Vietnam: A Television History; Roots of a War; 101

Someone. The. United States produce. 300 million dollars to help that war by not voting for a give away program we are voting for the cheapest way that we can prevent the occurrence of something. I would be of most terrible significance the United States of America our security. If we withdrew from Vietnam the communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon Thailand Cambodia Laos Malaya would go. There for the nation go down even further. Ask yourself what's going to happen. If the United States now were to throw in the towel and come home and the communists took over South Vietnam then. All over Southeast Asia all over the Pacific in the Mideast. In Europe and the world. The United States would suffer a blow and

peace because we are the great peacekeeping nation in the world today because of our power would suffer a blow. From which it might. Recover. First a handful of advisors. Then the Marines. Finally an army of half a million. That was the Vietnam War. It was an undeclared war. A war without frontline or just. A war against an elusive enemy. A war. Getting any name need from and watch your town your town good regular sleep. I don't know if. We had some precarious situations where we lost some people. But we always won.

So to me we were very successful you know. But as I think of it now I don't know what we won. We won a box on a map. Where the next day we left and we never came back. Maybe. It was a war that blurred the line between friend and enemy. Whenever the Americans went they burned and destroyed and killed. I didn't see any guerrillas being killed. Only village. An 8 year old or a 9 year old can kill you just as quick. As a 25 or 26 year old man. Back here in the states the kids are playing cowboys and Indians over there they've been playing it for real. It was a war with deep roots deeper than most Americans knew Coachy

man and his followers fought for decades against the French and against the Americans and their South Vietnamese ally. Nope. Wow. They always believed in my country. I know how you do. But instead of sending my sons out to defend their country from man I sent them out to die. My. It was a war that turned south Vietnam and it's. A war that changed the guys who fought it. G.I. you went Vietnamese. For box time. You can get a carton of. Pre-packed pre-rolled marijuana cigarette

soaked in opium. For $10 you can get a vial of pure heroin. You can get liquid opium speed. Acid. Anything you wanted. It was the first television war. You got four stars automatic fire grenade launcher with uncensored battle reports flashed to the folks at home. Know where they are. Worse lost the French on the other day. I. Think. It was the first war Americans opposed in huge numbers openly and passionately in the Vietnam

War ended when the communists took Saigon. The end of the war and left questions and issues that are still unanswered. And unresolved. Oh. But it's time that we recognized ours was in truth a noble cause. Let us tell those who fought in that war. That we will never again. Ask young men to fight and possibly die in a war. Our government is afraid to let them win. Vietnam a noble cause a shameful venture.

The questions continue because for America the Vietnam War is not over. And it is not over for Vietnam. Not for the hundreds of thousands who have fled the communist regime. Not for the millions who remain in a devastated country. That is still at war. In Cambodia with China. This television series looks back on a hard chapter in America's history. And examines the questions now being asked by more and more Americans. How we got there. And what we did there. Two and a half million Americans fought in Vietnam.

And 58000 Americans died there. So why. Do. America's war in Vietnam lasted 15 years. But the Vietnamese have known war a long time. More than 2000 years. Their traditional enemy was China the giant neighbor to the north. For centuries Vietnam was the southern most part of China's empire. The Vietnamese absorbed Chinese culture and customs but they never accepted Chinese

rule. Today throughout Vietnam they commemorate the trunk sisters who led a rebellion against China in the first century after Christ. The. Rebellion failed. But the Trung sisters are still heroin's. Part of a long line of Vietnamese who fought foreign domination. And. Die. Our history from the time of the hung Klingons and the trunk sister and they gave me to the era president who watched a man who has been a history of great struggle in our history. The Vietnamese people have always done their best to defend the country and to build the media. And. They fought for almost a thousand years after the trunk's to evict the Chinese

and they pushed south to their present borders conquering other peoples in their path. The country expanded so rapidly that it fragmented in a series of civil wars despite their internal conflicts the Vietnamese regarded themselves as one country and one people. But they were too weak and divided to fight off the conquering Europeans in the 19th century. Around 1860. The French seized the area near Saigon. They took over central and northern Vietnam during the next two decades and by 1885 Vietnam had once again lost its independence. French Indochina at the end of the 1880s. Laos. Cambodia. And Vietnam which the French divided into three regions.

