it is a mixture of an ugly >> bloody aggression. we're in the middle.

ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. >> it was just a year ago that you ordered stepped up aid to vietnam. this seems to be a good deal of discouragement about the progress. can you give us your assessment. >> we have 10 or 11 time the advisors we have in there as a year ago.

i don't think it is darker, in some ways lighter. >> early on, kennedy made a command decision, we will not allow south vietnam to fall to the communists. >> in southeast asia, communists inspired subversion was unrelenting. south vietnam looked to others for assistance and stemming north vietnamese aggression. >> going back to the eisenhower administration, the late 50s, the country split into south and north vietnam. you had the communists and the north and so the united states is very eager to preserve the south from a communist takeover. the communist north vietnamese believed if nationalism, uniting their country under their own control. >> they thought the domino was fall one after another. >> there is no doubt that fall

of south vietnam would have serious reprecushions on the other countries of southeast asia. this is fundamentally the reason why we're in south vietnam. >> after all, eastern europe has fallen to communism. china has fallen to communism. we can't lose southeast asia. so we have to stabilize south vietnam. >> five american helicopters are shot down. three american advisors are killed. 63 south vietnamese die, half of them shooting at each other. >> we've got u.s. military advisors flying combat missions. we've got advisors that are accompanying south vietnamese forces into the field. so by at this point their roll had gone beyond simply advising.

>> we learned a bitter lesson. they cannot cope with the vietcong. it is trained for conventional war, american style. >> there is growing uncertainty about whether the advisory effort is really working. >> then in the midst of this, there is what is called the buddhist crisis. >> the war in vietnam is a fight on two fronts. the government faces the vietcong communists and on the other hand it faces a revolt of the buddhist majority, a fight joined by thousands of students. >> the buddhist majority seize the president as a tyrant. >> we had established a government in south vietnam led by a western educated catholic named jim. jim was our boy. >> but absolute power corrupts and he becomes the dictator. >> so you have a catholic

presence imposing itself on a buddhist majority and now they're going after the buddhists. >> they broke up the demonstrations and killed nine people. >> a debate broke out whether we should continue to support him or not. >> by the summer of 1963, they had been discussions in the cia in the pentagon about topping this regime. mr. president, has our government in any way been tardy in recognizingly the nature of the government? >> we're faced with a problem of wanting to protect the area against the communists and 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.

>> there are con flicking reports about what the cia is up to. can you enlighten us on that? >> no, i don't think so. >> 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 south vietnamese generals. >> once the u.s. had led the coup to get rid of him, kennedy realized that united states had final lly bitten into a bad app. >> 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 roundtable conference. i was shocked by the death of him and the way he was killed made it particularly abhorrent. >> when that assassination took place, we oenwned it. it started that early 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.

>> john kennedy's commands what his life conveys. 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. i'm j-a-n-e and i have copd.

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. congress and the nation had reminders today that while the world seems suspend bid our tragedy, it really kept on its whirly way. in vietnam, reports today of the bloodiest fighting in almost a year. >> how are we doing? >> oh, fine. >> i don't want you to dictate to me on the situation in vietnam. i've got to have some kind of a summarized logical factual analysis. >> well, i do think, mr. president, that they say as little as possible. the frank answer is we don't know what's going on out there.

the signs i see coming through the table are disturbing signs. >> robert macnamara, secretary f defense, he was the head of the ford motor company. famous especially for his cold analytic methods. >> he was a world war ii vet. he wanted to stop wasting the pentagon. >> we increased the number of combat ready army divisions by 45%. >> the expectation is that he would figure out vietnam. >> the position my government is clear. we're prepared to bring whatever economic aid, whatever military training and whatever quantities are required and for as long as that is required. >> the public secretary of defense mcnamara is all about kind of bullish bra vad yoe. that we are going to prevail. but privately, mcnamara is

increasingly gloomy about the prospect. >> until a strong government begins to function here if sigh began, the war against the communists will continue to flounder. >> the more i stayed away last night thing about this thing, it worried the hell out of me. i don't think we can get out. of course you start running to communists and you can go right auto your own kitchen. that's the trouble. >> gentleman, this is a modern war but it's a different war. we're here to advise and support our courageous vietnamese allies. >> it was his misfortune to inherit the most complex war that we had fought to this time. i think his plan was a conventional plan if an unconventional war. >> we have what it takes to

