WEBVTT

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[background noise]

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- I know that we liberated
South Vietnam but when

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it arrived [chuckles].
- You couldn\'t believe it?

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- I was just so happy and I go all
day long and it seemed that I didn\'t

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go with my legs but with my head.
[chuckles]

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-Do you remember Vietnam?

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Do you remember all those television
pictures of faraway suffering,

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of reporter shouting over the
noise of meaningless battles?

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Vietnam ran longer than [?] and
at times had popularity

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ratings even higher than Kojak.

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This is Saigon 1978, now
called Ho Chi Minh City.

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I left Saigon with regret.

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On April the 29th, 1975, on one of
the last helicopters on the last day

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of the longest war of the century,
the war on this small Asian country

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occupied much of 10 years of my life.

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Now I\'m back with many memories
and emotions and trying to

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guess what has happened since.

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What is life like in Vietnam now?

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The film that follows
is one impression.

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Considering that foreigners are
almost extinct here now, the

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scope of my travels from Hanoi
to Saigon has been generous.

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By my standards, it\'s been limited.

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Some nostalgia may creep into
this film, but if it does, it

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will be nostalgia purely and
simply for the endurance of the

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Vietnamese people whom I admire.

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In case you\'ve forgotten,
let me remind you of what

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they endured for 30 years.

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[explosion]

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Vietnam was napalm.

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Napalm was a chemical made
especially to stick to human

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skin and to fry people slowly.

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In my first innocent days
here, I saw a napalm dropped.

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It exploded like huge puffs of blood,
and when it had cleared, a child ran

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screaming and engulfed in flames.

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Vietnam was people shot and
laid out like rabbits so that

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the photographers and TV teams
could get the best angles.

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Of course, they are all
Viet Cong, even the babies.

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Vietnam was atrocities you never
knew about, of pictures never sent

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and never published because it was
believed that you might be offended.

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Vietnam was riding on a
helicopter with a heap of

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dead and dying young Gls.

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One of them was saying just before
he died that his mother believed that

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Vietnam was somewhere near Panama.

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Vietnam was drug-addicted
kids selling Jasmine here in

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the streets of Saigon, and
gray suited men thousands of

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miles away mouthing relentless
platitudes about peace with honor.

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Above all, Vietnam was a war of
rampant technology against people.

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For me, it was always difficult
to walk away from them, but

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even more difficult to look them
in the eyes and it still is.

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[background noise]

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- Peace on the Perfume River in the
city of Huế, the old imperial capital

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for which the North Vietnamese and
American Marines mold each other

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and the civilian population in 1968.

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Like many outsiders, I
used to see Vietnam as a

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war, seldom as a country.

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Even the sight of people trying
to live normally always seemed an

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aberration, but try they did while
communities of them were denuded by

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collateral damage, the homogenized
military jargon for civilian deaths.

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We know that 56,000 Americans died,
but how many Vietnamese perished?

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Was it two million or three million?

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To understand what that
peace means now, try to

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imagine when the war began.

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Harry Truman was president, Attlee
was prime minister, Coventry

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was still in ruins, more than
half the present population

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of Britain had yet to be born.

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During many visits, I tried to
keep track of one Vietnamese

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family but pursuing the hurricane
of tragedy that rode through

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their lives was impossible.

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Of four brothers and three
sisters, none survived.

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The last to be killed
was Kim, a teacher.

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I remember him listing the names,
ages and details of his family\'s

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demise like an auctioneer.

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\"We feel trapped\", he used to
say, \"between the Americans whom

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we despise and the northerners
whom we fear, the real tragedy of

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Vietnam is that all our suffering
will never earn us a choice.\"

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- Can I just interrupt and ask,
did the Americans know that

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the Viet Cong were established
in tunnels under the ground?

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Did they know of the
existence of this space?

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- [Vietnamese]

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-They know it.

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- This was the largest and most
secret Viet Cong base in South

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Vietnam at Củ Chi near Saigon.

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This man was the leader
of the Viet Cong.

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His military code name
was, Min Number Four.

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Beneath us lies a remarkable
series of tunnels through which

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an army of guerillas crawled from
village to village, living their

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lives in darkness, emerging at
night to resupply and to ambush.

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The Americans never found or
destroyed the main tunnels

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even though their own military
command headquarters with its air

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condition generals, computers and
music was barely 50 miles away.

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They scorched the earth with
bombs and defoliant poisons and

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Min Number Four lived through
it all, a subterranean creature

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for most of his adult life.

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Here, he says, \"A lone GI stumbled
about directly above his tunnel.

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We have to first trip him up
to get the right aim,\" he says.

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\"We tripped him with a
rifle butt then we shot him.

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We killed them one by one.

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- If the Americans came in their
helicopters, what would they do?

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They would simply
disappear down there?

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- I ask him?
- Yes, please.

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- [Vietnamese]
- [Vietnamese]

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- When the helicopters come,
the guerillas will go under the

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tunnel and they close the trap.

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- I asked Min Number Four, how
he regarded the Americans now?

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\"When I got out of the tunnels,\"
he said, \"the first thing I did was

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get married and now I have a child.

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I\'ve mellowed and I feel
sorry for the Americans.

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You see, they never understood,
they never imagined losing.

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They even regarded us as children.\"

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- Now, can we open?
- Yes.

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- Two of us?
Yes?

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[background noise]

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-Right. good. okay.

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This was a Viet Cong base for
15 years and the Americans,

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all those years, fought some
of their fiercest battles above

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here and had no idea it was here.

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A whole regiment of men used
to move underground, and this

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man was here through all that
time, underground, 20 years,

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fighting in conditions like this.

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No wonder they won.

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It\'s another world under there.

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This man moved through the
tunnel like a snake, I\'ve

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never seen anything like it.

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- This is how the Vietcong lived
and fought for almost a generation.

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The network of tunnels
ran for 200 miles.

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Today, the tunnels are inhabited
by unique insect mutation created

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by the tons of poisonous chemicals
dumped on the earth above.

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This dirt chamber, now exposed,
was a central operations room.

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From here was planned, by candle
and torchlight, the beginning

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of the defeat of the greatest
military power in history.

