Speaker 1: Well, Happy Friday. That's right, I've snuck in a special
Speaker 1: edition of the Chuck Todcast both of course in the
Speaker 1: audio and visual space, my guests for this. It's a
Speaker 1: special on the fitbook. We just passed the fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of the Fall of Saigon, essentially the end of the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. And look, Vietnam has sort of defined our
Speaker 1: for half the country or anybody over the age of fifty,
Speaker 1: Vietnam has been a definer of our politics. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can just tell you about my own family. My
Speaker 1: father will tell you he's no longer with us, but
Speaker 1: he'll tell he would say to me, he's only the
Speaker 1: reason he became a Republican is he blamed LBJ for
Speaker 1: Vietnam and the death of his best friend. His best
Speaker 1: friend died in a training accident after being drafted to
Speaker 1: go into Vietnam. I'll you know, I'll never forget. When
Speaker 1: I was going through my dad's things, he had a
Speaker 1: whole file folder on every time he had to deal
Speaker 1: with potentially going to Vietnam. And he didn't have to go,
Speaker 1: and he didn't want to go. He had a medical deferment.
Speaker 1: At first he had flat feet, and then when that
Speaker 1: didn't work. He got lucky with his lottery number. But
Speaker 1: what was interesting is how he had saved all of
Speaker 1: it and he had all this information. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you why it had a huge impact on me. Anytime
Speaker 1: any of these guys that have run for office over
Speaker 1: the last twenty years, thirty years who claimed they couldn't
Speaker 1: remember how they got out of Vietnam, or couldn't remember this,
Speaker 1: or couldn't remember that. All I would remember is my
Speaker 1: dad's file folder. And I'm like, if you were that
Speaker 1: concerned about getting out of Vietnam, you knew every gosh
Speaker 1: darn detail of how you got out or what was
Speaker 1: going to take. And so I will tell you I've
Speaker 1: always been a bit more of a harsher person on
Speaker 1: any of these politicians that would you know. Look, I
Speaker 1: don't begrudge anybody who tried to get out of it.
Speaker 1: Just be honest that you were trying to get out
Speaker 1: of it. Don't pretend that there was some other reason
Speaker 1: that you got out of it. And it is those experiences.
Speaker 1: In many ways, a lot of Baby boomers politics were
Speaker 1: either defined or redefined by the impact of the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: So my guests today are Brian Knappenberger. He is the
Speaker 1: man behind the terrific documentary that's all over Netflix right now.
Speaker 1: Turning point about Vietnam and John Negroponte, who is of
Speaker 1: course a longtime ambassador, mostly in Republican national security circles.
Speaker 1: He was in Vietnam from sixty four to sixty eight.
Speaker 1: He was there, and in this interview you'll hear I mean,
Speaker 1: in many ways he kind of still supports the idea.
Speaker 1: You know, he doesn't begrudge the idea of being there
Speaker 1: and still believes there was a righteous cause for going.
Speaker 1: So it's an important counterbalance in this conversation that you're
Speaker 1: going to hear. But look, we get into that sort
Speaker 1: of the whole how in many ways Vietnam is sort
Speaker 1: of still haunting our politics today. You could argue Vietnam
Speaker 1: plus the Iraq War coupled together, right, has now impacted
Speaker 1: multiple generations and sort of impacted multiple presidencies and how
Speaker 1: they manage national security and how we make these decisions.
Speaker 1: So look, I think it's a no matter what age
Speaker 1: group you belong to, I think you're going to enjoy
Speaker 1: this conversation. And if you've seen turning point, then you'll
Speaker 1: really enjoy this conversation as sort of an after action
Speaker 1: type of conversation. So look, it's a special that I'm
Speaker 1: dropping because it's kind of standalone. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get any modern politics, you know, stuck to it here.
Speaker 1: But it's I think it's it's a fascinating conversation and
Speaker 1: I think you'll appreciate it. So enjoy this special extra
Speaker 1: edition of the Chuck Podcast this week. Well, today we
Speaker 1: have a special treat. As many historians and folks of
Speaker 1: a certain gener a certain age may know, we're coming
Speaker 1: up this is the fiftieth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe Vietnam War, the Vietnam War is
Speaker 1: that far in our past. For so many Americans, it
Speaker 1: does not feel like something that is that far in
Speaker 1: our past. And yet here I am in my fifties,
Speaker 1: and I was born during the Vietnam War, and I
Speaker 1: think one of my guests, Brian Nappenberger, was also born
Speaker 1: during the Vietnam four We're also joined by a former
Speaker 1: ambassador to Vietnam for the United States, John Negroponte, who
Speaker 1: was ambassador who was in Sigon for four years sixty
Speaker 1: four to sixty eight. So Brian Appenberger is the documentarian
Speaker 1: behind a terrific five part series about the Vietnam War
Speaker 1: on Netflix. By the time you're hearing this, I hope
Speaker 1: you've already been watching at least one, possibly two episodes.
Speaker 1: They're terrific, and it's an attempt to tackle the war
Speaker 1: from all sorts of angles during the moment itself, the
Speaker 1: cultural impact, the political impact. But I will shut up
Speaker 1: here a minute. Brian, you describe what you're hoping people
Speaker 1: get out of Turning Point and fifty years later as
Speaker 1: an historian, where Vietnam was sort of you know, I
Speaker 1: always felt like I was culturally and politically brought up
Speaker 1: in response to the Vietnam War in my household. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you felt that way too. We didn't experience it.
Speaker 1: So I'm constantly consuming scholarship on Vietnam to just understand
Speaker 1: how my dad's brain worked. And he's no longer with us,
Speaker 1: but he was of that era. I have this distinct
Speaker 1: memory after he died of finding this file folder. He
Speaker 1: didn't have to go, but he had kept meticulous records
Speaker 1: of all of his deferments, and then when his lottery
Speaker 1: number happened to be high, everything it took he And
Speaker 1: that's why I've never accepted a politician who says they're
Speaker 1: not sure how they got out of Vietnam. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. My dad, who was no rich guy or anything.
Speaker 1: He kept meticulous notes about his status. But for me,
Speaker 1: it was all about not being there. That was always
Speaker 1: the goal of people you were there, having not having
Speaker 1: a gone. Or my uncle who immediately threw his uniform
Speaker 1: away when he came back to the States after having
Speaker 1: served and to this day doesn't like talking about it.
Speaker 1: So what what what do you hope people take away
Speaker 1: from Turning Points.
Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, I had a very similar experience
Speaker 2: to you in that, you know, my father was in
Speaker 2: Vietnam when when I was born, and you know, through
Speaker 2: my early childhood, I was trying to piece together what
Speaker 2: that war was about and what it meant. And I
Speaker 2: think that created creation of this series, you know, is
Speaker 2: really about a belief that the Vietnam War had this
Speaker 2: lasting impact on us, and that that's an impact that
Speaker 2: we're very much still feeling that the America that existed
Speaker 2: before the United States engaged militarily in Vietnam was just
Speaker 2: a radically different country than the America that emerged after
Speaker 2: our troops came home, and that America, that new America,
Speaker 2: you know, really contain the roots of a lot of
Speaker 2: what plagues our society today or is a part of
Speaker 2: our society today. Widespread alienation, deep cynicism, this profound distrust
Speaker 2: in government. That it seemed to show a kind of
Speaker 2: breakdown in civic institutions, and it made us question our
Speaker 2: role in the world. You know, how should the US
Speaker 2: intervene militarily and international conflicts?
Speaker 1: You know, the nineteen fifties in some way was almost
Speaker 1: peak trust, right, there was like in some ways, at
Speaker 1: least for certain Americans. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: sit here, and there was there was African Americans did
Speaker 1: not have peak trust in the in the government in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, I want to acknowledge that, but there
Speaker 1: was a But among white Americans there was, there was
Speaker 1: real trust of the government. Eisenhower was a hero. So
Speaker 1: here here was the president that saved the you know,
Speaker 1: the general that saved the world, who was America's president.
Speaker 1: So that added to the level of trust. And then
Speaker 1: just a rapid fire series of events, right the Kennedy
Speaker 1: assassination escalation into Vietnam Watergate. I might add in the
Speaker 1: the decision to pardon the draft dodgers, but I want
Speaker 1: to get into that a little bit later. And in
Speaker 1: some ways you're right it was sort of this the
Speaker 1: cynicism of today, its roots are in are in this
Speaker 1: decision to go to Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I mean I think in your
Speaker 2: intro you even mentioned that the war does not feel
Speaker 2: like it's in our past, and it doesn't. And this
Speaker 2: is this is one of the ways, I mean, you.
Speaker 1: Get it hunted both Iraq wars. Yes, yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: like it haunted both Iraq wars, I'd argue, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Way, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think the Nixon example is interesting. I mean
Speaker 2: you get into these deep, you know, divisions that it
Speaker 2: exposes in America and those lessons of you know, here's
Speaker 2: a president found to be backing a break in at
Speaker 2: the offices of a political opponent, you know, actively lying
Speaker 2: to the American people, this imperial president who said things
Speaker 2: like if the president does it, that it's not illegal. Right,
Speaker 2: he resigns in disgrace before he's impeached. But you know,
Speaker 2: you can't help but draw parallels to our current political environment.
Speaker 1: So what was I mean, you know, what I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: with this documentary for you is that you've done documentaries
Speaker 1: where you've lived the experience that you're making the history
Speaker 1: about nine to eleven. Arguably in the Cold War, right,
Speaker 1: this is something that you didn't really live, right, you
Speaker 1: had to go back and understand it. Yeah, through what lens?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you made the Vietnam War this documentary?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Through what lens do you feel like you used to
Speaker 1: make this documentary?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think it's I think it's you know, I've
Speaker 2: heard so much about it and I think it does
Speaker 2: go back to my father's servant servy there. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, we it was hearing stories slowly over the year.
Speaker 2: He was clearly somebody who fit into that category of
Speaker 2: not really wanting to talk about it too much. It
Speaker 2: would come out in these very sort of kind of
Speaker 2: it was just as dramatic sort of ways. He would
Speaker 2: sort of tell me a story or something. And so
Speaker 2: you're you're in this, you're almost a solving a mystery.
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Why is there this much pain still for different people
Speaker 2: around Vietnam? As you start to talk to other people,
Speaker 2: Why is there so much uncertainty about it, and also
Speaker 2: just what happened? What are the events of the war.
Speaker 2: This is something I don't think most people really know.
Speaker 1: I don't think we ever talked about the war itself.
Speaker 1: It's always about the fallout of the war, right, It's
Speaker 1: about what happened to those who couldn't didn't want to serve,
Speaker 1: versus who were forced to serve. You're right, we don't
Speaker 1: actually talk about what happened on the ground as much.
Speaker 1: But I want to tap into something else you and
Speaker 1: I both stumbled into. And I'll be very curious what
Speaker 1: Ambassador Negroponte thinks of the following ways that both you
Speaker 1: and I lived. Both of our fathers lived this experience.
Speaker 1: My father's move from the Democratic Party of the Republican
Speaker 1: Party was anger at LBJ over Vietnam. And look, personal
Speaker 1: events always dictate these things. His best friend, my dad
Speaker 1: had not the easiest childhood, and I'll just leave it
Speaker 1: at that, but his best friend, that sort of was
Speaker 1: his stabilizing force in childhood, got killed in a training
Speaker 1: basically on his way to being Sentinam. He was drafted
Speaker 1: and in the training mission died there. And you know,
Speaker 1: I now realize my dad never got over losing him,
Speaker 1: so for him, he blamed Johnson and it was it
Speaker 1: was visceral. It was visceral. You said your father had
Speaker 1: that same feeling towards Nixon, and it's like, I run
Speaker 1: into this. You either are angry at Nixon or you're
Speaker 1: angry at Johnson.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean this, this, this was And why does
Speaker 2: the Vietnam War create such a deep it's such deep
Speaker 2: feelings in everybody.
Speaker 1: It is personalizing it, right, Yeah, I personalize it so much.
Speaker 2: I think it's because both you know, people aren't lost
Speaker 2: losses like your like your father experienced. This hit people
Speaker 2: personally with people that they knew, friends, brothers. But it
Speaker 2: was also something that's bigger, right, who are we as
Speaker 2: a country? There was something about the Vietnam War that
Speaker 2: shifted our identity of who we are and how we
Speaker 2: related to the world and our presence and our kind
Speaker 2: of leadership in the world. And that's the thing that
Speaker 2: people have a hard time kind of dealing with and
Speaker 2: struggle and have tried to answer since then, some of
Speaker 2: the questions that came up. So I think it's both
Speaker 2: things as a personal but it's also who are we
Speaker 2: as a country?
Speaker 1: Right? Ambassador. You're hearing this, and I know you've you've
Speaker 1: gone through this so many times, but I'm fascinated to
Speaker 1: know what you thought the war, what was going on
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four when you were there, when, what
Speaker 1: you were leaving when you left in sixty eight, and
Speaker 1: what you feared you left.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: First, but let me say just a small correction, Chuck.
Speaker 4: You said I'd been ambassador at Vietnam. I've been an
Speaker 4: ambassador five times, but not to Vietnam.
Speaker 3: And I got there when I got there when I
Speaker 3: was twenty four years old.
Speaker 4: When I got there in nineteen sixty four, after studying
Speaker 4: Vietnamese in Washington for a number of months, we had
Speaker 4: about at twenty thousand trainers, no people who were designated
Speaker 4: as combat troops.
Speaker 1: Let me back you up a match. You were mainly
Speaker 1: a quick language school. Where were you working and what
Speaker 1: was the what did you think your mission was that
Speaker 1: you had to take?
