Mark bowden author of hue 1968. What was it . Its a city in vietnam, third vietnam aty in south the time, and the scene of bloodiest e biggest battle fought in the vietnam war, or what the vietnamese call the american war. You know that a lot has been written about this so how did differently . It this is the first time that a have list like me would access to vietnamese participants. So i was able to tell the story the eyes of both the american soldiers and marines who fought and also the vietnamese, vietcom, north Vietnamese Army, and i think by, there e has gone is a lot of documentation in the hanoi, as well as in bethesda, maryland, and also the records of the johnson administration, all of william papers are there. Johnsons National Security really, staff papers, so 50 years is kind of a good time, go back, because the record is established and yet he participants for the most alive. E still tet ll, up till the offensive, which this was part of, in january of 1968, the administration and general westmoreland had, i think, argued to the american that this war was winnable. Westmoreland came to washington in 1967 and gave a he outlined, you know, the various phases of the entering, said were i believe it was phase three, where we will begin to withdraw American Forces very soon. The impression given was that this war was well in hand and winning d states was it. The tet offensive in this battle of hue i think administered a shock to the american public. It was not just hue, it was a south other cities in hit. Nam that were hue was the place where the nva the whole took over city and the month it took to win it back was reminiscent of of battles fought until world war ii or korea. And reports mages from that fighting really changed a lot of the americas the war, i think Movement Really picked up steam after the at the time fine, it was apparent to attention that the administration and the military been lying to the american people. People. Which one would you pick that you remember the most andy . Of the most Vietnamese Army viet cong . Either one. Character first you meet in the book, was fascinating to me because she my age, che thi mung, she familylle lang girl, his had been fighting for independence for generations. Her grand father, her father had fought with the vietnamese. Er older sister had joined the viet cong had been killed. There had been waterboarding by Vietnamese Intelligence Service so she was tremendously, i think, committed, idealistic young woman who found herself right in the middle of the battle. Initially spying for the viet cong in the city and eventually fighting. For beginnin definitions wt live through this, vietcom versus the North Vietnamese differs, what was the difference . Vietnam was y of divided in 1954 when the french left into north korea and south korea. North korea, the capital of hanoi, had its own army. Vietnamese north army in. South vietnam, a guerrilla movmd movement allied with the north. That was the viet cong, so the iet cong was a Guerrilla Force heavily aided and connected with the north Vietnamese Army. Vietnamese he north army was the regular military. To j. T. Che thi mung. Her . Did you meet i met her in hue where she optometrist. An she rode up to meet me on a motor scooter which is the means in transportation for vietnam for people in the cities. Extremely candid in her conversations with me. Been wounded in this battle, after the battle was over she continued to serve with viet cong and they trained her as an optometrist and then after the war k in hue as an optometrist. Er daughter is maybe 20 or 21 years old. Very interested in coming to study in the United States. Lot about her that was surprising to me. This was not the image that i in my mind of the viet cong . What had she done . In january 1968 . 11 village art of girls who would sit on the idewalks in hue selling these conical hats, small items on the sidewalks. Just s from a village outside of the city. In the months before the tet she and these other spy were commissioned to n the american outposts in southern hue and also the and she run compounds, would move around in the day keeping her eye on how many people were coming and going what kind of weapons they had. What their schedules were. Hen guard changes happened, things like that. And in the evening, she would go had and report what she learned to her leader. Arun . Need a definition on the army of the republic of vietnam. Army. Vietnamese so what was the atmosphere at that time both in this country vietnam, how long had the why, een going on and again, was hue so significant . The atmosphere in vietnam war which had been going on for the vietnamese almost without interruption since the early 1950s, and for americans, which was hue we had heavily invested forces kind of rs earlier was at a stalemate. Believed stmoreland that the viet cong were ncapable of any kind of major offensive. That the most they could do would be to attack american perimeter, sort of in the far rural area. Highlands or tral paddies. Ce the southeast government was a tremendously unpopular one in but was being sort on life support with american aid. With half a know, million american troops in south almost become an american colony. North vietnam was battered. United states had been heavily bombing in and around hanoi, the capital, and along the ho chi minh trail and they by it and it had slowed their ability to mount in the south. O the war was at a kind of stalemate. Hue was kind of an oasis in this that it is the traditional capital of the its where am, inside the citadel, which is a huge fortress which forms the half of the city is the palace, the old site emperors reign, so it a cultural and Religion Center for centimeter. War. D been bypassed by the there hadnt been any real fighting in the city other than the saigon regime cracked down on buddhist protest as few earlier the city had been fairly quiet. How close to the North Vietnamese border is hue . Its in central vietnam. If you look at vietnam, its an elongated country thats pinched at the center, almost as if someone had a belt around its tightened it. Its only 10 miles from the sea to the laotian border. At the time, im not sure how many miles but my guess would be something on the order of maybe a hundred, 150 from the demilitarized zone. How Many American soldiers were there in january of 1968 . In hue itself very few ecause as i said the city itself had not been the scene of fighting, there was a base notice southern part in the h was southern part of hue, there were marines an Army Officers who work with south Vietnamese Army units. On the day this battle broke ut, there were more americans in the compound, because it was the tet holiday. A lot of troops had gone home holidays and the american advisers had gathered their e a few days with countrymen and their friends in this little compound in southern hue. You dedicate this book to roberts. Who is he . Gene roberts at the time was new reau chief for the york times in vietnam, and he plays a role in the story, an one. Tant later in life, he became the ditor of the philadelphia enquirer. He hired me in 1979. Terrific e as a newspaper editor who later went on to become managing editor of the new york times. Youth, he was a terrific reporter, covering the in the ghts movement south and then later, you know, as a reporter in vietnam. 