AN NBC NEWS WHITE PAPER VIETNAM HINDSIGHT PART I: HOW IT BEGAN BROADCAST: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1971 8:30 -9:I0 P.M. t CREDITS Opening Title: NBC NEWS WHITE PAPER VIETNAM HINDSIGHT PART I: HOW IT BEGAN Credits: NBC NEWS WHITE PAPER VIETNAM HINDSIGHT Copyright c The National Broadcasting Co., Inc. 1971, All Rights Reserved Produced and Written By FRED FREED Directed by PAMELA HILL Associate Producers PAMELA HILL ALVIN DAVIS "Researcher HELEN WHITNEY Production Assistant BARBARA SPENCE Film Reasearcher JACK GOELMAN Unit Manager KLAUS HEYS Supervising Film Editor DARROLD MURRAY Film Editors MARY ANN MARTIN STUART M. ROSENBERG DAVID J. SAUL JEAN BAGLEY Cameramen STEVE PETROPOULOUS WILLIAM RICHARDS Sound JAMES ZOLTOWSKI JOSE VALLE JOHN SINGLETON JEROME GOLD HENRY ROSSEAU IRVING GANS SHELLY FIELMAN Still Pictures by JACQUES LOWE BLACK STAR MAGNUM GEORGE TAMES - THE NEW YORK TIMES THE JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY. YOICHI OKOMOTO HORST FAAS PEOPLE WHO WERE INTERVIEWED FOR VIETNAM HINDSIGHT IN ..ORDER OF THEIR APPEARANCE AND PO ITION HELD AT THE.TIME GEORGE BALL Under-Secretary of State 1961-1966 MAXWELL TAYLOR Military Adviser to JFK - 1961 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 1962-64 JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH Ambassador to India 1961-63 DAVID HALBERSTAM Correspondent - New York Times - Vietnam 1962-63 WALT M. ROSTOW Deputy Special Assistant to the President for National Security 1961-64 MME. NHU Wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, sister-in-law of Ngo Dinh Diem ARTHUR SCHLESINGER Special Assistant to the President 1961-64 PAUL HARKINS US Military Commander - Vietnam 1962-64 JOHN VANN American Military Adviser in Vietnam MICHAEL FORRESTAL Senior Member - White House National Security Staff 1962-66 ROGER HILSMAN. Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs 1963-64 RUFUS PHILLIPS American AID Mission - Vietnam -2- FREDERICK NOLTING U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam 1961-63 LT. COL. LUCIEN CONEIN CIA - Vietnam 1961-64 DEAN RUSK Secretary of State 1961-69 GENERAL TON THAT DINH Military Governor - Saigon 1963 GENERAL DO MAU Director - Military Security 1963 MA TUYEN Leader- Saigon Chinese Community COL. DUONG NGOC LAM Director - Civilian Guard GENERAL NGUYEN KHANH Commander - Second Corps - ARVN 1963 ACT I MONTAGE OF VN PEASANTS AT WORK 4 SHOT GIRLS ON SIDE OF ROAD SUPER: HOW IT BEGAN MS COWS IN FIELD SUPER: REPORTED BY FLOYD KALBER SCOOTER GOES BY (MUSIC UP) FATHERS ARE PLEADING MOTHERS ARE ALL ALONE MOTHERS ARE PRAYING SEND OUR SONS BACK HOME MONTAGE CU AMERICAN SOLDIERS BRING THE BOYS HOME BRING THEM BACK ALIVE BRING THE BOYS HOME BRING THEM BACK ALIVE (Chorus) BRING THE BOYS HOME BRING THEM BACK ALIVE KALBER (VO) MONTAGE OF WOUNDED GIS & This is the first of two programs VN WAR SCENES about this war where 32,000 Americans died. • MONTAGE OF WEARY GI FACES KALBER (VO) SLOW ZOOM TO CU JFK IN About the decisions he made as OFFICE .President of the United States about the war. k I -p/2 PULL BACK TO CORPSE OF DIEM About the death of Ngo Dinh Diem who was President of Vietnam. KALBER (VO) MONTAGE OF WOUNDED GIS About how his death and the decisions that let to his death changed the nature of this war and changed our part in it. About how we got there and why we got there. KALBER (VO) CU OF GI FACE On January 20, 1961, the United States had 400 men in Vietnam. In November 1963 we had 16,000. MONTAGE OF TANKS AND SOLDIERS We had become partners in a war in Asia against Asians. How did that happen? KALBER (SOF) CU To the degree that we in the media paid any attention at all to that small dirty war in those years, we almost wholly reported the position of the government. We had no more ' foresight about what that war would, become than the men in Washington I—p/3 who made the decisions. We did not foresee and we did not understand. Thus, this program and the one that will follow tomorrow night are for one thing, an exercise in hindsight. KALBER (SOF) MS But we believe that hindsight is necessary. Vietnam has been an American failure. That is now generally agreed. What. is important. is to understand why, why we -acted as we did knowing and believing what we did then. KALBER (SOF) ' "CU Vietnam has been called a quagmire into which we blundered not knowing what we were doing., It has been. said that the system, the.bureaueraty-- worked too well. It has been called an adventure in United States imperialism. • KALBER (VO) .M/2 SHOT OF SOLDIERS DRAGGING BODY OF PRISONER This is an attempt to see the events and options as