Speaker 4: Well, Line was a career Foreign Service officer and I
Speaker 4: started my career in nineteen sixty nineteen sixty. A fall
Speaker 4: of nineteen sixty, I'd had an assignment to Hong Kong.
Speaker 4: I went back to Washington and they soon because things
Speaker 4: were hoting up in Vietnam, asked me to take a
Speaker 4: forty four week It wasn't so short, forty four week
Speaker 4: language training courts.
Speaker 3: I went out there to.
Speaker 4: The political section of the US Embassy in Saigon as
Speaker 4: a so called provincial reporter, and I did a lot
Speaker 4: things like what a journalist would do. I was assigned
Speaker 4: to cover six different provinces in South Vietnam. There was
Speaker 4: forty two of them in all, six or seven. Now,
Speaker 4: we go out every week. I'd collect information on the economic, political, diplomatic, security, military,
Speaker 4: et cetera situation in the field that I'd come back
Speaker 4: the next week and write up my reports, get my
Speaker 4: laundry done and all of that.
Speaker 3: We didn't have internet and all of that.
Speaker 4: You know that, we didn't have very good telephones either,
Speaker 4: so you had to actually physically come back to the
Speaker 4: embassy and rite up telegrams and so forth.
Speaker 3: So that's what I came to.
Speaker 4: The North Vietnamese had not yet starting to to send
Speaker 4: regular North Vietnamese Army troops into South Vietnam. I got
Speaker 4: there in May of sixty four, the first time we
Speaker 4: detected North Vietamese troops in South Vietnam as part of
Speaker 4: their decision to escalate the situation in the South. Their
Speaker 4: tactics so far had not succeeded in causing South Vietnam
Speaker 4: to fall into their Communist hands, so they decided to
Speaker 4: send their army and we.
Speaker 3: Capt sued a couple of their people.
Speaker 4: We are the Southamese military, actually in about June of
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty four, and so that was the beginning of
Speaker 4: the establishment of a large North Vietnamese presence in the South,
Speaker 4: which at the end of the war in seventy five,
Speaker 4: there was something like fourteen divisions of North Vietnamese troops
Speaker 4: and stuff Vietnam. So what starts as a guerrilla war
Speaker 4: ends up really as a conventional military defeat of Saigon
Speaker 4: by the North Vietnamese army. So this stuff about it
Speaker 4: being a guerrilla war, well, it was during a certain phase,
Speaker 4: but basically the North Vietnamese were committing committed to throwing
Speaker 4: whatever they had into it to achieve their ultimate objective,
Speaker 4: which was the reunification of the country. Did you owe
Speaker 4: I was there during that early stage of conten Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you owe view? It was the conventional wisdom at
Speaker 1: the time among those people you reported to that essentially
Speaker 1: we were in a proxy war with China or a
Speaker 1: proxy war with the Soviets here or was it not
Speaker 1: seen as that yet?
Speaker 4: No, only was seen as part of the Cold War.
Speaker 4: It was a regional conflict in a Cold War context.
Speaker 4: And just like in Korea, where there had been a
Speaker 4: dividing line between North and South Korea and became the
Speaker 4: South Korea's defense, I think we saw it as a
Speaker 4: way of dealing with a form of North Vietnamese aggression.
Speaker 4: It got all bollocked up in the kind of politics
Speaker 4: and psychology that the two of you were discussing earlier.
Speaker 4: But I mean, I think initially we saw it as
Speaker 4: a fairly straightforward situation that the guys, the people I
Speaker 4: worked for, Henry Cabot, Lodge, Ellsworth Bunker, William Westmoreland General,
Speaker 4: the commanding General, they had grown up in the nineteen
Speaker 4: twenties and thirties. They saw this as sort of like
Speaker 4: a Munich, like a you know, they're responding to no appeasementression.
Speaker 1: Don't make that mistake, right, it does, boy, that's right fighting.
Speaker 1: That's the old fighting the last war. So this is yeah,
Speaker 1: caught fighting the last war.
Speaker 4: Everybody is always fighting the last war. I mean that's
Speaker 4: the way wars go. I think you guys overplay in
Speaker 4: your discussion the lasting impact of Vietnam, because I think
Speaker 4: we'd finally got We had what we called the Vietnam syndrome,
Speaker 4: and for a number of years after that, and I
Speaker 4: went on to many different jobs. In fact, I was
Speaker 4: Henry Kissinger's victor for Vietnam when he negotiated the peace
Speaker 4: agreement and h and I was with Bush and Reagan
Speaker 4: and Bush later on, we sort of finally got over
Speaker 4: the Vietnam syndrome, I would say, when Bush decided to,
Speaker 4: you know, invade Panama and get rid of Norriega, replaced Norjega,
Speaker 4: and then he went into the first Iraq War, right
Speaker 4: the Kuwait War, And at that point I think we
Speaker 4: had finally at least gotten over the aspect of the
Speaker 4: Vietnam syndrome that said, don't send you that's true.
Speaker 1: Do you think we actually it's It's interesting. I tend
Speaker 1: to agree that we're probably over the Vietnam hangover when
Speaker 1: it comes to the impact on our politics and the
Speaker 1: military in fact, but I would argue that we're in
Speaker 1: another one now, and it's the Iraq War. Like I
Speaker 1: think the second Iraq war has probably had a last
Speaker 1: has this impact on our psyche political psyche left and
Speaker 1: right right now? That is very similar to what Vietnam
Speaker 1: did to America in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I had a lot to do with that.
Speaker 4: I was at the UN when we passed resolutions. You
Speaker 4: accept that, yes, I mean I think partially, partially, But
Speaker 4: I want to identify another trend for you, which I
Speaker 4: don't know whether you've considered. Is it what is it
Speaker 4: about these conflicts that we get into them and then
Speaker 4: after having you know, trained a whole generation of people
Speaker 4: to fight the war, to learn the reason why to
Speaker 4: be committed to the policy Vietnam.
Speaker 3: Afghanistan and now potentially Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Although no boots on the ground in Ukraine, but let's say.
Speaker 4: No, no, and yet we still might pull the plug, right,
Speaker 4: But what is it about this propensity that we have
Speaker 4: to get into these conflicts but not be able to
Speaker 4: think it far enough through to assure our own selves
Speaker 4: that we're really going to stay the course. What kind
Speaker 4: of friend are you, or an ally or a supporter
Speaker 4: of somebody if halfway through the deal you decide to
Speaker 4: pull the plug. I'm not denying the social consequences that
Speaker 4: Vietnam had on people here in this country. But you know,
Speaker 4: in terms of what we did to them, by the
Speaker 4: time the peace talks were over in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 4: and early seventy three, our exposure in Vietnam was very limited.
Speaker 4: We had fifty thousand troops, not five hundred thousand, and
Speaker 4: they were relegated entirely to support functions.