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Today, as Vietnam prepares
to open up to the West, the

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survivors of the Viet Cong, like
Min Number Four are in training

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once again, as tourist guides.

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[background noise]

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This young woman\'s name is Tao.

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She is a tourist guide in a war
crimes museum, a kind of Disneyland

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of carnage which now displays
examples of every devilish device

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that was used against them.

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With a typical Vietnamese
sense of irony, the display is

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laid out in what was once the
CIA headquarters in Saigon.

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- This seven ton bomb is
called the \"Daisy Cutter.\"

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- The Daisy Cutter?
- Yes.

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They used it first in
Vietnam since 1967.

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They used this bomb to make
landing ground for helicopters.

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The cargo plane, the C-130,
can only carry one bomb

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because of it\'s weight.

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- And did the Daisy Cutter
break open into many pieces?

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-Yes.

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This cleared trees so
the helicopter can land.

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- Just wiped everything out
so the helicopter can land?

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- Yes, and when it explodes, it
caused a very high pressure so the

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pressure can kill both animals and
people in a zone of over 3 kilometers

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and 200 meters of diameter.

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- Vietnam was a much a
laboratory experiment as a war.

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A place to test an extraordinary
range of weapons with a

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jargon name of anti-personnel,
which means anti-people.

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There was napalm B, a concoction
which continues to burn through

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the lifetime of its victims.

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There were bombs that
sucked oxygen from the air,

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killing every living thing.

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There was a bomb that sprayed
thousands of small plastic needles

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that were almost impossible
to detect, even under x-ray.

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At this display is a chart
showing the tonnage of bombs

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dropped on Korea, on the left,
World War II in the middle,

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and on the right, Vietnam, the
greatest aerial bombardment ever.

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[background noise]

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At Christmas 1972, American B-52
bombers carried out the largest

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single aerial bombardment in history
here in the streets of Hanoi.

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Few outsiders witnessed it and
you never saw it on television.

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At ten o\'clock on that Boxing
Night, a B-52 flying at 30,000

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feet laid a carpet of incendiary
bombs down this street.

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The bomb aiming was brilliant.

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The bombs hit every third
house, every third block of

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flats and a kindergarten.

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Shortly after that, I came here
and one of the survivors told me,

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\"We sang as the bombs came down.

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All of us, very loud.

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Why?

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Because in Vietnam, we have
to believe that singing

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was louder than bombs.\"

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After that, it was found that some
30,000 children in Hanoi alone

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had lost their hearing because
of the bombing on that Christmas.

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[background noise]

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Arriving in North Vietnam is like
stumbling on the aftermath of some

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great and unrecorded disaster.

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Vietnam was the first television
war, but only the war in the

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South was saturated by the media.

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This was a town called Dong Hoi,
where layer upon layer of bombing

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destroyed even the foundations
of houses, hospitals, schools,

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factories, pagodas and churches.

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Today, it is like a snapshot
of a small Hiroshima set

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in a moonscape of craters.

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You will not have heard about this
town and you will not have heard

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of a town called Ha Long, which
was bombed more than Dresden, every

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day for four years from 5:00 in the
morning until 2:00 in the afternoon.

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[background noise]

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Those who survived did so by
developing their ingenuity and

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patience to the extreme human limits.

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One of their secret weapons since
Dien Bien Phu, the venerable

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bicycle, is now being pressed into
the service of reconstruction.

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Each one is designed to
carry a half-ton of supplies

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for up to 500 miles.

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When the American bombers had
gone, the paddies would come alive

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with small groups of mostly women
and children, who swam pontoons

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into place to keep the convoys
moving South, then dismantled

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them and hid them before sunrise.

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All life went underground.

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Whole factories, schools, hospital
wards and operating theaters.

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The same ingenuity and determination
exists today, but I suspect these

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will not be enough to rebuild
their country` and unless Vietnam

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get the technology she now
craves, irrigation schemes such

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as this, will be all for nothing.

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To the west is the Ho Chi Minh trail:
\"a road to victory\" they called it.

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Though victory is a word not much
heard in North Vietnam today,

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as its memory is chastened by an
unexpectedly brutal normality.

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In the villages from here to
the mountains, people are now

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living on the brink of famine.

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Rice is being rationed for just
six pounds per person per month.

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That\'s less than even Bangladesh.

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The reason stems from two
crop failures and the sudden

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grafting of the alien economies
of the North and South.

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The Vietnamese reckon that unless
10 million people are moved from

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the cities back to the countryside,
the normality of Vietnam will simply

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change from one of war to starvation.

00:18:22.866 --> 00:18:27.159
This is Route one running South from
Hanoi to Saigon, that was known in

00:18:27.160 --> 00:18:29.208
wartime as \"the street of no joy.\"

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It was a nickname shared with equal
good reason by the guerillas who

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depended on its convoys and by the
American pilots who blitzed it.

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This river marks the 17th
parallel, which divided

00:18:42.260 --> 00:18:43.860
North and South Vietnam.

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The line was arbitrary and was set
by the Geneva conference on Indochina

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in 1954, when the then US Secretary
of State, John Foster Dallas,

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the high priest of the Cold War,
decreed that communism was to stop

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here and his client state in Saigon
was to be preserved at all costs.

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For a decade, thousands of US
marines dug in in the demilitarized

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zone just south of here with
orders not to go an inch forward.

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In 1967, I flew here and spent some
time with them and the helicopter

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that brought me was blown up in the
mud as it tried to take off again.

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Such were the appalling
conditions of war.

00:19:24.179 --> 00:19:26.970
Six months of mud,
six months of dust.

00:19:27.820 --> 00:19:30.710
They were an extraordinary
group, mostly volunteers.

00:19:31.139 --> 00:19:35.530
Blacks escaping the ghetto and
poor Whites weaned on John Wayne.

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Day and night they were pounded
with artillery, mortar and rockets.

00:19:42.300 --> 00:19:46.331
They lay in their trenches,
in their own blood and dirt

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and with their frustrations.

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I should say that few soldiers
have endured such conditions and

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have resisted so bravely for so
long, in the cause of nothing.