Cochin-China and Tonkin. To the Vietnamese. The division was a deliberate attempt to destroy their national unity. The first moving images of the new colonies were recorded in the early 1900s France looked at the traditional In Chinese cultures and saw very little it considered civilization. The colonizers took upon themselves the French version of the white man's burden. Let me see on these trees the bringing of civilization and Catholicism to the natives. The

Vietnamese resisted the French called all resisters pirates and they sent in the troops for the first pacification of Vietnam. They staged public executions. The severed heads were photographed and printed on postcards which soldiers sent home to sweethearts in Paris with kisses from Hanoi. It took 20 years to get the Vietnamese resistance under control. And the French could concentrate on the economics of colonialism. Trying to transform Vietnam into a source of profit. They open factories and expanded the mines in the north in the south. They developed tea rubber and rice plantations. Indochina exported Rice to 30 countries and exports stayed high. Even if it meant the peasants starved.

Dogs always will. The people here suffered a lot because of high taxes and hard forced labor. They worked from dawn till dusk but they did not have enough to eat and. The cheap labor profited a few French companies even though Indochina was a financial sinkhole. The French nation spent millions of francs each year to protect and support the colony while French companies like missional and rubber made millions in profits from factories and plantations. French newsreels showed only clean modern workplaces. But in fact the Vietnamese were under the most brutal and degrading conditions. That. Life allowed in the rubber plantation. The workers were treated so inhumanely that they died young and died in droves. There was a saying that the workers were fertilizer for the rubber trees because their

corpses were buried under the trees. There were no major uprisings during these hard years. Vietnamese society was reeling under the impact of Westernisation. French culture permeated the cities bringing Western fashions and ideas. Some French scholars and artists admired Vietnamese civilization and early Western photographers recorded Vietnamese life but most French felt superior to the natives. The Vietnamese elite began to give their sons a Western education. Almost all of those who would lead the next resistance to the French were French educated. Among them was Holcim in. Hoochie mins early years are

difficult to trace. It was always mysterious about himself giving few interviews and preferring in later life to present himself as the benevolent uncle who. Was born about 1890 as and when Totten the son of an official who resigned rather than serve under the French as a young man who left his country working as a ship and a cook in America Britain and France. In September 1911 and he was in Marsay and sent a request to the ministry of colonies. I would like to be useful to France he wrote in its dealings with my people. And he asked to be admitted to the colonial training school. He was told to apply elsewhere. In 1917 the whole move to Paris. He took the pseudonym Nway not Quoc new in the Patriot and began to agitate for Vietnam's independence.

He tried to plead his cause at the first sight conference following World War one but was not admitted. His effort made him famous among the Vietnamese in France. His activities brought him to the attention of the French police. They ran an investigation on this young potential troublemaker and dismissed him. With a description. Awkward looking mouth constantly open and a stupid smile. In 1920 when I Quoc became a founding member of the French Communist Party the first Vietnamese communist. He remained in France editing an anti-colonial paper called the Paria the outcast and supporting himself as a photographer's assistant. His drawings published in the newspapers showed he was still concerned with Vietnam which he had not seen for 10 years. The Communists sent when I walked to Moscow for training in 1923.

Then as a Communist agent he went to China from there his exact movements become difficult to follow. He traveled widely organizing expatriate Vietnamese into a revolutionary party. Reports during the next 17 years placed him in Germany China Thailand France Russia. It was not in Vietnam but his followers were part of new anti-colonial revolts competing for popular support with non-communist Communist revolutionaries. What do you mean a phone call. Lay a bell. On February 6th 1930 the enemy rebels attacked a military post and then by all the members. And the same day in Hanoi some rebels attacked Curley's headquarters. They just had a few sardine cans filled with gunpowder and they broke a few windows. I saw the cops in the street

and they were all confused. I said this is not that serious. I think. The French put down the rebellion in two days and imprisoned its leaders who were members of a non-communist party. The Wii and q Deedy most of them were executed in June. But the unrest spread throughout several provinces as the peasants often led by the small Indochinese Communist Party demonstrated and seized land. A widespread famine fueled the rebellions. On our place in Iraq today. A year later there was a revolt and even drought had struck the province of men and the peasants who no longer had anything to eat. Sent a delegation to the provincial capital. They asked as this was a tradition that they get back to the time of the Emperors. Well we're a labor of taxes during the drought. The government rejected this demand and got frightened by this large number of hazards on the roads.

