Stop this bloody aggression ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. Mr. President , it was just a year ago you ordered stepped up aid to vietnam. There seems to be a good deal of discouragement about the progress. Can you give us your assessment . We are putting in a major effort in vietnam. As you know we have 10 or 11 times as many advisers in there as we had a year ago. So we dont see the end of the tunnel, but i must say i dont think its darker than a year ago, in someways lighter. Early on, kennedy made a command decision, we will not allow South Vietnam to fall to the communists. In southeast, asia, communistinspired subversion was unrelenting. South vietnam looked to others for assistance in stemming North Vietnamese aggression. Going back to the Eisenhower Administration in the 50s, the country split into south and North Vietnam. You have communists in the north and so the United States is very eager to preserve the south from a communist takeover. The communist North Vietnamese believed in nationalism, uniting their country under their own control. The cold war conspiracy was that if the vietnamese communist won the war in vietnam, all of Southeast Asia would fall. The dominos would fall, one after another. There is no doubt the fall of South Vietnam would have serious repercussions on other countries of Southeast Asia. This is fundamentally the reason why were in South Vietnam. After all, Eastern Europe has fallen to communism. China has fallen to communism. We cant lose Southeast Asia. So we have to stabilize South Vietnam. On january 2nd, 1963, South Vietnamese troops surprise a vietcong battalion at a village called ap bac. Five American Helicopters are shot down. Three american advisers are killed. 63 South Vietnamese die, half of them shooting at each other. Weve got u. S. Military advisers flying combat missions. Weve got advisers that are accompanying South Vietnamese forces into the field. So by this point, their role had gone beyond simply advising. We have learned a bitter lesson. The army of South Vietnam cannot cope with the committed gorilla enemy. It is trained for conventional war american style. There is growing uncertainty about whether the advisory effort is really working. Then in the midst there is a whats called a buddhist crisis. The war in vietnam has literally become a fight on two fronts. On one hand, the they face the vietcong communists and on the other hand a revolt of the majority, a fight which has been joined by thousands of students. The countrys buddhist majority sees the president as a tyrant. We had established a government in South Vietnam lead by a western educated catholic named thieu. Thieu was our boy. But massive power corrupts, and thieu becomes a dictator. A catholic presence imposing itself on a buddhist majority, and now theyre going after the buddhists. Soldiers and police broke up the demonstrations and killed nine persons. A debate broke out in the American Government over whether we should continue to support thieu or not. By the summer of 1963, there had been discussions in the cia the in the pentagon about toppling the regime. Mr. President , has our government in any way been tardy in recognizing the nature of the thieu government . We are faced with a problem of wanting to protect the area against the communists. On the other hand we have to deal with the governments there. That produces a kind of ambivalence in our efforts, which expose us to some criticism. Mr. President , in the last 48 hours there have been a great many conflicting reports from there about what the cia was up to. Can you give us any enlightenment on that . No, i dont think so. Okay. This is an nbc special news report. The government of South Vietnam has been overthrown by a military coup. Now this happens with our understanding and knowledge and then the president of South Vietnam is shot and killed by a cabal of South Vietnamese generals. Once the u. S. Had lead the coup to get rid of thieu, kennedy realized that the United States had finally bitten into a bad apple. Monday, november 4th, 1963, over the weekend, the coup in saigon took place. I feel that we must bear a good deal of responsibility for it. I should not have given my consent to it without a round table conference. I was shocked by the death of thieu. The way he was killed made it particularly abhorrent. When that assassination took place, we owned it. It actually started that early in the 60s, in the kennedy administration. When kennedy came into office in january of 1961, you had on the order of about 600 u. S. Military advisors in South Vietnam. By the time he left on that fateful trip to dallas in november 1963, there were more than 16,000. [ applause ] John Kennedys death commands what his life conveyed, that america must move forward. I think johnson genuinely felt that continuity in the government after this terrible event was essential to retaining the confidence of the American People. And now the ideas and the ideals which he so nobly represented must and will be translated into effective action. [ applause ] start with the best writing experience. Make it incredibly thin. Add an adjustable kickstand, a keyboard, a usb port, and the freedom of touch. And, of course, make it run microsoft office, with the power and speed