00:20:00.083 --> 00:20:08.083
[music]

00:21:19.883 --> 00:21:27.883
[background noise]

00:21:30.853 --> 00:21:34.309
- This is Da Nang, a city of
survivors, of people forced

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off their land by the war and
into shanties and violence and

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a great deal of self-hatred.

00:21:40.490 --> 00:21:43.370
Da Nang was the biggest
American base and the biggest

00:21:43.390 --> 00:21:45.020
whore house in all Vietnam.

00:21:45.660 --> 00:21:49.889
The American world and the world
of the Vietnamese, the gooks, only

00:21:49.960 --> 00:21:52.080
touched at points of war and rape.

00:21:52.910 --> 00:21:56.389
The base was like a giant bubble
in which martinis were served at

00:21:56.410 --> 00:22:00.710
happy hour and prime cut steaks were
devoured beneath plastic chandeliers.

00:22:01.650 --> 00:22:04.499
Da Nang\'s economy was based
on a network of pimps,

00:22:04.781 --> 00:22:06.304
prostitutes and beggars.

00:22:06.780 --> 00:22:09.695
All of them to satisfy the
needs of the foreign soldiers.

00:22:11.100 --> 00:22:14.219
- When the foreign soldiers were
tied from battle, they were given a

00:22:14.220 --> 00:22:19.010
game to play called WHAM which was
short for winning hearts and minds.

00:22:19.370 --> 00:22:22.199
\"Just grab them by the balls\",
they\'d say \"and their hearts

00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:23.244
and minds will follow\".

00:22:24.120 --> 00:22:27.976
I flew out from Da Nang with sergeant
Melvin Morrell and his WHAM unit.

00:22:28.609 --> 00:22:31.757
When we arrived at the village
of Toulon just near here,

00:22:32.270 --> 00:22:35.959
sergeant Morrell opened up his
WHAM handbook at page 86 which

00:22:35.960 --> 00:22:39.869
read, \"Give them the important
little things of life and you\'ll

00:22:39.870 --> 00:22:41.343
give them the basic liberties\".

00:22:41.719 --> 00:22:44.440
Morrell and his men handed
out packets of uncle Ben\'s

00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:48.259
processed miracle rice,
chocolate bars, Superman

00:22:48.260 --> 00:22:50.958
comics and 7,000 toothbrushes.

00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:54.371
That evening, there were
several shots outside our camp.

00:22:54.800 --> 00:22:57.849
Morrell and his men opened up with
everything destroying most of the

00:22:57.850 --> 00:22:59.953
village and killing 10 people.

00:23:00.922 --> 00:23:04.719
The next morning through the
smoking ruins came his commanding

00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:07.206
officer, colonel Richard E [?].

00:23:07.708 --> 00:23:10.021
\"Well Morrell\", said
the colonel, \"How\'s the

00:23:10.030 --> 00:23:11.541
pacification program going?\"

00:23:12.110 --> 00:23:12.792
\"Well sir.\"

00:23:12.820 --> 00:23:16.309
Said Morrell, \"Toothbrushes
went down a dandy but these

00:23:16.310 --> 00:23:18.877
gooks sure have strange ways
of going to the bathroom.\"

00:23:19.130 --> 00:23:21.079
\"Never say die, Morrell.\"
Said the colonel.

00:23:21.679 --> 00:23:23.999
\"Tomorrow I\'ll send you in some
electric flash lavatories.\"

00:23:24.590 --> 00:23:27.999
He did, in green, pink and yellow.

00:23:29.020 --> 00:23:32.178
I think it\'s important to recall
stories like that when trying to

00:23:32.179 --> 00:23:34.150
understand what Vietnam\'s like now.

00:23:34.809 --> 00:23:37.494
The people here live under
a strict post-war regime.

00:23:38.639 --> 00:23:42.509
Some of them oppose it and even
yearn for the old days but no

00:23:42.510 --> 00:23:46.518
longer are they gooks fit only
to be house trained, the objects

00:23:46.790 --> 00:23:48.981
of absurd lethal gains like WHAM.

00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:53.404
The violence and tension I once knew
in the streets here are all but gone.

00:23:54.038 --> 00:23:57.935
The little subtle ways of Vietnamese
civilization are slowly coming back.

00:23:58.520 --> 00:24:01.609
Courtesies and spontaneous
sensuality with people

00:24:01.610 --> 00:24:03.090
touching each other once again.

00:24:03.625 --> 00:24:07.440
Families going on outings and
the parks and museums full.

00:24:07.880 --> 00:24:10.661
Footballers training
and children playing.

00:24:11.460 --> 00:24:14.526
Important, normal,
peaceful little things.

00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:17.337
None of them mentioned
in the WHAM handbook.

00:24:20.610 --> 00:24:23.780
- Today, Vietnamese school
children sing a melancholy song

00:24:24.170 --> 00:24:26.141
about fires still to be put out.

00:24:26.690 --> 00:24:30.029
The fires being Vietnam\'s
post-war problems which are

00:24:30.030 --> 00:24:32.185
almost too numerous to comprehend.

00:24:32.740 --> 00:24:36.629
For example, south Vietnam
is a live minefield and will

00:24:36.630 --> 00:24:38.457
remain one for generations.

00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:41.790
This beach at Da Nang is
one of the few places where

00:24:41.840 --> 00:24:43.361
people can walk in safety.

00:24:44.040 --> 00:24:49.561
Here in 1965, the first US Marines
stormed ashore Hollywood style

00:24:49.860 --> 00:24:53.858
to be garlanded by schoolgirls
in flowing white tunics who stood

00:24:53.859 --> 00:24:57.472
at the water\'s edge and sang,
\"the stars and stripes forever\".

00:24:57.495 --> 00:25:05.495
[background noise]

00:25:37.378 --> 00:25:39.524
- Food is running out
fast in the cities.

00:25:39.940 --> 00:25:42.819
These people have been brought
to what is called a new economic

00:25:42.820 --> 00:25:46.584
zone to clear and make something
of fallow and ravaged land.

00:25:47.389 --> 00:25:50.819
Nothing in their lives has
prepared them for this and their

00:25:50.820 --> 00:25:54.167
implements are crude and constant
reminders of the recent past.