Speaker 1: Describing the last year of Afghanistan. By the way, also,
Speaker 1: I know, yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean that's the truth in Vietnam back
Speaker 4: in seventy three. And yet I mean I was Kissinger's
Speaker 4: man on Vietnam at that time. You know, they just
Speaker 4: didn't want to go into the second administration. They didn't
Speaker 4: want to go into the second administration in the second term,
Speaker 4: as Henry used to say, reading battle field reports for
Speaker 4: breakfast every morning. They just didn't want it. I mean
Speaker 4: Nixon was tired. Yeah, I heard him say it to
Speaker 4: Joe and Lie. We went out to see Joe and
Speaker 4: Lyons June and with a month earlier, and it was
Speaker 4: exactly that. Henry said, we don't want to be leading
Speaker 4: battlefield and.
Speaker 1: Mhm, I know, in the middle it was a good
Speaker 1: your kissing your impersonation. I know it's mandatory, right if
Speaker 1: you work for Hendry.
Speaker 3: My favorite impression, My favorite.
Speaker 1: Nugget about Henry's impersonation, about Henry's accent is that his
Speaker 1: brother didn't have one.
Speaker 3: Correct, and he was older.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it was intentional. Arnold. By the way, somebody
Speaker 1: told me, Arnold Schwarzenegger can turn it on and off
Speaker 1: to he was. Yeah, he's been. But Brian, let me
Speaker 1: introduce the thesis to respond to the to the ambassador
Speaker 1: on this. Yeah, it's called daily press coverage, daily news coverage. Something.
Speaker 1: Korea was more controlled World War two even more controlled.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: The first war that had no that had sort of
Speaker 1: lost control of the media narrative was Vietnam, right, and
Speaker 1: then arguably right. You know you saw this right in
Speaker 1: the in the initial invasion of Iraq, there was an
Speaker 1: attempt to manage media in ways within embedding of reporters.
Speaker 1: But again, the daily battlefield reports is he just you
Speaker 1: can't help but wonder how much daily media coverage has
Speaker 1: made it harder in a small d democracy to fulfill
Speaker 1: what the ambassador is saying, Right, Why is it so
Speaker 1: hard for US policy, for US leaders to fulfill a policy,
Speaker 1: you know, of sticking to the you know, sticking to
Speaker 1: the friend in South Vietnam, sticking with the friend in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: sticking with the friends in Ukraine. Well, it's political pressure, right,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the those things. Perhaps if Korea
Speaker 1: had more less controlled media attention, that that doesn't have
Speaker 1: the same that that ends up having a bigger impact.
Speaker 1: I don't know what.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great point. And we had in Psychon,
Speaker 4: and we had great press people there. I'm talking about
Speaker 4: both the correspondence. I'm you know, when you're a young
Speaker 4: officer in the state, you befriend the press much more easily,
Speaker 4: given you're willing.
Speaker 3: You're always say so, we knew these.
Speaker 4: Guys really well, you know, Johnny Apples of this world
Speaker 4: and uh war just and so forth.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: But we had the five o'clock follies, that's what we
Speaker 4: called it, the five o'clock press conference. Every gosh, John Day.
Speaker 4: I used to say to myself exactly what yours? I said,
Speaker 4: what are we doing spoon feeding these people?
Speaker 1: So you couldn't have done it with d Day, right,
Speaker 1: I mean you just could though, I mean I mean, so, Brian,
Speaker 1: what do you think of that, and do you think
Speaker 1: that that to fair? I mean, look, it is what
Speaker 1: it is. Welcome to the you know, yeah war, this
Speaker 1: war was televised.
Speaker 2: I think that's a big part of the story of
Speaker 2: Vietnam is the is this, you know, the Vietnam arrives
Speaker 2: at a point in history where the technology of filmmaking
Speaker 2: and the technology of image making and recording devices is
Speaker 2: changing dramatically, even in the eleven years in which the
Speaker 2: United States is there. You know, suddenly you have handheld
Speaker 2: recording devices, handheld cameras, you have people with who are
Speaker 2: able to get still cameras, and you know, just the
Speaker 2: whole thing is is technologically at a place in which
Speaker 2: which you can capture some of the events that are going.
Speaker 4: And if I remember correctly, at the beginning, you had
Speaker 4: to fly the tape back to the United States. Yeah right, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: for your good broadcast. But I think by the end
Speaker 4: that was no longer the case.
Speaker 1: Satellite was just kicking in.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I think one of the people we
Speaker 2: interviewed in the in the series is Dan Rather, you know,
Speaker 2: and I think that there's a couple of things going on.
Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, you you know, you do
Speaker 2: have this technology that's bringing this into people's living rooms
Speaker 2: in a way that's making it very very visceral for
Speaker 2: people that that's making it connect and understand the war
Speaker 2: in a way that they hadn't before, or at least
Speaker 2: the brutality of it. But you know, you have a
Speaker 2: generation of journalists that have basically cut their teeth in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Dan Rather is one of those, and he talks about
Speaker 2: the you know, the emphasizes in the interview this role
Speaker 2: of the press to kind of bear witness two events
Speaker 2: and to report honestly and to speak truth to power.
Speaker 2: And there's there's all sorts of examples of this. So
Speaker 2: you know, morally Safer example is totally fascinating and it
Speaker 2: feels just as relevant today as it does as it
Speaker 2: did then. I mean this this idea that morally Safer,
Speaker 2: this CBS News correspondent would go in and would find
Speaker 2: out that American troops are burning these South Vietnamese villages,
Speaker 2: taking zippo lighters to the dashed hutsmb.
Speaker 4: I think that the trouble is when you catch one
Speaker 4: of those incidents or whatever, it's sort of mushrooms into
Speaker 4: being the whole story and it's.
Speaker 3: Not the whole story, I promise you.
Speaker 1: But there's your that's the problem, right, And this is
Speaker 1: where one and you're right, the one symbolic. You know,
Speaker 1: you may have one rogue platoon, but if it got
Speaker 1: caught on camera.
Speaker 4: Especially if it's well documented, absolutely, so what are you
Speaker 4: doing in Iraq? You're embedding these people in the units.
Speaker 4: It's like having a body camera on you, but you're
Speaker 4: in combat, right, and they see everything you do.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm I'm I'm a believer that transparency
Speaker 1: is better at the end of the day, but I
Speaker 1: understand that it could become a problem when you're trying
Speaker 1: to manage a median aerative.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and when you're trying to put here's the issue,
Speaker 4: how trying to put incident X into the context or
Speaker 4: perspective of the entire conflict, And you know, then you
Speaker 4: get into fairly subjective judgments. I agree, but you know,
Speaker 4: you still have to make the judgment as to whether
Speaker 4: or not it's the right thing for us to be
Speaker 4: in that conflict.
Speaker 1: All right, let me ask you this, ambassador. We lost
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War but won the Cold War. What does
Speaker 1: that tell us about whether Vietnam was worth it.
