PBS Vietnam War Documentary – Commentary on Episode Nine

            Episode Nine of the PBS  documentary, “A Disrespectful Loyalty,” covers the period January 1971-March 1973, including the U.S./ARVN offensive in Laos,  the trial of Lieutenant Calley related to the massacre at My Lai, the emergence of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and mass anti-war demonstrations in Spring 1971, President Nixon’s war strategy related to the1972 election campaign against Senator Mc Govern, the North Vietnamese/ National Liberation Front 1972 “Easter Offensive, U.S Christmas Bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972, tensions between Nixon and President Thieu in Saigon about negotiations, and the Paris Peace Agreement on January 27 1973, calling for withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Vietnam and the release of Prisoners of War.

            Near the beginning of Episode Nine, President Nixon talking about the offensive into Laos, which is failing, says to Henry Kissinger, “It’s a win, see.  . . .I don’t care what happens, this is a win.” The cynical dismissal of what is actually happening on the ground, but even much worse, the dishonesty  and apparent absolutely callous disregard for the many Americans and Vietnamese being sent to their deaths on behalf of failed policies is part of what fueled the formation of Vietnam Veterans Against War (VVAW).

            With very few exceptions, the utter failure by senior U.S. political and military leaders to acknowledge and take responsibility for failed American war policies in Vietnam, policies which many of us understood were unjust and immoral in the first place, contributed to some of the negative public reaction to Lt. Calley’s conviction for what he and others did in My Lai. Afterall, many people said, Calley was “just doing his duty.”  The other even more disturbing and broader basis of support for Calley is the view that he was “just killing  Gooks.”

Burns and Novick acknowledge in anecdotes how racism was a significant contributing factor in America’s war in Vietnam, but even based just on the evidence they present, the subject deserved a much deeper treatment and accounting. Why didn’t they include one or two of those special subject vignettes the film does well or include an essay on the role of racism in the accompanying book by Geoffrey Ward.

            The film’s coverage of John Kerry and John Musgrave participating in the VVAW action at the Capitol on April 18 is good. That the film has followed Musgrave over several episodes and allowed him to tell his personal story.is informing and moving. If Burns and Novik had done the same with one or two men who had resisted the draft and perhaps gone to prison, allowing them to tell their personal stories, the film would have been less biased and been more helpful to us all in understanding  more clearly what was happening on the home front.

As the U.S. strategy to end the war came to rely more on negotiations, the problem presented by the Thieu regime became more evident. Already in 1969 Thieu’s position was that four issues were “not negotiable" - No coalition government, territorial integrity (i.e., of South Vietnam which meant No to one government for all Vietnam, unless it’s Thieu’s government,), No to participation of the Communist Party and, No to neutralism.” All of these issues were ones that leaders and followers of Vietnam’s “Third Force” movement viewed with more flexibility and in some cases held the exact opposite view. For example, many in those ranks, including such key leaders as Madame Ngo Ba Thanh, Thich Tri Quang, National Assembly member and publisher of Tin Sang newspaper Ngo Cong Duc, and General Duong Vanh Minh, courageously advocated for formation of a coalition government in South Vietnam several years before the end of the war. They and their supporters viewed this as absolutely essential to ending the war and negotiating reunification of the country. 

The Thieu/Ky government was adamant on these issues and used suspicion of disagreement with their views as a basis for arresting and imprisoning people. In 1969, the U.S. Embassy in Saigon publicly acknowledged that the Saigon regime was holding at least 50,000 political prisoners, most of them supporters of the Third Force. In 1970, thanks to a hand drawn map by Loi Nyugen, a former political prisoner, members of a US Congressional delegation on a visit to Con Son island prison were able to find and photograph the infamous Tiger Cages where hundreds of prisoners were tortured. The photo taken by then senate staffer, later Senator Tom Harkin appeared on the cover of Life Magazine July 17 1970. 

Burns and Novick failed to deal substantively with the political positions and significance of  the Third Force movement.The fact that there is not even a reference to the Tiger Cages in the film or in Geoffrey Ward’s book should be a source of serious embarrassment to all three, but I fear it is not.

            Many of the most prominent leaders of the non-Communist Third Force movement may have died. Some also suffered under the Communist government which came to power at the end of the war. Some are still alive and /or their friends and children could tell their stories. To the extent that the United States had paid more attention and provided any significant support for the ideas advocated by Third Force leaders and supporters the transition toward the end of the war and reunification could have been less wrenching and painful. Even more basically, if Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson had paid more attention to these Vietnamese early on rather than ignorantly and arrogantly imposing the rule of Ngo Dinh Diem, there wouldn’t  have been an American war in Vietnam in the first place.

Vietnam is one of many countries where Cold War blinders caused the United States to commit disastrous policies. The costs of doing this in Vietnam, in terms of American and Vietnamese lives (and Cambodian and Laotian lives) were staggering.  The failure of the film more substantially to address this basic issue in U.S. policy and thus address deep divisions in our society resulting from the war represents a waste of some portion of the enormous amount of resources devoted to the film. This also represents the film's failure to shine light on deeper lessons we need to learn. In figuring out why Burns and Novick failed to do this, it may be the case that some funders didn’t want to dig that deep..