Transcripts For CSPAN3 QA Mark Bowden 20180127

Or with the the enemies call the , american vietnam war. Brian how did you approach this differently . Mark this is the first time a journalist like me would have access to get to meet vietnamese participants. I was able to tell the story through both the american soldiers and marines to five and who fought and also the vietnamese viet cong. I think as time is gone by there was a lot of documentation in the archives and hanoi as well as here in bethesda, maryland, at the national archives. There are also the records of the Johnson Administration at the lbj library. All of William Westmorelands papers are there. Johnsons National Security Council Staff papers. So 50 years is kind of a good time i think to go back. The record is established. The participants are still alive. Brian in the early part of the book you say the battle would be the bloodiest of the war and a turning point not just in that conflict, but in American History. Why . Mark well up until the tet offensive, which this is part part of, the Johnson Administration and general westmoreland had argued that this war was winnable and it was not going to be terribly difficult. In fact, William Westmoreland came to washington in november of 1967 and gave a speech at the National Press club where he outlined the phases of the war and said we were entering, i believe it was phase three, where we are beginning to withdraw American Forces very soon. So the impression given was that this war was well and hand and the United States was winning. The tet offensive i think administered a tremendous shock to the american public. It was not just hue. It was 100 other cities in South Vietnam that were hit. Hue was the place where the they took over the whole city. The months it took to win it back was reminiscent of the kind of battles that were fought in world war ii or korea. I think the images and reports from that fighting really changed a lot of americans americas attitude toward the war. I think the Antiwar Movement really picked up steam after the tet offensive and it was apparent that the American Government had been lying to the american people. Brian how many soldiers did you talk to . I interviewed about 40 people. They are listed in the back of the book. I have not counted all of them. The 40 that i focused on are listed in the back of the book. I think about 40. Brian which one would you pick out of all of the 40 that you remember the most and why . Of the North Vietnamese, or viet cong . I think the first character you meet in the book was i think the first character you meet in the book was fascinating to me because she was my age, actually maybe two years older than me. She was just a village girl who had a family that had been fighting for independence for generations. Her grandfather, her father had fought, her older sister had joined the viet cong and been killed. She herself had been arrested after her sister was killed and interrogated or waterboarded by the South Vietnamese intelligence service. She was a tremendously committed and idealistic young woman who found herself right in the middle of this battle, initially spying for the viet cong and then eventually fighting. Brian for people who did not live through this, viet cong versus the north Vietnamese Army. What was the difference . Mark the country was divided. The french went into north and South Vietnam. North vietnam, the capital, hanoi, had its own army. The north Vietnamese Army. In South Vietnam, a Guerrilla Movement allied with the north army. That was the viet cong. It was a guerrilla force, heavily aided and connected with the north Vietnamese Army. The north Vietnamese Army was the regular military. Brian lets go back for a moment. Where did you meet her . Mark i met her in hue where she works now as an optometrist. She rode up on a motor scooter, the primary means of transportation for people in the city. She was extremely candid. She had been wounded in the battle and after the battle was over she continued to serve with the viet cong and they trained her as an optometrist and she went to work there after the war. She has a daughter who is 20 or 21yearsold and very interested in coming to study in the United States. So there was a lot about her that was surprising to me. This was not the image i had in my mind of the viet cong. Brian what had she done. Set it up for us in january of 1968. Mark she was part of the 11 village girls who would set up on the sidewalks selling hats and other small items on the sidewalk. She was from a village just outside of the city. In the months before the ted tet offensive, she and these other girls were commissioned to spy on the american outpost in the south and also the various compounds. So she would move around during the day with her wares and she would keep a eye on how many people were coming and going from places and looking of looking at what kind of weapons they had, what their schedules were, when the guard changes happen. Stuff like that. In the evening, she would go back and report what she had learned to her leader. It is the army of the republic of vietnam and that was the South Vietnamese army. Brian what was the atmosphere at that time both in this country and in vietnam . How long had the wording going on and why was hue so significant . Mark the atmosphere was that the war had been going on for the vietnamese almost without interruption since the early 1950s. For the americans, which we had heavily invested in three years earlier was