Speaker 4: Well, maybe it tells you that these regional conflicts were
Speaker 4: not as important as we thought they were. You could
Speaker 4: make that argument, I guess. In other words, it may
Speaker 4: not have had much to do with the downfall of
Speaker 4: the Soviet Union. On the other hand, Afghanistan did have
Speaker 4: something to do with the fall of the Soviet Union
Speaker 4: because the Soviets were sick and tired of their occupation
Speaker 4: of Afghanistan, and they came to us. In the late
Speaker 4: nineteen eighties, I was on the National Security Council with
Speaker 4: Colin Kow and they came to us and said, we
Speaker 4: want to discuss withdrawal from Afghanistan. And I'm, being a
Speaker 4: hardcore old warrior at the time, said Colan, don't believe him.
Speaker 3: That's a trick. It's a trick. And his answer to
Speaker 3: me was really good. He said, you know, John.
Speaker 4: If you'd had as many beers as I've had with
Speaker 4: Soviet generals and Soviet admirals, you would know they want.
Speaker 3: To get the hell out of there. That's interesting, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: How do you rectify that question, right, which is we
Speaker 1: win the Cold War, but we lost Vietnam. Therefore was
Speaker 1: Vietnam War that or not? Which has always been a
Speaker 1: tough question for to deal with.
Speaker 4: Beetle Well, I mean, I'm sorry we lost Vietnam, frankly,
Speaker 4: and you know, I'm not in the school that thinks
Speaker 4: it was a travesty, nor do I think it was
Speaker 4: a great human rights situation. And because I knew all
Speaker 4: those government officials, rands down down the village and province level,
Speaker 4: I knew them all because of my experience as a
Speaker 4: provincial reporter.
Speaker 1: What's your assessment of why we lost a.
Speaker 3: Loss of political will? I think that we got to the.
Speaker 4: Point in the fall of nineteen seventy two where if
Speaker 4: we had wanted to maintain a residual presence in South Vietnam,
Speaker 4: with let's say, twenty five thousand troops and you know,
Speaker 4: continued air support and some continued economic assistance, we might
Speaker 4: have been able to pull that off. But I'm the
Speaker 4: first to admit that the political atmosphere had become poisonous, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, it was just it just became too hard.
Speaker 4: We'd spent our political capital with most with many of
Speaker 4: the American people, and certainly with.
Speaker 3: The Congress.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you have a you have a population trying, trying,
Speaker 2: struggling with why we're even in Vietnam in the first place, Well,
Speaker 2: what is the goal? And you know, I think in
Speaker 2: the very early days of Vietnam, back to the Cold War,
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously discussion is so rooted in this Cold
Speaker 2: War thinking that this stark idea that there's good and bad,
Speaker 2: that the nation of the world, nations of the world
Speaker 2: had to pick sides, could yeah, and.
Speaker 4: Well not only that, but also that if Vietnam fell,
Speaker 4: there was the danger that then the Vietnamese might go
Speaker 4: on to other parts of Southeast Asia, which they in
Speaker 4: fact did not do.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So when you when when you sort of think about this,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you after eleven years of this
Speaker 2: war and this doubts on the part of the American
Speaker 2: public whether this was even a real concern or not
Speaker 2: or and certainly as we know now, you know, going
Speaker 2: through the series, you listen to these tape We listen
Speaker 2: to hundreds in it hundreds of hours of these White
Speaker 2: House recordings from all three the only three presidents to
Speaker 2: really record themselves, right, Nixon, they that's not such a
Speaker 2: good idea, but it listen to these time.
Speaker 1: Just a quick aside, there's a great alternative history show,
Speaker 1: the from the It's on Apple about going to Mars
Speaker 1: and the space race and this alternative history that has
Speaker 1: that has America losing the race to the moon, the
Speaker 1: Soviets win the race of the Moon. How would America
Speaker 1: react all this stuff? And one of the premises in
Speaker 1: that is that Nixon only serves one term, not two,
Speaker 1: and therefore the taping mechanisms never found out about. And
Speaker 1: then we get like six more presidents and all of
Speaker 1: these incredible tape recordings of all this. I mean, in
Speaker 1: some ways that's Watergate ruined. Watergate ruined historian's ability to
Speaker 1: have incredible firsthand knowledge of these presidents thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a bummer.
Speaker 3: These guys. Yeah, you know why these guys did that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm pretty certain that the recordings were was
Speaker 4: in system was installed because both Kissinger and Nixon thought
Speaker 4: it would help them better sell their books after.
Speaker 3: Their term of off. I'm not kidding you. Oh, they
Speaker 3: were both.
Speaker 1: They both were that narcissistic. Sorry, I'll say it, you
Speaker 1: don't have to. Yeah, they were. Yeah.
Speaker 2: People in the series make the case that they just
Speaker 2: sort of forgot after but you know, it just sort
Speaker 2: of let it roll that they couldn't go out.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Luke nextor who you've probably read.
Speaker 4: He did the book on the Nixon Tapes, which is
Speaker 4: an excellent book, and it's a very revealing set of conversations.
Speaker 2: The tool, I guess this is my main What I
Speaker 2: was saying is that that when you listen to those
Speaker 2: recordings over those three presidents, you understand a very candid
Speaker 2: way how they felt about the war, and you can
Speaker 2: so easily compare that to what's being said, you know,
Speaker 2: in public about the war. And that major disconnect which
Speaker 2: people started to understand late in the war is one
Speaker 2: of those it's one of those poor changes in the
Speaker 2: way we see what our government is doing.
Speaker 1: And with oh, Brian and that completely agree. Look at
Speaker 1: the boomers today. I always sit there and say, look
Speaker 1: at the generation. Look at baby boomers today right there,
Speaker 1: what is their coming of age moment?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: It is Vietnam, It's the sixties and all of this.
Speaker 1: And the more scholarship there is, the more they found
Speaker 1: out their government didn't tell them the full truth about Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: clearly the CIA was doing something with Oswald. Why won't
Speaker 1: you tell us the full story?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: You go through all these things and guess what, it's
Speaker 1: the boomers that are the ones questioning government and shaking
Speaker 1: things up in some ways. The boomers keep getting elected president,
Speaker 1: which is interesting to me. No Vietnam veteran though, has
Speaker 1: ever gotten to the presidency, which is also I don't
Speaker 1: think an accident, right, the Kerry got but the only,
Speaker 1: the only better Vietnam vetteran even to get it get
Speaker 1: that close, I guess McCain as well. But the fact
Speaker 1: that we never elected, when I think culturally, is fairly
Speaker 1: significant as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you have to ask what and this is
Speaker 2: I guess back to what the ambassador was saying a
Speaker 2: little bit. But you know, aren't aren't these the isn't
Speaker 2: this the legacy of the Vietnam War that we're feeling
Speaker 2: these lessons that were learned or not learned. You know,
Speaker 2: a huge when you look at an event like January sixth,
Speaker 2: you know a huge disproportionate number of people storming the
Speaker 2: Capitol were military veterans. You know, it's a high percentage
Speaker 2: of people. So and and I was struck, you know,
Speaker 2: from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also from Vietnam. And I
Speaker 2: was struck that there's you know, they were flying some
Speaker 2: people were flying the now defunct flag of South Vietnam
Speaker 2: on January sixth as people storm the Capitol. So as
Speaker 2: you sort of a kind of unravel what that means, right,
Speaker 2: you know, I think it's very much true that that
Speaker 2: that legacy is we're still feeling the shadow of Vietnam.
