PBS Vietnam War Documentary – Response to Episode Four

Episode Four, “Resolve,” (January 1966-June 1967) confirmed both my appreciation for positive contributions of the film series and my critique of it’s profound failings.

There were more stunningly awful scenes of military battles, with multiple images of wounded and dying soldiers, and still photos of stacks of carelessly piled bodies of dead Vietnamese. There were more riveting visuals and interviews with American and Vietnamese veterans of the war. Interviews with several American vets revealed a growing disconnect during this period between the deepening doubts soldiers were feeling about the purpose and progress of the war, and their military and political leaders’ callous certainty and lack of courage in facing reality.

As it became clearer that the U.S war in Vietnam might be unwinnable, the response by the military, backed by most political leaders, was to increase the bombing of Vietnam and to send even larger numbers of American soldiers to fight the war. There are brief snippets, but a whole lot more could and should have been done in the film to explore how this disconnect compounded the fears and frustrations of fighting men and the anxieties of their families, and how it complicated and deepened the pain and bitterness families felt when one of theirs was killed or wounded.

There is no doubt that belief in American idealism, exceptionalism and sense of invincibility that many Americans carried with them into the war suffered a tremendous shock by the realities they confronted in Vietnam. And also no doubt that this disconnect, this contradiction is an important unresolved dimension in the continuing contentiousness over the war. It deserved more direct, explicit and fuller treatment in the film.

The film records how this period, January 1966-June 1967, saw major increases in public anti-war sentiment and expansion of the anti-war movement. And yet, relative to the amount of attention to military battles, to experiences of soldiers and interviews with veterans, there are very few visuals or individual interviews with Americans who actively opposed the war. Except for a few very prominent persons, Burns and Novick continue in this episode to treat Americans who were against the war more abstractly with generalities rather than through presenting their photos and personal stories. That troubling imbalance impedes chances that as viewers people will adequately understand what was going on in our country about the war and be sufficiently challenged in considering lessons we need to learn from the war for going forward.

The film's abstract treatment of the huge anti-war demonstrations in New York and San Francisco on April 15, 1967 was a missed opportunity to introduce personal stories of some of the speakers and/or some of the 300,000 participants. I was one of the 150 or so draft-age young men who burned our Draft cards in Central Park that day.  What motivated many of us to give up safe student deferments from the war or even Conscientious Objector status and risk Federal prosecution and going to prison. Were our actions rooted in the same American idealism that inspired other young men our age to sign-up for military service in Vietnam?

Two nationally prominent figures that the film does focus on, Senator J. William Fulbright and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., played key roles during these years in growing opposition to the war. The film’s treatment of Fulbright is good. Fulbright’s reversal from supporting to opposing the war worried President Johnson who sought unsuccessfully to detract attention from Fulbright’s Senate Hearings by taking off to Honolulu for a conference with Saigon government heads, Generals Thieu and Ky. The highpoint of the hearing was testimony against the war by George Kennan, who had been a prime architect and advocate for containment policy against Communism. Kennan testified, “If we were not already involved. . .I would know of no reason to become involved.” He suggested U.S. preoccupation with Vietnam was like an elephant being frightened by a mouse. And Kenan agreed with Fulbright that “we can’t achieve it (victory) even with the best of wills.”

The film’s treatment of Martin Luther King’s speaking out against the war on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church was irresponsibly brief and inadequate. As James Cone has written, “More than any other person, past or present, black or white, Martin Luther King proclaimed and lived the American dream.” Most of the media and King’s closest allies criticized his speaking out on the war, charging that he should stick with civil rights issues. But King’s conscience made him see clearly and declare boldly that America’s war in Vietnam “made a mockery of the ideals the United States professed to be defending.” And in a statement which may have marked him for death a year from the date of this speech, King declared that he could never again speak “against the violence in the ghettoes,” without first speaking clearly “to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world: my government.”

   

   Burns’ and Novick’s failure to deal adequately with Martin Luther King speaking out was compounded by their not portraying or interviewing any of the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish leaders of Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV) that sponsored the event at Riverside Church and followed-up by helping to organize Vietnam Summer in 1967 that involved 10,000 people, many of them young people, ringing millions of doorbells, and laid the basis for the 1968 Presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy. The "who's who" of CALCAV offered a great opportunity to personalize opposition to the war. Burns and Novick didn't take it.