Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts American Artifacts

Featuring documents and artifacts organized into 12 episodes of the war that was raging in Southeast Asia 50 years ago. Up next, on american artifacts, an interview with the archivist of the United States, followed by a tour of the exhibit with curator alice camps. This is just under half an hour. David ferrell, archivist of the United States. What was the reason for the vietnam exhibit . Its a commemoration of the anniversary of the war itself. The national archive, the Record Keeper of the country commemorates high point, low points in our history with major exhibits and this one was particularly important to me since im a vietnam vet, and i wanted to make sure that a war that is still so controversial and we had an opportunity to tell the story from the records. Had the archives ever had the vietnam exhibit before on the expose on vietnam in its past . No. I think its safe to say that in the past the subject was avoided as has been in most museums and institutions across the country. It was just recently that theres a level of comfort in telling the story, opening that up and telling them the story. Do you think that experience of the archives of the subject being avoided is reflective of how vietnam over the past 50 years has been received in the United States . No question about it. Its a subject that no one talked about. Its as if it never happened and its not often covered in k through 12 history classes. They usually stop at world war ii, touch on korea, but usually never get to the vietnam story. Interestingly, your exhibit, the archives exhibit breaks it down into 12 chapters or episodes. Tell us the reasoning behind that and what you hope people will learn as they go through these different stages. Its a big story that goes back to the Truman Administration and even before that. So putting it in chunking it up, basically and putting it into perspective to give people an opportunity to reflect on each of the periods that we cover in the exhibit because there are a lot of theres a lot of information to deal with and theres a lot of kind of personal reflection thats necessary as you go through the exhibit and im convinced that people cant do this in a quick, 20minute visit which is the average Attention Span of folks doing exhibits these days. Its an exhibit that they dont have to come back to. What do you hope as people wrap up the exhibit and walk through. What do you hope they take away from it . Some better sense of what happened and that they feel challenged to answer questions themselves about what was the reason, what did we get out of this . What impact did it have on the future approaches to conflicts and those kinds of questions. You told us youre a vietnam vet. What was that experience like and how did this exhibit what did you learn from this exhibit that you didnt know before . I was a robert corpsman assigned to a Marine Division and then aboard the hospital ship uss sanctuary and my information during that time during my year in vietnam was very limited. We had very Little Information about what was going on in the conflict and this exhibit has, for me filled in some of the gaps in my own knowledge of what was going on during the time i was there. What would you say was the most unexpected thing that you learned in helping put this together . It was a confirmation of my assumption that the National Archives had records that could tell this story in a way that no other institution could tell the story. The exhibit was cure airtate alice camps. Alice is a wonderful creative, innovative, historically perceptive individual who i got to work with closely when i first arrived close to when i first arrived on a blockbuster exhibit called whats cooking uncle sam where we told the story of a governments role and about food that you cant and the testing and things, so shes the person who works closely with archivists who mine the records and then to put them together creatively in a way that tells a story and shes done it again in this exhibit. We talk to our visitors before we planned the exhibit and we asked them what do they want to know about the vietnam war . And almost to a person they said why was the United States involved . So we still have really, really basic questions, and i hope that by going through these 12 critical episodes theyll have a better understanding of what happened and why. Alice camps, this is a war that probably a lot of americans dont realize covers many presidencies. How many, exactly . Yes, thats true. Our early involvement in vietnam started with president truman during the french i indochina war. The first is a memo from Franklin Delano roosevelt. Lets walk over to it and tell us about that. Absolutely. So prior to and during, actually, the world ii france was ruling vietnam. They had colonized it and divided it into three different areas and during world war ii the japanese came in and pushed the french out and fdr is talking to secretary of state kordell hall about what he believes should happen to vietnam after world war irk i and he opposes a french return to vietnam and its quite clear in this memo because he says france has milked it for 100 years and the people of indochina deserve better than that. Fdr passes away before the end of world war ii and when truman comes in he doesnt feel quite as strongly about a french return to vietnam. This photograph was given to harry truman by general Charles De Gaulle during a visit to washington, d. C. , and it was during this visit that truman told de gaulle that he would not oppose a return to france