Speaker 3: But there are other lessons. Let me just say this.
Speaker 4: You know, that's one angle, and particularly the impact on
Speaker 4: the psyche of the American people and American politics.
Speaker 3: But there's another aspect to this, which I think is
Speaker 3: very important.
Speaker 4: And I've happened to have been involved in about three
Speaker 4: or four of these conflicts, so I have a basis
Speaker 4: for comparison. There's also the issue of how we fought
Speaker 4: the war, and I think it's important. First of all,
Speaker 4: the draft was very unjust, and you got to acknowledge
Speaker 4: that that contributed to a lot of bitterness about the
Speaker 4: way the war was.
Speaker 1: You had if you were had access to get out,
Speaker 1: you got out, right.
Speaker 3: We all got deferments right.
Speaker 4: Second, so Creighton Abrams, you know LBJ thought about choosing
Speaker 4: him in sixty four. If he'd chosen Abrams instead of Westmoreland,
Speaker 4: we might have ended up in much less of a pickle.
Speaker 4: But Westy just kept on asking for more and more troops.
Speaker 4: Even after the Tet offensive, when the Yet Kong were
Speaker 4: practically decimated, he goes and asks for two hundred and
Speaker 4: six thousand more troops. I've always put forward the hypothetical,
Speaker 4: what if instead west he had ridden the cable saying,
Speaker 4: mister President, the Viet Kong have suffered a terrible defeat,
Speaker 4: you could now safely withdraw two hundred thousand troops. It
Speaker 4: might have turned around to psychology completely. I did a
Speaker 4: review of it when I first got there. Colin Powell,
Speaker 4: who was Secretary of State, asked me to do the review,
Speaker 4: and I pointed out to Washington that there was no
Speaker 4: money in there for building up the security forces of Iraq,
Speaker 4: and I recommended reprogramming two billion dollars count them, two
Speaker 4: billion dollars from that seventeen to training and equipping Iraqi forces,
Speaker 4: and Washington accepted my recommendation. So I mean I at
Speaker 4: least I applied a lesson I felt I had learned right.
Speaker 4: And General Casey, who was the commanding general, we worked
Speaker 4: very closely together and we got that done. And actually
Speaker 4: Iraq is still it hasn't gone down the tubes. By
Speaker 4: the way, even though people don't like what we did
Speaker 4: in Iraq, I understand that, and it was a very
Speaker 4: very debatable decision by President Bush. But it has not
Speaker 4: ended up in the Iraq going down the drink.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not yet in the sphere of influence of Iran, right,
Speaker 1: which was the great fear that we were just liberating,
Speaker 1: liberating Iraq in order to become a province of Iran.
Speaker 4: Right, there's some danger still in that regard, but no,
Speaker 4: I think we're a little better often then. Anyway, how
Speaker 4: you fight these wars is another issue. I'm not saying
Speaker 4: it's the primary issue, but you can learn lessons there too.
Speaker 1: Ran I am fascinated by the sort of the post
Speaker 1: Vietnam impact, right. My wife asked me this question recently,
Speaker 1: and I had a thesis, and I'm curious of yours
Speaker 1: if you agree in this that you know why how
Speaker 1: did the military become a Republican constituency? And I go
Speaker 1: back to Carter's decision to pardon the Draft Dodgers as
Speaker 1: a as a line in the sand. I grew up
Speaker 1: in Miami. The Bay of Pigs is a reason why
Speaker 1: every Cuban today is still more likely to be a
Speaker 1: Republican than a Democrat. They blame Kennedy for not going back.
Speaker 1: They're angry at Kennedy to this day. You have exile.
Speaker 1: So many Cubans were raised. Hey, don't trust the Democrats
Speaker 1: on this. The Republicans have your back. Type of mindset
Speaker 1: is that you do. We think the pardoning of the
Speaker 1: draft Dodgers had that kind of impact politically.
Speaker 3: I hadn't. I've not really thought of it.
Speaker 1: I really haven't, Brian, what you're in dealing.
Speaker 3: I mean, you were one of you was talking about
Speaker 3: your migration from the Democratic to the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: Mine was after the was Jimmy Carter, the failure with
Speaker 4: regard to Iran and the fact that we were humiliated
Speaker 4: by having these hostages helped for almost.
Speaker 5: A year or whatever length of period it was the
Speaker 5: year in a couple of months, and I that's why
Speaker 5: I voted for Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty and then remained.
Speaker 4: A Republican after that. Yeah, oriented after that, although I
Speaker 4: honestly believe, maybe naively, that politics should stop at the
Speaker 4: water's edge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bowed it at that too, Brian. What what
Speaker 1: did you feel like you found during this documentary about
Speaker 1: that question or about that issue in general.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not something that it makes sense, I think
Speaker 2: the it's not something that I heard a lot of
Speaker 2: people talking about or you know, I.
Speaker 1: Just know there's a lot of there's still older military veterans,
Speaker 1: you know, still look at draft dodgers with skepticism. It's
Speaker 1: why it was such a big deal with with Bill Clinton. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I think it was a bigger deal for Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: because he was a Democrat, and it was less of
Speaker 1: a deal for Bush and Cheney because they were Republicans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and dan Quail and dan Quayle.
Speaker 1: And Quail, but it was less of an issue on
Speaker 1: the right than it was on the left because of that,
Speaker 1: I think. But that's just the thesis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that, you know, there's the veterans when
Speaker 2: they came back, you know, it was it was a
Speaker 2: very very difficult time, and you know, obviously a lot
Speaker 2: has been there's a lot of work has been done
Speaker 2: trying to understand the experience of veterans when they when
Speaker 2: they came back from Vietnam. You know, they even my
Speaker 2: dad said that he experienced the sort of baby killer
Speaker 2: thing where where people were kind of who were maybe
Speaker 2: rightly or had legitimate concerns about whether or not you
Speaker 2: should be in Vietnam, may have may have been protesting it,
Speaker 2: but also took out a lot of that anger on
Speaker 2: people that were enlisted that you know that either enlisted
Speaker 2: or were drafted, which are and these are people that
Speaker 2: we asked as a country to go to war.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you want to talk about something, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about something that I think culturally Americans
Speaker 1: have learned is, you know, don't don't hold the infantry
Speaker 1: men responsible for policy decisions. And to this day, look
Speaker 1: at you know, every NAT's game I go to, we
Speaker 1: wave the hats for the troops, right, because I think
Speaker 1: we all realize that, you know, to go back to
Speaker 1: what the ambassador said, that should stop at the water's edge, right,
Speaker 1: can't blame those that either enlisted for a variety of
Speaker 1: reasons or were drafted back then, you know, you can't
Speaker 1: hold them responsible for policy choices.
