coulter, all here tomorrow. be with us. good night from new york. tonight on "war stories". >> they said you're our president. you're a criminal. >> my arms are black because of the flies and the blood. >> the early days were the only days america lost. >> could we have won? >> easily. >> easily. >> was it doomed from the start? >> you wanted an adviser to tell you what to do. >> i can't get out. i justan't be the architect of surrender. "flashpoint vietnam: the road of war," that's next on "war stories."

in combat, american infantrymen can't be pushed. they have to be led from the front. this statue called "follow me" embodies the spirit of the infantry foot soldiers who ply the perilous business of war on the ground. good evening. i'm oliver north. this is "war stories." coming to you from ft. benning, georgia, home of the u.s. army and infantry since 1918. during the 1960s and '70s, hundreds of thousands of young soldiers honed their combat skills here. but american involvement in southeast asia began years before our first air and ground combat units arrived in 1965. early in the cold war against communist, the eisenhower administration spent billions aiding the french in their fight against ho chi minh. before that, we supported him when he was our ally against the japanese in world war ii. how then did the united states

find itself embroiled in vietnam, fighting a war that would last more than a decade, cost mr. than 58,000 american lives and sear our national soul? tonight "flashpoint vietnam: the road of war." that's next on "war stories." >> they were always talking about this thing ending soon. >> i would say that we have a commitment to vietnamese freedom. >> we were asked to write letters home. >> peace is a journey of a thousand miles. >> i'd only been out of the state of west virginia a couple of times when i joined the marine corps. ♪ >> in 1960, ernie wallace was a 16-year-old in wayne county, west virginia.

>> upon graduation, there is only two things to do around our area. that was work in the coal mines or construction. and i was not very much for work. so i wanted to see some world. >> i always wanted to be a marine. the old posters, be a mud marine. >> like ernie wallace, ed rummond joined the marines on the eve of the war in vietnam. >> i went in the marine corps in december of '59. went to boot camp in '60. >> three years after ed brummond arrived at boot camp, ed tried to join the army. >> the army recruiter wasn't there. went to the marines. the marine recruiter wasn't there. the navy chief said hey. >> step in here. >> joined the navy. >> had you even heard of vietnam? >> i had heard of it when i was in high school. but it was just another country. >> just another country?

vietnam's dense jungles, cloud-draped mountains and waterlogged rice paddies are much like its history, complex and dangerous. the viet minh are wanting to spread -- >> this is a professor of history. >> in the mid 19th century, catholic missionaries were being persecuted in vietnam and in china, and this issue was a part of what brought france into involvement in both vietnam and china. ♪ >> the french colony of indochina included vietnam, laos, and cambodia. in the late 1800s and early 20th century, hundreds of french migrated to asia in search of wealth. made second class citizens in their own country, the vietnamese resisted french occupation with violence.

at the end of world war i, american president woodrow wilson envisioned a new world forum. ♪ founded at the paris peace conference in 1919, the league of nations was intended to be a new arena for people and countries to hash out their differences. this high-minded concept appealed to one young man in particular. >> he showed up at the paris peace conference wanting better treatment for vietnam. and he was basically told shoo, shoo, go away. that's for white people. >> the man ignored would later become known to the world as ho chi minh. loosely translated it means "bringer of light." born in 1890, the youngest of three children, ho grew up witnessing his father's frustration under the french

rule. he travelled to see how the other half lived. ho chi minh would dedicate his life to a single purpose, vietnamese independence. enthralled by the russian revolution of 1917, ho turned to the world's first communist power. >> the new russian revolutionary government was an enemy of all of the capitalist governments. the reason he had become a communist is that it looked like a good avenue towards national independence for vietnam. >> in 1920 while still in france, ho chi minh helped found a french communist party. he soon was living in moscow. >> he is given some training by the communist international in organizational techniques, and he is able to create what is officially founded in 1930 as the indochinese communist party. >> uses dozens of alias, he traveled asia, preparing his people to fight for their

