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i'm so glad you've joined us this evening to our valued members who support the direct role making tonight possible in hundreds of similar events each year our thanks and a warm welcome and to the potential members who are joining us for the first time a warm greeting and open invitation to the floor of the range of programs we offer at the smithsonian associates. we have exciting history programs coming up including of course the u.s. russia relations that begins on wednesday. a lecture on the secret army on october 23 and china, japan the history of empires november 6. more information is available on the website which you can grab in the lobby on your way out. now it's time to make sure your devicesre are on silent. thank you for doing that. we are thrilled to welcome the speaker journalist and

broadcaster whose work has appeared in every british national newspaper and he now reviews regularly for the sunday times and the new york review of books. most of the early years as a correspondent for the london evening standard he was editor-in-chief of the daily telegraph from 1986 to 95 into d the evening standard from 1996 to 2002. he was journalist of the year in the 1982 british press awards.

the tragedy is available for purchase and signing in the lobby following his presentati presentation. so now please join me in welcoming sir max. [applause] >> thank you so much and to all of you for coming to hear me tonight. they've been too huge amounts in one of the great privileges of writing the book was to meet so many veterans. on the 28th of may, a 20-year-old u.s. marine machine

gunner in vietnam wrote today we are in the field with much to say but walking in the mountains i thought i would drop a line to say everything is fine. then they received a telegram. no expense to give the a company and selected you would be reimbursed 16,899 such telegrams were received across the bob's

over 300 week. by the end in 75, 58,220 of the compatriots had died. the 2 million vietnamese. in the succession that lasted through the case exceeded the cost of the 21st century war in afghanistan. it's up on its times for any modern strike. during the last phase especially it is the dismay of hundreds of

millions destroying one u.s. president and contributing to the second. a by capitalism and imperialism appeared and exceptionally ugly manifestation. if convicted humiliation upon the planet's most powerful nation. the stairway of the 29th of

april sent to the rooftop helicopter to secure a place among with symbolic images. those were all the generations of correspondence that struggle among the foremost experiences of our careers. by president lyndon johnson about his commitment to the war. some of you like blondes, redheads are some don't like at all in that dead weight goal and to emphasize the planes.

we can sit down and talk. we were preparing to leave. i want to ask if any of you feel different from anything you've read or heard about me before you came.

for the disaster of people in china at which the tragedy was overlaid. it is the documents fromem both sides of the recount a miniscule incident such as repeated 10,000 times. they were sitting silent on the brick wall off a house holding a wicker basket, her eyes straight ahead. now i am asked why she lingered

in the midst of a battlefield and she remained silent. a soldier motioned to go away and pulled her back but instead began to unbuttoned her plots. the young man was deeply embarrassed and had read his rejection of the property.

they would scream and this was a woman who recognized the. she stopped as if she was trying to summon up a memory. they describe are walking away from the water like a person this is what the war is like for people and especially women who are victims i-india don in the , afghanistan and syria. such tiny tragedies were

repeated countless times and they concluded the south vietnamese clients unleashing devastatingly. they've become victorious vietcong during the tet offensive was a screaming child.

the vietnamese is being buried alive crime. during the communistgr occupatin during the 1968 tet offensive. they are permitted to speak during the first years of the rule. during the later struggle in which the typist of the headquarters in the delta.

it's what -- with a matching umbrella. and maybe not. likewise whether they found them hanging from ropes flashed with trade.

it's supported with the heroes of the vietnam war. for anointing and the good guys as the western protesters back in the 1960s. they deserve the triumph over the colonialists and what can afterwards. in 1945 they embarked upon an attempt to gain control.

they secured neighboring china in 1949 and he threw support. they launched an operation to lure the enemy into battle on their terms. they suffered catastrophe. across the worst in the world. to the communist army. and the ensuing conference was

amazing was that they proposed a partition of the vietnam instead of insisting the whole country should be surrendered to him. in their recent korean war they were desperate to divert the replay and as we saw here the content to follow into their hands and the americans lost interest. he would ingratiate himself more important for the potential including the congressman was installed as the ruler in saigon

as well as assuming power in hanoi. they implemented its ideology but they conspicuous personali personality. it became the common law of the northva vietnamese. this is a desperate search feature included a grilled wrap with lemon leaves. no pets was safe and he had to prove behind some strangers took it away in the morning.

