,580
So my parents were very afraid.

531
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,880
NGUYEN TAI:

532
00:36:31,690 --> 00:36:35,400
(gunfight)

533
00:36:47,660 --> 00:36:49,330
NARRATOR:
On the second day
of the fighting,

534
00:36:49,410 --> 00:36:53,080
a Viet Cong agent named
Nguyen Van Lem

535
00:36:53,170 --> 00:36:56,170
was brought before
Nguyen Ngoc Loan,

536
00:36:56,250 --> 00:36:59,470
the head of the South Vietnamese
National Police.

537
00:36:59,550 --> 00:37:04,010
As an AP photographer
and an NBC cameraman watched,

538
00:37:04,140 --> 00:37:08,020
Loan ordered another officer
to shoot the captive.

539
00:37:08,100 --> 00:37:11,940
When he hesitated,
Loan did the job himself.

540
00:37:26,660 --> 00:37:29,870
HOWARD TUCKNER:
The Chief of South Vietnam's
National Police Force,

541
00:37:29,950 --> 00:37:33,670
Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc
Loan, was waiting for him.

542
00:37:54,350 --> 00:37:56,440
JACK HORNER:
Good morning,
Mr. President.

543
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:58,190
JOHNSON:
Hi, Jack.

544
00:37:58,270 --> 00:38:00,150
Uh, we need guidance
this morning, sir.

545
00:38:00,230 --> 00:38:02,820
Guidance?
Uh, is that all you want?

546
00:38:02,950 --> 00:38:04,410
Yes, sir.
No quotation?

547
00:38:04,490 --> 00:38:05,950
That's right.
No attribution.

548
00:38:06,070 --> 00:38:07,070
No connection.

549
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:08,580
Give it absolutely none.

550
00:38:08,700 --> 00:38:10,160
Absolutely none.

551
00:38:10,240 --> 00:38:12,790
Your press is lying
like drunken sailors every day.

552
00:38:12,910 --> 00:38:18,250
Uh, first thing I wake up this
morning was trying to figure out

553
00:38:18,340 --> 00:38:20,590
after seeing CBS,
watching the networks,

554
00:38:20,670 --> 00:38:23,970
reading the morning papers,
was how can we win--

555
00:38:24,050 --> 00:38:26,510
possibly win--
and survive as a nation

556
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:28,470
and have to fight
the press's lies.

557
00:38:28,550 --> 00:38:29,850
Yes, sir.

558
00:38:29,970 --> 00:38:31,140
I'm trying
to protect my country,

559
00:38:31,270 --> 00:38:32,520
and they're all whipping me.

560
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,310
Not a son of a bitch said
a word about Ho Chi Minh.

561
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,310
They talk about us bombing,
yet these sons of bitches

562
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,690
come in and bomb our embassy
and 19 of them try a raid on it.

563
00:38:41,780 --> 00:38:46,030
All 19 get killed and
yet they blame the embassy.

564
00:38:46,110 --> 00:38:47,200
(chuckles)

565
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,080
I don't understand it.

566
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,910
We think we've killed 20,000;
we think we lost 400.

567
00:38:51,990 --> 00:38:55,750
We think that of course
it's bad to lose anybody,

568
00:38:55,870 --> 00:38:57,540
any one of the 400,

569
00:38:57,630 --> 00:39:00,130
but we think that the Good Lord
has been so good to us

570
00:39:00,210 --> 00:39:03,760
that it is a major,
dramatic victory.

571
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:05,510
And I think what
would have happened

572
00:39:05,590 --> 00:39:07,680
if I'd lost 20,000
and they'd lost 400?

573
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:08,640
I ask you that.

574
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:09,850
Oh, it would've
been terrible.

575
00:39:09,930 --> 00:39:11,060
(explosion)

576
00:39:11,140 --> 00:39:15,100
It appears that a mortar
or a rocket shell came in

577
00:39:15,180 --> 00:39:19,440
and, well,
there's blood on my pants.

578
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:21,690
And I guess I'm... I'm hit.

579
00:39:21,770 --> 00:39:24,490
Well, this is
the streets of Saigon,

580
00:39:24,570 --> 00:39:27,780
and that's where the war is now.

581
00:39:27,910 --> 00:39:29,530
Howard Tuckner, NBC News.

582
00:39:32,660 --> 00:39:36,710
NARRATOR:
The American press focused
almost entirely

583
00:39:36,830 --> 00:39:39,210
on the fighting in Saigon.

584
00:39:39,330 --> 00:39:43,090
But the Tet Offensive was
happening almost everywhere.

585
00:39:45,210 --> 00:39:48,430
Most assaults were being quickly
beaten back by ARVN

586
00:39:48,510 --> 00:39:51,140
and American forces.

587
00:39:51,220 --> 00:39:55,730
Everywhere the enemy was
suffering terrible losses.

588
00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:09,990
(gunfire)

589
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:19,870
LE VAN CHO:

590
00:40:44,730 --> 00:40:49,030
NARRATOR:
The Americans called in massive
air and artillery firepower

591
00:40:49,110 --> 00:40:53,410
to dislodge a Viet Cong regiment
from the city of Ben Tre

592
00:40:53,490 --> 00:40:55,790
in the Mekong Delta.

593
00:40:55,910 --> 00:41:00,660
Afterwards, a reporter quoted an
American major as having said,

594
00:41:00,790 --> 00:41:07,460
"It became necessary
to destroy the town to save it."

595
00:41:07,550 --> 00:41:14,010
Right now, the Navy and the Army
boats that also bring supplies

596
00:41:14,100 --> 00:41:17,810
up the Perfume River are having
to undergo heavy small arms

597
00:41:17,890 --> 00:41:20,140
and mortar fire as they turn
the bend in the river

598
00:41:20,230 --> 00:41:22,140
here around Hue itself.

599
00:41:22,230 --> 00:41:24,610
And the landing zone on this
the south side of the river

600
00:41:24,690 --> 00:41:27,860
has been under almost constant
mortar and small arms fire.

601
00:41:27,940 --> 00:41:31,240
And today, at any rate,
Hue is cut off.

602
00:41:35,570 --> 00:41:38,740
NARRATOR:
The longest, bloodiest battle
of the Tet Offensive

603
00:41:38,870 --> 00:41:40,790
was being fought in the streets

604
00:41:40,910 --> 00:41:43,670
of one of the country's
loveliest cities,

605
00:41:43,750 --> 00:41:47,460
the former imperial capital Hue.

606
00:41:47,550 --> 00:41:49,760
(gunfire)

607
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:55,850
(shouting, gunfire)

608
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,770
The Perfume River
divided Hue in two.

609
00:42:06,860 --> 00:42:09,940
The enemy--
North Vietnamese regulars

610
00:42:10,070 --> 00:42:11,860
and Viet Cong guerrillas--

611
00:42:11,940 --> 00:42:14,910
had taken over both sides
of the city.

612
00:42:15,030 --> 00:42:18,870
Only the American advisers'
compound on the south bank

613
00:42:18,950 --> 00:42:21,450
and the 1st ARVN division
headquarters

614
00:42:21,540 --> 00:42:24,790
within the thick-walled Citadel
on the north side

615
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:26,670
held out against them.

616
00:42:36,890 --> 00:42:39,930
NGUYEN NGOC:

617
00:43:03,910 --> 00:43:07,670
NARRATOR:
Marine Corporal Bill Ehrhart
was at the end of his tour

618
00:43:07,790 --> 00:43:10,040
and was preparing to go home.

619
00:43:10,130 --> 00:43:12,210
But when his company was ordered

620
00:43:12,340 --> 00:43:15,970
to relieve the besieged
American compound in Hue,

621
00:43:16,050 --> 00:43:19,220
he chose to go
with his comrades.

622
00:43:19,350 --> 00:43:23,310
EHRHART:
I had spent 12 months in Vietnam
looking for somebody to shoot at

623
00:43:23,390 --> 00:43:26,270
and there was nobody there.

624
00:43:26,350 --> 00:43:29,310
And then all of a sudden

625
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,860
it seemed like here's
every NVA in the world

626
00:43:32,940 --> 00:43:35,530
trying to kill me and my pals.

