it was terrible because the initial stories, 400 miles from saigon. in washington, they were winning the war in the suburbs of the saigon. people got tired of it breed there was a steady death rate, and the arguments. until the protests started, the story was boring. then the story became the protests. we ended up walking around the white house with candles. we were making -- we were not making new news, but they did not get that much attention. men running in the jungle, men and jumping out of helicopters and running -- they got to be boring as it was terrible. >> a, a draft that we don't have now. b, -- you are called anti- american if you protest sometimes. the president unveiled a the results that we got, but also, the casualties were much higher. we have had thousands of americans dead, but my generation is not familiar with a headline where hundreds or even thousands of people were killed in one military action. when you hear about a roadside bomb with two or three people dying, as tragic as it is, it does not make the headlines like in the viet

croyle saigon hotel caravel hotel sheraton hotel in times. in the. available in one on the resort and spa. if you move from funds to. stocks on t.v. dot com. the latest headlines in the week's top stories here in less than an old close presidential election an example look set to win a fourth term in office. and the heart of the delegation capital. with all the details coming your way just a few moments. also the tension between russian nationalists and groups from the caucuses forces moscow to take preventive security measures to avoid a new wave of clashes. it was off limits as prime minister putin the hot seat for his annual q. and a session with the public nationalism and justice were among the issues that came up in the for discussion. of. european speak out against governments in the methods used to deal with volatile economies you seem to. currency is increasingly being seen as the root of the problem. with a look back at the week's top stories in the latest developments this is r.t. here in moscow. voting in baton rouge says coming to an end

aid and served in the american embassy in saigon. in 1968 he attended the paris peace talks as a junior member of the u.s. delegation. in the carter administration he became the youngest assistant secretary of state in u.s. history at age 35, overseeing east asia and pacific affairs. in 1993, president bill clinton named him ambassador to germany. in 1994, he turned to the crisis in the balkans as assistant secretary of state for european affairs. for most of us, his name is synonymous with the 1995 dayton accords, the peace deal that ended the conflict in bosnia. that agreement was the result of what holbrooke did best: countless plane rides, meetings in dangerous places, cajoling and bullying, bluffing and strong arming. he continued to care about europe and was key to the expansion of nato into poland, hungary and the czech republic. richard holbrooke was more than a diplomat. he served on the boards of the asia society, the council on foreign relations and refugees international. he was the author of an acclaimed memoir of his wo

and when she directed "miss saigon," she needed a showstopper.a helicopter and flew it in sideways. and just like in the hit show "glee," she also found kids who needed a place to shine. ♪ don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade ♪ >> reporter: lauren woods today is nothing like the shy new girl who transferred to pierce high school back in 2001. ♪ who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade ♪ >> reporter: and when she recruited the cool kids. ♪ i can see that we will share ♪ >> reporter: shaw found will hughes on the baseball field. elizabeth judd was a sophomore on the cheerleading squad. ♪ you can choose whatever ♪ >> reporter: and her leading man, john redlinger, who was a track star scooped up by shaw after he blew his knee out. ♪ i reach for you ♪ >> reporter: and so when word went out that shaw wanted to mount the show of her life more than 80 of her former students said they were in. one by one alumni put their lives on hold and came from new york to california to take that stage and to be 15 years old once again. ♪ this and t

the sound of mopeds fill the streets of saigon, officially called ho chi minh city but always saigon the communists took over and changed the city's name signal and end to the vietnam war, today flourishing as one of the fastest growing economies in asia at-to-the markets where the food is fresh and often still alive to the fields where the harsh reality is millions work for next to nothing. here, poverty is a way of life. homes are little more than grass huts with dirt floors. this woman tells us, three generations have lived in this house since 1975. and you can see why. it's a one-bedroom hut with just three walls four people sleep right here. there's no mattress. basically you have a wooden platform and a hammock. nearby, we meet another woman whose home is falling apart but says there's nowhere else to go. this is her stove, right here in the middle of this house. as you can see, much of it is open to the elements. the wall is partially missing but she tells me they don't have enough money to fix it. stories of desperation fill these remote villages. more than ten million live b

chris: one neat thing that's happened in the tenderloin in the past couple of decades is little saigon. the development of the vietnamese community in the tenderloin's western part, mainly along larkin st. there's an increasing number of vietnamese families and businesses. one of the strengths of the tenderloin is the tenderloin community school, developed 6 or 7 years ago. it's a great school. and there's a lot of kids that go there and that's not something that's thought about. jerry: i think the neighborhood is improving but at the same time we're still facing the same issues as 10 or 15 years ago or longer. there was a neighborhood planning study, the tenderloin 2000 plan published in the early 1990's that identified 5 basic goals for the neighborhood. and 15 years later, those goals... i think a lot of people would regard them as the primary goals for the neighborhood. they include: public safety, affordable housing or housing in general, economic development, the public general environment and social services. and 15 years later a lot of those concerns are the same ones that peop

walked into saigon one day, not be surprised. that was my mission. just to let my readers know. and that i was -- and i understood something else, which was that i was intuitively, i was only 28 years old when i went there, i understood that i was heir to a great tradition, that by chance history had catapulted me to a moment where journalism mattered. that there are moments, you know, a lot of stories, terrific story, you have a great time. civil rights movement, journal inch mattered in the civil rights movement because this was a country trying to define itself for a modern era and coming out of a feudal past. in vietnam it mattered as well because the government was lying. when the government doesn't tell the truth, then the power of journalism goes up. >> we have a dwibbed panel. i want to introduce them and then we're going to have a conversation, first with ourselves and then later we hope with many of you. without further ado, let me introduce our distinguished panel. to your right, far right, is charlie center, editor of globalpost.com, which is a new, and i mean very n