a stalemate. General westmoreland believed that the viet cong were incapable of any kind of major offensive. And the most that they could do was to attack american outpost around the perimeter. In the far rural areas, the central highlands, rice paddies. The South Vietnamese government was tremendously unpopular but was on life support with american aid. With half a million american troops in South Vietnam had become almost a american colony. North vietnam was battered. The United States had been heavily bombing in and around hanoi and around the ho chi minh trail. They had been hurt by this. Iit had slowed their ability to mount offensives. The war was at a stalemate. Hue was kind of an oasis in that it was the traditional capital. It is were inside the citadel, a huge fortress which forms the northern half of the city is the emperors palace. The old site of the emperors reign. And so the city itself was a cultural, intellectual, Religious Center for vietnam. It had not and it had been bypassed by the war. There had not been any real fighting in the city other than when the saigon regime cracked down on buddhist protests a few years earlier, the city had been fairly quiet. Brian how close to the border is hue . In central vietnam. If you look at the city, it is kind of like someone had a belt around its waste and tightened it. It is only 10 miles from the china sea to the laotian border. Hue sits right and that very narrow center. At the time when it was divided, it was toward the northern part of South Vietnam. Im not sure exactly how many miles, i would guess maybe 100 or 150 miles away from the demilitarized zone. Brian how many soldiers were there in january 1958 . Mark very few. The city had not been the scene of any significant fighting. There was a base in the southern part which was home to American Military advisers, marines and Army Officers who were assigned to work with the South Vietnamese army units. So actually on the day this battle broke out there were a lot more americans in the compound than usual because it was the beginning of the biggest holiday in vietnam. So a lot of the armed troops i troops had gone home for the holidays. The american advisers had gathered to sort of share a few days with their countrymen and friends in this little compound in southern hue. Brian you dedicate this book to jean robert . Who is he . Mark he was at the time the bureau chief for the New York Times in vietnam. He plays a role in the story. An important one. Later in life he became the editor of the philadelphia inquirer. He hired me in 1975. I knew him as the terrific newspaper editor who later became the managing editor of the New York Times. In his youth, he was a terrific reporter covering the Civil Rights Movement in the south and later as a reporter in vietnam. Brian here he is at the National Press club talking about the hue battle. I had heard vague reports of trouble in hue. The capital city of the emperors during the French Colonial era. I made my way by helicopter and found the marines were surrounded and held only two blocks of the city. The viet cong and north Vietnamese Forces held onto the rest. Each day the marines were reinforced by fresh units. They retook two or three blocks of the city only to lose most of it again during the night to enemy troops who infiltrated the into houses during the darkness. It took about 10 days for the marines to get 10 blocks or so from their headquarters compound. [end video clip] brian what did he have to do with you writing this book . Mark i had known him for years but i did not know his reporting from vietnam. I ran into them and new york. I ran into him in new york drake colleague of ours. He said what are you working on . I told him i was getting in the book on the battle of hue. He said he was there, i received was not at that ceremony where he talked about it. I went down to North Carolina where he lived for a couple days. He told me of his story and how he covered it and how he reported. So it was coincidental and serendipitous that he turned out to be a central player. Brian is gene still alive . Mark he is. He divides his time between new withcity, he is affiliated the New York Times. He is half north carolinians and half new yorker. Brian who from North Vietnam did you sit down with . Where did you sit down with them . And who was the most memorable . Mark i think the most memorable professor. D he was a prominent buddhist. He was a buddhist student at the time who had been part of the buddhist uprising against the government in saigon. He had been chased from the city during a crackdown. He joined up with the north Vietnamese Forces as a writer and a propagandist. Very very idealistic. He believed strongly in the fight for independence. He felt exiled from his home. Hue had been his home. So when the city was taken he was among the first troops who marched into the citadel. The big fortress in hue. He became responsible that she he became responsible, he was essentially working as a commissar, the political arm of the north Vietnamese Army. His job was to recruit citizens of the city to support the insurrection and to set up a revolutionary government. And also to root out those who worked for the South Vietnamese comp government in any capacity and arrested them for what was called reeducation, but turned out to be execution primarily. Brian who else . Mark a student in hue university. He hadnt quite started there yet. He was involved with smuggling weapons into the city before the attack. And so he lived under cover in the city. I thought it made for a really interesting story. He had published a studentrun newspaper for a while and had been turned i think militant by the sudden presence of american tanks and troops. And so he ended up being one of the principal leaders of the north Vietnamese Forces as they marched into the city. And he was a commissar. He administered local government. He had responsibility for deciding who would be arrested and punished. Brian november 17, 1967, president johnson made a speech putting it in context. 