Speaker 4: And I mentioned one other issue because it shocked me
Speaker 4: when I learned about it.
Speaker 3: I left you.
Speaker 4: As I mentioned, I was there three and a half
Speaker 4: years and I ended up eventually going to Henry Kissinger's
Speaker 4: Nationalecurity Council staff. And one time, I think in nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy one or so, I went with General Haig, who
Speaker 4: was Kissinger's deputy at the time, to Vietnam and I
Speaker 4: visited one of our hospitals, Field Hospitals, and the doctor
Speaker 4: sat me down and told me about the levels of
Speaker 4: drug addiction of our troops and that some people were
Speaker 4: using so many vials of heroin the day. And I mean,
Speaker 4: it was a horror scene and that I don't think
Speaker 4: had been the case at the beginning of our involvement,
Speaker 4: But somehow drugs got into this whole picture. And I
Speaker 4: think that happened to the Russians in Afghanistan as well.
Speaker 3: And it's one.
Speaker 1: Way in unstain. I mean, I hate to put it,
Speaker 1: that was terms, but it's how it was.
Speaker 3: A big issue.
Speaker 4: It was a big issue, and you remember the Army
Speaker 4: finally cleaned it up, but by cracking down very hard,
Speaker 4: but only after we got out of Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get a lot of this when you talk
Speaker 2: to Vietnam veterans today. Obviously, they they did this sense
Speaker 2: that there, you know that the Vietnam mission felt very
Speaker 2: murky to them, that they didn't quite understand why they
Speaker 2: were there, They were losing friends, and and that that
Speaker 2: so many of them kind of turned to you know,
Speaker 2: the marijuana heroin was obviously very plentiful. So many people
Speaker 2: came back with these addictions. And so we talked to
Speaker 2: a few of a few men who went through that
Speaker 2: when they came back. So that combined with the the
Speaker 2: sort of anger that some of them felt directed at
Speaker 2: them for the war and a lack of a kind
Speaker 2: of celebration of what of their service when they came back,
Speaker 2: really caused a lot of problems for people. And of course,
Speaker 2: as you know, we know this is where the studying
Speaker 2: of this eventually, through lots of great work by a
Speaker 2: lot of great people, that led to the diagnosis of PTSD.
Speaker 2: And you know those this comes out of the Vietnam
Speaker 2: War trying and I understand a lot of this.
Speaker 3: How do you explain that this happened to the Vietnam
Speaker 3: vets but less so to the other.
Speaker 4: Ones who came back, like the ones who think, well,
Speaker 4: I guess I puzzle over that.
Speaker 1: Are you sure we didn't that we didn't have these issues.
Speaker 1: I just think we're more aware.
Speaker 4: No, no, or no, we have them, but we don't
Speaker 4: treat We treat them more respectfully. I mean, I felt
Speaker 4: I think the Vietnam.
Speaker 3: Vets felt they were not treated with right and.
Speaker 1: I think that's why we treat the Iraq and Afghanistan
Speaker 1: veterans with a lot more respect at least.
Speaker 3: So that's one of the lessons we learned is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when in a war we won, Brian, right, there
Speaker 1: were plenty of World War two veterans that did come
Speaker 1: back with these same issues, but in some ways that
Speaker 1: got less attention. Part of that is just generational, right,
Speaker 1: men didn't talk about those things. A little bit of that.
Speaker 1: But but but some of it also had to do
Speaker 1: with we just didn't because we won, We didn't look
Speaker 1: backwards as much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I think that's maybe true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, then we don't do drugs very well anyway, right,
Speaker 4: we don't do we don't deal with the addiction in
Speaker 4: our society very well.
Speaker 3: Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 1: It's true. We don't know, because we we I think
Speaker 1: we know dealing with it as a crime is a
Speaker 1: bad idea. We have figured we kind of have figured
Speaker 1: that out sort of, and then we still end up
Speaker 1: dealing with it like a law enforcement issue when ultimately
Speaker 1: it's a. It clearly is a mental health challenge, but
Speaker 1: we still don't know how to do mental health.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't know.
Speaker 1: But Brian, get take me through more of the five.
Speaker 1: You know, how much of this is about the war
Speaker 1: itself and the policy debates during the war. How much
Speaker 1: is it about the cultural impact.
Speaker 3: Down the line?
Speaker 1: How would you say you split your time on that?
Speaker 2: Well, we tried to try to do both of those
Speaker 2: things justice, you know, one of the we did focus
Speaker 2: quite a bit on presidents and decisions of administrations and
Speaker 2: how those ripple effects affected real people on the ground.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think we also tried to get
Speaker 2: just a range a range of voices in this as well.
Speaker 2: So you know, some often the events of this war
Speaker 2: told from the American perspective only, so you know, you know,
Speaker 2: in Vietnam, this was a civil war as much as
Speaker 2: anything else, and so you know, the understanding of these
Speaker 2: events can't be separated from the fact that there are
Speaker 2: these two different parts of the country, very different visions
Speaker 2: for what their future might look like. So we tried
Speaker 2: We talked to viet Cong obviously, we talked to people
Speaker 2: from the South. We had talked from people to people
Speaker 2: who fought for the North to try to get as
Speaker 2: much of a kind of full range of perspectives as
Speaker 2: we could.
Speaker 1: So now I found that I assume you've been to
Speaker 1: this show on Max that's about sort of Vietnam but
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the North. Yeah, I actually have
Speaker 1: a lot of a satire. It's it was an interesting
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it.
Speaker 3: You're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, boy, ambassador. I'm curious if you
Speaker 1: if anybody's talked to you into watching this TV show
Speaker 1: called The Sympathizer, which was a bit more from the
Speaker 1: perspective of the North than the South.
Speaker 3: No, I I've not seen it, but I just made
Speaker 3: a note of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's sort of dark, dark satire. You know,
Speaker 1: it's serious, but there's some satire to it. But I
Speaker 1: found that, Brian so necessary. Right, We just don't you know,
Speaker 1: when you you got to understand what it's just like
Speaker 1: with World War Two, we're all trying to figure out
Speaker 1: we're all Germans Nazis or was the you know, and
Speaker 1: we know all Germans weren't Nazis, right, it was sort
Speaker 1: of sometimes that happens and not all you know, and
Speaker 1: getting that perspective. You know, obviously uh is helpful. But
Speaker 1: as a civil war, when did Vietnam recover from this
Speaker 1: civil war?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Arguably it took America maybe you know, World War two
Speaker 1: before we've you know, or the Civil Rights Act before
Speaker 1: we fully recovered from our civil war, depending on how
Speaker 1: you want to look at it. When when do we
Speaker 1: feel like the Vietnamese recovered from that civil war?