627
00:43:35,610 --> 00:43:39,570
It was an entirely different
kind of fight.

628
00:43:49,460 --> 00:43:52,800
NARRATOR:
Ehrhart and his unit endured
a bloody ambush,

629
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,510
finally fought their way through
to the MACV compound,

630
00:43:56,630 --> 00:44:01,010
and then began days of
brutal block-by-block battle

631
00:44:01,100 --> 00:44:03,720
to retake the surrounding
neighborhoods.

632
00:44:04,890 --> 00:44:07,270
Every house became
a battlefield.

633
00:44:17,740 --> 00:44:21,070
"It was exhilarating,"
Ehrhart remembered.

634
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:24,330
"I was scared utterly witless,

635
00:44:24,410 --> 00:44:26,870
"but it was the greatest
adrenaline high

636
00:44:26,950 --> 00:44:29,540
I'd ever experienced."

637
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,040
EHRHART:
It was ugly, ugly fighting.

638
00:44:34,170 --> 00:44:37,420
You literally have to clear
houses a room at a time,

639
00:44:37,510 --> 00:44:40,300
a floor at a time,
a house at a time.

640
00:44:40,380 --> 00:44:43,430
And then you go to the next one.

641
00:44:44,970 --> 00:44:48,100
NGUYEN THI HOA:

642
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,300
(gunfire)

643
00:45:26,930 --> 00:45:30,140
(soldier yelling instructions
over deafening gunfight)

644
00:45:30,230 --> 00:45:32,190
(gunfight grows louder)

645
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:37,940
(explosion, then silence)

646
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,910
February 5, I was wounded
by a B40 rocket.

647
00:45:46,490 --> 00:45:48,410
I was utterly stone deaf.

648
00:45:51,660 --> 00:45:55,670
Under any other circumstances
I would have been evacuated.

649
00:45:55,790 --> 00:46:00,340
But I could see, I could walk,
and I could shoot.

650
00:46:00,420 --> 00:46:01,630
So I stayed.

651
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,640
(distant, muffled gunfire)

652
00:46:18,230 --> 00:46:21,570
(heartbeat grows louder
over muted din)

653
00:46:21,690 --> 00:46:23,990
(explosion, shouting)

654
00:46:30,620 --> 00:46:32,540
NARRATOR:
The fighting continued.

655
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:38,340
(gunshots whizzing, soldiers
cacophonously screaming in pain)

656
00:46:38,420 --> 00:46:43,090
"We had to blow our way through
every wall of every house,"

657
00:46:43,170 --> 00:46:44,680
one Marine remembered.

658
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:50,140
"It's a shame we had to damage
such a beautiful city."

659
00:46:52,270 --> 00:46:54,810
EHRHART:
Of course, all these civilians
have been herded

660
00:46:54,940 --> 00:46:56,770
into the university.

661
00:46:56,850 --> 00:46:59,980
They had all gone there
to get the hell away

662
00:47:00,070 --> 00:47:01,980
from having grenades
thrown in their living rooms.

663
00:47:02,070 --> 00:47:04,610
And one of the guys
comes in and says,

664
00:47:04,740 --> 00:47:11,160
"I found this-this girl who will
fuck us all for C rations."

665
00:47:11,240 --> 00:47:12,790
And I'm thinking,

666
00:47:12,910 --> 00:47:15,040
"Wait, we're in the middle
of this big battle

667
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,290
and I'm gonna go and..."

668
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:26,090
But I'm 19 years old and my
buddies are gonna, and I just...

669
00:47:26,180 --> 00:47:30,720
I demonstrated to myself how
little courage I actually had.

670
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:35,600
I've lived with it ever since,
but I-I-I did it

671
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:37,140
because I wasn't gonna say,

672
00:47:37,270 --> 00:47:40,770
"You guys, we shouldn't do
something like this."

673
00:47:40,860 --> 00:47:45,070
Even more than the killings,

674
00:47:45,190 --> 00:47:48,320
the thing I think I'm most
ashamed of

675
00:47:48,410 --> 00:47:52,910
when I think back on the time
I spent there.

676
00:47:52,990 --> 00:48:00,580
I think it's because my mother's
a woman, my wife's a woman,

677
00:48:00,670 --> 00:48:03,550
my daughter's a woman.

678
00:48:03,670 --> 00:48:05,300
(sighs)

679
00:48:10,470 --> 00:48:14,100
Somebody gets shot,
not a good thing.

680
00:48:14,180 --> 00:48:16,810
You see somebody running away,

681
00:48:16,930 --> 00:48:20,400
I don't know,
it could've been a VC.

682
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:22,150
But that woman?

683
00:48:23,730 --> 00:48:26,150
Nah.

684
00:48:26,240 --> 00:48:28,950
I had every opportunity
to say no.

685
00:48:29,070 --> 00:48:31,740
(gunfire)

686
00:48:31,820 --> 00:48:36,040
NARRATOR:
The next day, in the midst
of still another firefight,

687
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:39,540
a lieutenant in a jeep pulled up
in front of the building

688
00:48:39,670 --> 00:48:43,090
from which Ehrhart and five
fellow Marines were firing

689
00:48:43,170 --> 00:48:44,630
at the enemy.

690
00:48:44,710 --> 00:48:47,670
"Come on, Ehrhart!" he shouted.

691
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:49,680
"Chopper's on the LZ right now.

692
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:52,340
You want to go home or not?"

693
00:48:54,510 --> 00:48:57,470
From the helicopter that lifted
him up and away

694
00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,430
from the ruined,
smoking city,

695
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:01,980
he could see a farmer
and his water buffalo

696
00:49:02,100 --> 00:49:04,440
working a flooded field

697
00:49:04,570 --> 00:49:08,400
and women in conical hats
carrying twin baskets

698
00:49:08,490 --> 00:49:13,490
hurrying along between the
paddies as if there were no war.

699
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:21,120
Back in Hue, the Viet Cong
and North Vietnamese troops

700
00:49:21,210 --> 00:49:25,340
now found themselves
trapped inside the city.

701
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:28,960
NGUYEN NGOC:

702
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:43,350
(gunfire)

703
00:49:46,940 --> 00:49:48,320
NARRATOR:
It would take two weeks

704
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:51,110
for the Marines to fight
their way across the river

705
00:49:51,240 --> 00:49:53,860
to support the ARVN,

706
00:49:53,950 --> 00:49:55,370
who had stubbornly
kept the enemy

707
00:49:55,450 --> 00:49:59,870
from overwhelming their division
headquarters in the Citadel.

708
00:50:19,770 --> 00:50:22,730
DAVID BURRINGTON:
What's the hardest part of it?

709
00:50:22,810 --> 00:50:25,270
Not knowing where they are,
that's the worst of it.

710
00:50:25,350 --> 00:50:27,270
Riding around and running
in the sewers, in the gutters,

711
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:28,440
anywhere.

712
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:30,070
Could be anywhere.

713
00:50:30,190 --> 00:50:31,940
Just hoping to stay alive
and day to day.

714
00:50:32,030 --> 00:50:33,900
Everybody just wants to go back
home and go to school.

715
00:50:33,990 --> 00:50:35,240
That's about it.

716
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:36,240
Have you lost
any friends?

717
00:50:36,370 --> 00:50:37,490
Quite a few.

718
00:50:37,570 --> 00:50:39,790
We lost one the other day,
good buddy of mine.

719
00:50:39,910 --> 00:50:41,240
The whole thing stinks, really.

720
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:50,460
(gunfire, shouting)

721
00:50:56,430 --> 00:50:58,100
HO HUU LAN:

722
00:51:07,810 --> 00:51:08,810
He's still alive.

723
00:51:18,370 --> 00:51:23,120
NGUYEN THI HOA:

724
00:51:41,720 --> 00:51:45,020
NARRATOR:
After 26 days of bitter,
bloody fighting,

725
00:51:45,140 --> 00:51:50,310
the flag of South Vietnam
flew again above the Citadel.