assist them in this victory. is that enough for you? i'm going to put this in two parts. i'll be a little more candid. >> lyndon sondheim doesn't want to be a president who found his administration torpedoed by an parenthetically, however, we have an interesting episode that happens in august of 1964 in the gulf. >> three boats identified by our state department as north vietnamese attacked a destroyer operating in the gulf some 35 miles off the north vietnamese coast. >> this was not an unprovoked attack. there had been a covert action 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 gulf. now i like to review briefly in chronological order the unprovoked attacks which took place today, august 4th. >> we know now for sure that the second gulf incident didn't happen. but the johnson administration dismissed evidence indicating that a tack hadn't taken place. >> there was acute political pressure from the white wing to the communist aggression. certainly i think a more prudent administration that wasn't looking for a pretext to flex some american muscle would have stepped back and said let's determine what actually happened here before we launch any retaliatory action. >> 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 and reply. >> that was the beginning of the american air assault on north vietnam. >> president johnson asked for and will soon get a congressional resolution authorizing the presidential act as he is. >> the gulf resolution said that johnson had all out power to use american military strength to defend american interests as he deemed necessary. and that is the beginning of the slippery slope. >> lyndon johnson has been elected president of the united states. and the landslide has carried

him in for his first term in office in his own right by his own election. >> the guerrillas killed seven americans and wounded 109 yesterday in a sneak night time attack on the american helicopter base. i don't know whether to speculate on action we may take in the future. i don't believe it will ever be possible to protect our forces against sneak attacks at that time. >> 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. >> we're going to send the marines in. i guess we have no choice. it scares the death out of me. i mean it's a hard one. but westmoreland and tailor come in every day saying please send

them on. mcnamara and russ say send them along. what do you think? >> well, it looks like we just got in this thing and there is no way out. you couldn't have been here. >> well, it makes them lucky but they say i created it. i think the trouble is the great trouble that i'm under, a man can fight if you can see daylight down the road somewhere. there is no delate in vietnam. many of my patients still clean their dentures with toothpaste.

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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. >> they are designed to cut off supplies from the north to the vietcong rebels in the south. >> our first mission was more or less a static defense of the principle airfield from the bombing missions over north vietnam. >> general, will this entail any offensive operations? >> no. no, i don't believe it will. >> the reason we put ground troops in was to protect air fields. then we had to protect the ground troops. we backed into this war not really understanding what we were doing.

>> let's go! >> the soldiers moved cautiously off into the jungle and conquering only an occasional sniper. >> they didn't play by our rules. >> couldn't find the enemy. they were invisible. it was their country. >> the enemy broke contact, slipped away and disappeared. >> combat arouses emotions so powerful that it teaches you about human nature at its best and at its worst. >> vietcong. >> the rule of thumb is not to

trust anybody. regardless of sex or age. >> enemy fire opens up. >> if the americans got a sniper fire from them, they didn't send a squad in to find the sniper. they just called for artillery air strikes and blew the whole helmet away. the united states was killing 25,000 civilians a year.

blowing up and burning down this country we're supposed to be saving. success continues to be elusive in any meaningful way andon son keeps being told i need more troops. >> i have ordered vietnam certain forces which will raid 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. >> it's difficult to understand. why you would take the course that is going to lead to large scale war even with what we now know is this deep skepticism on the part of lyndon johnson? but it seems he felt that no matter which way he went on vietnam, he would be crucified.

>> we're on the outskirts of the village with elements of the first battalion ninth marine. >> it first appeared the marines were sniped at and a few houses were made to pay. shortly after, an officer told me he had orders to go in and level of streng of hamlets that voun the village. >> i wasn't looking for that story. but what i saw was absolutely shocking. >> the day's 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 presidential promises to convince him that we are on his side. >> morning news had put the first bit of footage on the air. i had no idea what kind of reprecushions it had. >> do you ever have any regrets about some of these people or leaving homeless? >> you can't expect to do your job and feel pitty for the people. >> i think it's sad in a way. but i don't think there is any other way can you 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 senior executives at cbs and lyndon johnson said, frank, this is your president.

your boys just -- [ inaudible ] >> three months ago the first cowboy division shipped off from charlest charleston, south carolina. last week, some of them came home. most of these casualties were suffered in the battle of the valley, the most significant yet fought by american troops in vietnam. it looked at first like a routine view et congress attack. this was a full scale ussustain assault by north vietnam and the strong and dedicated army. at first light the full shock came. americans and north vietnamese

lay side by side in the grass. >> i walk right into an ambush. 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 this was we can inflict enough casualties on them to win. >> our arms 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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♪ >> the air cavalry band will go anywhere for a parade. even within rifle range of the vietcong. >> the vietcong have terrorized you and have burned your homes.