in the relatively rich south, the regime prosecuted its enemies are the overwhelmingly with abysmal incompetence and if they possessed advantages. he had secured the vietnamese nationalism and the cruelties and blunders of the regime were concealed. the war slowly started up again in the south with the so-called vietcong. there was the spontaneous activism rather than being driven by hanoi or beijing as

they deluded itself. earlier in 1962 did the north vietnamese now live by the aging ho chi minh to provide serious backing. in 1964 the u.s. decided a lesser was doomed to collapse when they believed it was acceptable to the american people. climaxed and 68, 69 with the troops waging against mostly regular communist formations. from new zealand, south korea together with 600,000 on the south vietnamese. there was an average of

128,000 tons into the cos a cosf $2.5 billion. the culture shock was huge. the first say cigarettes are bad for your health and the boondocks concerted. the johnson administration had far more and the bombing united people in the early unification struggle for the nazi blitz it

was a sort of industry of the north but it made a small impact and although completely contrary to the russians and chinese latched onto the various resources and have little control and the place of the bombing of a dispatched from the missiles that shut down almost a thousand. ..

. >> and it just lasted 30 seconds but those that were killed or wounded in it made use those weapons and then pull out the full artillery weapons. and then to feel the bullet

like a fist away it knocks the air out of you and makes yououth cough and then the dizzy feeling that you think and do after. and then a tiny white pebble with a blade of grass. that makes you want to cry booby-traps. booby-traps. what the 21st century calls ied's most were manufactured that 16-millimeter mortar around one out of five round would take both legs. one.five vaporized.

and the booby-traps. that we observed was almost one leg per day. and then as a veteran in 1966. i really didn't have a political commitment and was thinking for instance but literally he was ripped in half.

it was like hamburger meat. all of the organs were chopped up. and the mind was still very much aware. and with that entire unit and laying in the emergency room dying because there was nothing they could do nothing i've ever experienced. with all that knowledge to give that man a chance. and then to say it doesn't look good but that was all we had to offer. and to be a a teetotaler all her life. and then she could not even bring herself to watch mash on

tv. many americans who went to vietnam for the service. i would have been nowhere else i am convinced of the importance of being here to have great respect for those vietnamese. and then to be more difficult than that our country and countrymen have matured. but a colleague recalled the words that we assisted the

vietnamese to rise high in the sky and to come down is gently rather than crash but he said there are more survivors that way. and then a badly wounded soldier and then with the plexiglas to say again again just another 20 minutes he would have made it. but this is a guy he has never met in his life he cares terribly about him because he is on our side. but that anecdote with the american commitment was fatally flawed by the

foundation but instead without foreign-policy. with the jungle in the hands. and that is 10 percent of concern from the vietnamese. but in that case by fighting in china we don't like the chinese w either? and those key players recognize the regime of which the to have that indigenous façade and they like to fight

other than what they have got they deluded themselves but cultural social political to overcome the overwhelming firepower since was the policy failure on oppressive as some of them were the wise civilian who spent years in vietnam the world were to parachute hero if it's five or six times a greatti many civilians will die.

as the war drags on we ourselves are destroying the objective for which we fight. even before considering the consequences., the decision-makers in washington failed to understand the cultural impact on the society. they did more working for the americans but the armored vehicles sandbags and watchtowers ravage the environment even before the governments began to fly the helicopters overhead. and with the soldiers asking sexual favors. but in the 21st century with those military interventions so to have that propaganda advantage they were almost invisible to most of the people most of the time

sitting like a footprint 4 million tons of american bombs. to this day they failed to understand the folly to send their soldiers aa way with helmets and body armor with the appearance of robots but impossible to love or recognize as a fellow human being. but then they propagated and confiscated personal freedoms. they presided over fundamentally humane but the mandate seems more credible if you vietnamese have few

interests but many disavowed by the promise of a revolution that would cost those moneylenders the southerners said to me they could ceaselessly remind us how humiliating it was to be occupied by the americans to have the monopoly on patriotism annoyed and dependent upon soviet and chinese to say instead to be conspicuous with lack of possessions alongside the ostentatious jewels by amassed by saigon whether in fatigues or tuxedos for get up in the morning was out asking which side of the bed to get up 1964