Nobody would know what you're selling. A number of truckloads of soldiers are commanded by French officers to be one arrive and prepared to fire into the crowd and demonstrate. But the crowd continued with the march. They marched all the way to Ben to eat the things they know. And when the first person climbed up a flag pole a fork in the road and to a plane or a French guards who were on the tower of the Schiefer factory shot down and killed him. After that they ordered their soldiers to open fire into a crowd of demonstrators. Thousands of suspected Communists were arrested that year and nearly 100 party leaders executed Indochinese Communist Party was virtually

destroyed. By the Communist Party founded in 1930. And in 1931 the French stepped up their repression on revolutionaries. They thought that my brother had put up some red banners. They arrested him along with several hundred peasants who had never done anything wrong at all. I was only 11 years old at that time. The authorities did not allow adults to bring in food to the prisoners. They only allowed children like me to bring in rice and water to feed those in jail. When I went into the prison I saw that my brother and others had their legs

shackled in long chains why they were beaten with clubs. We were kept in underground cells with huge iron bars above us on top of the cells where cement bridges along which the French guards marched back and forth. So that in case something happened they could always pour down bullets on us. I was imprisoned with Comrade Pham van Dam. And when they tortured us he told them off and French prisons were school places where revolutionaries trained them self-seeking man. The French thought the country was pacified. Years earlier they had settled on a appliable member of the royal family came in as Emperor to put the stamp of legitimacy on their decisions. His son about Die was sent to France for his education.

I've spent ten years away acquiring a taste for French wine and a reputation as a playboy. After Cardin's death. The young emperor performed as instructed. By attending Paris receptions listening to French platitudes. And doing little to help his people during the years of the worst colonial repression. France was proud of its colonial record. The. Blues. Why does it still is in those old museum. I see. No possibility. That make may come easy.

I spent. Some. Time in. The economy. In. 1940 brought the end of this Sprenger of France. Japan pursuing its conquest of China. I wanted to block the transport a war materials through Vietnam. In June 1940. Three days after France felt the Nazi Germany Japan demanded the right to land forces in Indochina.

Unable to get instructions from Paris the French governor made his own decision. He said he thought that to concede a certain number of rights within very specific conditions and ordered a wall to monitor while maintaining the principal form of French sovereignty over Indochina and no shame if they daylight sorties Sheol was the wisest and most appropriate solution in that situation. Actual effective and indeed the show there could be only two solutions. A.S. you are American to fight and resist or to try maintaining the essentials of French sovereignty over Indochina undersecretary for yong while sacrificing only a few rights to the Japanese which apparently. Under the agreement Japanese troops would use French Indochina as air bases and facilities. Japan let the French bureaucracy

continue to manage civil administration. Freeing the Japanese to prepare for further conquest. French Indochina as roads harbors and railways became crucial to Japan's war machine. As did its rice rubber and coal. To the French the Japanese presence brought few changes. They were the only Europeans that the conquering Japanese left free throughout the war. Japan's arrival deeply impressed the Vietnamese Asians like themselves had overthrown the European Colonials for it was clear who was in charge.

And. To the United States Japan's actions looked increasingly ominous. President Roosevelt pressured Japan by cutting supplies of scrap metal and imposing an oil embargo in negotiations at the end of November 1941. The United States proposed that Japan withdrawal from Indochina entirely. Ten days later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese swept down through southern Asia conquering British and Dutch and American territories. French Indochina was a small part of World War Indochina and even the other countries in Southeast Asia were really relatively small potatoes particularly in connection with the war. I became chief of the division of Southeast Asian affairs in the State Department on July 1st 1944. During the war. There were no activities at the moment that we as a

department had to do. But we were concerned to find. That. I was concerned to learn that the president. Had already decided that. Indochina should be under an international trusteeship after the war. He apparently told a great many people this that he did not want the French to go back. Had they been there over 100 years and the people of India China Lysle then now than they were then Roosevelt said different things to different allied leaders. The Allies met repeatedly during the war and made declarations about the rights of oppressed peoples to choose their own governments. But they never said how this would be done. Roosevelt was reluctant to offend Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the British were opposed to dismantling the French empire. Churchill saw it as the first step to the end of the British Empire. And General de Gaulle head of the free French forces made it clear that to him

Indochina was still French. I don't know what. Roosevelt avoided the decision. At various times he talked about international trusteeship or Chinese or even French trusteeship. Well of course that really meant that he'd abandoned his position. But I think a great deal of that was because of. One the pressure of the other countries who did not want to have a trusteeship for their own territory. They wanted to have trusteeship for any territories of the enemy but not their own. In early 1945 the collaboration between the Japanese and the French in Indochina ended. The war was going badly for the Japanese. A small French resistance movement had begun in Vietnam and allied bombing around Saigon further alarmed the Japanese.