67 women, obviously right before 1968. Heres what president johnson had to say about the war in november of 1967. [begin video clip] president johnson we are making progress. We are pleased with the results we are getting. We are inflicting greater losses than we are taking. It is not all perfect by any means. There are many days when we get d nus instead of a instead of an a plus. But overall we are making progress. Im satisfied with that progress. Our allies are pleased with that progress. Every country that i know in that area that is familiar with whats happening thinks it is essential that uncle sam keep his word and stay there until we can find an honorable peace. [end video clip] brian what is your assessment . Mark i think he was in full salesman mode. He could feel the war getting away from him. That time that Robert Mcnamara, his secretary of defense, who had been one of the architects of the war, serving as secretary of defense for president kennedy had turned against the war. He had been starting saying that he started sending president johnson detailed memos saying we cant win this war, it is not going well regardless of what the military commanders are saying. This war is mired. We should start thinking about how to get out. What you see in that clip, which i describe in the book, it was a press Conference Held at the time that president johnson had brought general westmoreland back to washington as part of a twoweek long Public Relations campaign to shore up support for the war. I think president johnson felt that the support was he had what befell the support was eroding. He had stepped out from behind the podium. He was famous for cornering people and he would use his hands the closer he got to you, the more adamant he was to convince you of what ever he was trying to sell. So, what i see as a president and full sales mode lecturing the assembled press on why it was important for the United States to stay in vietnam and how well things were actually going. Brian a few days later, general westmoreland, we have video, he was talking about the atmosphere again. This is november 1967. The 22nd. Again, the tet offensive and hue was an early part of this. Lets watch general westmoreland. [begin video clip] the war is becoming enormously expensive. He has almost fully mobilized he has almost had to fully mobilized his country in a national effort. In addition to turning his best troops and leadership to the south, as well as supplying them, which has been a major undertaking. He has nothing to show for his investment. He has not won a single significant victory in the south during the last 1. 5 years. [end video clip] brian he was obviously talking about ho chi minh. Where was he at that time . Mark he was under medical care. I think he was in hanoi. He had been going back and forth between there and china. At that point, he was no longer a very significant leader in the communist party in hanoi. He was old, ill, and ultimately sidelined from harder elements hardline elements in the government. Ho chi minh had been campaigning for independence his whole life, towards the end of his life he retained a long perspective. He believed the first task of the revolution was to win over the people of the south and he resisted the idea that the north could win the south militarily. And so he was regarded by the Party Leaders as someone who is kind of two soft on the war. It is interesting though that while general westmoreland was making that speech, the North Vietnamese and the vietcong were well into their preparations for the tet offensive and in hue alone, they had amassed 10,000 troops to fight without alerting the South Vietnamese government or the military. So general westmoreland was an interesting character because i think he really believe the i think he really believed the things he said. But he was clearly out of touch with what was actually happening in the country. Brian back to the woman, she was 18yearsold . Mark yes. Brian where was she on the day that hue became a battle . Mark she was living in hue because the river squad, which was the group of girls that had been recruited to spy had been placed with families in the city. She was living there. She had spent that day spying, doing things that she ordinarily did. Because there was supposedly a truce for the tet holiday, which hanoi violated when they took over the city. Because of it, there was a party atmosphere. It was also the eve of the holiday. She got dressed up and went out to a movie with friends. On her way back she was told, you need to get back to your village pronto and lead hundreds and hundreds of North Vietnamese soldiers moving into southern hue. They were from the north, they did not know their way around the city. She had become a guide for the forces who were infiltrating the city. Brian what would you have seen in january 1968 on the day the North Vietnamese and vietcong came in . Mark it was in the nighttime. You wouldve been awakened by the