to vietnam. So this photograph is 1945. Does the u. S. Have any interest in vietnam at this time . Not in particular, their interest is moe of supporting france as a bull work against communism in europe because of course, theres great concern about communism spreading there. So the feeling that was we need to support france and france really felt that it needed to return to indochina as it called it. And this was early in the Truman Administration. Lets go next to the eisenhower administration, and you can show us some things there. Okay. This exhibit is broken down into 12 different chapters. Were seeing some of the highlights, obviously. How long did it take you to assemble the archive documents and collect everything that you needed to put it together . It took over two years, and i had a lot of help. I invited several, almost two dozen prominent historians to suggest documents that they thought were revealing about u. S. Involvement in Southeast Asia. And we move next to a document about a letter from president eisenhower. Tell us about it. Yes. This is a very important point in the story. It is 1954 and the country of vietnam has been divided by the geneva accords into north and south. Theres a communist government that is ruling in the north and president eisenhower believes that the loss of vietnam to communism would be disastrous. So he wants to help this fledgling South Vietnamese government establish itself and the leader or emerging leader at that time, he wasnt president yet and he would later become president was a man named its spelled with a d, but its pronounced dziam. He was a catholic. There is a percentage of people, a minority, but there was a percentage of people in vietnam who were catholic and he had really strong nationalist credentials. The letter from eisenhower what sort of sense does that give us about where the United States is in supporting vietnam . Is there any indication at that point that were committing any sorts of monetary support . Any sort of military support . Yes, well the document we have in the case is actually a press release regarding the letter that president eisenhower sent. This was after vietnam had been partitioned by the geneva accords and eisenhower felt very strongly that losing vietnam to communism would be a disaster, so he is in this letter, pledging support for ziam, american support. We are committing significant monetary support at this time. This is a decision that sets the United States on a course of involvement in vietnam for 20 years. And this is 1954. I want to move forward to early and president kennedys administration and some notes from a meeting about vietnam. Okay. Lets take a look. Lets do that. We move to the Kennedy Administration. Here the exhibit episode 3, kennedy doubles down what does that mean . Kennedy is very interesting on vietnam because he understood perhaps better than any other american president how difficult it would be to try to defeat the communists there. He had visited vietnam as a young man and also as a senator and studied the area and but he kind of paradoxically, he doubles down by dedicating a lot of u. S. Support for vietnam both financial and military. He sent thousands of advisers to assist the South Vietnamese army. One of the items in this part of the exhibit is a set of meeting notes from the National Security meeting on november 15, 1961. It was interesting at this National Security Council Meeting kennedy said that he could make a rather strong case against intervening in an area 10,000 miles away against 16,000 guerillas with a native army of 200,000 where millions have been spent for years with no success. He was arguing against his advisers who are already pushing him to bring in troops. So here you see in his doodles hes written guerilla war and two front war and by that i assume he means North Vietnam and South Vietnam where the insurgency is starting to pick up speed. Kennedy was getting advice from a number of military officials, from Robert Mcnamara. Was he getting conflicting advice during this period . Im want sure whether he was getting conflicting advice, but his own knowledge of vietnam and the difficulties that the french had there are what i think is having him push back against the advice that hes getting. President kennedy with advisers Robert Mcnamara and Maxwell Taylor in 1963 just over a month before he would be assassinated. At this point in his administration, whats his thinking on vietnam and whats the status of our effort in vietnam . Well, i think that ultimately he felt that the United States needed a win and its in the war against communism. There had been the bay of pigs defeat and the erection of the berlin wall and he said that he thought vietnam was the place where the United States could take a stand. Of course, president kennedy is assassinated in 1963 and Lyndon Johnson takes over. We move next to the johnson administration. Johnson sets the stage and part of that stage was set before he was reelected in 1964 with the gulf of tonkan incident. You will show us a cable, a document regarding a uss maddox. Tell us about this. Yes. This cable is about the Second Attack, tonkan gulf attack and there was one on august 2nd and it was the august 4th attack that this cable refers to. Its the second cable that the captain of the uss maddox which was the ship, the American Ship that was believed to have been under torpedo attack by the North Vietnamese, and in the first cable he said they were under continuous torpedo attack, but the second cable hes expressing a little bit of doubt about that and he says that Freak Weather effects on