726
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:54,230
The surviving North Vietnamese
and Viet Cong

727
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:56,700
were finally permitted
by their commanders

728
00:51:56,780 --> 00:51:58,610
to pull out of the city.

729
00:51:58,740 --> 00:52:03,410
Some 6,000 civilians
had died in the rubble.

730
00:52:03,490 --> 00:52:11,210
Of the city's 135,000 citizens,
110,000 had lost their homes.

731
00:52:14,670 --> 00:52:17,630
All that was left of Hue,
one reporter wrote,

732
00:52:17,720 --> 00:52:20,840
was "ruins divided by a river."

733
00:52:23,140 --> 00:52:24,720
JOHNSON (on TV):
The biggest fact is

734
00:52:24,810 --> 00:52:28,730
that the stated purposes
of the General Uprising--

735
00:52:28,810 --> 00:52:32,650
a military victory
or a psychological victory--

736
00:52:32,770 --> 00:52:34,230
have failed.

737
00:52:35,690 --> 00:52:37,240
DON WEBSTER:
The attack on the radio station

738
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:39,240
started at 2:30 in the morning.

739
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:42,410
NARRATOR:
Night after night for weeks,

740
00:52:42,490 --> 00:52:46,290
American television screens had
been filled with images

741
00:52:46,410 --> 00:52:49,160
of blood and violence
and devastation

742
00:52:49,290 --> 00:52:51,960
the public had
rarely seen before.

743
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:54,960
GEORGE SYVERTSON:
The enemy was nowhere
and everywhere.

744
00:52:55,050 --> 00:52:58,760
NARRATOR:
But it was one photograph
that for many people

745
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:01,840
would come to define
the Tet Offensive.

746
00:53:06,260 --> 00:53:10,020
SAM HYNES:
I remember he was wearing
a checked shirt.

747
00:53:10,140 --> 00:53:14,730
And the photographer
had come up very close

748
00:53:14,820 --> 00:53:16,270
and had pressed his shutter

749
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:20,900
just as the officer
pulled his trigger.

750
00:53:20,990 --> 00:53:23,700
So camera and gun
went off together

751
00:53:23,780 --> 00:53:27,540
and you could see the man's head
bulging at the side

752
00:53:27,660 --> 00:53:31,410
where the bullet was
about to come out.

753
00:53:31,500 --> 00:53:35,040
We were there, face-to-face
with this man who was dying,

754
00:53:35,170 --> 00:53:36,420
right now, dead.

755
00:53:36,550 --> 00:53:40,130
JAMES WILLBANKS:
It's a devastating thing
to see.

756
00:53:40,220 --> 00:53:42,880
And I think many Americans began
to ask themselves,

757
00:53:43,010 --> 00:53:45,930
"Are we supporting
the wrong guys here?"

758
00:53:46,010 --> 00:53:50,810
And it sort of brings home,
I think to, to the dinner table,

759
00:53:50,930 --> 00:53:53,140
or the breakfast table if you
see it in the papers,

760
00:53:53,270 --> 00:53:55,310
the brutality of this war

761
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:58,480
and the fact that it looks like
it's never going to end.

762
00:53:58,570 --> 00:54:04,740
PHAN QUANG TUE:
But what we know is the price
that we pay for that picture.

763
00:54:04,870 --> 00:54:06,830
It was the turning point.

764
00:54:06,910 --> 00:54:10,750
Because that put the gov...
Americans to position and say,

765
00:54:10,830 --> 00:54:13,250
"Hey, look,
we want to spend money

766
00:54:13,370 --> 00:54:14,880
"and the lives
of our young people

767
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:16,880
to protect such a system?"

768
00:54:25,970 --> 00:54:29,390
NARRATOR:
For a month, Hal Kushner's
captors had made him walk

769
00:54:29,510 --> 00:54:32,600
deeper and deeper
into the Central Highlands,

770
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:34,310
always moving at night

771
00:54:34,390 --> 00:54:36,940
so that they would not be
spotted from the air.

772
00:54:39,020 --> 00:54:43,400
KUSHNER:
They took me to this place
that I assume was a hospital.

773
00:54:43,490 --> 00:54:44,820
It was just a series of caves

774
00:54:44,910 --> 00:54:47,870
but there were a lot
of wounded lying around.

775
00:54:47,950 --> 00:54:55,500
And this female nurse came out
and inspected my wound.

776
00:54:55,580 --> 00:54:59,880
And then she gave me
a bamboo stick to bite on.

777
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:03,340
She laid me down and she gave me
this bamboo stick to bite on.

778
00:55:03,470 --> 00:55:05,760
And then she took this
rifle-cleaning rod

779
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:08,430
and she heated it up in a fire
until it was red hot.

780
00:55:10,430 --> 00:55:12,350
And she took it and put it
through my wound

781
00:55:12,470 --> 00:55:14,390
through and through.

782
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:16,140
And it really hurt.

783
00:55:16,230 --> 00:55:19,110
It really, really, really hurt.

784
00:55:19,230 --> 00:55:21,860
And then she put
Mercurochrome on the wound.

785
00:55:21,940 --> 00:55:26,150
And she gave me
an aspirin tablet.

786
00:55:26,240 --> 00:55:31,030
And I... I thought,
what else can they do to me?

787
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:35,620
NARRATOR:
Kushner would eventually arrive
at a remote jungle camp,

788
00:55:35,710 --> 00:55:39,920
joining a handful of other
American prisoners.

789
00:55:42,050 --> 00:55:44,630
And this Vietnamese officer
came to me and he spoke English.

790
00:55:44,710 --> 00:55:47,840
And that was the first real
English speaker that I had seen.

791
00:55:47,930 --> 00:55:50,350
And he had a little reel-to-reel
tape recorder,

792
00:55:50,430 --> 00:55:52,970
battery-powered tape recorder.

793
00:55:53,060 --> 00:55:55,810
And he asked me to make
a message to my family

794
00:55:55,930 --> 00:55:58,600
to let them know
that I was safe.

795
00:55:58,690 --> 00:56:00,940
And I could do that if I would
make a statement

796
00:56:01,060 --> 00:56:03,190
against the war.

797
00:56:03,270 --> 00:56:06,740
And I told... I told him
with great bravado

798
00:56:06,820 --> 00:56:08,660
that I would rather die
than make a statement

799
00:56:08,740 --> 00:56:10,240
against my country.

800
00:56:10,370 --> 00:56:12,200
And he said to me,

801
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:17,210
"You will find
dying is very easy.

802
00:56:17,330 --> 00:56:20,670
"Living will be
the difficult thing.

803
00:56:20,790 --> 00:56:23,210
Living is the difficult thing."

804
00:56:26,630 --> 00:56:31,800
NARRATOR:
In early March, two weeks after
Hue had finally been recaptured,

805
00:56:31,890 --> 00:56:35,890
Second Lieutenant Phil Gioia
of the 82nd Airborne Division

806
00:56:35,970 --> 00:56:39,480
led his platoon
along the Perfume River,

807
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:41,730
looking for weapons that might
have been buried

808
00:56:41,810 --> 00:56:43,900
by the retreating enemy.

809
00:56:43,980 --> 00:56:47,900
Gioia's sergeant, Reuben Torres,

810
00:56:47,990 --> 00:56:50,860
saw something sticking up
from the sandy soil.

811
00:56:50,950 --> 00:56:54,620
It was an elbow.

812
00:56:54,740 --> 00:56:58,830
So to us it seemed as though
this was going to be a grave

813
00:56:58,910 --> 00:57:01,540
where the enemy had buried
some of his own people

814
00:57:01,620 --> 00:57:03,380
on the withdrawal from Hue.

815
00:57:03,500 --> 00:57:06,460
Sergeant Torres said,
"You know, sir,

816
00:57:06,550 --> 00:57:09,550
I think we better start
to dig here."

817
00:57:09,670 --> 00:57:13,640
We found the first body
and it was a woman.

818
00:57:13,720 --> 00:57:17,680
She was wearing a white blouse
and black trousers.