sound of gunfire, although because it was a holiday there were usually a lot of fireworks so maybe initially you wouldve that it was just a lot of celebrating. If you were familiar with the sound of gunfire, you would have recognized Something Big was going on. If you looked at your window, you wouldve seen masses of enemy soldiers, North Vietnamese and vietcong, marching through the streets of the city and basically taking over every neighborhood in the city. Brian what is tet . Mark it is the lunar new year. It is celebrated as the major holiday of the vietnamese calendar. The whole city shuts down for about one week. Together like americans at christmas time. It is a tradition to cutting down cherry branches and bringing them into the house, similar to christmas trees. They prepared big feasts that go on for two or three days. Brian how Many American marines were killed . Mark about 250. Most were marines but there was a sizable number of army calvary troopers killed just outside the city. Brian here is a story back in 1968 where you can see the destruction. [begin video clip] at the end of january, two regular units infiltrated the city and captured the citadel. How much support received from the population is impossible to estimate. The price of that support has been the total destruction of the city and the death of nearly 4000 civilians. The palace survived, but many humble houses did not survive. Keep off thef to rain, hundreds of homeless continue to cross the river in search of refuge on the south bank. It is a large journey for some. For others, like this woman, wounded and perhaps the only survivor of her family, life itself must seem to have come to an end. [end video clip] brian who expected that to end who expected the population to support this northern intrusion of hue . Mark the Party Leaders for the most part, and those who believe there propaganda. But this was the departure for the party leader and ho chi minh. Ho chi minh had a better sense of the people than the people running the party at that time. But the word for what they did with the tet offensive was called a general uprising. The theory was that once the troops and vietcong moved into the city, the people would rise up and support them in casting out the americans. The propagandists argued this was going to end the war very quickly. The americans would be forced out and the saigon regime would collapse. I should add that the more hardheaded North Vietnamese military officers who had a lot more experience fighting in the field did not share that optimistic estimate. And they told their political superiors, we can take the city but the people will not rise up in support of us. The americans will come back and take the city back but we dont think we can hold it for more than a few days. Brian how many cities in South Vietnam were attacked . Mark about 100, i do not know the exact number. Just about every city and sizable town and village in South Vietnam, including saigon , was attacked. Brian how many of them were anywhere as close to as bloody as hue . Mark none of them. It was by far the biggest success of the tet offensive. It was the primary thrust of the offensive. They amassed 10,000 troops were outside the city to take it over. Saigon, which was probably the second biggest clash, they had fairly probably hundreds of troops but nothing on the order of what they had outside of hue. And the reason for that was the cultural significance of hue, and the fact it was moldable. The military knew it would be harder to throw the americans out of saigon then it would be in other parts of the city. Nine you use a lot of quotes. One of those, i have video i showed you. Michael, who was he and why was he significant . Mark he has he come probably the most famous News Reporter from the vietnam war. He wrote a book called dispatches. He convinced esquire magazine to send him to vietnam to write sort of periodic very unconventional essays about the war. And so he spent a number of years putting himself in the most dangerous places in vietnam and writing, firsthand, about the fighting. He was also a tremendously skilled writer. He just wrote memorably. And so, one of the essays that he wrote for esquire which is in the book dispatches, is called hell sucks. It was about the battle of hue. It was fascinating to me because he is such a gifted writer. He was writing about people and situations that i was studying and writing about. I could read michael, who was not particularly good at nailing down facts the way the Old Newspaper reporters do. Naming names and getting dates and so forth. But for the first time, i was ready to pick his accounts in the context of what was happening. I had a deeper understanding of who and what he was writing about. Brian was he in the same was,ization as sy hersh was he part of dispatch news service . Mark im not sure. I know he had a relationship with esquire but he was not a formal staff member. Brian he is not alive . Mark he died a short time ago. Brian here he is. The reason i wanted you to react to this is, he is talking about war and writing about work from a documentary called first kill. [begin video clip] i am a nice middleclass jewish boy. I am not john wayne junior. You know, i am not a blood and guts guy. I just had a very strong attraction to war. Was it satisfying . Yes. Yes i was satisfied. , very few people do these things without what they believe is a good reason. Because you know, you would see guys come up and say, why are you here . And they would