1993 at the in talking press club about the hue battle. Heard vague reports of trouble in hue. I made my way there by truck and helicopter and found that the heldes were surrounded and on two blocks of the city. He viet cong and the north Vietnamese Forces held on to the rest. Ach day, the marines were reinforced by fresh units. They retook two or three blocks of the city. To lose most of it again during the night to enemy troops infiltrated them to houses during the darkness. 10 days for the marines to get 10 blocks or so from their headquarters compound. What did he have to do with you writing this book . I didnt th is, know i mean, i had known gene for years but i didnt know of reporting from vietnam, and i ran into him up in new york at a emorial service for colleague of ours, richard cramer, and gene hadnt seen me and he ber of years asked, what are you working on . I said im Getting Started on a hue andut the battle of he said i was there. I was obviously not in attendance at that ceremony about it so i flew down to North Carolina here gene lives and spent a couple of days and he told me his stories of traveling to the city at the beginning of the how he covered it and how he reported it. Coincidentalit was and serendipity. Alive . E still yes. He divides his time between bath new york city. Hes sort of half carolinian and half new yorker. To who you talked to, among the North Vietnamese viet cong. Who from North Vietnam did you sit down with, where and who was most memorable . Isi think the most memorable professor, his e is he was a buddhist student at the time, who had been part of he buddhist uprising against the government in saigon and had been chased from the city during the crackdown. He had joined up with the north Vietnamese Forces as a a prop paagandish. Felt exiled from hue which been his home. When the city was taken, he was first troops that the ed into the citadel, big fortress in northern hue. He became responsible, he was working as what i conczar. Recruit citizens, support the insurrection, to set up a revolutionary government in hue and also to root out those for the south any amese government in capacity and arrest them. Turmd out to be execution. A student at hue university. Actually, he hadnt quite he ted hue university, and was involved with smuggling city before the attack. Attack. He had published a studentrun newspaper for a militant by the sudden presence of american in the city. Ops ended up being one of the principle leaders of the north forces as he marched and like che thi mung, he was a Person Society up to administer the local government and also had responsibility for deciding who and punished. Ted 1967, on november 17, president johnson made a speech context, into the right , obviously, before january of 1968, heres what johnson had to say about 1967. R in november were making progress. Ere pleased with the results that were getting. We are inflicting greater losses taking. Re by any all perfect means. There are a good many days we et a cminus instead of an aplus, but overall were making progress. Were satisfied with that progress. Allies are pleased with that progress. That i know inry that area that is familiar with thinks its ing absolutely essential that uncle word and stay there until we can find an honorable peace. Know now, you o 1967, to that speech in whats your reaction . My reaction is that johnson sails mode because he could feel the war getting away from him. Around that time that Robert Mcnamara, his second of defense, who had been one of the architects of the war, serving as secretary of defense for had turned nnedy, against the war himself. Nd he had begun sending president johnson detailed secret memos saying we cant win this war. Not going well. Regardless of what the military commanders are saying, you know, war is mired and we need to start thinking about how to get out. And what i describe in the book press conference and it was held at the time that president johnson had brought eneral westmoreland back to washington as part of like a relations ng Public Campaign to shore up support for he war, because i think president johnson felt that that support was eroding, and he had stepped out from behind the podium. Him, you know, leaning down from the podium. Like n was famous for cornerback people and has a big cornering people, and he was a big guy. He got to you, the more adamant he was to convince of whatever he was trying to sell. A president in full sails mode lecturing the assembled press why it was important for the United States vietnam and how well things were actually going. Few days later, general westmoreland, we have some video about moreland talking the atmosphere again. This is 1967, november 1967, the actually, and again, tet and hue was in the early part of 1968. Lets watch general westmoreland. The war has become enormously expensive to him. Hes had to almost fully mobilize his country. Made a Major National effort. To sending his best leadership to the south and supplying them, which has been a major undertaking, he has nothing to show for his investment. Es not won a single victory in the south during the last 1 1 2 years. Obviously, talking about ho chi minh. At thati minh with you, point, i think in hanoi, but he was going back and forth from to china where he was under medical care because he, he was point, was not no longer really a significant party in the communist hanoi. Ill and he was the you will ultimately by more hard line elements in the government. He had been campaigning for ietnamese independence his whole life, toward the end of his life retained a long perspective. Believed that the first task of the revolution was to win over the people of the south, he resisted the idea that win the south militarily. The o he was regarded by Party Leaders as someone who was war. Of too soft on the its interesting, though, that hile general westmoreland was making that speech, the North Vietnamese and the viet cong into their preparations for the tet offensive, and in hue alone, amassed 10,000 troops to take over the city without the south vietnamese government or the american so, you know, westmoreland was an interesting character. Think he really believed the things he said, but he was clearly out of touch with what was actually happening in the country. Lets go back to the young mung. Hi she was 18 . 