819
00:57:17,810 --> 00:57:19,810
She had her hands tied
behind her back

820
00:57:19,890 --> 00:57:22,850
and she'd been shot
in the back of the head.

821
00:57:22,940 --> 00:57:26,440
Next to her was a child,
who'd also been shot.

822
00:57:26,570 --> 00:57:31,700
The next person coming up
was another woman.

823
00:57:31,780 --> 00:57:35,030
At that point it was clear
that this-this wasn't

824
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:37,120
enemy North Vietnamese
or Viet Cong.

825
00:57:38,870 --> 00:57:41,960
NGUYEN NGOC:

826
00:57:59,140 --> 00:58:00,730
(gunfire)

827
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:04,440
NARRATOR:
Before they abandoned the city,

828
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:07,440
the communists had
systematically executed

829
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:11,950
at least 2,800 people
they called "hooligans"

830
00:58:12,070 --> 00:58:14,740
and "reactionaries."

831
00:58:14,820 --> 00:58:16,410
Hanoi would always deny

832
00:58:16,530 --> 00:58:19,870
that any innocent civilians
had been killed.

833
00:58:19,950 --> 00:58:21,910
(woman sobbing)

834
00:58:22,710 --> 00:58:24,370
NGUYEN NGOC:

835
00:58:49,980 --> 00:58:52,320
(woman wailing in grief)

836
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:56,910
HO HUU LAN:

837
00:59:25,770 --> 00:59:29,770
NARRATOR:
President Johnson insisted that
the Tet Offensive had been

838
00:59:29,860 --> 00:59:33,110
"a devastating defeat
for the communists."

839
00:59:33,230 --> 00:59:35,990
Militarily, he was right.

840
00:59:36,070 --> 00:59:40,120
The basic assumptions on which
the North Vietnamese mounted

841
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:43,700
their offensive had all
proved to be wrong.

842
00:59:43,790 --> 00:59:47,670
Hanoi's leaders had assumed
the ARVN would crumble,

843
00:59:47,750 --> 00:59:52,550
that South Vietnamese soldiers
would come over to their side.

844
00:59:52,670 --> 00:59:56,510
Instead, not a single unit
defected.

845
00:59:58,130 --> 01:00:02,100
The civilian populace
Hanoi expected to rise up

846
01:00:02,180 --> 01:00:04,640
may have been unhappy
with their government,

847
01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:08,650
but they had little sympathy
for communism,

848
01:00:08,730 --> 01:00:12,900
and when the fighting began,
they had hidden in their homes

849
01:00:12,980 --> 01:00:17,110
to escape the fury
in the streets.

850
01:00:17,990 --> 01:00:21,240
PHAM DUY TAT:

851
01:00:31,130 --> 01:00:35,630
NARRATOR:
North Vietnamese general
Vo Nguyen Giap,

852
01:00:35,710 --> 01:00:38,380
who had opposed the offensive
from the beginning,

853
01:00:38,510 --> 01:00:42,390
later remembered that Tet
had been a "costly lesson,

854
01:00:42,510 --> 01:00:46,720
paid for in blood and bone."

855
01:01:07,290 --> 01:01:11,000
NARRATOR:
Of the 84,000 enemy troops
who are estimated

856
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:14,500
to have taken part in the
Tet Offensive, more than half--

857
01:01:14,590 --> 01:01:20,220
as many as 58,000 men and women,
most of them Viet Cong--

858
01:01:20,340 --> 01:01:24,680
are thought to have been killed
or wounded or captured.

859
01:01:26,680 --> 01:01:29,890
JOHN LAURENCE:
The American military command
celebrated the Tet Offensive

860
01:01:29,980 --> 01:01:31,440
as a victory.

861
01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:34,610
You know, "They finally came at
us, and we blew them away,"

862
01:01:34,730 --> 01:01:37,110
which was basically true.

863
01:01:37,230 --> 01:01:40,610
But the administration had been
telling the American public

864
01:01:40,740 --> 01:01:45,370
for most of the end of '67 and
for the first month of 1968

865
01:01:45,450 --> 01:01:47,240
that the war was being won;

866
01:01:47,370 --> 01:01:52,370
that the NLF and the North
Vietnamese were ground down

867
01:01:52,460 --> 01:01:55,340
to such an extent that we could
see the end of the war,

868
01:01:55,420 --> 01:01:56,750
a victory.

869
01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:00,340
The Tet Offensive has forced
our generals to re-evaluate...

870
01:02:00,470 --> 01:02:04,340
So when Tet hit,
it contradicted everything

871
01:02:04,470 --> 01:02:07,350
that the administration
and the Saigon country team

872
01:02:07,470 --> 01:02:10,140
had been telling the American
public through its journalists

873
01:02:10,270 --> 01:02:12,350
for the previous
four or five months.

874
01:02:12,440 --> 01:02:15,270
John Laurence, CBS News, Saigon.

875
01:02:15,360 --> 01:02:17,190
("White Rabbit"
by Jefferson Airplane playing)

876
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:22,320
BRADY:
It broke the will of the United
States to fight that war.

877
01:02:22,450 --> 01:02:27,950
It was such a shock that it
stripped away the last vestiges

878
01:02:28,030 --> 01:02:31,790
of the fiction and fanciful
interpretations

879
01:02:31,910 --> 01:02:35,750
that had led us down this
primrose path into disaster.

880
01:02:35,880 --> 01:02:40,710
After that nobody
could be convinced.

881
01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:44,760
And then the most ferocious
possible argument erupted

882
01:02:44,840 --> 01:02:46,180
inside the U.S. government

883
01:02:46,300 --> 01:02:51,220
because the hawks on the war
were saying,

884
01:02:51,310 --> 01:02:56,650
"Tet was North Vietnam's
last gasp.

885
01:02:56,770 --> 01:02:59,940
"It was their last shot
at winning the war,

886
01:03:00,070 --> 01:03:01,780
"and they failed.

887
01:03:01,900 --> 01:03:06,110
We beat them,
and that's the end of them."

888
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:10,950
And we said,
"After all these years of war,

889
01:03:11,040 --> 01:03:13,540
"if that's what
they are able to do,

890
01:03:13,660 --> 01:03:17,920
"we ought to learn some lesson
about their commitment

891
01:03:18,040 --> 01:03:20,710
to this war as well
and the cost to us."

892
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:24,510
NARRATOR:
On March 10,
the<i>New York Times</i> reported

893
01:03:24,590 --> 01:03:29,300
that the Army was requesting
206,000 additional troops

894
01:03:29,390 --> 01:03:31,140
for Vietnam.

895
01:03:31,220 --> 01:03:33,930
But if the United States had
been winning the war,

896
01:03:34,020 --> 01:03:38,190
many Americans asked, if Tet had
in fact been a disaster

897
01:03:38,310 --> 01:03:42,360
for the enemy,
why were still more men needed?

898
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:45,950
More and more members
of the president's own party

899
01:03:46,070 --> 01:03:49,570
now felt free
to express their doubts.

900
01:03:49,660 --> 01:03:53,620
"Our enemy has finally shattered
the mask of official illusion,"

901
01:03:53,740 --> 01:03:56,120
Senator Robert Kennedy said.

902
01:03:56,210 --> 01:03:59,330
"Unable to defeat him
or break his will,

903
01:03:59,420 --> 01:04:03,340
we must actively seek
a peaceful settlement."

904
01:04:03,460 --> 01:04:05,170
...can cope with its problems.

905
01:04:05,260 --> 01:04:09,800
NARRATOR:
Walter Cronkite, the respected
anchor of the<i>CBS Evening News,</i>

906
01:04:09,890 --> 01:04:12,640
had come home from covering
the Tet Offensive

907
01:04:12,760 --> 01:04:16,810
convinced victory was
no longer possible.

908
01:04:16,930 --> 01:04:19,480
We have been too often
disappointed by the optimism

909
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:22,730
of the American leaders,
both in Vietnam and Washington,

910
01:04:22,820 --> 01:04:26,150
to have faith any longer
in the silver linings they find

911
01:04:26,240 --> 01:04:27,740
in the darkest clouds.