/ 625 take over legitimize vietnamese communism in my view in hanoi was much less with those powers than with the vietnamese that spoke truth when it denounced saigon's rulers as puppets. and for those struggles it is very hard to have those battlefields to be a sustainable society but hr mcmastere once described those successes. former saigon correspondent

says there was nothing to join up to. and always will be meaningless so to be on the battlefield. and young westerners that remain decent hometown boys. so they are trained to become killersnc and oblige them from the existence many warriors and with those casualties and

they were baffled by rules of engagement. so then what are we doing here? it's hard to point to the conduct of half educated young men hungry and constipation or diarrhea, wearyrr and ignorant because they themselves hope to survive and then suppress resistance b and then to be contemptuous.

and then to incur the world censorship. and then it was a terrible symbolic state so in the later stages gave way to conventional clashes.

with many of its soldiers the saigon regime with popular support but still nothing to join up to. and then to discuss that they concluded around 20 for those that were corrupt. in the midst of the discussion with the americans with one contribution so arguably the people of vietnam after the north vietnamese.

and then two generations later.ti but the true price was paid not in their money or lost lives but the trauma inflicted. and then vietnam came along. with sadness and waste. and in the early 19 seventies and then created of the outcome of world war ii but it s

seemed only logical to believe so the vietnam war did more to change this country to create the suspicion of mistrust even those antiwar movements with the virtues of ho chi minh. they correctly identified vietnam. asking how he could justify the pentagon papers and then to ask the other officials involved how they justify themselves what made them feel they r had a right to keep silent for the crimes committed to the american

people? so he himself carrying home from vietnam with that overarching mistake with the military leaders so major donald huntsman and with those uniforms on everybody would be happy to see them. and those who still look back the experience was huge i was part of killing i could not confess but to say that i was

there for them around one third of the people were killed or wounded sometimes will visit at five or six in the morning that when others are around i'm glad to have it. is about ten names. minnesota, chicago and to see the tree line. the prettiest sites that i saw were the choppers over the tree lines. the people who ran america. they knew what was happening. we didn't so now it is

possible to extend forgiveness for those that make those disastrous decisions and later repented 1967 and that was critical. and to discuss ammunition requisitions 2000 rounds for every infiltrator the young official notice the defense secretary was shaking with tears streaming down his cheeks and the career had also been destroyed by holding office of the defense sector - - secretary counterfactual's it is interesting to speculate how i held back on the

struggle in the local vietcong probably were contained in many other countries all authoritarian military rule but the vietnamese couldn't stop the economy so success justifies all. nobody outside pyongyang today sees the logistics of south korea because of the democracy with a the dynamic economy in south s vietnam was less a credible state. granted the same opportunities to preserve the status but we shall never know. meanwhile only the liberations fellow has the prestige and

legitimacy to have those trappings of revolutions the conflict that continues to define with victories want to be most conspicuous. but in 1993 returning to vietnam and taken to the area were his own unit had fought and then to embrace americans to embrace the massive trade deal. if all they wanted was a mcdonald's we could've done that a long time ago.

and with that welcome that they receive in vietnam , partly because of the overwhelming majority now recognize from the liberal democracy of the shortcomings. president obama received great reception in 2015. to be impressed by the powers of saigon in the natural beauty of theys countryside and the absolute denial of freedom of speech some are to make money but none to express political opinions or debate the past. so i write about that

credibility gap but that remains institutionalized so i conspicuous lesson of the last century in determining the outcomes. the name ho chi minh city will vanish the temples of consumerism. and while they lost the world only half a century ago and has since be seen as economic and cultural influence. and america's armed forces failed and to prove

irresistible. a 13 -year-old boy wrestling on the hillside in north vietnam and that saigon was liberated but afterwards in a book called the winningng side. this is the end of south vietnam. we must quickly set about educated educating the consumer but they are stunned to realize it was the north. south vietnam because the values increasingly dominate the country as for the

american americans, what was that all about? that bothers me we did not bolearn a lot. but it wasn't about invading iraq. thank you all very much. [applause] . >>. >>. >> do they really believe that? or is this just an excuse? is at a motivation for going toor war?

