vietnamese called it. they start sending major forces into south vietnam. the soviets heavily commit to supporting the north vietnamese. when the u.s. swrer convenience, it faces a completely new war. how do you counter american power? you have on one hand american land power. when the u.s. becomes heavily involved, the north -- again, they're continuing to prosecute their strategy the way they had before. you have the political elements of it but you've also got the military elements of it. part of the political element, there's deception and propaganda campaign. when the u.s. becomes involved the north tries to do everything they can to undermind the war. they try to portray the american mission as impossible. there's no way the americans can win. you can't do anything here. you can make an argument that they're so successful that that's the conventional wisdom in much of the world. this is impossible. america can't win no matter what they do, a communist victory is not possible. they lied about their actions wonderfully well. they did everything they coul

they're conventional units designed to fight the south vietnamese army. you have regional forces, guerrilla's who work full time in assigned regions in the south and you have this local vc militia in the areas that they control can -- excuse me, that the communists control in south vietnam. hanoi makes sure he has tight control. in 1961 they establish something called the central office of south vietnam, the cosvic. this is set up in cambodia. they do this to run the war in the south. it's basically their command to run the war in south vietnam. while they're doing this they divide the south into various districts to organize throughout the country, even down to the village level. in 1961 the north intensifies the military as well as the political struggle against the south. what they're hoping when they get into this, they think they can politicize the situation enough and make it violent enough where they can provoke a general uprising against the south vietnamese regime. one of the strands that runs through the north vietnamese military is they can crea

army and south vietnamese government. and at the same time, they believed that the u.s. effort would be undermined by a lack of public support for the war. and they also believed the u.s. effort would be undernimined by the fact the south army was weak. you've still got this rivalry in the vietnamese high command, how do you prosecute this war? general tan, again, who commands the communist force in the south, he believed that the u.s. would not have enough troops to do what westmoreland was doing, to prosecute the attrition war that he's going to do. and he believed that the u.s. would end up having the same problems and the same fate as the french had. and so he adopts a very aggressive form of phase two where he's really going to -- he's not going to go full conventional war against the americans, but he's going to very aggressively fight the arvn, fight the american army. and to provide the strength for this, the north basically moves to a point of the mobilizing the entire country for the war where north vietnam has

substantial south vietnamese forces. you've got on the communist side in particular, the coalitional aspect is very important for their success. you know, ho chi minh says that himself. so you've got support from communist china and from the soviet union as well. so keep that in mind here when we look at this war because you have these various different aspects of it. and you've got to deal with the various different aspects, these various different wars in some respects in a different matter. now, also, what is important to point out here before we go into this lecture, you can see from the time line that it covers an enormous, you know, amount of time. 30 years. obviously, we're going to leave a couple things out and just hit the high points. what is important to think about is, the primary means, the primary elements of strategy that the north vietnamese used to prosecute the war against us, when the united states comes into the war, these have already been developed before our entry into the war in a significant fash

by insisting on the deamericanization which is confused with vietnamization, build up of the south vietnamese and that was his plan and it worked in the end. i'm simplifying the argument, and that was an important role, but at the same time nixon and kissinger bypassed him. they saw vietnamization as part of the solution as i tried to explain. that is, if you're going to withdraw and if you haven't won an agreement that is necessary to preserve south vietnam, then there's the danger of south vietnam falling and, therefore, you need to build up the south vietnamese to deal with the other side. so vietnamization was an important part of this, but nixon didn't emphasize it until the end of 1969 and into '70. and even then they withdrew more slowly than laird wanted them to. the other part of their strategy was force, which i think -- if i want to judge in the short time i have here, i think it failed their main purpose, which was to force the other side, to withdraw north vietnamese troops from south vietnam, and to give up on their insistence of a unified vietnam. that did not happen. but the p

and he said the cia wire subset found a nixon campaign telling the south vietnamese don't go to paris don't cut the deal we'll give you a better deal if you wait until after the election and he said every person ever this is treason i can't let the american people know but this is treason and never says yes it is i'll try to stop nixon but he could and you know there are tens of thousands of people millions of your i mean you could see the. predecessor conditions rencontre the hostages. were released after president reagan took what is are the minute he put him up so you know we know that there are always other political concerns going on but i just want to go back to something from. we have a type of thinking that keeps this into work. when when you think that war is inevitable that creates momentum for war their work becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and it's the kind of thinking that we have to be careful of when we see that the united states is that war anywhere around the world we so choose you know is at war and we'll be at war no we have to stop that this is going to destroy o

you almost think there's no south vietnamese army he'ding the book that there's pretty

and therefore you need to build up the south vietnamese on the other side. nixon didn't end it until 1969 and into '70 and even then it was more than laird wanted them to the other strategy was force. khpwhv it purpose, which was to force the other side to withdraw north ve vietnamese troops from south vietnam and to give up on their insistence of the unified vietnam. that did not happen. but the point is that vietnamization took a while to come into play and by then most american troops had withdrawn. >> we're out of time. >> i had actually a slightly different determination of laird's role. and by the way, the nixon library has quite an excellent oral history that they did. in any case, i think that nixon's view of laird was somewhat similar to what john kennedy thought about harriman, that he was a crocodile on the side of the creek that would bite your head off if you did it wrong. so laird's positions and what laird did and how he related to the president's enterprises was of huge importance to the white house. and that's why things happened the way th

he'd gone out with the south vietnamese intelligence forces and--interrogating prisoners, and this was the way they used to do it. it was a pretty brutal picture, and very few newspapers would publish that picture. the toronto star did. i think the herald--new york herald tribune did, but the washington post bought the story and then killed it. c-span: this is a series of three photographs, and if you look closely, you can see nelson rockefeller in the middle of all that, and there is a dog on the side. as we go down the photographs, you see the dog beginning to walk away, nelson rockefeller still there in the middle, and then finally... >> guest: right. c-span:...the dog in the final frame--why did you put these three photographs in? >> guest: well, i was to have a meeting with pierre salinger at the white house. magnum wi--wi--photographers were doing a book on the first 100 days of the kennedy administration. simultaneously, nelson rockefeller began tooling up to campaign against kennedy for president in '64. and his public relations people advised him to go out in the streets of al

think it failed their main purpose which was to force the other side to withdraw north vietnamese troops from south vietnam and to give up their insistence of a unified vietnam. that did not happen. but the point is vietnamization took a long time to come into play, by the time they came into play most american troop his withdrawn. okay, this is complicated. >> i have actually a slightly interpretation of laird's role and by the way. theon

vietnam has demanded the immediate and unconditional release of 21 vietnamese fishermen taken by chinese forces in the disputed area of the south china sea. they were detained early this month when fishing. they were dealt with according to law against illegal fishing in chinese waters. we know this is not the first diplomatic route between china and vietnam. >> we have seen many diplomatic disputes between the two countries over these disputed at -- these disputed islands. china has claimed sovereignty over them. that is something that is disputed and that is why it is a fisherman that were in that area. they claimed that china had violated the sovereignty after the chinese company opened up a bid to begin a process of oil exploration. >> critics say that this is just the latest episode of the time it exerting its territory influence. >> they have control these islands for almost 40 years. they claim sovereignty. what we have seen in the south china sea is a whole host of disputes of violence across the south china sea as well as greece. china can test a lot of these islands with a number of countries in the region. why does t