912
01:04:27,860 --> 01:04:32,070
To say that we are closer to
victory today is to believe,

913
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:33,580
in the face of the evidence,

914
01:04:33,700 --> 01:04:36,500
the optimists who have been
wrong in the past.

915
01:04:36,580 --> 01:04:39,170
To suggest we are
on the edge of defeat

916
01:04:39,290 --> 01:04:42,340
is to yield
to unreasonable pessimism.

917
01:04:42,420 --> 01:04:44,920
To say that we are mired
in stalemate

918
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:48,760
seems the only realistic if
unsatisfactory conclusion.

919
01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:52,220
But it is increasingly clear
to this reporter

920
01:04:52,350 --> 01:04:56,770
that the only rational way out
then will be to negotiate,

921
01:04:56,850 --> 01:05:01,150
not as victors, but as an
honorable people who lived up

922
01:05:01,270 --> 01:05:03,190
to their pledge
to defend democracy

923
01:05:03,310 --> 01:05:05,980
and did the best they could.

924
01:05:06,070 --> 01:05:07,740
This is Walter Cronkite.

925
01:05:07,820 --> 01:05:09,240
Goodnight.

926
01:05:09,320 --> 01:05:11,990
EUGENE McCARTHY:
In 1966, in '67,

927
01:05:12,070 --> 01:05:14,120
and again in '68,

928
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:17,200
most recently we hear the same
hollow claims of progress

929
01:05:17,290 --> 01:05:20,540
and of advance toward victory.

930
01:05:20,670 --> 01:05:23,830
The fact is, however, as we know
from events of recent weeks,

931
01:05:23,920 --> 01:05:27,380
events which one is almost
saddened to report,

932
01:05:27,510 --> 01:05:29,840
that the enemy has become
bolder than ever.

933
01:05:29,970 --> 01:05:33,470
NARRATOR:
On the evening of March 12,

934
01:05:33,550 --> 01:05:36,140
President Johnson watched
the returns come in

935
01:05:36,260 --> 01:05:39,810
from the New Hampshire
Democratic presidential primary,

936
01:05:39,890 --> 01:05:43,690
where he was facing
an unexpected challenge.

937
01:05:43,810 --> 01:05:45,860
The most recent poll
had suggested

938
01:05:45,940 --> 01:05:49,240
he would beat Eugene McCarthy
two to one.

939
01:05:49,320 --> 01:05:54,030
But Johnson won
just 49.6% of the vote

940
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:57,740
against 41.9% for his opponent,

941
01:05:57,870 --> 01:06:02,040
even though most of those who
voted against the president

942
01:06:02,160 --> 01:06:06,710
actually wanted him to prosecute
the war more vigorously.

943
01:06:06,840 --> 01:06:09,960
Johnson knew he was in trouble.

944
01:06:10,050 --> 01:06:12,050
ROBERT KENNEDY:<i>
...for the presidency
of the United States...</i>

945
01:06:12,170 --> 01:06:14,180
NARRATOR:
And there was more to come.

946
01:06:14,300 --> 01:06:17,930
I do not run for the presidency
merely to oppose any man...

947
01:06:18,010 --> 01:06:21,480
NARRATOR:
Just four days after
the New Hampshire primary,

948
01:06:21,560 --> 01:06:27,060
Robert F. Kennedy declared his
candidacy for the presidency,

949
01:06:27,150 --> 01:06:31,110
and polls suggested he was more
popular than Lyndon Johnson.

950
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:33,110
...about what must be done.

951
01:06:33,200 --> 01:06:36,780
I run because it is now
unmistakably clear

952
01:06:36,870 --> 01:06:42,200
that we can change these
disastrous, divisive policies

953
01:06:42,290 --> 01:06:46,210
only by changing the men
who are now making them.

954
01:06:49,670 --> 01:06:51,670
(din of large crowd)

955
01:06:54,630 --> 01:06:57,050
LYNDON JOHNSON:
I think what we've got
to do, too,

956
01:06:57,140 --> 01:07:01,520
is get out of the posture of
just being the war candidate

957
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:04,640
that McCarthy has put us in,
and Bobby's putting us in,

958
01:07:04,770 --> 01:07:05,850
the kids are putting us in,

959
01:07:05,940 --> 01:07:07,610
and the papers are
putting us in.

960
01:07:07,690 --> 01:07:10,110
We've got to come up
with something.

961
01:07:10,230 --> 01:07:13,490
CLARK CLIFFORD:
What it is: we're out to win,

962
01:07:13,610 --> 01:07:16,110
but we're not out to win
the war.

963
01:07:16,200 --> 01:07:17,320
We're out to win the peace.

964
01:07:17,410 --> 01:07:18,740
JOHNSON:
That's right.

965
01:07:18,820 --> 01:07:20,030
CLIFFORD:
And that's what we give them,

966
01:07:20,160 --> 01:07:21,540
and what our slogan
could very well be--

967
01:07:21,660 --> 01:07:23,950
win the peace with honor.

968
01:07:24,040 --> 01:07:28,250
JOHNSON:
But we've got to have something
new and fresh that goes in there

969
01:07:28,330 --> 01:07:30,460
along with the statement
that we're going to win.

970
01:07:30,540 --> 01:07:32,170
CLIFFORD:
Right.

971
01:07:32,300 --> 01:07:34,170
But we have to be very careful

972
01:07:34,300 --> 01:07:36,010
what it is we say
we're going to win.

973
01:07:36,090 --> 01:07:37,840
JOHNSON:
That's right.

974
01:07:37,970 --> 01:07:40,550
CLIFFORD:
They think, well hell,
that means we're just going

975
01:07:40,640 --> 01:07:43,270
to keep pouring men in
until we win militarily.

976
01:07:43,350 --> 01:07:45,430
And that isn't what
we're after, really.

977
01:07:45,520 --> 01:07:48,480
JOHNSON:
Uh, we're not going
to get these doves,

978
01:07:48,600 --> 01:07:50,730
but we can neutralize
the country;

979
01:07:50,820 --> 01:07:51,860
that way it won't follow them,

980
01:07:51,940 --> 01:07:53,190
if we can come up
with something.

981
01:07:57,860 --> 01:08:03,200
NARRATOR:
On March 26, the Wise Men,
a group of veteran cold warriors

982
01:08:03,290 --> 01:08:06,120
who had earlier urged the
president to hold steady

983
01:08:06,210 --> 01:08:10,250
in Vietnam, now advised him
to change course.

984
01:08:10,330 --> 01:08:14,210
Dean Acheson, Harry Truman's
secretary of state,

985
01:08:14,340 --> 01:08:16,050
spoke for the majority.

986
01:08:16,170 --> 01:08:19,590
"We can no longer do the job
we set out to do

987
01:08:19,680 --> 01:08:22,050
in the time we have left,"
he said,

988
01:08:22,140 --> 01:08:26,310
"and we must begin to take steps
to disengage."

989
01:08:26,390 --> 01:08:32,770
The president agreed to send
just 13,500 more troops,

990
01:08:32,860 --> 01:08:37,240
not the 206,000
the generals had requested,

991
01:08:37,360 --> 01:08:40,910
and decided to recall William
Westmoreland to Washington

992
01:08:41,030 --> 01:08:43,200
as chief of staff of the Army,

993
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:48,500
replacing him with his deputy,
General Creighton W. Abrams.

994
01:08:50,290 --> 01:08:55,000
NEIL SHEEHAN:
His face was a... was a mask
of exhaustion and defeat.

995
01:08:55,090 --> 01:08:57,840
It was very sad to see the man.

996
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:01,260
He-he was broken by it.

997
01:09:02,850 --> 01:09:05,010
NARRATOR:
On March 30, Gallup reported

998
01:09:05,100 --> 01:09:08,430
that 63% of the public
disapproved

999
01:09:08,520 --> 01:09:11,230
of Johnson's handling
of the war,

1000
01:09:11,310 --> 01:09:15,270
the lowest point
of his presidency.

1001
01:09:15,400 --> 01:09:20,320
The following evening,
March 31, 1968,

1002
01:09:20,400 --> 01:09:24,990
the president asked for time
on all three networks.