with eisenhower and kennedy and with that conviction. that if vietnam went so did other asian countries but this isn't the tar baby business. but if we give up on south vietnam than what around the world? what message will they derive? and then the question most often asked and to be very impressed by that evidence

with kennedy's economic advisor who just almost two weeks before. then to expect the americans and they did believe that dominant theory. . >> what prevented the movement from cambodia what prevented that larger communist movement. >> the fact that they were not supposed to be there either. but on the subject of vietnam and indochina the more you become convinced there are

some terrible things and why not cambodia? because the north cambodian were using them for years. but they would not do it so the bombing of cambodia with the fact that it was concealed deliberately is almost indefensible. . >> i was an advisor during vietnam i was there for one year and i worked very much with the local people in the

military and what i was doing with them is security issues. but by the end of that time we had made great strides of pacification that i could show you and tell you but those that felt we were effective at least in getting the communist control eliminated to some degree and progress was made now we can ride on the roads at night believe it or not. part of the tragedy n is by the time we started to make the progress that needed to be made to achieve a more balanced outcome, we ran out of time. the congress, the

administration and antiwar demonstrations impacted greatly all of that. progress is made. we could have been going and maybe successful but politically there was no will to do that. >> one of the lessons we are still learning it's almost impossible on the military criteria and it's the same as the tet o-letter fence of that was military disaster and in a free society but it worked for the communist this perception is a huge problem in all of these situations but i don't buy the lie that the media lost the war for the united states i think there is still the problem that although you

are absolutely right all of the numbers that showed they admit 69 was the worst year of thee war and they were in a lot of trouble but he still have the problem of the government in saigon was deeply corrupt and making absolutely zero headway but i was lunching today to translate acres of vietnamesese document great military achievement of the other side i still think it's an incredibly difficult problem to overcome whether

iraq or afghanistan how do we convince the local people? you are absolutely right that's about the history. but there is still a huge problem you don't have the vietnamese regime. >>. >> i went to vietnam

april 10, april 10, 1971 and came back 75. i went there as a true believer it was a good and just cause. within six months i knew we were there for the wrong reason and we would not win the war. i had several come to jesus moments. the first i was an interrogator in vietnam. i had to interrogate to that had rallied and i suspected he had gone back to the vietcong so i interrogated him and he admitted he had gone back and we arrested him right on the spot. police were literally taking them down the stairs and he came back and said i want to tellng you we love you americans but it is the corrupt government that we hate. we hate it and i will fight to the death to change that.

and on one other location i worked at the national interrogation center but i interrogated a lot of vietcong i remember going to the national interrogation center on notation interrogating of vietnam female she took her tongue and put it between her teeth and bit off the tip of her tongue and spit in the face of the interrogator i have never seen that zeal on the part of the south vietnamese. they never believed it was their war did you have any contact with the general as an advisor to the cia? and in 1975 the tet offensive

had already started. >> thank you very much but you are absolutely right there is lot of evidence that they were saying and frustration that some south vietnamese units were very good but not enough they had worked hard. they had been fighting this war for 20 or 30 years. . >> shove national liberation many fighters against the united states were nationalist and if you go to vietnam now you land in hanoi and with the customs office and as you see across the building popeyes

louisiana cuisine, downtown, starbucks. you talk to the vietnamese they say yes we like americans but the war is over. we won. the united states never saw a national liberation and there was no way it would ever end we had no steak and the idea we were fighting communism as a political position was false. the war should have ended when the french left and then we stopped the election from happening so we were not being honest to our own people and the vietnamese knew that in the americans did not. your talking only about the communist part not the national liberation part. >> so we very careful when i first talked about starting up

it was a nationalist communist movement but i do think a lot of historians with a totalitarian regime harnessed a compulsion of patriotism but i also fundamentally disagree with you because it was a ghastly mistake for those to be calm - - to become in the fifties and sixties that i do have to say one thing but with western intelligence the cia officer said not until 1969 the cia could put together a

diagram what the leadership look like they had no understanding at all but ho chi minh was marginalized and we still see this in afghanistan and iraq and syria. and with huge regions of this it is awesomeso to realize so i learned to love writing this bookok but with the russians and chinese so to say to the russian ambassador i do not wish to drown in the swamps vietnam.

they were utterly miserable they felt they cannot get out of it. then nixon still believed to go to hanoi and what is amazing with his huge intelligence apparatus they don't understand this sort of stuff. i do think it is important to keep emphasizing the regime but the fact we did not understand in the west what was going on the other side is quite amazing. >> what drove those protest against vietnam during that tim time? . >> it was a mixture of things

you have rebellions against the authority vietnam provided a focus which was given extra stimulus with the notion of being drafted so that the mood was so divided that i saw the protest but to get one thing right they were right to but the war was a catastrophe. >> coming up to more modern times, would you say now vietnam is more like china

because china has free economics that very harsh with political stuff? . >> you are absolutely right. but the regime in vietnam is becoming more progressive not last especially with the internet censorship. they said we would not even told he was ill and went to japan for medical treatment now we are told he is dead and not now even when he died. so thousands of pages of translated 21st century accounts most of them are not worth the paper they are printed on. it is scary, yes you are right.

that economic success was matched by that ruthless oppression some of the interviews i did in vietnam they did here fascinating human stories people would say in the mental of on - - in the middle the interview no more wasting time on this guy. so there are some vietnamese but vietnam is not a happy place. the one idea is to get the united states.