00:25:55.190 --> 00:25:58.799
This girl, whose shoulder was
crippled by a hand grenade is

00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:02.807
drawing water with one of many
buckets made from napalm shells.

00:26:02.821 --> 00:26:10.821
[background noise]

00:26:13.535 --> 00:26:15.664
The land itself is
a legacy of the war.

00:26:16.260 --> 00:26:17.999
All this used to be thick jungle.

00:26:18.420 --> 00:26:22.089
It was laid completely to waste by
defoliants and poisons dropped from

00:26:22.090 --> 00:26:27.348
the air year after year in what the
Americans called Operation Hades.

00:26:28.030 --> 00:26:31.720
44% of Vietnam\'s forests
were destroyed in this way.

00:26:32.550 --> 00:26:36.630
The chemicals used were banned in
the United States long ago because

00:26:36.639 --> 00:26:40.770
it was found they not only poisoned
the Earth for up to 50 years, but

00:26:40.784 --> 00:26:42.678
also caused to deformed babies.

00:26:43.510 --> 00:26:46.899
Where there was once forest,
there is now the searing heat

00:26:46.900 --> 00:26:51.120
of a wilderness in which is sown
the seeds of human mutations.

00:26:51.830 --> 00:26:55.841
Even when in 1969, it was
found that Vietnamese mothers

00:26:55.849 --> 00:26:59.601
were producing deformed babies
after drinking and eating here,

00:27:00.100 --> 00:27:01.750
the poisoning did not stop.

00:27:02.470 --> 00:27:05.949
Operation Hades was merely
changed to the more friendly

00:27:06.290 --> 00:27:09.810
and more politically acceptable
Operation Ranch Hand.

00:27:12.354 --> 00:27:15.816
- There are so many ironies
in the history of Vietnam.

00:27:16.459 --> 00:27:20.830
On September the 2nd, 1945
right where this mausoleum was,

00:27:21.560 --> 00:27:26.356
they ran up the flag of the
republic when the Viet Minh led

00:27:26.378 --> 00:27:30.967
by Ho had taken power in Hanoi.

00:27:31.880 --> 00:27:34.637
Who helped them take power?
The Americans.

00:27:34.670 --> 00:27:38.650
Standing in the square was an
American serving officer called

00:27:38.680 --> 00:27:43.517
major Archimedes Patty, saluting the
flag of the new Vietnamese republic.

00:27:43.873 --> 00:27:49.093
On that day in September of 1945,
Ho said we\'re going to have a

00:27:49.109 --> 00:27:52.620
declaration of independence like
that country that has helped

00:27:52.650 --> 00:27:54.160
us so much, the United States.

00:27:54.190 --> 00:27:59.460
Do you know their declaration
of independence in Vietnam

00:27:59.470 --> 00:28:01.980
says all men are created equal.

00:28:04.200 --> 00:28:07.529
They are given certain
unalienable rights.

00:28:08.219 --> 00:28:13.169
Among them the pursuit of
life, liberty and happiness.

00:28:13.170 --> 00:28:17.831
The words are culled straight from
the US declaration of independence.

00:28:18.166 --> 00:28:25.896
[music]

00:28:25.929 --> 00:28:29.769
- We want nothing for ourselves,
only that the people of south

00:28:29.779 --> 00:28:34.759
Vietnam be allowed to guide their
own country in their own ways.

00:28:34.760 --> 00:28:40.688
[music]

00:28:40.719 --> 00:28:45.279
- I wish it were possible to
convince others with words of

00:28:45.280 --> 00:28:49.771
what we now find it necessary
to say with guns and flames.

00:28:52.759 --> 00:29:00.759
- Good morning, Vietnam.
Welcome to the Dawnbuster.

00:29:03.609 --> 00:29:07.837
[music]

00:29:07.845 --> 00:29:11.627
- From Saigon, this is the
American Forces Vietnam Network.

00:29:11.634 --> 00:29:19.634
[music]

00:29:35.730 --> 00:29:42.629
- We shall pay any price, bear
any burden, meet any hardship,

00:29:43.640 --> 00:29:49.967
support any friend, oppose
any foe to assure the survival

00:29:49.985 --> 00:29:51.251
and the success of liberty.

00:29:51.263 --> 00:29:58.464
[background noise]

00:29:58.472 --> 00:30:02.233
-He believed that peace is at hand.

00:30:02.234 --> 00:30:06.306
[background noise]

00:30:06.314 --> 00:30:14.314
It is inevitable that in a war
of such complexity that there

00:30:16.700 --> 00:30:22.983
should be occasional difficulties
in reaching a final solution.

00:30:22.992 --> 00:30:30.992
[music]

00:30:33.602 --> 00:30:39.719
- [?] that we today have concluded
an agreement to end the war and

00:30:39.720 --> 00:30:41.593
bring peace with honor in Vietnam.

00:30:41.609 --> 00:30:45.659
Let us be proud of the two and
a half million young Americans

00:30:45.660 --> 00:30:49.453
who served in Vietnam, who served
with honor and distinction.

00:30:49.460 --> 00:30:54.092
Finally, to all of you who were
listening, the American people,

00:30:55.530 --> 00:31:00.550
your steadfastness in supporting
our insistence on peace with honor

00:31:01.390 --> 00:31:03.380
has made peace with honor possible.

00:31:04.990 --> 00:31:08.060
I know that you would not have
wanted that peace jeopardized.

00:31:08.075 --> 00:31:16.075
[music]

00:31:23.159 --> 00:31:26.009
- This is Ho Chi Minh City,
though at heart it\'s still

00:31:26.010 --> 00:31:28.324
Saigon and it\'s still in shock.

00:31:28.692 --> 00:31:31.610
Forlorn street photographers
still seem to be waiting for

00:31:31.617 --> 00:31:35.120
the GI\'s and their bar girls to
come back and no doubt there\'s

00:31:35.130 --> 00:31:36.751
still no film in their cameras.

00:31:37.330 --> 00:31:39.255
The American tap has been turned off.

00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:43.979
The greatest consumer society in
the world produce nothing except

00:31:43.980 --> 00:31:48.299
about $1,800 millionaires is like
an old whore with a hangover.