1003
01:09:26,240 --> 01:09:29,250
Good evening,
my fellow Americans.

1004
01:09:29,370 --> 01:09:32,420
Tonight, I want to speak to you

1005
01:09:32,540 --> 01:09:35,500
of peace in Vietnam
and Southeast Asia.

1006
01:09:37,510 --> 01:09:40,380
NARRATOR:
Johnson announced that he had
decided to stop bombing

1007
01:09:40,510 --> 01:09:45,100
the densely populated areas
around Hanoi and Haiphong

1008
01:09:45,180 --> 01:09:48,020
in the hope that North Vietnam
would finally be willing

1009
01:09:48,100 --> 01:09:50,640
to come to the
negotiating table.

1010
01:09:50,730 --> 01:09:53,400
Only the southern half
of the country,

1011
01:09:53,480 --> 01:09:56,020
the staging areas
north of the DMZ,

1012
01:09:56,110 --> 01:09:59,990
would continue to be targeted.

1013
01:10:00,110 --> 01:10:04,530
Then he stunned the country
and the world.

1014
01:10:04,620 --> 01:10:09,950
I do not believe that
I should devote an hour

1015
01:10:10,040 --> 01:10:15,920
or a day of my time
to any personal partisan causes

1016
01:10:16,040 --> 01:10:24,430
or to any duties other than the
awesome duties of this office,

1017
01:10:24,510 --> 01:10:28,350
the presidency of your country.

1018
01:10:28,470 --> 01:10:37,270
Accordingly, I shall not seek,
and I will not accept,

1019
01:10:37,360 --> 01:10:41,320
the nomination of my party for
another term as your president.

1020
01:10:45,070 --> 01:10:48,330
("Live Right Now"
by Eddie Harris playing)

1021
01:10:52,660 --> 01:10:56,170
ROGER HARRIS:
I land in California and take a
plane from California to Boston.

1022
01:10:56,290 --> 01:10:59,880
And I'm feeling good because
I've survived

1023
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:02,670
and, you know,
I fought for my country.

1024
01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:05,630
I got off the plane at Logan
and I stepped out there

1025
01:11:05,760 --> 01:11:07,640
and I'm just happy to be home.

1026
01:11:07,720 --> 01:11:14,520
And I had my uniform on
and walked out to the curb,

1027
01:11:14,640 --> 01:11:19,400
and the cabs just kept going
by me, kept going by me.

1028
01:11:19,480 --> 01:11:22,360
And there was a state trooper
that was standing there.

1029
01:11:22,440 --> 01:11:25,110
And I didn't realize
what was happening.

1030
01:11:25,200 --> 01:11:28,570
And then he stepped in the
street and he stopped a cab

1031
01:11:28,660 --> 01:11:30,580
and he says,
"You have to take this man.

1032
01:11:30,700 --> 01:11:32,910
You have to take this soldier."

1033
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:35,040
And the driver looked over
at me and he said,

1034
01:11:35,160 --> 01:11:37,670
"I don't want to go to Roxbury."

1035
01:11:37,790 --> 01:11:40,170
They don't see me as a soldier.

1036
01:11:40,250 --> 01:11:43,050
You know, they see me
as a nigger coming home here

1037
01:11:43,170 --> 01:11:44,840
and I live in Roxbury.

1038
01:11:44,970 --> 01:11:46,050
You know?

1039
01:11:46,180 --> 01:11:47,890
I'm thinking, "I'm a Marine.

1040
01:11:48,010 --> 01:11:49,350
I'm a Marine," you know.

1041
01:11:49,470 --> 01:11:52,810
"I just fought for my country
13 months in the combat zone.

1042
01:11:52,890 --> 01:11:54,980
And I can't get a cab
to get home."

1043
01:11:57,230 --> 01:12:00,020
ROBERT KENNEDY:
I have some very sad news
for all of you,

1044
01:12:00,110 --> 01:12:05,240
and, I think, sad news for all
of our fellow citizens,

1045
01:12:05,360 --> 01:12:09,320
and people who love peace
all over the world;

1046
01:12:09,410 --> 01:12:13,040
and that is that
Martin Luther King was shot

1047
01:12:13,160 --> 01:12:14,750
and was killed tonight
in Memphis, Tennessee.

1048
01:12:14,830 --> 01:12:16,580
(crowd screaming in disbelief)

1049
01:12:18,830 --> 01:12:20,920
In this difficult day,

1050
01:12:21,040 --> 01:12:24,630
in this difficult time
for the United States,

1051
01:12:24,710 --> 01:12:29,300
it's perhaps well to ask
what kind of a nation we are

1052
01:12:29,390 --> 01:12:31,800
and what direction
we want to move in.

1053
01:12:33,310 --> 01:12:36,810
NARRATOR:
Over the next week,
African Americans--

1054
01:12:36,890 --> 01:12:39,900
grieving, frustrated, angry--

1055
01:12:39,980 --> 01:12:44,900
poured into the streets of more
than 100 towns and cities,

1056
01:12:44,980 --> 01:12:49,570
including New York and Oakland,
Newark and Nashville,

1057
01:12:49,660 --> 01:12:54,740
Chicago and Cincinnati
and Baltimore,

1058
01:12:54,830 --> 01:12:57,290
and in Washington, D.C.,

1059
01:12:57,370 --> 01:13:00,710
where fires came within
two blocks of the White House.

1060
01:13:03,090 --> 01:13:06,050
STOKELY CARMICHAEL:
When they killed Dr. King
they just opened up the eyes

1061
01:13:06,170 --> 01:13:08,970
of a lot of black people
who were afraid to pick up guns.

1062
01:13:09,050 --> 01:13:11,840
Now they will pick up
those guns.

1063
01:13:11,930 --> 01:13:13,930
JESSE JACKSON:
We're living in a sick world.

1064
01:13:14,010 --> 01:13:16,970
This racist society
in which we live

1065
01:13:17,060 --> 01:13:18,680
is that that really
pulled the trigger.

1066
01:13:18,810 --> 01:13:24,570
ROBERT KENNEDY:
Violence breeds violence,
repression breeds retaliation,

1067
01:13:24,650 --> 01:13:29,110
and only a cleansing
of our whole society

1068
01:13:29,240 --> 01:13:32,950
can remove this sickness
from our souls.

1069
01:13:33,070 --> 01:13:36,450
NARRATOR:
Tens of thousands
of National Guardsmen,

1070
01:13:36,540 --> 01:13:39,370
regular Army troops
and the Marines,

1071
01:13:39,500 --> 01:13:43,330
including Roger Harris's
stateside unit,

1072
01:13:43,420 --> 01:13:46,300
were ordered to patrol
American streets.

1073
01:13:48,130 --> 01:13:50,340
HARRIS:
And I was ready to go.

1074
01:13:50,420 --> 01:13:53,590
Until I saw what they
were giving out.

1075
01:13:53,680 --> 01:13:55,640
I thought they were going
to give us billy clubs

1076
01:13:55,760 --> 01:13:58,220
and I thought we were going to
stand in front of buildings,

1077
01:13:58,310 --> 01:14:01,600
you know, and protect,
you know, businesses.

1078
01:14:01,690 --> 01:14:05,310
And they were passing out
flak jackets, helmets,

1079
01:14:05,400 --> 01:14:06,650
M-16s with live ammunition.

1080
01:14:06,770 --> 01:14:10,570
You know, same things
we had in Vietnam.

1081
01:14:10,650 --> 01:14:15,410
And when I saw that I said...
I said, "I'm not going.

1082
01:14:15,530 --> 01:14:16,700
I'm not going."

1083
01:14:16,780 --> 01:14:20,580
I said, "I got family
in Washington, D.C."

1084
01:14:20,700 --> 01:14:24,330
And my company commander said,
"Get on the truck, Marine."

1085
01:14:27,130 --> 01:14:28,670
I said, "I'm not going."

1086
01:14:31,300 --> 01:14:34,640
I didn't make sergeant
because I refused to go.

