Brian how did you approach this differently . Mark this is the first time a journalist like me would have access to get to meet participants so i was able to tell the story through both the american soldiers and marines to five and also the vietnam ease viet cong, the North Vietnamese army. I think as time is gone by there was a lot of documentation in the archives than hanoi as well as here in bethesda, maryland, at the national archive. There are also the records of the Johnson Administration at the lbj library. All of William Westmorelands papers are there. The National Security staff papers. So 50 years is kind of a good time i think to go back. The record is established. The participants are still alive. Brian in the early part of the book you say the battle would be the bloodiest of the war and a turning point not just in that conflict led in american history. Why . Mark well up until the tet offensive, which this is part of, general westmoreland had argued that this war was winnable and it was not going to be terribly difficult. In fact, William Westmoreland came to washington in november of 1967 and gave a speech at the National Press club where he outlined the phases of the war and said we were entering, i believe it was phase three, where we are beginning to withdraw American Forces very simple stop so the impression given was that this war was well and hand and the United States was winning. The tet offensive i think administered a terrible shock. It was not just hue. Hue was the place where the holes that he was taken over. The months attempting win the city back was reminiscent of the kind of battle spot in world war ii or korea and i think the images and reports from that fighting really changed a lot of americans attitude toward the war. I think the Antiwar Movement really picked up steam after the tet offensive and it was apparent that the American Government had been lying to the american people. I interviewed about 40 people. They are listed in the back of the book. I have not counted all of them. I talked to 40 that i focused on that i listed there in the back of the book. I think about 40. Brian which one would you pick out of all of the 40 that you remember the most and why . Mark i think the first character you meet in the book was fascinating to me because she was my age, actually maybe two years older than me. It she was just a village girl who had a family that had been fighting for independence for generations. Her grandfather, her father had fought, her older sister had joined the viet cong and been killed. She herself had been arrested after her sister was killed and interrogated or waterboarded by the South Vietnamese intelligence service. She was a tremendously committed and idealistic young woman who found herself right in the middle of this battle, initially spying for the viet cong and then eventually biting. Brian for people who did not live through this, viet cong versus the army, what was the difference . Mark the country was divided. Into North Vietnam in south did not. The capital, hanoi, had its own army. The North Vietnamese army. In South Vietnam, a Guerrilla Army carried the fighting. That was the viet cong. It was a guerrilla force, heavily aided and connected with the North Vietnamese army and of course the North Vietnamese army was the regular military. Brian lets go back for a moment. Where did you meet her . Mark i met her in hue where she works now is a optometrist. She rode up on a motor scooter, the primary means of transportation for people in the city. She was extremely candid. She had been wounded in the battle and after the battle was over she continued to serve with the viet cong and they trained her as an optometrist and she went to work there after the war. She has a daughter who is 20 or 21yearsold and very interested in coming to study in the United States. So there was a lot about her that was surprising to me. This was not the image i had in my mind of the viet cong. Brian what had she done . set it up for us in january of 1968. Mark she was part of the 11 village girls who would set up on the sidewalks selling hats and other small items on the sidewalk. She was from a village just outside of the city. In the months before the ted offensive, she and these other girls were commissioned to spy on the american outpost in the south and also the various compounds. So she would move around during the day with her wares and she would keep a eye on how many people were coming and going from places and looking of weapons they had. What their schedules work. When the guard changes happen. Stuff like that. In the evening, she would go back and report what she had learned to her leader. The army of the republic of vietnam and that was the south Vietnamese Army. Brian what was the atmosphere at that time both in this country and in vietnam . Why was hue so significant . Mark the atmosphere was that the war had been going on for the vietnamese almost without interruption since the early 1950s. For the americans which we had heavily invested in three years earlier was a stalemate. The general believe that the viet cong were incapable of any kind of major offensive. But the most that they could do was to attack american outpost around the perimeter. Switching the far world areas. The South Vietnamese government was tremendously unpopular but were on life support with american aid. With half a million american troops in South Vietnam had become almost a american colony. North vietnam was battered. The United States had been heavily arming around ho chi minh trail in the capital. They had been hurt by this. Iit had slowed their ability to mount offensives. Hue was kind of an