00:31:49.040 --> 00:31:52.279
All the bloodbath propaganda\'s
been proved totally false.

00:31:53.410 --> 00:31:56.549
I remember one desperate
broadcast that implied that

00:31:56.550 --> 00:32:00.008
even the Virgin Mary was about
to leap on a helicopter but

00:32:00.009 --> 00:32:01.310
there is no sign that she did.

00:32:01.750 --> 00:32:04.618
The churches are full though
many of the faithful are no

00:32:04.619 --> 00:32:07.960
doubt praying for the bad or
good old days to come back.

00:32:08.650 --> 00:32:12.259
Most private businesses have
closed, many of the Chinese who

00:32:12.260 --> 00:32:16.290
control the black market have
gone panicked as much by peaking

00:32:16.309 --> 00:32:20.649
sudden and hysterical interest in
its money-grubbing compatriots as

00:32:20.650 --> 00:32:22.410
by their inevitable destitution.

00:32:26.140 --> 00:32:29.330
The Continental Palace Hotel where
Graham Greene wrote The Quiet

00:32:29.344 --> 00:32:32.091
American maintains its seedy grace.

00:32:32.562 --> 00:32:34.629
The Vietnamese middle
classes have simply been

00:32:34.630 --> 00:32:36.009
left to wither on the vine.

00:32:36.550 --> 00:32:40.899
They are sad people for when their
last possession is finally sold and

00:32:40.900 --> 00:32:44.529
they go to the authorities to plead
poverty, they are directed to the

00:32:44.530 --> 00:32:48.669
trucks that leave every morning for
the countryside and a harsh new life.

00:32:49.540 --> 00:32:51.040
-This is the center of Saigon.

00:32:52.990 --> 00:32:58.049
Here, there used to be probably the
most horrible statue in the world.

00:32:59.320 --> 00:33:04.139
It was an old Saigon regime
soldier, two of them, one pushing

00:33:04.140 --> 00:33:07.110
the other and the American joke
was that it was the American

00:33:07.120 --> 00:33:09.237
pushing the Vietnamese into war.

00:33:09.809 --> 00:33:13.271
It said a lot about the war, it said
a lot about the regime, I suppose.

00:33:14.099 --> 00:33:18.766
It was made of Kwixset cement which
was sprayed onto a swaying frame

00:33:19.389 --> 00:33:21.209
and had the effect of papier-mache.

00:33:21.216 --> 00:33:22.216
It was hollow.

00:33:22.914 --> 00:33:26.689
Now they\'ve put this up, in
fact on the first day of the

00:33:26.690 --> 00:33:32.335
liberation they blew it up.
Quite right too. It\'s horrible.

00:33:35.256 --> 00:33:40.270
I suppose my first feeling
and I\'ve only been in Saigon

00:33:41.090 --> 00:33:44.613
a few hours, is what on Earth
are these people thinking?

00:33:46.258 --> 00:33:50.295
In the old days, they wouldn\'t stare
at us, they were so used to us.

00:33:50.900 --> 00:33:53.260
Kids would beg, maybe
they still do beg.

00:33:53.272 --> 00:33:54.272
I don\'t know.

00:33:54.923 --> 00:34:02.030
The population has thinned out but
one must be pleased that I haven\'t

00:34:02.039 --> 00:34:09.669
yet seen crippled little kids
who used to sell jasmine flowers

00:34:09.670 --> 00:34:15.839
and veterans of the Saigon army
used to come at you like crabs

00:34:15.840 --> 00:34:21.173
across the pavement with a sawn
off diet Cola can, hold it out,

00:34:22.500 --> 00:34:23.937
\"Please money, please money\".

00:34:26.008 --> 00:34:29.439
The extraordinary thing is to watch
the men from Hanoi, the northerners

00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:30.770
who are like country boys.

00:34:31.520 --> 00:34:34.365
They\'re still obviously
in awe at this sin city.

00:34:34.977 --> 00:34:39.599
It\'s extraordinary these men have
come down from the north from a

00:34:39.600 --> 00:34:44.969
completely agricultural communist
society into the most wicked

00:34:44.970 --> 00:34:51.433
city if you like in the East
and the most capitalist society.

00:34:51.839 --> 00:34:54.211
They hadn\'t seen all
these Hondas before.

00:34:54.980 --> 00:34:56.549
They haven\'t seen bar girls.

00:34:58.508 --> 00:35:02.349
The difference between the two
cities, I suppose, is the difference

00:35:02.350 --> 00:35:04.228
between say, New York and Shrewsbury.

00:35:06.312 --> 00:35:09.846
You can tell the northerners,
they\'re tall, rather doe-eyed.

00:35:10.679 --> 00:35:13.027
The Saigonese are hustlers.

00:35:14.947 --> 00:35:19.409
Along this street where most of
the bars are now closed, most

00:35:19.410 --> 00:35:26.989
of the tailors, Indian\'s tailors
are all closed, a lot of the bar

00:35:26.990 --> 00:35:28.359
girls though are still around.

00:35:28.360 --> 00:35:33.899
I can see their little faces
popping out from some of these.

00:35:33.900 --> 00:35:37.609
They go back in quickly enough,
they\'re so shocked to see what

00:35:37.610 --> 00:35:40.774
they might construe to be an
American coming down that they

00:35:40.782 --> 00:35:42.057
don\'t really know what to do.

00:35:43.183 --> 00:35:44.183
They\'re here.

00:35:44.782 --> 00:35:47.839
I believe that their services
are still for sale, though on

00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:51.332
the north Vietnamese soldier\'s
salary, it\'d be very difficult.

00:35:53.080 --> 00:35:55.840
- These are bar girls who have
not escaped re-education.

00:35:56.210 --> 00:35:59.350
Although the main reason they are
in this rehabilitation center near

00:35:59.379 --> 00:36:01.548
Saigon is their drug addiction.

00:36:02.260 --> 00:36:06.009
This young woman, a former
prostitute, is 25 years old.

00:36:06.500 --> 00:36:09.540
She tells of growing up in
a half-lit world of bars,

00:36:09.790 --> 00:36:11.945
dope and big American bodies.