say, i am here to kill gooks, and they knew why they were there and they were not kidding themselves and they liked it. You know, they got into it and they liked it. [end video clip] brian what do you think . Mark i think hes talking very candidly and honestly about his experience. But he is a lot different than me and that, he is a real brave reporter who put himself in the middle of the action. I am a guy who comes along 50 years later and pieces it all together from interviews and documentation. Michael was the right kind of reporter for the war, though, because he put himself right there in the muck with the grunts, and lived with them, and listened to them, and talked to them, and saw the war through their eyes, which i think is probably the most significant achievement you can make as a war correspondent. Brian you put a disclaimer in your book about the word gooks. Why . Mark well, because it is a derogatory term and, you know i use it in my book in the context of the way the gis spoke. This is the term that they had, among other derogatory terms, and i did not want the reader to think this was an acceptable word for a whole class of human beings. Nevertheless, it an important part of the history of this period. Nd of that brian how did you change your mind on this whole issue by going through the rss, which you say took about five years . Mark as a kid i was supposed to the war. I didnt really know enough about it to have a strong opinion but it was sort of a youthculture bonding thing. You know, the way you grow up and it was hard not to be against the war when i was a teenager. I felt this project a me the opportunity to really find out for myself what i believed about , this war. And i found out many, many things, but i think probably one surprising things to me was, apart from whether or not it was a misguided effort from the beginning and the politics of the situation, was how poorlyled militarily these marines and troopers were. The battle of humor shocked me the battle of hue shocked me because he saigon military command was so out of touch with what was happening in the streets. They literally got a lot of Young Americans go. General westmoreland denied the because city had been taken, it was a fact but he continued to deny it for nearly the whole time the battle was fought. As a consequence, would never concede the sheer number of enemy forces that were in the city. So small units of marines and troopers were being ordered to attack positions that were held by overwhelminglysuperior enemy forces in entrenched positions. And this idea that i have about what happened is not just coming from me. It is coming from the men who were leading this marines and these troopers into these hopeless battles, who were ordered to do so many of whom , later in her career as retired as generals and memories of the army. But they are still furious about the way they and their men were used in hue. Brian who is Jack Lawrence . Was aJack Lawrence correspondent for cbs news who did a lot of frontline reporting in vietnam. Brian he interviewed a Lieutenant Colonel ernest, at the time was he a captain . Mark he was a Lieutenant Colonel. Brian did he become a general . Mark yes. he went on to become one of the most famous of the marine generals in modern times. Largely because of the reputation he made as a officer in vietnam. Brian where did you talk to him . mark i spoke to him on the phone, shortly before he died. I made plans to go down and interview him in virginia and he passed away before the date arrived. Fortunately, the general had given extensive oral histories to the Marine Corps Museum in quantico. So i was able to hear him talk about his experiences in hue and in vietnam without getting a chance to interview him myself. Brian in 1968, heres former cbs correspondent Jack Lawrence talking to a Lieutenant Colonel. [begin video clip] what kind of fighting is it going to be . House to house and room to room. Kind of inch by inch . That is exactly what it is. Did you expect to experience this kind of street fighting in vietnam . No, this is my first crack at streetfighting. I think its the first time the marine corps has seen streetfighting since seoul. What will happen to the civilians who might get caught in their . We are hoping we do not run into any civilians in their right now. If they are, i am pretty sure whatare civilians who are we would consider the bad guys right now. We have certain areas that we have blocked off. We know there are friendly civilians and we are not going to take those under fire. The others . The others, if there is somebody in there right now, they are charlie, as far as we are concerned. Brian how long did it take the marines to get the city of hue back after that initial battle . Mark 24 days. Actually, probably longer than they took down of the North Vietnamese, via not , viet cong flag down from the citadel. There were still areas of the city that were contested, but for the most part, the battle was over after that. Brian what was the colonels attitude in oral history and when you talk to him on the phone about this situation in hue . Well heere he has, has, he had a very professional marines attitude. He was given the job of taking the city back. I think he was good at his job. One of the things that struck me was the disparity between cheathams approach and general westmorelands approach. Cheatham when he was assigned to , go into the city to win it back, he started by asking himself what he actually knew about what was facing