Gorder it did more class. General de Gaulle was extremely clear gold ball say General de Gaulle thought that horse only returned to Indochina only a man with arms in hand he was a dope. Bah. And that implies fighting the Japanese for. A Labor Day. All de Vos Japanese anticipated the fight for years with the coup of March 9th 1945 on SAC. On that day the Japanese overthrew the French. With brilliant co-ordination. They imprisoned all French troops except for a few that were out on maneuvers. After months of hardship the survivors reached China. French rule saved at the expense of French pride in 1940 was

destroyed. To legitimize the coup the Japanese ambassador made an offer to Emperor about-I who had spent the war years anyway. Yeah. He said to me yesterday let's say we terminated French sovereignty. And today Japan is happy to bring you your independence. We weighed the pros and the Congress. What was this independence worth going for. How should we take it. The ministers told me Your Majesty cannot refuse this independence for independence has been a forbidden word or a century. The Japanese supported several Vietnamese nationalist groups but other groups were both

anti-French and anti-Japanese. The most important was the Viet Minh founded in 1941 by nine o'clock. He had returned to Vietnam after 30 years with a new name. Coachy man. Meaning he who enlightens. He told Hall how after the conference to establish the Viet men. Uncle Ho sent out a letter calling for the support of the population. Got. No. Doubt. And it was this that rallied the entire country around the movement. He. Got all Hakimi And when people realized that hoti man was actually. When I walk there trust in the movement was further established. This was because the name when I had been widely known in the country. People knew that he was a great patriot.

Like so many Viet men leaders were veterans of the old Indochinese Communist Party. But the Viet men during the war was nationalist not communist in program. It organized guerilla bases trained to countries Erast the French and Japanese and spread propaganda urging the peasants to resist. Why did the Viet men fight the Japanese while other Asian nationalists collaborated. In order. I apologize but this is a very funny question. At that time the Japanese had already overthrown the French and begun to dominate our country. So of course we had to fight the Japanese. By early 1945. Vietnam was suffering a terrible famine. People blamed the French and Japanese who were hoarding Rice feeding into

Japanese troops. And even exporting it to Japan. While an estimated 2 million Vietnamese out of 8 million in the northern areas died. How how come we suffered in 1945 because of the arrival of the Japanese. The French were already exploiting us and now on top of the French the Japanese were exploiting us. This is merely ironic because since March 9 our administration had really stopped working. And especially in getting supplies to north in town again. The supply was never sufficient and as we waited for the hardest crude would come on huge chunks from Saigon along the coast française and it was of course the French administration that set up the supply whereas the Japanese could not care less.

It was not there why so many people died a hundred are here in this village. I myself had to bury four people and we did not have enough to make Kopans for them. I had to wrap the corpses I buried with him clot. I very poor people in that graveyard over there in this village more than 250 people died of hunger. I witnessed families in which every member died. I didn't know. At that time in our estimate at least 40000 were starving poor peasants arrived in Hanoi

to beg for food. And to wait for hand outs are off the top you know. The French did not organize any hunger relief. And the Japanese specifically for Battus to carry out any hunger relief efforts of our own for a while. People dug into the garbage dump in order to find any edible thing at all. They also ate rats like a man. But this was not enough to keep them alive. For the. Muck. Every morning when we opened our door we saw five to seven corpses of people who had died the night before. One day. The Viet Minh organized the peasants to seize Rice stocks and gain tremendous prestige. This peasant support gave them a political edge. They

never lost. It's. A. Tough road to Tokyo. As long as they go to Tokyo than it is to land. In every word. The defeat of Germany will not meet me and the war against Japan. As the war in Europe look closely allied attention turned to Asia and the war against Japan. One of the pressing needs was intelligence. A Viet Minh believed allied statements supporting the rights of oppressed peoples. They had given the Allies information about Japanese troop movements. So the Americans turned to the Viet Minh. And its leader. Oh. Man. What was the name that we ran into occasionally as one of the nationalist leaders among the Vietnamese. The leader of the

communist group. But we have no idea whether he carried any weight or anything about him until our old OS X was actively in the field and when man began his very helpful operation of rescuing downed fliers who'd come in for fall in the jungle I first met ho on the China border between China and China. In the last days of April of 1945. It was quite an interesting individual. Very sensitive very gentle of a rather frail type. We spoke quite a line. About the general situation not only in Indochina but the world at large. We knew he was a communist but we also felt as they did and the way anybody who was known to man had ever talked with had the same feeling. He was first a nationalist and second the communist.