we are here to help you and to show how much we are able to protect you. the air force planes hit some vietcong on the other side of the valley. >> this was like a split screen reality in american culture. on one side you had what the official story was which was we're winning in vee et no, ma'am vee et nam, yet what americans saw was body bags every time they looked up. >> marine colonel was hit by fire from a village while he was directing close air support if a helicopter. he saw women and children there and decided not to order an air attack. the colonel talked about it

while surgeons amputated his leg. >> they do all they can to save that leg. >> i know. i hate to put bombs on these women and children. i can't do it. i said they can't be there. i'm sure now that's where they were. >> as the casualty mounted, that was turning this country against the war. >> how do you expect to have them behind you? they're not fighting. >> they're not fighting. >> this is a genocide. they're being killed and killed why? >> dissent spread across campuses all over the country and gave a sense to empowerment to students that were about to be drafted but still couldn't vote. >> there is protest that occurs in new york city. david miller publicly confirm his draft. >> seven protesters durnd draft

cards on the steps of a boston courthouse. a group of high schoolboys sent upon them with fists. >> the draft was in place from world war ii. when you turned 18, you had to register. >> january, 1965, 4,500 young men were kold for the draft n december 1965, 45,224 young men were called. this is one fact boring in on the american conscience and causing increasing concern. >> it was a compulsory draft, force us to make a draft. vietnam against your will, jail against your will, canada against your well, no good options. all kinds of ways are found to try to beat the physical. people are known to mutilate themselves. >> there were also escape hatches for deferments for college students which means working class young people are likely to get drafted before

upper middle class. >> the war was waged in a lot of living rooms in america. it was a real generational divide because my father's generation went off and saved europe. i fully expected to have a military experience. but it was the wrong damn war. >> washington, november 27th, the rally was to be held at the washington monument. protesters began to arrive about 20,000 strong. >> mo♪ >> are you there to support the constitution of the united states. i will not fight in vee et niet. >> we forget this but there were a substantial must be number of americans that supported the vietnam war.

it's hard to capture how intense it was and your relationship with your country which is something we never question. >> the pressure on mr. johnson to choose sides is growing. claiming to a middle line, he tried to give one ear to the war hawks in america, one ear to the doves but both ears to neither. >> we halted bombing in the north. in the hope that the government in hanoi would single its willingness to talk instead of fight. but i regret to tell that you no signal came during those 37 days. >> johnson feels alternately outraged that he's being attacked in this way when he's doing the best he can. >> until the day they decide to end this aggression and to make an honorable peace, i can assure

you that we speaking for the united states of america intend to carry on. >> a large committee examined the position. the conclusions briefly and bluntry are that the united states is violating the united nations charter, geneva agreements and finally, violating the united states constitution which says only congress can declare war. >> when the congress tried to ask questions about the vietnam war, they found it very difficult to get answers and sometimes they were lied to. >> we're engaged in a historic debate in this country. there are honest differences of opinion. >> in terms of one of the first time when people who were not far on the left or streaming on the right started raising some very serious questions about the

war. >> if the people decide that this war should be stopped, are you going to take the position that's weakness on the home fron in a democracy? >> i would say that our people were badly misguided and did not understand the consequences of such a disaster. >> we agree on one thing, they can be badly misguided and you and the president have been misguiding them for a long time in this war. imagine if everything you learned led to the one job you always wanted. at university of phoenix, we believe every education- not just ours- should be built around the career that you want. imagine that.

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at the beginning of 1965, there were 23,000 american servicemen in vietnam, currently there are 267,000 inviting and 18,000 more will be there by the end of this month. >> the commitment got bigger and bigger and bigger. you could feel the spirit of the troops who are training. >> how old are you? >> 22. >> 22? >> would you? >> nope. >> what is the worst thing? >> getting shot, getting hit. you see your buddy's get hit.