him. And the truth was, he knew next to nothing. The only thing he knew for sure was where he would be fighting. And so literally the night before he moved into the city, he spent the whole night, he tracked down marine corps manuals describing how to conduct operations in an urban environment, how to take down a well fortified position. And he basically went to school on weapons and tactics he would need to accomplish his goal and or disastrousreat to fact whichever adjective you , choose in accomplishing his mission. I think for the young marines, who, prior to the arrival were being thrown piecemeal against a far superior force, the arrival cheatham was like gabriel to sending in his chariot to lead them to victory and save a lot of lives. But at the same time, in that clip you heard cheathams attitude toward civilians in that city. And this is a city of 140,000 people and the people who lived in the city were trapped by this biting. So when he says the people in , the area, as far as he is concerned, they are charlie, he is condemning a lot of civilians to a fiery death. Who was Ron Christmas . Mark captain christmas was one of cheathams Company Commanders. He was one of the Company Commanders who was sent to the city prior to cheathams arrival. He was one of the thenyoung Company Commanders who ran straight into the buzz saw of this enemy force. Brian here he is. A History Channel documentary being interviewed. , it is about one minute. By the way, did he become a general . Mark he did. Brian is he still alive . Mark yes he is. Brian captain Ron Christmas in hue. [begin video clip] roneanwhile, captain christmas could not help but notice the viet cong flag flying in the courtyard concede takeover. Something that had called the marines. I called back to cheatham and i said, we have got the building. Lets go put up the american flag. But someone warned captain christmas that it was illegal to run up an american flag. I turned my radio up. That was captain cheathams problem. Let him secure that. Gunnery Sergeant Frank thomas had a flag tucked under his jacket that he had taken. This is it, go. The fire team ran through and pulled down the viet congNorth Vietnamese flag and ran up the stars and stripes. Brian thanks to the History Channel for that. How many marines did you talk to, that you asked about whether or not we should of been in vietnam in the first place and what was their attitude today . Mark i asked all of them. I had a long interview with them about this battle. And i generally preceded that with questions about who they were where they came from, how , they ended up in the marine corps. At the end of the interview i always asked, how do you feel about your service now . How do you feel about the war . Many different opinions about that experience. Generally speaking, i would say if i had to summarize, i would say nearly all of them, not all of them but nearly all of them were very proud of having served their country and having fought bravely and this battle. Bravely in this battle. But at the same token, most are angry about how the war ended and have a sense of being betrayed by their country. Either because they were sent to fight a war that they should not of been fighting and could not been won,one, have or because they feel that the clinical leadership and the public of the United States turned on them and betrayed the cause. Brian this is january 1968 around that time. Right around that time Robert Mcnamara stepped down after seven years as secretary of defense. Here is he had a book that came out in 1995. Here is one minute of Robert Mcnamara, former secretary of defense during the whole vietnam war. My report to the president , was only a best one in two chance we could win militarily. He said, you mean to say you do not think we can win militarily . I said, yes. That was my report to him. Should i have said that to him . What do you think . What does your audience think . This is a terrible dilemma. Particularly so, i want to tell you i was in a very small , minority. I am not saying i was right. Other people thought then and many think today that we worry that we were winning then, some think we were winning. That is baloney. But it is not baloney to say that other people thought i was wrong. In any event, suppose we all thought that we were not winning, that there is only a one in three, or a one in two chance of winning . Is that which is a publicly to the enemy . [end video clip] brian Lyndon Johnson, robert that can, other leaders came back and said we were winning. What is your reaction to that . Mark looking at mcnamara now, i think you should have said publicly what he thought. So much was at stake. He was one of the architects of the war. He wasnt just some functionary in the bureaucracy who had decided the war was unwinnable. This was actually one of the people who got us into the war in vietnam, who was one of the most notable authorities on the subject. And for him to be telling the president that he did not think we could win the war and at the same time telling the public the company line, oh yeah we are winning and should keep going, i think lives are at stake. I think he should have gone public with his reservations. Instead, frankly, i think he took the job at the world bank, he sort of preserved his status and reputation among the power elite that he had served. And he furthered his career at the cost of another, as it turned out six or seven years of , conflict. I think president johnson believed his generals and i think William