radar and overeager sonar men may have accounted for many reports. Robert mcnamara did not report these captains doubts to the president. So the president and others believed that there had been a Second Attack and it was after this Second Attack that the tonk an gulf resolution was passed which gave president johnson almost unlimited war powers. Your exhibit has the actual document, the gulf of tonkan resolution as introduced in the senate august 5, 1964, was this this was unanimously accepted by congress . Was it unanimously passed . It was accepted almost u unanimously. There were two that voted against it. Senator wayne morris and senator gruning and we have the tally sheet that you can see, as well. The u. S. Still uses a very similar tally sheet. Thats the actual tally sheet from the vote on the resolution and in the center a picture of president johnson signing is the resolution in the east room on august 10, 1964. In assembling the exhibit, any reason why that the president made such a prominent display of signing that resolution . I dont really know the answer to that question. I imagine that when you are putting the country on a war footing you would certainly want the entire country to support the effort. I did want to point out that its interesting that even though it appeared to be a nearunanimous passage of this bill, only two voted against it in the senate and it was unanimous in the house, there were senators in congress, people who harbored serious doubts about the wisdom of going to war with vietnam. Ultimately, he would send the United States troops to vietnam in march of 1965 so this did open the door for that, as well. So this is another major turning point in the war. The gulf of tonkan resolution. The president signs that and sets up his ability to send more troops to vietnam in the coming year and years. Lets go take a look at the next episode. America goes to war and well look at a couple of documents here. This is what youve described as the fork in the road of whats been described as the fork in the road memo from mcgeorge bundy. Who was he . George bundy was one of president johnsons and probably his most important adviser, National Security adviser, and johnson had inherited george bundy and Robert Mcnamara from the Kennedy Administration and decided to keep them on and he was perhaps a little bit in awe of their intelligence and education, and they had very, very strong opinions which they communicated to president johnson. Just to give you a little background about whats going on at this time. Its january, 1965. Johnson has just been elected in his own right by a landslide. He had a huge victory, and but the situation in vietnam is deteriorating of course, in 1963 just before president kennedys assassination, the president diem was assassinated and there was a succession of rulers in South Vietnam and it was pretty much chaos and the insurgency and the communist insurgency is building up and theyre starting to win more and basically bundy and mcnamara and were at a pork in the road and there are two options. One of the options is to pursue a negotiated settlement, and they both knew johnson was not going to go for, and the other was to fully commit the United States to war and to send troops. Mcgeorge bundy writes, he does not quarrel over our assertion that things are going very badly and the situation, he write, is unraveling in vietnam so the president is faced with this fork in the road moment. What happened shortly after 1965 . What does he do about troop levels . Its then that he authorizes operation Rolling Thunder which is a series of air strikes against North Vietnam and when he did that he also sent Ground Troops to guard the base, and that just opened the door to american Ground Troops coming in. And were talking early 1965 . Thats right. March 1965 is when the First American Ground Troops came in and just a few years later, we had over 400,000 troops in vietnam. Can i ask you about these do you means in general and this is a white house memo. How long would typically these documents have been in the archives . We generally get documents about 30 years after the federal agencies that generated them are fennished with them, but these are president ial documents, so they would have been in the Johnson Library quite a bit longer than that. And they would have been in the Johnson Library and are those do you means on loan to the archives for this exhibit or are those permanent . Thats a good question. The president ial leibraries are part of the National Archives and they live at the Johnson Library. So the Johnson Library has loaned them to us for the purpose of this exhibition. Weave seen a numbve seen a official documents and we want to see personal documents and well move to 1967 and what is the mood of the country with the war getting to be like . The country is starting to protest. More and more people are joining the protest movement. They have been seeing scenes of the war at home on their television sets. This is the first war where they are getting kind of a direct view of the combat and destruction and this exhibit were seeing this. Tell us about this series of letters. There is a series of mr. And mrs. Keck whose son corporal rusty forest keck was killed in vietnam and they are, of course, really difficult to read as a mother of a son myself i find that its these letters from mothers that cause me to really just kind of break down and feel what they must have been feeling at the time. Mrs. Keck is writing to president johnson and shes just buried her son and shes angry and she wants to know what did he die for . And we