00:36:12.670 --> 00:36:15.129
Once her father came
to visit her in Saigon.

00:36:15.849 --> 00:36:19.320
\"When he saw me\", she said,
\"filthy and with needle scars,

00:36:19.610 --> 00:36:21.224
he was shocked and he cried\".

00:36:21.690 --> 00:36:24.219
Her father was a Viet Cong
and had secretly come out of

00:36:24.220 --> 00:36:27.927
the jungle to see his family
as the VC sometimes did.

00:36:28.570 --> 00:36:30.991
She has not seen him since
and believes he is dead.

00:36:31.690 --> 00:36:34.778
\"As for re-education\",
she said nervously, \"I

00:36:34.779 --> 00:36:36.100
am cured of the old ways.

00:36:36.410 --> 00:36:38.290
I have accepted uncle Ho\'s wisdom\".

00:36:38.880 --> 00:36:42.327
She also said departing from
the script, \"Listen, mister,

00:36:42.500 --> 00:36:44.747
nothing could be worse
for me than what it was.\"

00:36:44.771 --> 00:36:52.771
[background noise]

00:36:55.142 --> 00:37:03.142
[music]

00:37:49.910 --> 00:37:52.222
- Most of these young
men were heroin addicts.

00:37:52.560 --> 00:37:56.139
They are street pushers, thieves,
students and soldiers of the

00:37:56.140 --> 00:37:57.669
old south Vietnamese Army.

00:37:58.490 --> 00:38:01.560
They are withdrawn from their
habit by constant exercising,

00:38:01.690 --> 00:38:03.362
yoga and acupuncture.

00:38:03.929 --> 00:38:07.069
For some, it can be a brutal
method of cure because they are

00:38:07.070 --> 00:38:10.810
given no drugs to ease their pain
and to wean away their addiction.

00:38:11.450 --> 00:38:15.019
There is perhaps little else the new
authorities can do as there are more

00:38:15.020 --> 00:38:18.769
than half a million addicts amongst
the flotsam of the war, including

00:38:18.770 --> 00:38:22.950
those who took their first opium pipe
under the French half a century ago.

00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:29.030
These are the true faces
of suffering of a society

00:38:29.070 --> 00:38:32.109
colonized, vandalized and bombed.

00:38:32.870 --> 00:38:35.620
Resilience was always the
basic strength of Vietnamese

00:38:35.630 --> 00:38:37.959
society whatever its politics.

00:38:38.480 --> 00:38:42.310
This man, a former soldier, is
typical of many who represent the

00:38:42.340 --> 00:38:44.776
total collapse of this resilience.

00:38:45.310 --> 00:38:49.366
He told me, \"Sure I\'m cured\",
but he is not cured at all.

00:38:49.960 --> 00:38:52.459
He\'s also terrified that
he will say anything out of

00:38:52.460 --> 00:38:54.104
step with his re-education.

00:38:54.610 --> 00:38:56.619
He must surely wonder about his life.

00:38:57.120 --> 00:39:00.600
His last masters gave him
drugs, an ignominious defeat.

00:39:01.100 --> 00:39:04.260
His present masters give him
press ups and words that are

00:39:04.268 --> 00:39:06.109
meant to vacuum clean his mind.

00:39:06.125 --> 00:39:14.125
[background noise]

00:39:43.085 --> 00:39:45.879
These are former soldiers
of the Saigon army at a

00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:47.530
remote re-education camp.

00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:49.860
These were their generals.

00:39:50.670 --> 00:39:53.869
I know of an army doctor whose
family has had no news of him for

00:39:53.870 --> 00:39:58.069
three years and yet his son-in-law
has been released from a camp and

00:39:58.070 --> 00:39:59.790
is working again as an architect.

00:40:00.670 --> 00:40:04.855
He said there was little brutality
but suicides were not uncommon.

00:40:07.059 --> 00:40:10.699
Here at another re-education
camp, defeated soldiers heave a

00:40:10.700 --> 00:40:12.421
plow through the mud of a paddy.

00:40:13.190 --> 00:40:16.280
Most are the generation
of war, streetwise,

00:40:16.320 --> 00:40:18.629
battle-wise, helicopter-wise.

00:40:18.871 --> 00:40:20.188
Few are peasants.

00:40:20.870 --> 00:40:23.795
Once they were members of the
fourth largest army on Earth.

00:40:25.389 --> 00:40:28.459
When our camera turned away,
one young soldier glanced

00:40:28.460 --> 00:40:31.950
quickly at his guard, looked
straight at me and mouthed that

00:40:31.990 --> 00:40:35.960
universal four-letter word and
rammed two fingers to the sky.

00:40:37.420 --> 00:40:39.815
Just how do you re-educate
such bitterness?

00:40:40.330 --> 00:40:43.928
How do you explain to these former
conscripted men who fought in the

00:40:43.929 --> 00:40:48.038
cause of America, whatever that
was, that Americans are now being

00:40:48.039 --> 00:40:50.080
welcomed and courted in Hanoi?

00:40:50.750 --> 00:40:53.811
How do you explain that
his new communist masters

00:40:54.082 --> 00:40:57.269
have offered unconditional
diplomatic ties with America?

00:40:58.130 --> 00:41:01.717
How do you explain that the former
hawkish American Defense Secretary,

00:41:01.900 --> 00:41:06.299
Robert McNamara, wants the World
Bank of which he is now head, to lend

00:41:06.300 --> 00:41:09.609
money to communist Vietnam because
he is impressed with the movement

00:41:09.610 --> 00:41:12.030
of people to the new economic zones?

00:41:12.660 --> 00:41:16.366
People like these soldiers.
Was it not Mr. McNamara

00:41:16.528 --> 00:41:19.459
who dreamt up an
electrified fence around South

00:41:19.460 --> 00:41:24.079
Vietnam that would, in his words,
\"Sanitize the nation against

00:41:24.080 --> 00:41:25.490
the disease of communism\"?

00:41:26.690 --> 00:41:30.279
Explain all that and you will
explain the game in which these

00:41:30.290 --> 00:41:32.539
bitter young men were the pawns.