That is he was interested in getting the independence of his people and then he thought probably the best thing for them was the communist type of government. But he was a nationalist first and foremost. The Viet men agreed to help the Allies. Major Patty sent a training group the dear mission into the northern mountains. The team went in and they organize out of about 500 Vietnamese. We selected with the help of General Japp selected 200. We spent the next four weeks training these young men and to the art of using automatic weapons demolition equipment infiltrating and X-File training into various dangerous areas there. For the first time. We saw what kind of troops the Viet men were. They were very willing to fight young

nationalist. Really what we used to say gung ho type they were willing to risk their lives for their cause and the cause of independence against the French before whose man could prove their willingness. World War II was over. A sudden Japanese collapse took many in French Indochina by surprise. But the Viet men were ready for what they called the August revolution. Declaring Vietnam independence. They marched in to take Hanoi peacefully. Hutchie men formed a government in Hanoi carefully mixing in members of other nationalist groups. Put in the south away from who is moderating influence his followers started purging rival nationalists. Things are perfect.

In reality I did not know this government in a very good on. A MONDAY. I thought one day I received a telegram from all levels of the population asking me to make a historic gesture. That is to resign. These people believe that they are going. Through a lot. If I were to stay on the throne. The Allies would not trust me. And I don't claim to know. They believe that the government of Hoki men. Had the support of the Americans. The Emperor resigned. Still with the Viet Minh and perhaps reinforcing the idea of American support was the SS 2 or 3 days after I met Paul. He asked me to come in and stop in and see him at which time he wanted to show me something and what he wanted to show me was a draft of the Declaration of Independence and he was going to declare several days later.

Because it was in Vietnamese and I could read it when it was interpreted to me. I was. Quite taken aback to hear the words of the American Declaration of Independence. Or as about liberty life the pursuit of happiness etc.. I just couldn't believe my ears. On September 2nd 1945 on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay Japan formally surrendered. And on the same day throughout Vietnam the Vietnamese celebrated their self-proclaimed Independence Day and the formation of a new country. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi. Men read a speech that began. All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

We've been key to pick. Up. I can say that the most moving moment was when President Cocina men climbed the steps and the national anthem was sung. It was the first time that the national anthem in Vietnam was sung in an official ceremony. And it was also the first time that the national emblem a red banner with yellow star was raised to the top. Like usually Uncle Ho then read the Declaration of Independence which was a short document. As he was reading Uncle Ho stop and ask about their compatriots. Can you hear me now. This simple question went into the hearts of everyone there. After a moment of silence they all shouted. Yes we hear you too. I cannot and I can say that we did not just shout with our mouths but with all our

hearts the hearts of over four hundred thousand people standing in the square. Then when. We came back after Uncle had finished reading the Declaration of Independence we might buy. An airplane a small one circled over his body. We did not know whose plane it was done by Vietnam he thought that it was a Vietnamese plane but when it swooped down over us we recognized the American flag. The crowd cheered and he asked my. Holcim man was on a silver platter. In 1945 we had him. He was leaning towards the Soviet Union which at the time he told me that the USSR could not assist him because I just won a war. Only by dint of real heroism and they were in no position

to help anyone. So really we had hoped you mean we had the Viet Minh we had the Indochina question in our hand. Few American officials shared major Pattie's assessment. Appealed to President Harry Truman but he would probably have accepted anyone's support. Truman did not respond to those letters. He had been in office only four months in August 1945 and had not had time to formulate a policy on Indochina it was quite a division in the state department. Over into China. Both the far eastern office and the European office were in complete agreement that we wanted a strong France Republic in Europe the from the trauma of Vichy and the defeat in the war and the Europe but the European division felt the. Need to help get the French back on their feet. We should go along with practically anything that the French wanted.

We in Southeast Asia division in the far eastern office on the other hand were very conscious of the tremendous surge of nationalism that had taken place was taking place had already started before the war and now have been thrust forward at accelerating speed during the war and the result was the department had no official policy toward Indochina. The Allies had worked out a compromise plan to disarm the Japanese of the 16th parallel. The Chinese would take the surrender of Japanese troops. The British would do the same in the south. They arrived in Saigon in early September. We had come out of Burma and it was much like going into a beautiful slice of Paris. It was a wonderful experience after what we had been through and I think that we have not been warned. It was a political situation a potential political situation on our hands and we were driven to Saigon