Westmoreland deserves to be remembered in much of the way remember George Mcclelland in the civil war being famous as a general for being able to put together a Beautiful Army but who actually did not want to fight it. I think general westmoreland is an example of a whole different kind of command stupidity which is such a strong belief in his own theory of what was happening in the field, that it was impervious to facts. That even when young officers who were actually charged with fighting this war would come back and tell him, no, sir, this is not what is happening. This is what is happening. He would not accept it. Did not believe it. And he is not the first general who accepts only information that supports what he wants to hear, but he is a very, very glaring example of it. Brian did you talk to any enlisted men that were in the hue battle . Because i know in the book you talk about how a lot of enlisted men and young kids over there did not even know where vietnam was. Did you talk to any of them . Mark yes. I would say most of them who i interviewed, as veterans, were at the time teenagers who had volunteered for the marine corps or been drafted. In some cases they were corpsman who had enlisted in the navy because they felt it was a good way to avoid going to vietnam and wound up being trained as mannix, essentially, they are called corpsman in the navy, and being assigned with grunts on the front lines. And most of them were not terribly welleducated or wellinformed about what was actually going on in vietnam. It was more of an act of faith in their country, you know, this was an important cause. The government had to fight communism wherever it found it around the world and this was their obligation as an american citizen to go and fight. And once they were immersed in the fighting, all they were learning was how to stay alive basically. , i do not think their concerns went to far beyond that. Brian how many enlisted men that you talked to were severely wounded and are still living today . Ose wounds mark most of them. Most of them were carried out the battlefield. And many of them still are battling the scars from those wounds. Think have them, i , emotional scars from the experience. I should say though, that the officers were different. Officers like Ron Christmas and mike downs, John Culligan a jim colligan who was a marine captain. These were collegeeducated men who were serving out of idealistic commitment. Either that or a sense of professionalism. Some of them intended to be career officers and so for them, the war was a place to test their skills and prove themselves. And they were nevertheless, i think, every bit as idealistic. This was one of the things i learned in reporting the story, as members of my generation who marched in the streets against the war. There was like my generation turned on a dime. Up until about 1967 or 1968, most people were loyal to the war effort and believed the government. Believed it was really important. Around the tet offensive that shifted , dramatically. A lot of these young men who volunteered to go fight in vietnam out of idealism, out of a sense of patriotism, to come home to a country that regarded the war as immoral and a failed cause it was a bitter , pill to swallow. I think these men were betrayed just by our leaders but by their fellow countrymen. Brian back in 2010, joseph campbell, a professor at American University was here. He had a book talking about moments in American History that were missed. I want to show you this because i suspect you will differ based on what i read in your book. Supposedly Lyndon Johnson was watching the cronkite show a net end of it,d at the when cronkite and toned his assessment of the war, johnson supposedly leaned over and snapped off the Television Set and said something to the effect of, if i have lost Walter Cronkite, i have lost middle america. Johnson was not at the white house that night, he was in austin, texas. He was attending the 51st Birthday Party of governor john connally. Moreover, johnson, in the aftermath of the cronkite show, is out on the stump publicly saying we should recommit to and recommit to end the war in vietnam successfully. Lets bring home a victory. He said this on more than one occasion in the aftermath of the cronkite show. So if that was such an epiphany for the president , he did not make it very clear in his Public Comments afterwards. Brian your take on it . Mark i think it is probably true that he never said everyone never said, if i have walked if i have lost Walter Cronkite i have lost america. I dont know if he was watching the tv when cronkite made that broadcast or not, i am sure he sought at some point. It does not seem to be contradictory to say that johnson himself felt the significance of Walter Cronkite criticizing the war effort and because he was an astute politician, recognized that was a very serious blow to his efforts to rally americans to rally americans behind the cause. It is true he continued to make that effort for a few more weeks but as we know now, he chose not to run for reelection no more then like, three or four weeks after this battle ended. He spent the rest of his term in and office attempting to force the North Vietnamese to negotiate and arrive at some sort of peaceful settlement before he left office. So he had stopped thinking about trying to win this war and he had devoted his efforts to trying to withdraw American Forces honorably. Brian you point out in your book that the American Military was