oasis in that it was the traditional capital. It is a huge fortress that forms the city. The emperors palace. The old site of the emperors reign. And so the city itself was a cultural, intellectual, Religious Center for vietnam. And it had been bypassed by the war. There had not been any real fighting in the city other than when the saigon regime cracked down on buddhist protests a few years earlier, the city had been fairly quiet. Brian how close to the border is hue. Mark hue is in the center. If you look at the city, it is kind of like someone had a belt around its waste and tightened it. Hue sits right and that very narrow center. At the time when it was divided, it was near the northern part. My guess would be it was maybe 100 or 150 miles away from the demilitarized zone. Brian how many soldiers were there in january 1958 . Mark there was a base in the southern part which was home to American Military advisers, marines and Army Officers who were assigned to work with the south Vietnamese Army units. So actually on the day this battle broke out there were a lot more americans in the compound as usual because it was the beginning of the biggest holiday in vietnam. So a lot of the armed troops i gone home for the holidays. The american advisers had gathered to sort of share a few days with their countrymen and friends in this little compound in southern hue. Brian you dedicate this book to jean robert . Who is he . Mark he was at the time the bureau chief for the New York Times in vietnam. He plays a role in the story. An important one. Later in life he became the editor of the philadelphia philadelphia inquirer. He hired me. I knew him as the terrific editor. Later he became the editor of the New York Times. In his youth, he was a terrific reporter covering the Civil Rights Movement in the south and later as a reporter in vietnam. Brian here he is at the National Press club talking about the hue battle. I had heard vague reports of trouble in hue. I made my way by helicopter and found the greens were surrounded and held only two blocks of the city. The viet cong a North Vietnamese forces held onto the rest. Each day the marines were reinforced by fresh units. They retook two or three blocks of the city only to lose most of it again during the night to enemy troops who infiltrated the into houses during the darkness. It took about 10 days for the marines to get 10 blocks or so from their headquarters compound. [end video clip] brian what did he have to do with you writing this book . Mark i had known them for years but i did not know his reporting of vietnam. I ran into them and new york. Gene asked what i was working on. I told him i was working on a book about the battle if you. He said, i was there. I did not know that. I went down to North Carolina where he lived for a couple days. You told me of his story and how he covered it and how he reported. So it was coincidental and serendipitous that he turned out to be a central player. Brian is gene still alive . Mark he is. He is sort of half north carolinians and have new yorker. Brian who from North Vietnam did you sit down with . Where did you sit down with them . And who was the most memorable . Mark i think the most memorable was a writer and a professor. He was a prominent buddhist. He was a buddhist student at the time who had been part of the buddhist uprising against the government in saigon. He had been chased from the city during a crackdown. He joined up with it North Vietnamese forces as a writer and became a propagandist. Very very idealistic. He believed strongly in the fight for independence. He felt exiled from his home. Hue had been his home. So when the city was taken he was among the first troops who marched into the citadel. The big fortress in hue. He became responsible that she was working then at the political arm of the North Vietnamese army. His job was to recruit citizens of the city to support the insurrection and to set up a revolutionary government. As well as root out those people who work for the South Vietnamese government in any capacity and arrest them for what was then called reeducation but primarily turned out to be execution. Brian who else . Mark a student in hue university. He is not quite started there yet. And, he was involved with smuggling weapons into the city before the attack. And so he lived under cover in the city. I thought it made for a really interesting story. He had published a studentrun newspaper for a wild and had been turned i think militant by the sudden presence of american tanks and troops. And so he ended up being one of the principal leaders of the North Vietnamese forces as they marched into the city. And he was a commissar. He administered local government. He had responsibility for deciding who would be arrested and punished. Brian november 17, 1967, president johnson made a speech putting it in context. 