i myself did not plan to. >> robert mcnamara leaves office.level by the war. >> tonight the communists hit the very heart of saigon, the brand-new u.s. embassy building and at least ten cities in that war-torn country. >> the tet offensive was the big show of the vietcong. >> it's huge. they've got the americans and south vietnamese completely by surprise. >> it exposed how tenuous the u.s. hold was. >> who won and who lost in the great tet offensive against the cities? i'm not sure. the terrible loss in american lives, prestige, and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there. it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of vietnam is to end in a stalemate. >> when walter cronkite, who is 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 36 when we started. we got 21 killed. >> what were you thinking about? >> i was thinking of m

robert mcnamara wrote a book before he died saying how wrong he was. and it is amazing to me 50 years after the voting rights act and civil rights act how courageous lyndon johnson was. he doesn't get the credit for the good he did do. clearly he was wrong on the vietnam question, and martin king was right. johnson doesn't have a holiday, king does. johnson doesn't have a monument, king does. so we see who was right 50 years later, but king paid a serious price for that, and the last year of his life he's depressed a lot more, he's drinking a little heavier, he's smoking a little bit heavier. he always tried to break smoking, but he couldn't stop the habit, kind of like barack obama fighting to not smoke. but his life in that last year was just so, visceral impact. when he died, the autopsy on his body -- he's assassinated at 39, the autopsy revealed the inner parts of a 60-some--year-old man. the stress and the pressure on him, peter, on the outside is he's 39, but on the inside he's in his 60s. so he wasn't going to live forever anyway. but that kind

he is a pretty powerful, forceful follow, robert mcnamara.among other things, he calls up the admiral in charge of pacific command and says, what is this? you do not understand that we are already in motion. we have had a meeting. the president has signed off. we are ready to fly those b-52's. those commies had better watch out. whats these messages -- are these messages saying there is no attack? right at that moment a composite intercept roles in. it is a summary of those north vietnamese communications august.one of -- 1 to 5 which indicates that they did plan a preplanned attack. gist the communications. just summarize without giving the source of where they picked it up. they summarized. this top-secret code word document is what the national security agency provided top policymakers like mcnamara to continue to defend the position that the second attack did take place. it was aggressive. and they basically had left out of the chronology all of the messages that did not support that story. we shot down to enemy planes and the battle area

about vietnam, chilly, bangladesh, the deaths of so many people needlessly, and that history, robert mcnamara, the kennedy brothers, others who in their books and memoirs try to make somewhat restitution . we sort of suspected at the time that it was bad. may be worse. we are sort of sorry and actually we have some evidence we feel we should share with you, discloses should have at the time. kissinger never said a word of self criticism, not one. and he gets very petulant and angry in spiled with ugly when he is criticized as he said, a contingency, that he was to try it i would be fascinated to begin, of course. c-span: we don't have much time. >> guest: don't say that. [laughter] >> guest: i will be the judge of that. c-span: if you knew that there was a certain amount of time left, no idea, six months, a year, however, things you want to do? >> guest: yes, but what they don't tell you is what kind of monthly's would be. as the other reason they don't like being asked the late congressman had the same thing is me. debt recently, but before he died he had about four or five. he had done a lo