18 years old. Yes. Remember the viet cong, the in the south, where was she a the day that hue became battle . Living in she was hue because the river squad, which was the group of girls who ad been recruited to spy had been placed with families in the city, so she was living in a neighborhood, and she had spent that day spying, doing the ordinarily did, and then because there was part edly a truce on the of, you know, the south vietnamese government and the orth vietnamese government, hey would call a truce for the et holidays, there was kind of a Party Atmosphere in the city because of tet. So she got dressed up in high movie with out to a some friends and on her way back was told, you need to get back your village, pronto, and lead these hundreds and hundreds vietnamese soldiers, this one unit that was going to move into southern hue, they north, or from far away areas, they didnt know heir way around the city so at that point hue had become a guide for the forces that were city. Rating into the so if you had been in hue in you ry of 1968, what would have seen on the day that the North Vietnamese and the viet in . G came it happened in the nighttime. Ould you have probably been awakened by the sound of gunfire. Lthough because it was a tet holiday there were usually a lot of fireworks and things so maybe initially you would have felt a lot of ust celebrating going on out there. If you were familiar with the sound of gunfire, you would have recognized Something Big was going on, and if you looked out have seenw, would you masses of enemy soldiers, North Vietnamese and viet cong the streets of the city, and basically taking neighborhood in the city. Whats tet . The lunar new year. Celebrated as the major holiday vietnamese calendar. So the whole place shuts down week. Bout a families get together. Much as americans do at time. Mas its a tradition to cut Cherry Blossom branchs off and bring houses. O the its similar to the christmas tree, and, you know, they repare big feasts that sometimes go on for two or three days. How Many American marines killed . In the battle, 250 were killed. Ost of them were marines but there were a sizable number of army cavalry, troopers, who were just outside the city. News story back in of , that you can see some the destruction in hue. At the end of january, two units of North Vietnamese infantry infiltrated the city an captured the citadel. How much support they received from the population is impossible to estimate. The price of that support has been the almost total estruction of the city and the deaths of nearly 4,000 civilians. But many survived humbler houses didnt. Without a roof to keep out the of homeless continue to cross the river in on the south ge bank. It is the last journey for some. Woman, ers, like this wounded and perhaps the only survivor of her family, life have come toeem to an end. The population northern this intrusion in that way . Hanoi Party Leaders in for the most part. Nd those who believed their propaganda, but this was departure for of the Party Leaders in ho chi minh. Ho chi minh had a better sense south vietnamese people than the people who were really running the party at that time. But the word for what they did called et offense was general offenses general uprising, and the theory was vietnamesehese north troops and viet cong moved into the cities, the people of the up and supportse them in casting out the propaganda nd, the this would d that end the war, the americans would e forced out and the saigon regime would collapse. I should add that the more hard headed North Vietnamese military who had a lot more experience fighting in the field share that optimistic estimate. And they told their political you know, we can take the city, but the people are not going to rise up in the americans and will come back and take the city back, and we dont think we can more than a few days. How many cities in south tet . Nam were attacked on just about every sizable town vietnam wasin south attacked. Were as close to as bloody as hue was . None. Biggest far the success of the tet offensive and primary add it was the trust of the offensive. They amassed 10,000 troops outside the city in. Saigon, which was probably the biggest clash, they had, they probably, i would say, had but nothing roops on the order of what they had outside of hue and the reason for that was the cultural hue and the fact that it was vulnerable. The military knew it would be a to throw the americans out of saigon than it of d be to take the city hue. In your book you use a lot of block quotes from other years. Ists over the one of those, and ive got some ideo i want to show you, michael heir, who was he and why was he significant to you when research . Oing your what has become probably the most famous news reports from the vietnam war. Dispatches. Lled he had convinced esquire vietnam to send him to to write sort of periodic, very unconventional essays about the war. Number of pent a years putting himself in the ost dangerous places in vietnam, and writing first hand about the fighting. He was also a tremendously skilled it was fascinating to me because he was such a gifted writer. He was writing about situations i was writing about. At nailing down fax, naming names. For the first time, having read the reporting, i was able to put his reports in context. He is talking about war and about war. From a documentary called first i am a niceout middleclass jewish boy. I am not john wayne junior. I have a strong attraction to war. I was satisfied. Very few people, doing these things without they believe is a good reason. You would see guys that would come up and say, why are you here . Kill gooks. They got into it and they liked it. What you think . I think he is talking honestly and candidly. He is different in that he was a brave reporter who put himself in the middle of the action. I come along 50 years later and piece it together from interviews. He was the right kind of reporter for the war. He put himself right there in the muck. Listened