independence. >> his original name was nguyen tot the than. he only fell into the use of ho chi minh by accident. he got arrested under it and he was stuck with the name he had been arrested under. >> reporter: during world war ii they had some unlikely allies. ho chi minh and his guerrillas joined the fight. >> his main goal was to try to win the friendship of the united states government. >> and i wanted to be a part of the war from day one. >> while ho chi minh battled the japanese, 16-year-old billy waugh growing up in southeastern texas made his first attempt to get into the fight. >> i ran off in 1945 and tried to join the marine corps and asked are you too young? i said i'm 18. he said no, i am not. and he put me in jail until i told him who my mother was and she hauled me back to texas and

i got a tailwhiping for that. >> billy would have to wait for his chance. end of world war ii brought peace and jubilation to many. but when paris sent troops back to vietnam, ho chi minh had a message for the french. >> he actually said to one of them "you will kill ten of us for every one of you that we kill, and you will get tired of it first." >> during the late 1940s as ho chi minh fought the french, america was focused on its own post war problems. >> the french are fighting for colonialism, and that's not nice. the viet minh are communist-led and that's not nice. the only nice thing about the problem is that it's not our problem. >> but the cold war made it our problem. >> they start getting military aid coming across the boarder from china. at the beginning of 1950. and the intensity of combat, the scale of combat goes way up. >> by the 1950s, america was at

war against north korea and then communist china. we also supported the fight against ho chi minh to the tune of $2 billion. >> by 1954, the american taxpayers are paying more for the french car than the french taxpayers are. >> in may of '54, 20,000 french soldiers were defeated at dien bifu. of the vietnam fighters, 8,000 were killed. another 15,000 were wounded. >> french paratroopers being dropped into dien bien phu. of course we didn't know where that was. >> in 1964, edward alvarez was a high school student in california dreaming of flying. a decade later vietnam would make him one of the world's most famous pilots. >> i didn't care what i flew or what model as long as i flew

jets. >> jfk and robert mcnamara called them advisers. but these elite warriors did much more than teach the south vietnamese military how to fight. often they found themselves in the h

races to the center field, makes the play. ♪ >> in the summer of 1954, sex goddess marilyn monroe filmed one of her most famous onscreen moments. in vietnam, over 70 years of french colonial rule was ending. >> it all came the a head at the battle of dien bien phu. and president eisenhower decided to help broker the geneva accords of 195 four. >> h.r. mcmaster is the author of "dereliction of duty".

>> the geneva accord marked the end of the french in vietnam but the beginning for the united states. >> the agreement split reason in two at the 17th parallel and called for a nationwide election in 1956. the communist north and the democratic south were to be united under the winner. the nationwide ballot never occurred, and in the south, no sien jhin held on to power after what was widely believed a rigged vote. >> you have a row of dominoes set up, and you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one. certainly it will go over very quickly. >> vietnam fell to the communists. then all southeast asian countries would also fall. ♪ >> publicly, the eisenhower administration applauded his anti-communist regime, providing south vietnam with hundreds of millions in aid. privately, there were serious concerns. >> nobody felt that this

government could really survive. but it was almost as if it were a miracle. siem had consolidated power in the south. communist activity was reduced. the economy was beginning to develop. >> the comment had more to do with what ho chi minh was up to rather than what jiem was up to. in the north ho was consolidating his power and preparing for the next war. >> so in effect no siem and his american backers have a free ride for a couple of years. >> a new democratic president took office and faced the same old enemies. in his inaugural address, jfk let both friend and foe know where he stood. >> we shall support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. >> he confronts an intensification of the insurgency in south vietnam. >> when do you make your first deployment into southeast asia?

>> in 1960. i went from laos. i spent six months there, and then i went over to vietnam. >> 15 years after being turned away by the marine corps, billy was a special forces noncommissioned officer. he and his team were some of the very first americans to see combat in southeast asia. >> special forces trained their men, and then accompanied these men into combat to kill the enemy. the difference was we weren't there to train. we were there to get them in good shape and go forward. >> by the end of kennedy's first year in office, there were over 3,000 military advisers like billy waugh in vietnam. >> there is the pretense they're just there as advisers. the reality is americans are starting to be put into combat. >> the president hears a report from secretary of defense robert mcnamara. >> he lured his new secretary of defense from the company of ford motor company. his choice? robert strange mcnamara.

