Vietnam: A Television History; Why Vietnam? [Part 1 of 3]

I fell on my record not long ago I received a letter from a woman in the Midwest. She Wrote. Yeah Mr. President in my humble way I am writing to you Dr. precious and then I have I have a son who is now and the man my husband served in World War 2. Our country was at war. But now this time it's just something that I don't understand why I did man can land the land and finance the land you me. 1938 German chancellor and I'll step fluorides for a conference to be held here with. British Prime Minister never chamber.

This meeting will long be remembered. For it opens the door to the dreams of dictatorship. The agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the people who never had to go to war with one another to gain. Peace in our time. Are short. To disaster. But even then this was no new lesson. It stared us in the face with my so me and Ethiopia. Man. Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie made his protest to the League of Nations.

Nothing. We've also seen the unforeseen Austria. And nothing's done. Then in 1950 US Russian was again unleashed. This time across the 38 in Korea. But Freeman had begun to learn the lesson and something was. Us. The lesson had been lying when President Johnson had phrased its meaning well. Aggression on the challenge to his aggression unleashed by most young Americans born into a land exultant with hope and with a golden promise Toland suffer and sometimes die in such a remote and distant place.

They answer like the war itself is not an easy one but it echoes clearly from the painful lessons of half a century. Three times in my lifetime in two world wars and one Korea Americans have gone to far land to fight for freedom. We have learned a terrible and a brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace and it is this lesson that has brought us to Vietnam. For the background. Vietnam. We must go back to a shell cratered place called. Supplied only by air completely surrounded by the opposing Vietnamese.

French troops are fighting the last battle of the war over what had been called French Indochina. It's a strange story cornered struggle. Non-communist Vietnamese fighting communist Vietnamese and some of both fighting the French. By 1954. The inevitability of French defeat has become clear. Hanoi in 1954 reflects the ravages of bitter warfare. But for now the fighting is over. The French are leaving. The red star flies over Hanoi as the communist forces move. At a conference in Geneva an agreement has been reached. It divides Vietnam in the north and south. Turns over the north to the Communists and marks the end of French

colonial rule. The agreement also provides the machinery for bringing true peace to Vietnam. If the Communists act in good faith. This is a bright victory for the communist world and there are smiles. But not on the faces of the more than 1 million Vietnamese who desert their homes and flee southward rather than live under a communist regime. From then to now the basic story of United States help to Vietnam is simple. The Communists have steadily increased their pressure on South Vietnam. South Vietnam has asked for greater support to resist that pressure and has received. So increasing Communist aggression has called for the increases in the scope of United States counter action. But United States policy has remained the same. We are committed to helping a free people defend their sovereignty. Let us trace the history of that committee.

In 1954 Vietnam is divided at the 17th parallel as Korea was divided at the thirty eighth. She faces the future with an imaginary line running from border to border symbolizing a separation which is far from imaginary. In the north Holcim communist leader of North Vietnam plays the kindly smiling grandfather. But behind the smile is a mind which is planning a reign of terror in South Vietnam in which children and adults alike will be the victims. In South Vietnam peace brings a fresh beginning. The people set about building new homes. New hopes. Free elections are held in the South alone. When it becomes clear that the communist regime in the north has no intention of permitting genuinely free elections in its

half of the country. Also in 1954 President Eisenhower pledges economic aid to the government of Vietnam in developing and maintaining a strong viable state. Capable of resisting attempted subversion. And aggression through military means. Land. Redistributed farmlands in the south so that farmers own their fields. And reap for themselves the fruit of their toil. With American economic aid. The South begins to prosper in the hopes of the people of a peace. These hopes shared by so many in Southeast Asia are reinforced

in Manila when in 1955 the United States and others signed the Southeast Asia collective defense treaty forming SEATO and guaranteeing the mutual security of Southeast Asia from aggression. But even as the people of the South build North Vietnam is creating in their villages political action centers with trained educators infiltrated from the north from the guise of refugees. The communist plan also includes acts of terror and subversion to disrupt the legitimate government. If the South cannot be brought into Hanoi is controlled by less forcefully as a new phase of the communist plan is ready to go into action. Open guerilla warfare. For most of us. Aimed at destroying the government and subjugating the people.

It is called by Hanoi a war of liberation. It does not seem so to the hundreds of anti-communist leaders teachers and their wives and children who are visited on the night by Vietcong. Persuasion squads.