to do real work. Introducing surface pro 3. The tablet that can replace your laptop. [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. She can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. My mom works at ge. My momthey lived. E. They lived. They lived. dad we lived. Thanks to our subaru. announcer love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. You have to leave the couch to believe. Seize the summer with up to 40 off hotels from travelocity. Congress and the nation had reminders today while the world seems suspended by our tragedy, it really kept on its whirling way. Vietnam reports today in the bloodiest fighting in almost a year. Bob, how are we doing . Oh, fine, mr. President. I want you to dictate to me on the situation in vietnam. Ive got to have some kind of a summarized logical factual analysis of it. Well, i do think, mr. President , it would be wise for you to say as little as possible. The frank answer, we dont know what is going on out there. The signs i see coming through the tables are disturbing signs. Yeah, yeah. Robert mcnamara, secretary of defense, he had been the head of the ford motor company, a brilliant executive. Famous especially for his cold analytic methods. He was a world war ii vet. He wanted to stop waste in the pentagon. We increased the number of army combat divisions by 45 . The expectation was he would figure out vietnam. The intention of my government is clear. We are prepared to produce whatever economic aid, whatever military training and whatever quantities are required and for as long as that is required. Vietnam the public secretary of defense mcnamara is full of bullish bravado, that we will prevail. But privately, he is gloomy about the prospects. Until a strong government begins to function here in saigon, the war against the communists will continue to founder. I tell you, the more i stayed away last night thinking about this thing, it worries the hell out of me. I dont think its worth fighting for and i dont think we can get out. Of course, if you start running the communists, they may just chase you into your own kitchen. Thats the trouble. Gentlemen, this is a modern war but different war. Were here to advise and support our courageous vietnamese ally. The most complex war we had fought to this time and i think his plan for the war was an entirely conventional plan in a very unconventional war. Were over here to win, and we have what it takes to assist them in this victory. Is that enough for you . Yes, sir. Im going to put this in two parts. Ill be a little more candid in a second. Lyndon johnson doesnt want to be a president who found his administration torpedoed by an unpopular war. Parenthetically, however, we have a very interesting episode that happens in august of 1964 in the tonkin gulf. Three pt boats identified by our state department as North Vietnamese attacked the uss maddox, a destroyer operating in the tonkin gulf some 35 miles off the North Vietnamese coast. This was not an unprovoked attack. There had been these covert actions against North Vietnamese directed by the United States, and the North Vietnamese were responding to that on august 2nd. This is a special report from cbs news in washington. Today just past the midday point, unofficial sources started to report additional naval combat action in the same tonkin gulf. Now i would like to review briefly in chronological order, the unprovoked attacks that took place today, august 4th. We know now for sure the second tonkin gulf incident didnt happen. But the Johnson Administration pretty much dismissed evidence indicating that an attack actually hadnt taken place. There was this acute political pressure from the right wing to be strong, stand up to communist aggression. Certainly, i think a more prudent administration that wasnt looking for a pretext to flex some american muscle would have stepped back and said, lets determine what actually happened here before we launch an retaliation. My fellow americans, hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply. That was the beginning of the american air assault on North Vietnam. President johnson has asked for and will soon get a congressional resolution authorizing the president to act as he is. The tonkin gulf resolution said that johnson had allout power to use American Military strength to defend american interests as he deemed necessary. And that is the beginning of the slippery slope. Lyndon Baines Johnson has been elected president of the United States and the landslide has carried him in for his first term in office on his own right by his own election. Communist vietcong guerrillas killed seven americans and wounded 109 yesterday in a sneak nighttime attack on the Helicopter Base at pleiku. I dont wish to speculate on action we may take in the future. I dont believe it will ever be possible to protect our forces against sneak attacks of that kind. Vietnam keeps creeping into the oval office but johnson is stuck. He refuses to be the american president who loses Southeast Asia. So he has to keep going in deeper. Are we going to send the marines in . Yeah. I guess we got no choice but scares the death out of me and westmoreland and taylor come in every day and say please send them on. Mcnamara and rush say send them on. What do you think . Well, its better than being like we just got in this thing and another way out. You couldnt have been here for the worse mess. Be lucky but they will say i created it. The trouble, the great trouble im under, a man can fight if he can see daylight down the road somewhere but there is no daylight in vietnam. There is not a bit. Early in 1965, the president decided to launch operation rolling thunder, a sustained Bombing Campaign directed against North Vietnam. The emphasis is on the destruction of strategic enemy targets. Raids are designed to cut off supplies to the north from vietcong rebels in the south. Our First Mission was more or less static defense of the principle air field for the Bombing Missions over North Vietnam. General, will this entail any offensive operations . No, no, i dont believe it will. The reason we put Ground Troops in was to protect air fields. And then we had to protect Ground Troops around the air fields and we backed into this war, not really understanding what we were doing. Lets go the soldiers moved cautiously off into the jungle, encountering only an occasional sniper. The vietcong and the North Vietnamese didnt play by our rules. Green hornets. Couldnt find the enemy. They were invisible. It was their country. [ gunshots ] the enemy again broke contact, slipped away and disappeared. Combat arouses emotions so powerful that teaches you about human nature at its best and at its worst. Give the baby to mama. Come on. Give the baby to mama, son. Come on. You vc . Yeah, you vc. You vietcong. The rule of thumb was not to trust anybody, regardless of sex or age. What is going on . Enemy fire opens up from surrounding villages. The vietcong has opened fire. Were now firing back. If the americans got a sniper fire from a village, they didnt send a squad in to find the sniper and kill him. They called for artilleries and air strikes and blew the whole hamlet away. The United States was killing 25,000 civilians a year. We were blowing up and burning down this country we were supposed to be saving. Success continues to be elusive in any meaningful way, and johnson keeps being told i need more troops. I have today ordered to vietnam certain forces which will raise our fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men, almost immediately. This will make it necessary to raise the monthly draft call from 17,000 to 35,000 per month. This is the most agonizing and the most painful duty of your president. Its difficult to understand. Why would you take the course that is going to lead to large scale war, even with what we now know is a deep skepticism on the part of Lyndon Johnson . But it seems he felt no matter which way he went on vietnam, he would be crucified. Were on the outskirts of the village of tam ni with elements of the 1st battalion ninth marines. It first appeared that the marines had been sniped at and that a few houses were made to pay. Shortly after an officer told me he had orders to go in and level the string of hamlets that surrounds cam ne village. I wasnt looking for the story, but what i saw was absolutely shocking. The days operation burned down 150 houses, wounded three women, killed one baby and netted these four prisoners who could not answer questions put to them in english. To a vietnamese peasant, it will take more than president ial promises to convince him we are on his side. The morning news put the footage on the air. I had no idea it would have the kind of repercussions it had. Do you ever have regrets about some of these people youre leaving homeless . You cant expect to do your job and feel pity for these people. I think its sad in a way but i dont think there is any other way you can get around it in this kind of war. What vietnam did to america via television was introduce us to a new kind of america, one that was not pure, one that committed the same kinds of atrocities that are always committed in war, but we had never allowed ourselves to see them. The president , i understand, called the Senior Executive at cbs, and Lyndon Johnson said frank, this is your president. Your boys just shat on the flag of the United States. Three months ago, the First Division shipped out from charleston, south carolina. Last week some of them came home. Most of these casualties were suffered in the battle of ia drang valley, the most significant yet fought by american troops in vietnam. It looked at first like a routine vietcong attack, but this was a fullscale sustained assault by not only the vietcong of South Vietnam, but with North Vietnam and its strong and dedicated army. At first light, the full shock came. Americans and North Vietnamese lay side by side in the grass. Kind of walked right into an ambush. It was it was pretty bad to listen to your friends crying out for help, not being able to do a thing. We just we all pinned down. I want to congratulate you on your distinguished victory. You were fighting regular North Vietnamese troops. The consensus of the military after ia drang is we can inflict enough casualties on them to win. Our armed forces are prepared to take the necessary casualties in order to seek out and destroy the enemy. The question remains, are the American People prepared to lose more and more young men in vietnam . 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