they looked to-the men who made the decisions. that - got uts intt a war that no one really wanted. ACT II SLOW ZOOM IN TO WHITE HOUSE KALBER (VO) John F. Kennedy was President.of SLOW ZOOM IN TO JFK the United States for 1056 days. SPLIT SCREEN: JFK/ There is civil war in Laos, the MONTAGE OF WAR SCENES IN LOAS, CONGO, CUBA, ALGERIA Congo, Algeria, the invasion of BERLIN. NUCLEAR BOMB EXPLOSION the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin wall. The resumption of nuclear testing by the Soviet Union. LS VN SOLDIERS IN ACTION There is also -- still small and 'Still far away -- a war in Vietnam. DEAD BODY OF DIEM GILPATRIC (SOF) CU I only say by way of comparison that Vietnam was the terra incognita compared to the western world... GILPATRIC (VO) CU/BUDDHA ...Our orientation had been principally 2 SHOT MEN AT ALTAR in the countries forming the periphery Of the Soviet Union. And other than the Korean experience the, not II-p/2 many of us had the first hand MONTAGE OF MONTAGNARD knowledge of the...the conditions DANCE in Southeast Asia. PAM HILL (VO) Was there ever any kind of dialogue about the advisability of getting into Vietnam? BALL (SOF) CU GEORGE BALL I think the President, er President Kennedy had considerable reservations about it, but at the same time he had a very strong feeling that the communist powers were in an expansionist mood and he was not prepared CU/JFK PAN TO BALL - STILLS to see us abdicate leadership or responsibility in Vietnam. TAYLOR (VO) CU/STILL MAXWELL TAYLOR I know of nobody, I heard of no one in this period TAYLOR (SOF) MS who opposed the broad goal, the II—p/3 prevention of the imposition of a communist government on the state of South Vietnam against the will of its inhabitants. No one challenged that that I ever heard. GALBRAITH (SOF) MS JOHN K. GALBRAITH The assumption as to whether we should stay in Vietnam or not, was almost, this is a shocking business, there was almost no discussion of that. And er, there were two reasons for that I think. There was first the unwillingness of anybody who seemed to be so weak, that he would say in effect, the United States should walk out of a situation or difficulty of this sort. A weakness was readily equated with you know, being soft on communism. GALBRAITH (VO) LS/NSC MEETING The other and more important thing was, if you said II-p/4 CUT TO MS GALBRAITH let's pull out, 2 SHOT McNAMARA/JOHNSON this is a hopeless situation,. MCU JFK/STILL then you MS RUSK/STILL excluded yourself from all further discussion. "Well, don't get MS GALBRAITH/STILL Galbraith into that discussion he has taken a way-out position. He's wild, he just said ZOOM IN TO CU/GALBRAITH we should pull out, so he's a waste of time." SOLDIERS ACTION SCENES KALBER (VO) Thus, as the new administration begins to consider what to do in Vietnam, VC CAPTURE no one considers whether the United States should be there at all. PAN ARVN There is no examination of the nature of the war of the government we are• supporting, of the SOLDIERS CAPTURE VC roots of the insurgency against it. MONTAGE/SV PEASANT FACES/ We assume that Vietnam is our ANGUISH responsibility and that we should be there. KALBER (VO) PAN DOWN PROM CAPITOL The commitment in Southeast Asia BLDG. goes back to the decision of President Truman to support the return of the French to Indochina after World War II. MS TRAVEL SHOT CAR In its name President Eisenhower came ENTERING GATE close to ordering a nuclear strike to save Dien Bien Phu. IKE GREETS JFK In its name we pay 78% of Vietnam's military budget. Now Eisenhower passes the commitment on to John F. Kennedy, MS/IKE & JFK as it was passed on to him. PULL BACK FROM FLAG No one questions it. This is the PAN CAPITOL BLDG. time of the bi-partisan foreign policy. The men who are leaving and the MS/RUSK TRAVEL SHOT men who are coming in share the MS/MCNAMARA TRAVEL SHOT ) same beliefs and experiences. MS CAPITOL BLDG. II—p/6 GILPATRIC (VO) MS IKE & JFK At that time the view within the administration was conditioned by two principal factors. One was the Korean experience in which a number of GILPATRIC (SOF) MS GILPATRIC us had participated: Dean Rusk, myself, Alexis Johnson, Max Taylor and others. The second condition which affected us all was the, the Khrushchev speech on national lib eration in January,, early January of 1961, which indicated to us that the Soviet Union was going to press the expansion of communist power world-wide, principally by means of wars of national liberation. MONTAGE OF ARVN ACTION SHOTS KALBER (VO) In Vietnam there is such a war. Khrushehev's words have a strong impact on Kennedy.