67 women, obviously right before 1968. Heres what president johnson had to say about the war in november of 1967. [begin video clip] president johnson we are making progress. We are pleased with the results we are ending. We are inflicting greater losses that we are taking. It is not all perfect by any means. We get ac minus instead of an a plus. But overall we are making progress. Im satisfied with that progress. Our allies are pleased with that progress. Every one that i know in that area that knows what is happening inks that it is absolutely essential that uncle sam stay there and keep our word and sustain that and till we can keep a peace. [end video clip] brian what is your assessment . Mark i think he was in full salesman mode. He could feel the war getting away from him. Defense hady of turned against the war. He had been starting saying that president johnson detailed secret memo saying, we cannot win this war. It is not going well regardless of what the military commanders are saying, this war is mired. We should start thinking about how to get out. In that clip which i describe in the book, that is a press conference. It was held at the time that president johnson had brought general westmoreland back to the washington, as part of like a twoweeklong Public Relations campaign to shore up support for the war because i think president johnson felt that the support was he had stepped out from behind the podium. You see him leaning down from the podium. Johnson was famous for cornering people. He was a big guy. He uses hands. The closer he got to you, the more adamant he was to convince you of whatever he was trying to sell. So, what i see as a president and full sales mode lecturing the assembled press on why it was important for the United States to stay in vietnam and how well things were actually going. Brian a few days later, general westmoreland, we have video, he was talking about the atmosphere again. This is november 1967. The 22nd. Again, the tet offensive and hugh was out of this. Lets watch general westmoreland. [begin video clip] the war is becoming enormously expensive. He has almost fully mobilized his country and made a national effort. In addition to turning his best troops and leadership to the south. As well as supplying them, which has been a major undertaking. He has nothing to show for his investment. He has not one a single significant victory in the south during the last 1. 5 years. [end video clip] brian he was obviously talking about ho chi minh. Where was he at that time . Mark he was under medical care. He had been going back and forth between there and china. At that point, he was no longer a very significant leader in the communist party in hanoi. He was old, ill, and ultimately sidelined from harder elements in the government. Ho chi minh had been campaigning for independence his whole life, towards the end of his life he retained a long perspective. He believed the first task of the revolution was to win over the people of the south and he resisted the idea that the north could win the south militarily. And so he was regarded by the Party Leaders as someone who is kind of two soft on the war. It is interesting though that while general westmoreland was making that speech, the North Vietnamese and the vietcong were well into their preparations for the tet offensive and in hue alone, they had amassed 10,000 troops to fight without alerting the South Vietnamese government or the military. So general westmoreland was an interesting character because i think he really believe the things he said. But he was clearly out of touch with what was actually happening in the country. Brian back to the woman, she was 18yearsold . Mark yes. Brian where was she on the day that hugh became a battle . Mark she was living in hue because the river squad, which was the group of girls that had been recruited to spy had been placed with families in the city. She was living there. She had spent that day spying, doing things that she ordinarily did. She had spent that day spying, doing things that she ordinarily did. And there were supposedly a truce for the tet holiday, which the North Vietnamese violated because of the holiday. She was dressed up in high heels, when out to a movie with some friends, and on her way back she was told, you need to get back to your Village Hotel and led hundreds and hundreds of North Vietnamese soldiers swarming into southern hue. They did not know their way around the city. She had become a guide for the forces who were infiltrating the city. Brian what would you have seen in january 1968 on the day the North Vietnamese and vietcong came in. Mark it was in the nighttime. You wouldve been awakened by the sound of gunfire, although because it was a holiday there were usually a lot of fireworks something so maybe initially you wouldve that it was just a lot of celebrating. If you were a millionaire with the sound of gunfire, you would have recognized Something Big was going on hand if you looked at your window, you wouldve seen masses of enemy soldiers, North Vietnamese and vietcong, marching through the streets of the city and basically taking over every neighborhood in the city. Brian what is tet . Mark it is the lunar new year. It is the major holiday of the calendar year. The whole city shuts down for about one week. Families get together. It is a tradition to cutting down cherry branches and bringing them into the house, similar to christmas trees. The celebration goes on sometimes for days. Writing how Many American marines were killed . Mark about 250. Most work marines that there was a sizable number of army calvary troopers killed just outside the city. Brian there is a story deck in 1968 where you see some of the destruction. [begin video clip] how much support received from the population is impossible to estimate. The end was the death of nearly 4000 civilians. Many humble houses did not survive. Without a move to keep up the rain, hundreds of homeless continue to cross the river in search of refuge on the self bank. It is the last journey for some. For others, like this woman, wounded and perhaps the only survivor of her family, life itself must seem to have come to an end. [end video clip] brian who expected that to end this northern intrusion of hue . Mark the Party Leaders for the most part and hanoi and those who believe there propaganda. But this was the departure for the party leader and ho chi minh. Ho chi minh had a better sense of the people than the people