>>. >> so i go to vietnam for a five times a year and the president was killed but i just came back from vietnam i have friends that know what is going on they are afraid the chinese will get theoi lease in vietnam the 100 year leases on their land. >> i spent one year 72 from 73 to try to bring american equipment to the army. but i remember from that time the real impression that this was a standoff between the army we liked and the khmer rouge we did not like and then we went home. and and the people that i knew

i'm sure not a single one of them survived more than a month in the killing fields. the mystery to me is the ferocity of the khmer rouge and what motivated him to do the terrible things he did. is there any way that we can link america or vietnam to that? . >> my book is already too long if i brought cambodia than that would have been too much we should not be elated about cambodia but the khmer rouge was theth creation of hanoi.

so both sides have plenty to be ashamed of what this was one of the things that was distorted because there is such a huge amount of material that everybody focuses on it. so this sticks in my mind to the degree which of policy to describe as communist are more totalitarian regime that all people like me ever try to do is to see things on both sides.

>> i am directed to the generations of the men and women. so last ambassador in saigon that delayed getting people out. i am curious about the generational thing to take macarthur or bradley going back to the first world war taking lessons from the other generations and then you get the stubbornness built into the generations of men meeting military on both sides and it

is a tar baby but they cannot show a weakness is there a legitimacy? . >> one has to remember in the wake of the extraordinary economic achievement, most americans i saw that nothing was impossible for the united states and to tell americans you cannot defeat this little raggedy ass it was an impossible message. that while nixon and kissinger come out about their cynicism he never thought that was winnable that presided over

the vietnamese because he was desperate but this was not a winnable war. so where he had a problem as it was a message that they had lost it is a very tough so they were accustomed to success. >> with everything written about vietnam so what motivated you to wade through the chasms and pages and much of those were useless? . >> i thought before i started on the book that i have traveled many parts of the world interviewing and i am 72

and i thought could i really face moving around interviewing people? and then i thought if i had someone do the research for me that i thought i have to do it myself. i a was there and i saw and we can speak the same language. it isn't military history at a social history because that conversation i live in a middle-class bubble in britain and the people you are reading when you three or four our conversations i remember meeting the infantrymen and he said where i came from in the late fifties and sixties all

the men got drunk and beat up their wives. that is what they did. if you talk to a navigator who is a commissioned officer when he took his wife off the base even in the early sixties. so you are gripped by those stories that people tell you. but then you realize asking the chinese a question what about your childhood he looked at me with contempt and said all we were doing is trying to

exist of survival. especially in the delta. but you see windows into aspects of other people's lives and the hard thing and i will tell you one more story because this man was a prisoner of vietcong to say it is still alive in nevada and i thought i have to see this guy. again it was pretty rough but you could hardly move but was destroyed by this experience

seven years in a bamboo cage but he talked to me through those vietcong. and he spoke with such fair mindedness and said will you take that with you? it was a huge looseleaf folder he spent most of his years since he came back writing about his experiences that he said he would never get published but to get so carried away by these people but he had very poor medical care because he was a civilian foreign service officer did not qualify for veterans

benefits. he was a very remarkable american and died a few months ago i wish you lived to see the bookk published but what i'm coming back to is i still find it so fascinating with vietnamese and americans anyway think you all very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

. >> who was martin van buren? . >> good question people probably need to ask that question. a the eighth president of the united states and he is forgotten the presidency was only four years long. . >> he spent a lot of time with aaron berger hamilton's murderer and even rumors persisted throughout the life of van buren that they were so

persistent even more of a doll put them in the novel that van buren may have been the illegitimate son of aaron berger. but john quincy adams once wrote in his diary and i saw that matt on - - martin van buren looks a lot like aaron burr and he acts like aaron berger and to have those factions to get into political alliance together. . >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the national world war i museum and memorial located here in kansas city missouri where it has been