full-time in saigon, and began sending back reports about what he really saw and what he learned. that was something that was very unhappy to the day of kennedy administration. he was president at that time. -- and happy to the j.f. kennedy administration. he was the president at that time. he became publisher in 1963. he was not supposed to become publisher. he was considered to be much too inexperienced, much to sort of a polished. he was not a man thought to be ready. nevertheless, his brother-in-law died in he became publisher. he was now come in 1963, try to figure out how to be publisher and what the publisher of "the new york times", an ex-marine, from world war ii, a man who had belly had gotten through college, what was to go to do? he and scotty reston, the legendary white house washington bureau chief of "the new york times," have lunch. they walk in and there is jack kennedy using all of his power of the white house and everything else to sort of overwhelmed this young publisher. he begins immediately to tell him they has to get rid of david halberstam. david halbersta

he was in saigon during the vietnam war. i believe he was 27 years old when he was involved in peace talks. he offered one volume of the pentagon papers. he helped establish full diplomatic relations with china. he settled the u.s. dues dispute at the united nations. he was trying to settle the u.s. war in afghanistan. and our disastrous relationship with our would-be sort of ally, pakistan up until the day he died. >> if there is something in u.s. foreign policy that happened under a democratic president in the last generation, it's something you heard about, then richard holbrooke was probably right in the middle of it. he was right in the middle of my own attempts -- my show's own attempts to cover our ten-year afghanistan war, which he wouldn't want me to say its in its tenth year, but it is in its tenth year. andrea mitchell joins us now to understand the importance of richard holbrooke. >> rachel, i don't think you can overstate the importance of richard holbrooke. clearly the most gifts, the most brilliant diplomat of

. >> he was a young foreign service officer in saigon and that i think was the formative experience ofife. he was such an erudite man. in addition, he was the coauthor of clark clifford's memoir, the great diplomat man about washington dissenter on the vietnam war. i thought it was so interesting. here was a guy who was really a powerful figure at the time, stands back and is the coauthor of someone else's memoir because he wanted to know how diplomacy had been conducted through the 1950s and 1960s. >> jamie i think your point about the dayton accord in bosnia, it was not a popular cause. it was a cause the public nan fact washington needed to be brought to because of the humanitarian argument. i think you are right he understood there was something good at a very fundamental, humanitarian level that could be done there and you lived that with him. >> yes, i did. i worked for madeline albright and although everyone probably knows they didn't always agree on procedure, what they agreed on was the policy and the idea that the united states had a special role in the world. this was at a t

you were in saigon? >> yes. one time and i happen to see a uso. and i stopped in.d home. i sat in line for an hour and a half. got a three-minute phone call and one of those you talking over a radio waves so you say hello, over. and that was -- that was my experience. it was a very positive one. we'll been working here since r & r started and we love it. we have all of the vets here that consistently come back. >> reporter: bob, thanks so much for your service. >> thank you. >> reporter: not only great food to eat -- oh my gosh. look at the bread. all kinds of brownies and chips and whatever to eat. all kinds of goodies you ever wanted. many things to drink. very quickly, back over here, let me show you something else. more benches here and then around the corner, a quiet area, a library to sit down and read a book and a nice and quiet, use a computer terminal or two. back over in this direction, little bit of something, an oasis before the final trip headed back home. the latest from hartsfield jackson. back the you in the studio. >> thanks a lot. thanks to jonath

vietnam that i made with chairman faleomavaega, i happened to visit my sister in the outskirt of saigon. i was there for about 15 minutes and as soon as i left guess who showed up? the police. the police showed up and interrogated my brother-in-law. and they asked him, why prosecute we there, how many people -- why were we there, how many people were there? if they were to do that to a member of the -- family of a member of u.s.a. congressman, what would they do to a normal citizen in vietnam? there are no protections whatsoever. there is a difference between practicing your religion and practicing your faith. religion you can go in there and pray which is good, but practicing faith is when you have to advocate for people's rights to worship, for people's rights to defend their family, to defend their property, to defend their faith in their view. and in that regard the vietnamese government has been lacking in every aspect. thank you and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from american samoa is recognized. mr. faleomavaega: mr. speaker, i yield su

you were to go to what is nowyou called ho chi minh city you would find most people still call it saigon can. sometimes these new names don't catch on. >> host: this tweet, totally random. what did you think of slum dog million mare? was it worth the hype? >> guest: didn't like it. i could go into greater length. you know, i know lots of people liked it.wasn i thought that it wasn't to my t taste. i thought it wasn't a portrayalt of that world that i recognized as particularly interesting or truthful. >> host: next call, los angeles. joe, good afternoon.r >> caller: good afternoon. i wanted to follow up on your discussion of movies, and ithis believe i read online you did at article about what makes a good and bad film adaptation. >> guest: yeah.ed >> caller: i believe you liked the famous book that was madewa into a movie, so i wanted you to discuss, you know, what makes ao good adaptation. i think you're also writing a screenplay yourself, what's the difference between writing a screenplay and a novel. finally menwell, what do you think about benwell so much? >> guest: all right, let's