to them and talked to them. Saw the war through their eyes. Which is probably the most significant achievement. A disclaimer about the word gooks. I use it in the context of the way gis spoke. This was the term they had. I did not want the reader to word this was acceptable for a hope class of human beings. Nonetheless, it is an important part of the history of this battle. How did you change your mind on this issue . This process would you say took about five years . I was opposed to the war. I did not know enough about it to have a strong opinion. It was kind of a Youth Culture bonding thing. It was hard not to be against the war when i was a teenager. I t this project gave me opportunity to find out for myself what i believed about this war. I found out many rings. One the most surprising things was, apart from whether it was a misguided effort from the beginning and the politics of the situation, how poorly led militarily these marines and troopers were. Hue shocked me to to me. Aigon they were so out of touch with what was going on. General westmoreland and 90 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 . Mark Jack Lawrence was a 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. 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 there . We are hoping we do not run into any civilians in their right now. If they are, i am pretty sure they are civilians who are what 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 24 days but they took down of the North Vietnamese, 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 . Mark well he 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 used them to great or disastrous effect, 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 of earnie 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 fighting. 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. I won that building. Meanwhile, captain Ron Christmas could not help but notice the viet cong flag flying in the courtyard concede since the takeover. Something that had galled 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 take care of 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 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 have been won, 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. 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 , which im said to him, there is 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 . Publicly . 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 thing today 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 we use a publicly you say publicly to the enemy . 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 feel he 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 Mcclellan in the civil war being famous as a general for being able to put together a Beautiful Army but who 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 medics, 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 with those wounds today . Mark most of them. Most of them were carried out the battlefield. And many of them still are battling the scars from those wounds. And some of them, i think, have emotional scars from the experience. I should say though, that the officers were different. Officers like Ron Christmas and mike downs, 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. And right around the tet offensive, that shifted dramatically. For 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, not 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 and at the end of it, 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. It doesnt take Much Research to find out 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 end the war in vietnam successfully. Lets bring home a victory. Here is saying 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 what he said that the president probably never said, 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 heard itd turn it 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 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 than like three or four weeks after this battle ended. And he spent the rest of his term in 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 touch the citadel, you cannot bomb it because of its history . Mark yes, i think so. The restrictions placed on the use of the restrictions placed on the use of artillery more so than airpower, because 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, 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 in 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 . Mark the rights have been purchased by michael mann, who is a very well known hollywood producer and director, and Steve Mike Deluca a wellknown man, well enough that i miss i was pronounced his name. They have sold this project to fx as a 10part miniseries. I guess they have not written it yet. I am an executive producer and they tell me im actually going to have to work, which you dont always have to do when you are an 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 helping to 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. I think we will 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 had been pressed into service. 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 side, and was involved, literally, from the beginning until the end. So i am certain he will be a character in the story. Bernie 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, the tet offensive, the hue battle. But heres Lyndon Johnson. This will be our closer. Thank you. President johnson with americas sons and a field far away, with americas future under challenge right here at home, 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. 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 . The moment itself, 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. If he says, who are you, you sort of dont really have an option. Sunday night, irish journalist and correspondent Katrina Perry talks about covering donald trump and his supporters during and after the 2016 election season in her book, in america. Drain the swamp is three words is incredibly provocative, and you know immediately what he is talking about every plane on the notion d. C. Was built on a swamp and by draining it, ticking of the horrible people that live there and replacing them with better people. Whether voters 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. , whereer cspan history unfolds daily. Next, a panel of historians looks back 50 years at the vietnam wars tet offensive, which started january 30, 1968
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