restricted on how they could treat the citadel in that area, and the bombing. Were any americans killed because somebody said, you you cannot you cannot touch the citadel, you cannot bomb it because of its history . Mark yes i think so. ,air power wouldve been difficult to employ in that city, mostly because of the weather. It was just the visibility was , nonexistent from the air. But there were restrictions on the use of artillery that probably did expose american troops and South Vietnamese troops to more enemy fire and more difficulty. That said, you know the use of heavy artillery and air support which did come into full force , by the end of the battle, destroyed most of the city and i think killed, we heard one estimate of 4000 civilians but i suspect it was a great deal more than that. Brian what does the city of hue look like today . Mark the southern part of the city, the modern part, has been completely rebuilt. You would never know that a battle had been fought there. There are cranes and a bustling, thriving economy. The northern part of the city, the citadel and south, is also thriving but you still see in the citadel, the ruins of the imperial palace, strong visual evidence of the intensity of the battle fought in 1968. Brian somebody in the audience chicago, when we carried your chat about this book, asked you how somebody in your position can financially do this, and your answer was, black hawk down. [laughter] this book has already been bought for a series. Tell us about that. Where, and how many episodes, and what are they going to focus on and how much will you be involved in it . Been the rights have purchased by michael mann, who is a very known who is a very well known hollywood producer and director, and Steve Deluca Mike deluca a wellknown man, well enough that i miss that i miss pronounce his name. They have sold this project to fx as a 10part miniseries. I guess they have not written it yet. Im and executive producer and they tell me im actually going to have to work, which you normally have to do when you are and executive producer. So check back with me and i will take what i do. I think i will probably be involved with helping them identify central characters and ping to sort of compressed sort of compress the sweep of the story into this format. Although 10 hours is a very generous amount of time on screen so we should be able to , do a pretty good job. Brian who do you suspect will be the principal characters in the series . Mark well, im just guessing here. But i think they will make an effort for there to be prominent vietnamese characters. There is a North Vietnamese soldier whose name i do not remember off the top of my head , but who was tracking down the ho chi minh trail for months. He was a math teacher in hanoi who was present, he made this incredible journey down the ho chi minh trail to be in position and was in the thick of the fighting in hue throughout. I suspect he will be a character. I think jim culligan who was a marine advisor to a special unit called the black panthers. Jim was one of the real heroes of this battle from the american e, and will is involved american side and was involved, literally, from the beginning until the end. So i am certain he will be a character in the story. Cheatham i am sure will be there. Brian i went to end this, to thank you first of all for coming but i want to end it by reminding the audience that january 31, 1968, detente 1968, the tet offensive, the hue battle. But heres Lyndon Johnson. This will be our closer. Thank you. [begin video clip] president johnson with americas sons and a field far futureith americas being challenged right here at with our hopes and the worlds hopes for peace in the balance every day, i do not believe i should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal, partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the presidency of your country. Accordingly, i shall not seek and i will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president. [end video clip] announcer for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q a. Org. Q a programs are also available as cspan podcasts. Where are you from . Come here, where are you from . I still describe it as a surprise moment, a bizarre moment, but he is the president of the United States and we are in the oval office and he says, and if he says, who are you, you come over. , irishay night correspondent Katrina Perry talks about covering donald trump and his supporters during and after the 2016 election season in america. Drain the swamp is three words andncredibly provocative, you can see he is playing on emotion when he says d. C. Was built on a swamp and he is taking the horrible people that live there and replacing them with better people. And whether folks believed him or not, or whether he could fulfill that are not, they were prepared to take a chance on it. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q and a. Next, around table discussion curator,d history scholars and historians from the university of toronto and the Smithsonians National museum of American History discuss archives, research, oral histories, and Museum Exhibitions on the topic. This is about 90 minutes. So now its my pleasure to introduce our moderator, professor daniel bender, the Canada Research chair of Global Culture and professor of history and food studies at the university of toronto. Dan, take it away. Dan so let me add to paulas thanks, to all of you who have braved cold. Half of our panel comes from the