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%our pun tido leek eon It6 sore seszipsoly example, the handling of the 4, iir of Tai ma that tbn eepond as mitts* ever hapsned. Yet you preenm l!'aVers 8id04 time the ether Of Au* Ola you didn't. Zhoy don' t really 146NO the Pests.= didn't, either) GO tO 100 it ioa't 40,

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By NEIL SHEEHAN • has won three Emmy awards, such as the Pentagon papers, Buddhist bannersOn Buddha's -. A :two-hour documentary and,.according to Mr. freed, even if more detailed, cannot birthday. , by the National Broadcasting it took N.B.C. six months to 111#0. While the narrator' relates • Company on the Vietnam de- put together and 'cost about Listening to Lieut. coi:..Lu- the event, 'the viewer' sees a . cisions of the Kennedy Ad- a quarter of a million dollars. cien Conein, a retired Central film-Clip of a 'Buddhist dem- . ministration illustrates the The program does not, as Intelligence Agency, „officer onstration limits television faces in asserted in a statement by Who was ' the liaison agent " • seeking to meld into good Reuven Frank, the president with the plotters, tell how . T history narration, film clips of N.B.C. News, provide much the plotting unfolded, leaves The teleiViiiiM'technique and retrospective Interviews "new material and new in- the viewer with little doubt 'Shows its liiniteinnif Often with surviving participants. sights about' information about the &tent. of „United in what it leave§ out The program, entitled, "An eight, nine and ten years old States implication. , Roger Hilsman, the former • N.B.C.News White Paper: which was ignored or at least As such, the documentary Ablistant Secretatytir State Vietnam Hindsight," is being •underestimated at the time?' provides a valuable re-exam- for' Far Eastern Affairs, tells - shown in two parts, the first The inforniation ' and in- nation of history for the av- the viewer that "Robert F. hour at 8:30 P.M. yesterday sights about the Kennedy erage American who may not Kennedy had staked whether and the , second at 10 P.M. years and Vietnam that the find himself capable of read- the, United 'States ought to today. program presents have been ing thousands of words. . withdraw entirely from Viet- The first section, called available in published work P nam at the time of the Bud- "How ; It Began;" encom- on this crucial period in the The narration-film clip-in- dhist crisis in :mick-1963. passed events From President history of the war. terview technique shows its The Pentagon'tpapen- show' Kennedy's initial commit- For exaMple, the material limits at a number of points, that Robert Kennedy added a ment of American military presented in the second hour, however. second clause- to this com- advisers, planes and helicop- showing that the Kennedy In two instances. where ment at a Washington policy ter -units to Administration was deeply N.B.C. apparently .did not meeting,, on whether to en4 in the fall of 1961 to the implicated in the coup plot, have authentic film to illus- courage a coup. He said that political,turipoil that erupted that thev10iSiori to kill Diem trate the narration, substi- if Diem Was found to he the in 1963 with the Buddhist and his brother was a collec- tute film is used without any obstacle to 'winning' the war, agitation against the Diem tiye one taken by a military warning to the viewer. , then the United' States ought '1!regirne. group headed by Gen. Duong The first involyesa battle, to get rid of MM. The concluding hour, en- Van Minh and that the and film clips from a trairk- Mr.; Hilsman does -not men- titled, "The Death of Diem," assassin was General Minh's ing film are used to simulate tion this second remark. covers the coup d'etat that aide-de-camp, a Maj. Nguyen combat „ . 1) -,c,resulted in the assassination Van Nhung, has all been The second is an incident Michael V,,-Forrestal, a for- )- of President known. in the old imperial capital of mer special White House rut- wand his powerful brother, • ' Hue on May 8, 1963, that sistant to President Kennedy, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and the role • Nevertheless, the expe- started the . Buddhist t cam- seeks throughout to create an !4,of. the Kennedy Adininistra- rience of seeing those eVents paign against President Diem. impression , that 2 President .:,)tion in,the coup plot. :visually recreated, and listen= Diem's troops killed nine per- Kennedy- would .have, with- 0. ing to participants describe sons in a crowd peacefully drawn from Vietnam in 1965. The documentary was pro- them, have an impact on the demonstrating against a de- rather than bomb ;the North ,duced by Fred, Freed, who viewer that printed history cree outlawing the display of and commit American combat troops to. the South as Pres- ident Johnson subsequently did. He says, that Mr. ,Ken- nedy discussell the possibility. of , withdrawal with him just before his death. ; Mr. Forrestal does not men- tion that two days before Mr. Kennedy ,died,, the leading members of - hip. Administra- tion met in Honolulu to begin planning, among other items,. Clandestine warfare against , an action Mr. Johnson took up. Floyd Kalber, the 14.B.C, correspondent who narrates the program, concludes with a.. strong ,statement placing responsibility on Mr. Kennedy, and his advisers for gravely deepening the American,com- mitment in the war. The fact that his assertion is not -stiopOrted by'S closer examination. of the views put forth by Mr4, Forrestal ,and 'others' on the program, how ever, makes this conclusion something of In afterthought.