00:41:32.580 --> 00:41:40.580
[background noise]

00:41:49.810 --> 00:41:51.692
Do you remember Operation Babylift?

00:41:52.059 --> 00:41:56.209
That squalid episode when hundreds
of waifs, many of them not orphans,

00:41:56.469 --> 00:41:58.060
were bundled out of Saigon.

00:41:58.779 --> 00:42:00.540
Do you remember this
horrific picture?

00:42:01.139 --> 00:42:06.130
150 babies died when a so-called
\'mercy plane\' crashed on take-off.

00:42:06.990 --> 00:42:11.329
The children were taken from Vietnam
for dubious charitable motives and

00:42:11.330 --> 00:42:14.849
to polish the peace-making image
of Richard Nixon\'s successor.

00:42:15.736 --> 00:42:23.736
[background conversation]

00:42:30.050 --> 00:42:33.369
Those of you who recall the
assault on your emotions caused

00:42:33.370 --> 00:42:37.119
by Operation Babylift will be
pleased to learn that the thousands

00:42:37.120 --> 00:42:41.229
of street children, orphans and
handicapped kids left behind are

00:42:41.230 --> 00:42:44.768
receiving a care that has a national
priority in the new Vietnam.

00:42:45.610 --> 00:42:49.949
It is a care that covers equally the
small nation fathered by Americans.

00:42:50.709 --> 00:42:54.424
The mixed children at this Saigon
orphanage, the Young Flower School,

00:42:54.730 --> 00:42:56.780
are totally accepted as Vietnamese.

00:42:57.320 --> 00:43:00.926
They are taught self-reliance, they
have their own vegetable garden,

00:43:01.130 --> 00:43:03.809
cow, fishpond and barbershop.

00:43:03.824 --> 00:43:10.562
[background noise]

00:43:10.600 --> 00:43:14.720
These children are given a sensitive,
unembellished story of their origins.

00:43:15.220 --> 00:43:17.489
They are told simply that
their fathers were foreign

00:43:17.490 --> 00:43:19.480
soldiers who had to go home.

00:43:20.059 --> 00:43:24.329
There is no mention of war crimes
or imperialist aggressors and

00:43:24.330 --> 00:43:27.558
if their mother can be found and
she has an address in America

00:43:27.559 --> 00:43:31.284
as sometimes happens, they are
encouraged to write to their fathers.

00:43:31.769 --> 00:43:36.259
The compassion and total absence
of rancor embodied in the official

00:43:36.260 --> 00:43:39.789
approach to bringing up these
children of the former enemy is the

00:43:39.790 --> 00:43:44.250
other side to a regime that indulges
its Stalinism in the intellectual

00:43:44.290 --> 00:43:46.519
barbarities of re-education.

00:43:47.350 --> 00:43:52.346
For me, it expresses a generosity of
spirit that is especially Vietnamese.

00:43:53.400 --> 00:43:56.470
While I was at this orphanage,
the children sang a song

00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:57.910
that ended with these words,

00:43:58.719 --> 00:43:59.779
\"The war is gone.

00:44:00.570 --> 00:44:01.820
Planes come no more.

00:44:02.570 --> 00:44:04.539
Do not weep for those just born.

00:44:05.369 --> 00:44:07.064
The human being is evergreen.\"

00:44:07.140 --> 00:44:15.140
[background conversation]

00:44:28.254 --> 00:44:32.129
Tao, my guide at the war crimes
museum, was imprisoned in the

00:44:32.139 --> 00:44:34.138
tiger cages on Con Son Island.

00:44:34.800 --> 00:44:38.960
She describes what was done to her
and how she felt on the day of peace.

00:44:39.190 --> 00:44:43.379
- They put in the tiger cages
the prisoners they couldn\'t

00:44:43.400 --> 00:44:45.486
submit in other jail.

00:44:46.550 --> 00:44:51.205
They put them there to
repress them especially.

00:44:55.628 --> 00:45:02.870
The prisoner always objected,
always protested to go into the

00:45:02.886 --> 00:45:05.556
tiger cage so they beat them first.

00:45:06.907 --> 00:45:11.550
In the tiger cage with the roof
there is a passage on the ceiling.

00:45:12.556 --> 00:45:17.543
From there, they can pour
down quicklime or dirty

00:45:17.556 --> 00:45:20.267
water in cold weather.

00:45:20.437 --> 00:45:22.627
In hot weather, they pour
down quicklime and the

00:45:22.661 --> 00:45:26.245
quicklime make the skin burn.

00:45:29.478 --> 00:45:35.229
In the tiger cage, they give
very little rice to eat.

00:45:35.476 --> 00:45:43.476
Very little water.
They give for each meal small fish.

00:45:43.555 --> 00:45:47.969
Dry fish. Very little. The
prisoner call quai nai fish.

00:45:50.841 --> 00:45:58.841
Because of the lack of vitamin,
the prisoner vomit constantly.

00:46:01.807 --> 00:46:09.807
We take the grass to eat when
we can go outside to empty the

00:46:11.673 --> 00:46:18.759
excrement box or we capture the
mouse or the small animals to

00:46:18.760 --> 00:46:21.693
eat, to have vitamin to survive.

00:46:21.709 --> 00:46:23.041
- You ate the mice?
- Yes.

00:46:25.136 --> 00:46:33.136
We struggle and I think that it is
the men force to help us to survive.

00:46:33.660 --> 00:46:35.822
When I was released, I couldn\'t walk.

00:46:36.557 --> 00:46:39.079
I couldn\'t walk, I was paralyzed.

00:46:40.900 --> 00:46:48.900
I was cured in those months but
at the time of the liberation,

00:46:49.352 --> 00:46:55.568
my legs are still very weak but
I participate the liberation.

00:46:55.809 --> 00:47:02.266
I planted the flag, the revolutionary
flag first in my quarter.

00:47:03.262 --> 00:47:05.506
- What were your feelings
on the day the war ended?

00:47:06.462 --> 00:47:10.948
- Oh, I don\'t know how
to say my feelings.

00:47:13.831 --> 00:47:17.722
It seemed that I fly, I didn\'t walk.

00:47:23.490 --> 00:47:24.490
I don\'t know.