1087
01:14:36,220 --> 01:14:42,640
NARRATOR:
Forty-six Americans died,
2,600 were injured,

1088
01:14:42,770 --> 01:14:44,650
20,000 were arrested.

1089
01:14:49,110 --> 01:14:50,530
Later that same month,

1090
01:14:50,610 --> 01:14:53,570
antiwar students seized
several buildings

1091
01:14:53,650 --> 01:14:57,200
at Columbia University
in Manhattan.

1092
01:14:57,280 --> 01:15:01,250
The occupation lasted a week,

1093
01:15:01,330 --> 01:15:04,290
the first time in American
history that students forced

1094
01:15:04,370 --> 01:15:08,590
a major university to shut down.

1095
01:15:08,670 --> 01:15:11,840
Policemen eventually drove
the demonstrators

1096
01:15:11,960 --> 01:15:13,380
out of the buildings

1097
01:15:13,510 --> 01:15:17,300
and sent more than 100 students
to the hospital.

1098
01:15:17,390 --> 01:15:21,640
The United States now appeared
to be more divided

1099
01:15:21,770 --> 01:15:24,980
than at any time
since the Civil War.

1100
01:15:26,440 --> 01:15:31,480
That spring, protestors also
took to the streets of London,

1101
01:15:31,610 --> 01:15:33,740
Paris...

1102
01:15:33,860 --> 01:15:35,700
Berlin...

1103
01:15:35,780 --> 01:15:37,740
Prague...

1104
01:15:37,870 --> 01:15:39,490
Rio...

1105
01:15:39,580 --> 01:15:41,830
Jakarta.

1106
01:15:41,910 --> 01:15:44,960
The world seemed
to be coming apart.

1107
01:15:50,790 --> 01:15:52,050
(shouting, sirens wailing)

1108
01:16:01,640 --> 01:16:03,560
(static)

1109
01:16:09,690 --> 01:16:12,270
President Johnson's
partial bombing halt

1110
01:16:12,400 --> 01:16:14,480
had had the desired effect.

1111
01:16:14,610 --> 01:16:20,910
Hanoi agreed, for the first
time, to talk with Washington.

1112
01:16:21,030 --> 01:16:26,410
Negotiators began meeting
at the Hotel Majestic in Paris.

1113
01:16:26,540 --> 01:16:30,540
But the communists had now
adopted a new double policy.

1114
01:16:30,630 --> 01:16:32,040
They called it

1115
01:16:32,170 --> 01:16:36,220
"talking while fighting,
fighting while talking."

1116
01:16:36,340 --> 01:16:39,640
MAN:
Incoming!

1117
01:16:39,720 --> 01:16:43,350
NARRATOR:
On May 5, they launched
another offensive

1118
01:16:43,470 --> 01:16:45,970
that Le Duan hoped
would somehow achieve

1119
01:16:46,100 --> 01:16:48,310
what the Tet Offensive had not.

1120
01:16:48,390 --> 01:16:54,610
The enemy hit 119 targets in
what came to be called Mini-Tet.

1121
01:16:58,200 --> 01:17:00,860
There was new fighting
in the streets of Saigon.

1122
01:17:04,950 --> 01:17:07,910
Half the city was now leveled.

1123
01:17:16,840 --> 01:17:21,340
But the Viet Cong and the North
Vietnamese Army failed again.

1124
01:17:21,470 --> 01:17:23,470
They were still no closer

1125
01:17:23,550 --> 01:17:26,350
to overthrowing the
South Vietnamese government,

1126
01:17:26,470 --> 01:17:31,140
and they had suffered some
36,000 more casualties.

1127
01:17:35,440 --> 01:17:40,570
For the United States, May of
1968 proved the bloodiest month

1128
01:17:40,650 --> 01:17:43,620
of the Vietnam War.

1129
01:17:43,700 --> 01:17:48,870
2,416 Americans lost their lives

1130
01:17:48,950 --> 01:17:51,370
in places whose names
Americans back home

1131
01:17:51,460 --> 01:17:55,040
would have a hard time
remembering:

1132
01:17:55,170 --> 01:17:59,590
Dai Do, Phu Lam, Kham Duc,

1133
01:17:59,670 --> 01:18:04,050
Cholon, and the Plain of Reeds.

1134
01:18:06,430 --> 01:18:10,140
ROBERT KENNEDY:
A total military victory
is not within sight

1135
01:18:10,270 --> 01:18:12,140
and is not around the corner;

1136
01:18:12,270 --> 01:18:15,810
that, in fact, it is probably
beyond our grasp.

1137
01:18:15,940 --> 01:18:18,030
NARRATOR:
For a time that spring,

1138
01:18:18,110 --> 01:18:20,240
it looked as if Robert Kennedy
might win

1139
01:18:20,360 --> 01:18:24,110
the Democratic nomination
for president.

1140
01:18:24,200 --> 01:18:29,040
He pledged to bring the war
to an end and seemed to embody

1141
01:18:29,160 --> 01:18:31,790
the hope of bridging
the growing gulf

1142
01:18:31,870 --> 01:18:34,830
between black
and white Americans.

1143
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:37,340
(panicked shouting)

1144
01:18:37,420 --> 01:18:40,800
But in June, after defeating
Eugene McCarthy

1145
01:18:40,880 --> 01:18:45,180
in the California primary,
he too was assassinated.

1146
01:18:45,300 --> 01:18:48,760
MAN:
Oh, God damn!
Why?

1147
01:18:53,600 --> 01:18:56,310
(Jacqueline Schwab performs
"We Shall Overcome")

1148
01:19:03,110 --> 01:19:06,280
CAROL CROCKER:
People were stunned,
and people were scared.

1149
01:19:06,370 --> 01:19:12,660
The people we'd looked up to
were being taken away from us.

1150
01:19:16,830 --> 01:19:21,760
It definitely put those of us
who were heading off on our own

1151
01:19:21,840 --> 01:19:25,720
on a path that felt uncertain.

1152
01:19:32,470 --> 01:19:34,430
KUSHNER:
When Martin Luther King
was assassinated

1153
01:19:34,560 --> 01:19:37,150
and Bobby Kennedy
was assassinated,

1154
01:19:37,230 --> 01:19:41,270
they made a big huge deal
about that.

1155
01:19:41,360 --> 01:19:47,030
They said that was part of the
struggle of the American people

1156
01:19:47,110 --> 01:19:48,870
against their government.

1157
01:19:48,990 --> 01:19:50,990
And that there
were riots in the streets.

1158
01:19:52,330 --> 01:19:54,450
And the camp commander
actually told us,

1159
01:19:54,540 --> 01:19:57,120
"You can kill ten of us
to one of you,

1160
01:19:57,210 --> 01:20:01,210
"but your people will turn
against this.

1161
01:20:01,340 --> 01:20:05,470
"And we will be here for ten
years or 20 years or 30 years,

1162
01:20:05,550 --> 01:20:06,840
"as long as it takes.

1163
01:20:06,930 --> 01:20:09,010
"And unless you kill
every one of us,

1164
01:20:09,090 --> 01:20:12,640
we're gonna win this war."

1165
01:20:16,640 --> 01:20:17,940
And on July the Fourth,

1166
01:20:18,060 --> 01:20:21,730
we recognized it was
July the Fourth.

1167
01:20:21,820 --> 01:20:24,860
And they would not let us sing
patriotic songs.

1168
01:20:24,940 --> 01:20:29,740
But sometimes we would softly
sing at night.

1169
01:20:29,870 --> 01:20:33,370
(voice breaking):
And...

1170
01:20:33,490 --> 01:20:34,830
(clears throat)

1171
01:20:34,910 --> 01:20:39,710
we understood that despite
different backgrounds

1172
01:20:39,830 --> 01:20:41,790
and different socioeconomic
backgrounds,

1173
01:20:41,880 --> 01:20:44,050
different races,
different religions,

1174
01:20:44,130 --> 01:20:46,050
that we were Americans.