>> he had a reputation as a brilliant analyst. so mcnamara came in with the charge to clean up the department of defense, make it more efficient. he came in with hundreds of initiatives, lots of requirements. he met a great deal of resistance initially and built animosity. >> his relationship with chiefs was strained at best. in this tense atmosphere, leaders of our military and government were forced to face one of america's greatest post world war ii challenges, the october 1962 cuban missile crisis. >> the soviet union has put nuclear weapons in that island just off the u.s. coast. >> any time they start sticking muscles down in cuba, that's too close. >> the cuban missile crisis heats up the cold war. heats up the cold war. that's but i'm not standing still... and with godaddy, i've made my ideas real.

♪ ♪ i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ ♪ everything is working, working, just like it should ♪

>>. [ gunshots ] >> oliver: october 14 14 october, 1962. a u.s. reconnaissance aircraft takes these photographs of soviet union ss-4 nuclear missiles in cuba, a direct threat to america. two days later, jfk held a tense meeting with his advisers, including his brother bobby, general maxwell taylor, and defense secretary robert mcnamara. >> 24 hours, first we need to develop a strike plan, and then what we have to do -- >> the chiefs felt as if a full-scale invasion was the most likely option. secretary mcnamara felt we had to gradually increase the level of force in cuban. >> kennedy sided with mack 'nam

mayor ra. finally on 28 october, soviet leader nikita khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if the united states promised not to invade cuba. secretly kennedy also promised to withdraw u.s. jupiter missiles from turkey. >> mcnamara came emboldened because he was right and the chiefs were wrong. what he didn't realize is the deal to trade u.s. missiles in turkey for u.s. missiles in cuban is what was decisive. >> mcnamara began to apply an increase in force to another looming crisis, vietnam. a little over two months after the missile crisis, three american advisers were killed at the battle of ap bhat, a hamlet 30 miles south of vietnam. in february 1963, 43-year-old adviser robert net from new haven, connecticut arrived in vietnam.

net, a world war ii medal of honor recipient. in 1963 nearly 16,000 advisers like net were serving in south vietnam. how much combat were they seeing at that point? >> i would say three, four months a year. >> and they're up against what? vietcong or nva? >> both. i felt that they were well prepared because they had our equipment, and they were being trained by us. and they getting a taste of combat. >> the vietcong were south vietnamese communist guerrillas, and they were both formidable enemies. >> when you're going out on a patrol, you're predominantly in the hands and safety of the indigenous troops that you have trained. did you have any anxieties about how reliable these guys are? >> none at all. because we train them. and we were paying them very good money. i wasn't going to watch them and

watch the nva too, no. >> but for diem, it wasn't the only problem. >> his brother is the head of the secret police and brutally repressed any opposition to the diem government. this was particularly in connection with the buddhist monks. buddhist monks begin to light themselves on fire in protest against this diem government. this put kennedy and his advisers in a very difficult position. >> this crisis turns the united states very hesitantly against diem. >> as diem's problems mount, robert net was near the dmz and agreed upon demarcation line between the communist controlled north and the democratic south. but the nva didn't play by the rules. >> the nva could cross at any time they want, but we couldn't cross? >> well, i think we crossed it several times. sometimes accidentally.

and sometime in pursuit. >> i know by the time i got there, there was enormous frustration with the fact that we weren't allowed to go in. were you seeing that same frustration among americans as early as '63? >> no, no i wasn't. >> did you get a sense that this was going to work? >> until president diem was assassinated. everything collapsed. >> we knew that diem was going to fall. you could feel it. it was in the air. >> when word reached the white house, kennedy promised not to interfere or cut aid to south vietnam. >> ngo dinh diem and his brother are found with bullet holes in their head in the back of a personnel carrier. >> 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, beginning with our cable of early august in which we suggested the coup. >> it didn't affect us at all. really didn't care who was running the country. >> only three weeks after ngo dinh diem and his brother were assassinated, kennedy himself is assassinated in dallas. so this is a huge turning point in the vietnam war, because a new president now has to confront this very difficult situation. >> i can't get out. i just can't be the architect of surrender. >> the vietnamese attacked u.s. destroyers, and lbj responds with much more than air

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