00:47:25.790 --> 00:47:28.852
The happiness make tear fall down.

00:47:32.724 --> 00:47:36.930
- Outside my hotel here in Saigon,
a loudspeaker tells people when to

00:47:36.935 --> 00:47:38.937
get up and what they should think.

00:47:39.759 --> 00:47:43.396
In the old days, the same loudspeaker
used to issue similar directives

00:47:43.413 --> 00:47:44.825
which were dutifully ignored.

00:47:45.880 --> 00:47:47.444
Words and images have changed.

00:47:48.010 --> 00:47:50.817
Coca-Cola has come down,
uncle Ho has gone up.

00:47:51.570 --> 00:47:54.959
The Vietnamese have been
liberated from war, but have they

00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:57.926
been liberated from insidious,
old-fashioned repression?

00:47:59.190 --> 00:48:02.989
Recently, a petition arrived in
Hanoi from America, which read

00:48:02.990 --> 00:48:05.995
like a who\'s who of those who
most vigorously opposed the war.

00:48:06.840 --> 00:48:10.350
It protested against the denial of
human rights for many Vietnamese,

00:48:11.360 --> 00:48:14.606
people sent to re-education
camps and not heard of again.

00:48:15.050 --> 00:48:18.099
Including nationalists, who
were jailed and tortured under

00:48:18.100 --> 00:48:22.087
the old Saigon regime in their
long struggle for democracy.

00:48:23.613 --> 00:48:25.257
What has happened to the Viet Cong?

00:48:26.120 --> 00:48:28.719
The guerrillas of the South
who fought so heroically.

00:48:29.380 --> 00:48:31.566
Only the flag of
Hanoi flies here now.

00:48:31.979 --> 00:48:34.113
Northerners hold all the key posts.

00:48:34.959 --> 00:48:40.289
Re-education camps, loudspeakers,
book burning, watchdogs in

00:48:40.290 --> 00:48:41.640
red armbands everywhere.

00:48:42.517 --> 00:48:46.265
Balance this against a
civilized takeover after

00:48:46.271 --> 00:48:47.726
30 years of bitterness.

00:48:48.287 --> 00:48:53.159
New hospitals and orphans being
lovingly cared for and an absence

00:48:53.160 --> 00:48:56.093
of tension, violence and war.

00:48:58.362 --> 00:49:01.410
- As the war recedes and the
memories of the first generation

00:49:01.424 --> 00:49:06.541
at peace, Vietnam will, I believe,
liberalize as Yugoslavia has done.

00:49:07.370 --> 00:49:08.934
After all, the Northerners won.

00:49:09.104 --> 00:49:13.158
Not as Oriental Prussians under
the spell of an ideology but as

00:49:13.159 --> 00:49:16.790
nationalists with an extraordinary
sense of their nation\'s history.

00:49:17.590 --> 00:49:21.272
Those strategists who like to
drop small nations into this or

00:49:21.277 --> 00:49:25.949
that camp will be confused by the
Vietnamese whose current, almost

00:49:25.980 --> 00:49:29.449
desperate efforts to make friends
with America, have nothing to do

00:49:29.450 --> 00:49:33.383
with ideology and everything to
do with an historic fear of China

00:49:33.730 --> 00:49:37.315
and of becoming embroiled in the
Cold War between China and Russia.

00:49:39.580 --> 00:49:42.719
It was typical of the Vietnamese
that they should take arms from

00:49:42.730 --> 00:49:45.879
Moscow but leave the Russians
in Hanoi to hear of their

00:49:45.880 --> 00:49:47.977
victory on the Voice of America.

00:49:48.064 --> 00:49:56.064
[background noise]

00:49:57.796 --> 00:50:00.679
You might like to consider the
terrible irony in all of this.

00:50:01.591 --> 00:50:04.335
Why did the Americans
sabotage the establishment

00:50:04.348 --> 00:50:08.892
of United Vietnam, under Ho
Chi Minh 30 wasted years ago?

00:50:09.602 --> 00:50:12.338
To contain the spread of
Chinese communism, of course.

00:50:13.480 --> 00:50:17.880
What all is surely means is that if
America had left this country alone,

00:50:18.160 --> 00:50:21.989
Vietnam would have evolved quickly
into what it is now attempting

00:50:21.990 --> 00:50:24.458
to become an Asian Yugoslavia.

00:50:25.369 --> 00:50:28.230
It would have been a country
of haunting beauty without

00:50:28.270 --> 00:50:33.439
minefields, drug addicts,
devastated towns, poisoned

00:50:33.445 --> 00:50:36.106
Earth and horizons of graves.

00:50:36.910 --> 00:50:40.600
It would have been a fiercely
independent state, on reasonable

00:50:40.628 --> 00:50:44.610
self-interested terms with its
region and with most of the world.

00:50:45.730 --> 00:50:49.430
That the American War merely
delayed this process and in the

00:50:49.438 --> 00:50:53.336
meantime, caused the death and
maiming of several million people

00:50:53.562 --> 00:50:57.779
and the destruction of their
land, is the sad truth of my time.

00:51:00.820 --> 00:51:03.799
- I was told a story which says
much about these indestructible

00:51:03.800 --> 00:51:05.126
people of Vietnamese.

00:51:05.763 --> 00:51:09.678
There was a re-education lecture
here in Saigon and the subject

00:51:09.679 --> 00:51:11.107
was hatred of the Americans.

00:51:11.790 --> 00:51:14.860
When the lecture was over, a
small old woman stood up and

00:51:14.870 --> 00:51:16.309
started talking furiously.

00:51:16.699 --> 00:51:20.259
\"Yes,\" she said, \"I hate
the Americans, they\'re foul,

00:51:20.320 --> 00:51:23.770
odious, and the proof is that
their war left us no choice

00:51:24.110 --> 00:51:25.670
but to accept the communists.\"

00:51:26.309 --> 00:51:28.680
Of which the audience broke
out laughing and clapping.

00:51:29.570 --> 00:51:33.200
What can any regime do with
independent minds like these?

00:51:34.059 --> 00:51:36.765
The Vietnamese have
many battles yet to win.

00:51:40.241 --> 00:51:48.241
[singing]