1175
01:20:49,260 --> 01:20:51,390
("A Whiter Shade of Pale"
by Procol Harum playing)

1176
01:20:51,510 --> 01:20:54,470
NARRATOR:
The American people would be
choosing new leadership

1177
01:20:54,560 --> 01:20:57,680
that fall,
and everyone seemed to agree,

1178
01:20:57,810 --> 01:20:59,690
a British correspondent wrote,

1179
01:20:59,810 --> 01:21:03,320
"that whoever captures the
presidency this November

1180
01:21:03,440 --> 01:21:05,940
"will be obliged
to end the conflict

1181
01:21:06,030 --> 01:21:08,820
"within a matter of months.

1182
01:21:08,950 --> 01:21:12,620
"How this is to be done or
what concessions are to be made

1183
01:21:12,740 --> 01:21:16,200
is very much a matter
of detail."

1184
01:21:16,290 --> 01:21:20,040
Before those details were
finally worked out,

1185
01:21:20,170 --> 01:21:23,670
almost seven more years
would pass.

1186
01:21:23,790 --> 01:21:27,340
And 27,184 more Americans,

1187
01:21:27,420 --> 01:21:31,720
and hundreds of thousands
more Laotians, Cambodians,

1188
01:21:31,840 --> 01:21:36,970
and Vietnamese-- North and
South-- would have to die.

1189
01:21:38,140 --> 01:21:43,650
♪ We skipped
the light fandango ♪

1190
01:21:43,770 --> 01:21:48,030
♪ Turned cartwheels
'cross the floor ♪

1191
01:21:50,400 --> 01:21:56,740
♪ I was feeling kinda seasick

1192
01:21:56,870 --> 01:22:00,540
♪ But the crowd called out
for more ♪

1193
01:22:03,540 --> 01:22:06,840
♪ The room was humming harder

1194
01:22:09,800 --> 01:22:12,260
♪ As the ceiling flew away

1195
01:22:16,430 --> 01:22:20,640
♪ When we called out
for another drink ♪

1196
01:22:22,640 --> 01:22:25,900
♪ The waiter brought a tray

1197
01:22:25,980 --> 01:22:35,200
♪ And so it was that later

1198
01:22:35,280 --> 01:22:42,000
♪ As the miller told his tale

1199
01:22:42,080 --> 01:22:46,420
♪ That her face,
at first just ghostly ♪

1200
01:22:46,540 --> 01:22:53,170
♪ Turned a whiter shade
of pale ♪

1201
01:22:53,300 --> 01:22:57,970
(music continues)

1202
01:23:21,160 --> 01:23:27,420
♪ And although
my eyes were open ♪

1203
01:23:27,540 --> 01:23:31,050
♪ They might just
as well've been closed ♪

1204
01:23:31,170 --> 01:23:40,220
♪ And so it was that later

1205
01:23:40,300 --> 01:23:46,480
♪ As the miller told his tale

1206
01:23:46,600 --> 01:23:51,610
♪ That her face,
at first just ghostly ♪

1207
01:23:51,730 --> 01:23:56,900
♪ Turned a whiter shade
of pale. ♪

1208
01:23:58,610 --> 01:24:25,020
(music continues)

1209
01:24:26,100 --> 01:24:27,310
ANNOUNCER: LEARN MORE
ABOUT THE FILM

1210
01:24:27,310 --> 01:24:30,150
AND FIND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
AT PBS.ORG/VIETNAMWAR

1211
01:24:30,150 --> 01:24:34,110
AND JOIN THE CONVERSATION
USING HASHTAG VIETNAMWARPBS.

1212
01:24:34,110 --> 01:24:35,570
"THE VIETNAM WAR" IS AVAILABLE

1213
01:24:35,570 --> 01:24:37,240
ON BLU-RAY
AND DVD.

1214
01:24:37,240 --> 01:24:38,910
THE COMPANION BOOK,
SOUNDTRACK,

1215
01:24:38,910 --> 01:24:40,280
AND ORIGINAL SCORE
FROM THE FILM

1216
01:24:40,280 --> 01:24:41,410
ARE ALSO
AVAILABLE.

1217
01:24:41,410 --> 01:24:43,530
TO ORDER, VISIT
SHOPPBS.ORG

1218
01:24:43,530 --> 01:24:46,000
OR CALL
1-800-PLAY-PBS.

1219
01:24:46,000 --> 01:24:47,410
EPISODES OF
THIS SERIES ALSO

1220
01:24:47,410 --> 01:24:48,540
AVAILABLE
FOR DOWNLOAD

1221
01:24:48,540 --> 01:24:49,620
FROM iTUNES.

1222
01:24:52,880 --> 01:24:55,000
ANNOUNCER: BANK OF AMERICA
PROUDLY SUPPORTS

1223
01:24:55,000 --> 01:24:59,930
KEN BURNS' AND LYNN NOVICK'S
FILM "THE VIETNAM WAR"

1224
01:24:59,930 --> 01:25:02,350
BECAUSE FOSTERING
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

1225
01:25:02,350 --> 01:25:04,930
AND CIVIL DISCOURSE
AROUND IMPORTANT ISSUES

1226
01:25:04,930 --> 01:25:07,230
FURTHERS PROGRESS, EQUALITY,

1227
01:25:07,230 --> 01:25:09,230
AND A MORE CONNECTED SOCIETY.

1228
01:25:13,770 --> 01:25:17,780
GO TO BANKOFAMERICA.COM/
BETTERCONNECTED TO LEARN MORE.

1229
01:25:21,240 --> 01:25:22,700
ANNOUNCER: MAJOR SUPPORT
FOR "THE VIETNAM WAR"

1230
01:25:22,700 --> 01:25:26,200
WAS PROVIDED BY MEMBERS
OF THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY,

1231
01:25:26,200 --> 01:25:30,160
INCLUDING JONATHAN
AND JEANNIE LAVINE,

1232
01:25:30,160 --> 01:25:33,040
DIANE AND HAL BRIERLEY,

1233
01:25:33,040 --> 01:25:35,460
AMY AND DAVID ABRAMS,

1234
01:25:35,460 --> 01:25:37,960
JOHN AND CATHERINE DEBS,

1235
01:25:37,960 --> 01:25:40,840
THE FULLERTON FAMILY
CHARITABLE FUND,

1236
01:25:40,840 --> 01:25:42,930
THE MONTRONE FAMILY,

1237
01:25:42,930 --> 01:25:45,260
LYNDA AND STEWART RESNICK,

1238
01:25:45,260 --> 01:25:48,020
THE PERRY AND DONNA GOLKIN
FAMILY FOUNDATION,

1239
01:25:48,020 --> 01:25:49,020
THE LYNCH FOUNDATION,

1240
01:25:49,020 --> 01:25:51,890
THE ROGER AND ROSEMARY
ENRICO FOUNDATION,

1241
01:25:51,890 --> 01:25:55,310
AND BY THESE ADDITIONAL FUNDERS.

1242
01:25:55,310 --> 01:25:57,230
MAJOR FUNDING WAS ALSO PROVIDED

1243
01:25:57,230 --> 01:25:58,940
BY DAVID H. KOCH...

1244
01:26:01,240 --> 01:26:03,450
THE BLAVATNIK
FAMILY FOUNDATION...

1245
01:26:05,780 --> 01:26:08,240
THE PARK FOUNDATION,

1246
01:26:08,240 --> 01:26:10,370
THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT
FOR THE HUMANITIES,

1247
01:26:10,370 --> 01:26:12,580
THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS,

1248
01:26:12,580 --> 01:26:15,330
THE JOHN S. AND JAMES L.
KNIGHT FOUNDATION,

1249
01:26:15,330 --> 01:26:18,090
THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION,

1250
01:26:18,090 --> 01:26:20,670
THE ARTHUR VINING DAVIS
FOUNDATIONS,

1251
01:26:20,670 --> 01:26:22,880
THE FORD FOUNDATION JUSTFILMS,

1252
01:26:22,880 --> 01:26:24,090
BY THE CORPORATION

1253
01:26:24,090 --> 01:26:25,340
FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING,

1254
01:26:25,340 --> 01:26:27,310
AND BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU.

1255
01:26:27,310 --> 01:26:28,430
THANK YOU.