and there were banners out saying Welcome to the Allied commission in English. The situation was apparently completely peaceful. Then the local people who we can now see on the march started picking up the road at night. You've been driving along and suddenly a tree would drop in front of you. And moved on from there to a situation where there was a lot of incendiarism at night. And we were rushing troops from one point to another becoming a difficult situation. The British commander General Douglas Gracy was a seasoned colonial officer with limited political experience. His orders were to disarm the Japanese and maintain law and order his staff officers included. Brigadier de Tonton it is a very difficult period for me at that time. The Japanese were in control and the French were imprisoned

by the Japanese. And my job was to release them and the other whites appeared to be in control of government buildings and so on. So I went through a very difficult period of trying to reach Prange trying to disarm them and not bother me very much about the Japanese well behaved and left them. I left them with small arms for a while. He did everything possible to destroy our administration in order to reinstall the pro-French administration to do things. He intentionally went against Allied orders to disarm the 100000 Japanese troops. Instead of disarming them he disarmed us. The revolutionary forces of Vietnam. He used the Japanese troops and rearmed the French Legionnaire regiments to

fight against the Vietnamese revolution and everything got a bit out of hand and the only logical thing to do was to rearm. The Japanese who were highly trained they had surrendered and they won that time revival. It was a bit odd to do it. I admit that but it worked. How did you feel. Did you approve. I personally thought it was the right thing to do because I had been dealing with the Japanese quite a lot. On seeing our problems about terms of surrender and so on and so forth and I felt it was far better and I felt happier to have real Japanese in control of the key points rather than rather trigger happy. I'm trying French one summer day while running about and offering themselves as targets to the Adamites and the animals taking

advantage of it. You don't get to say we did everything possible to accommodate Grisi you came here with only two battalions of Indian troops. It was not a formidable force but we still did our best to help it. We turned over our headquarters to him and we enabled his troops to move about freely. Then he forbade us to move around and imposed a curfew but Gracie's troops and the Japanese soldiers could move around and he took advantage of this to mount a sneak attack on us on September 23rd. Orders as I remember that well on the train side the French would take over certain key points a quick quote from the Adamites assisted by my troops when necessary my troops would also take out the bag and the post office

and all this would be a cheap plot. It went perfectly all right but it broke down as the day went on the following day that the French as I said earlier became overly excited on all sorts of shooting noise was going on. The day after the coup French troops released from months of Japanese captivity went on a rampage arresting an attacking Vietnamese despite the violence. General Gracy and his men had no doubts the legitimate government had returned to Saigon. He had absolutely no mandate whatever to start talking about handing the French into China to anybody other than the French. He had just straight strict instructions. I never lost the passion that in due course

the French would have to take over control and responsibility when they were in a position to do so. I never entered my head that I was going to hand back control to Adamites. It was an obvious move that they were going to restore the French to power in Indochina. I think our European division probably silently applauded silently gnashed our teeth and but there was nothing that we could do about it. This was a fear which we really only had nominal participation in. And so we just have to watch. America's watching what's being done by SS men. One of them Lieutenant Colonel Peter Duey especially annoyed the French representative colonels say to you and General Gracy like me. He said when Gracy and the French representative found out that we were meeting with it

they were extremely angry. And although they did not say it publicly they showed that they were clearly against the activities of the corner of the ass as was a law to himself. He had arrived and attached himself to the Control Commission. I think a little to some deals surprise as well as Gratias supplies and he was a man who acted always on his own. Relations between the U.S.'s men and general Gracy deteriorated after a dispute over who had the rank to fly a flag on his car Gracy suggested or ordered. It's not clear which that Peter Dewey leaves Saigon on September 26. Colonel Dewey set out with his friend Captain Bruce show in a

less than clearly marked Jeep and you're driving along we had we came to a corner. We had to turn to the right and about 10 yards further down. As we turned We fun and kind of a roadblock consisting of logs and little brass nothing formidable but it necessitated for us to make the first pass to get through. This is alongside the golf course. It's like a golf course. So as we are going through the espalier roadblock we saw three enemies in the ditch to our left. Peter shook his fist at him. He felt something in french. Well he said I don't know that I don't speak French you understand it at that point. Machine gun opened fire and the burst Peter doing right in that it looked like part of his lower jaw has been shot away and the Jeep continued

and tried to ditch and rolled over on its side. The firing continued but the chassis to keep protected me. Machine numbers didn't touch me. It's lucky that we tried our best to find out what happened. But there was no there was no there was nothing we could do. And the question was whether there was anything we should try to do. Because I say it was a case of really of just of a murder rather than a military action. Turns out it was the first American to be killed in Viet Nam.