living in the swamp, dirt. >> three days out in the bush, you'd be covered with ring worm and jungle rot. it was the nature of the weather. >> it's hot in vietnam, often hotter than the desert. the temperature rises to 120 degrees. if we got two hours sleep a night, i'd be surprised. >> you're almost in a hypnotic state. i'm amazed these kids didn't just completely fall apart. humans are really, really tough. >> things are going reasonably well in the south. >> yeah. i think so. everything is command. >> yep, we think we're taking a heavy toll on them. but it just scared me to see what we're doing, taking soldiers and god knows how many airplanes and helicopters and firepower and going after a

bunch of half starved beggers and it's not a certainty but it's a danger we need to look at. if they can keep that up, almost indefinitely. >> today i can tell that you military progress in the past 12 months has exceeded our expectations. our policy remains what it was and has been, we would supply our commanders whatever they required to accomplish our objective in south vaet noom. >> you started to distrust your own leaders. you started to say well they're lying to us. i mean they're all -- if they're not lying to us, they don't know what's going on. >> i'm glad they're on our side. >> they reached at 9:43.

>> after sweeping the area, hill 943 is taken. there is nothing to take. and now that enemy is gone, there is no reason for the americans to stay. >> when we abandoned the hill, it was crushing. your friends all died there. what was that all about? >> there is a hill in vietnam which was assaulted twice, taken twice, and abandoned twice by americans. and today 943 is geb controlled by the north vietnamese. >> progress was not being made. there was no end in sight. how you would measure progress? so it was a kind of absurd situation.

>> how do you feel about it now that it's all over? >> pretty bad in a way. you live it with and you work with them. you get really attached to them. that hurt more than anything else. >> that's what it bothers you. >> i'd lose friends and i would just, like, wow. you know? i have a job to do here. and you throw them on a chopper. and that is the last you'd see them. and so you were constantly shoving it down because if you

didn't, you couldn't function. >> these women came by the thousands to the pentagon this week. they demanded to see secretary of defense robert mcnamara to ask him to stop sending their sons to vietnam. they showed their anger and frustration. >> given the nature of the enemy, it seems to me the strategy that we're following at this time is the proper one and

that is producing results. we will prevail in vietnam over the communist aggression. >> fundamentally, we didn't have a strategy in the vietnam war except of that attrition. they talk about, well, we can kill 300 north vietnamese for every one of us. do the american people care about the 300? no. they care about the one. ♪ [ female announcer ] we love our smartphones. and now telcos using hp big data solutions are feeling the love, too. by offering things like on-the-spot data upgrades -- an idea that reduced overcharge complaints by 98%. no matter how fast your business needs to adapt, if hp big data solutions can keep wireless customers smiling, imagine what they can do for yours. make it matter. imagine what they can do for yours.

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500,000 american troops, 14,000 american dead. the war in vietnam is no longer simply their war to win or lose. it's ours as well. and it has become the most divisive in 100 years of american history. >> there's a first time in all of these different factions and philosophies and personalities came together in one place. >> the seed was planted when there was a massive march on the pentagon. people realized that we could go beyond light pro testifies into more massive civil disobedience

and shake up the war makers. >> the man was overwhelmed with guilt. >> in less than 60 days, i will have served seven years as secretary of defense. no one of my predecessors served so long. i myself did not plan to. >> robert mcnamara leaves office. i think it's fair to say that he is by that point tortured on a personal level by the war. >> tonight the communists hit the very heart of saigon, the brand new u.s. embassy building and ten cities in that war torn country. >> the offensive was the big show of the vietcong.

>> it's huge. they got the americans in south vietnamese by surprise. >> it exposed how tenuous the u.s. hold was. >> who won and who lost in the great offensive against the cities? i'm not sure. the terrible loss in american lives, prestige and morale and this is a tragedy of our subborness there. seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of vietnam is to end in a stalemate. >> when walter cronkite who was the most trusted man in america said that lyndon johnson said if i've lost walter, i've lost middle america. lyndon johnson realized he was no longer in charge of the war. the war was in charge of him. >> what did you lose? >> i had a very -- we got 21

killed. >> what were you thinking about? >> i was thinking of my wife and my baby that i haven't yet. i have a baby coming in june. that son my mind. i just knew we were going to get overrun. >> if you look at the history of vietn vietnam, its with a tragedy that was beginning to end. and the tragedy of johnson is that he achieved remarkable things, particularly in terms of civil rights. but will be remembered for vietnam. >> it's the full shakespearean wheel of fortune. the man who has nothing who rises to everything and then loses it all. >> in a moment of tragedy, the

duties of this office fell upon me with americans sons in the fields far away, america's future under challenge right here at home. i have concluded that i should not permit the presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. accordingly, i shall not seek and i will not accept the nomination on my party for another term as your president. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com