Speaker 2: Ah, wow, that's a great question.
Speaker 4: The the.
Speaker 2: You know, I think you know, obviously, the Vietnam War
Speaker 2: itself opened up wounds in Campodia and other things that
Speaker 2: took a long, very long time in order to play out,
Speaker 2: and lots of people, you know, over the years after
Speaker 2: the fall of Saigon still tried to escape and tried
Speaker 2: to leave Vietnam so and tried to you know, people
Speaker 2: that felt persecuted, people that were in re education camps.
Speaker 2: You know, this war lasted a very long time for
Speaker 2: those people. And of course, you know a lot of
Speaker 2: people from from the South became refugees in the United
Speaker 2: States and the war. I mean, if you talk to them,
Speaker 2: a lot of them are in the series, a lot
Speaker 2: if you talk to them, you know, it's still very
Speaker 2: very raw for them. As well, so, you know, it's
Speaker 2: a tough question to answer. I think, you know, the
Speaker 2: you know Vietnam has you know, is economically done, well,
Speaker 2: it's done, you know, it's it's come to terms with
Speaker 2: some of its past in a lot of ways. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, there's been some there's been some kind of
Speaker 2: shifts recently with Trump and tariffs and all of that,
Speaker 2: but it's been a very very close trading partner. They've
Speaker 2: worked very closely with the United States to look for
Speaker 2: remains of the soldiers that were missing over the years,
Speaker 2: and so that relationship has has improved significantly. But you know,
Speaker 2: in the in the hearts of people, especially people who
Speaker 2: were left their homeland, and would you know that this
Speaker 2: this war is still very much kind of raw for them.
Speaker 4: Still many of them left twice m because they left
Speaker 4: North Vietnam after the Geneva Agreements of nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 4: there was a transfer of a million people to the South,
Speaker 4: and then many of those same people then or their
Speaker 4: descendants came to the United States. But I'll give John
Speaker 4: McCain and others great credit for despite having fought the
Speaker 4: war and despite having been actually there were a couple
Speaker 4: of the prisoners of war. McCain and the fellow also
Speaker 4: who was the first ambassador to Vietnam, to the unified Vietnam,
Speaker 4: they wanted to reopen, relate. They didn't want to keep
Speaker 4: the grudge forever.
Speaker 3: And I think they're right.
Speaker 1: You know, when the.
Speaker 3: War is over, it's over.
Speaker 4: You got to you got to try to rebuild a
Speaker 4: relationship of some kind. And I think we've done a
Speaker 4: pretty good job at that with today's Vietnam, even though
Speaker 4: we don't agree with it all of their politics, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's and I think John McCain
Speaker 4: and others who advocated for the relationship deserve our gratitude
Speaker 4: for having done that, because you know, we could have
Speaker 4: kept the grudge for even longer, and that would not
Speaker 4: have been good.
Speaker 1: Brian, what do you make of the fact that we're
Speaker 1: gonna we have one, two, three four. I'm sort of
Speaker 1: on the fence about whether Obama counts as a baby
Speaker 1: boomer president or not because he never turned he wasn't
Speaker 1: eighteen during the Vietnam War. To me, if you were
Speaker 1: eighteen during the Vietnam War at any point in time
Speaker 1: in that tenure period, then then you're part of that era.
Speaker 1: But We've had four baby Boomer presidents, but not one
Speaker 1: as a Vietnam veteran.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what you what you make of that,
Speaker 2: And even some of.
Speaker 1: That wasn't true with our World War Two veterans. Right,
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of presidents out of World War Two,
Speaker 1: starting with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson. I mean, all these guys
Speaker 1: fought World War Two, yeah, Bush, You know, only Reagan
Speaker 1: was of that era and didn't he was sort of right,
Speaker 1: he was doing his work.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, some would say he was helping, that's
Speaker 1: one way to help with the effort, but the boy
Speaker 1: was he was actually an outlier of his generation, where
Speaker 1: we don't even have the outlier of our of that
Speaker 1: Vietnam generation. Brian.
Speaker 2: I think it points directly to the complicated relationship and
Speaker 2: nature that we have with this war and how much
Speaker 2: it really exposed and how much we're still kind of
Speaker 2: dealing with it. We don't. It's not an easy war
Speaker 2: to to think about it. It's not an easy war
Speaker 2: to try to understand the impact and the legacy that
Speaker 2: it has had on us. But you're absolutely right, of course,
Speaker 2: I mean World War Two gave us heroes that became presidents.
Speaker 1: And build our United States. Congress just filled it. And
Speaker 1: in fact, those those bipartisan groups were really important to
Speaker 1: keeping us on the rails. I mean I've always thought that,
Speaker 1: and in fact, the lack of Vietnam veterans now in
Speaker 1: the US Senate is you know they that was a
Speaker 1: bipartisan team. Your Bobkerry or Chuck Hagel, your John Kerry
Speaker 1: or John McCain. You know, they would band together and
Speaker 1: it would help create some bonds. And perhaps Iraq creates
Speaker 1: that in another ten or fifteen years as that generation
Speaker 1: matures and take some leadership. But I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: it might, yeah, it might. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 4: I mean when I most of my career, which ended
Speaker 4: up being forty four years, but in the early part
Speaker 4: of my career, I mean I always went up to
Speaker 4: Capitol Hill a lot from the State Department. I mean,
Speaker 4: in the beginning, you could count on these World War
Speaker 4: Two veterans to carry forward our nationals.
Speaker 1: Bob doing dan in away here there you go, right right,
Speaker 1: They were in the same hospital together, you know, they bonded,
Speaker 1: you know, and that that mattered.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, And that's a big loss.
Speaker 4: I think you're right about Iraq, although I don't know
Speaker 4: if there are enough of them in the Yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: not sure, not yet, but they are they could be.
Speaker 1: And it is interesting, Brian, for all the think about
Speaker 1: what's happened to the Vietnam vets, and yet think about
Speaker 1: the one government institution that still has bipartisan support in
Speaker 1: the country. It's the military. And I don't think following
Speaker 1: Vietnam culturally, one would have expected that, right.
Speaker 4: That's why I would add one thing, And I saw
Speaker 4: it in Iraq. I saw it myself with my own eyes,
Speaker 4: the competence of our military. They have become so proficient
Speaker 4: in what they do. I mean, I think of them
Speaker 4: as a class of people amongst the best educated people
Speaker 4: in our country.
Speaker 1: What do you think volunteer army is better than a
Speaker 1: drafted army? And do you think that's the reason.
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do think shared sacrifice is something we're missing as
Speaker 1: a country. But Brian, I want you to tackle that
Speaker 1: question too, please.
Speaker 2: Well, I for for a half feat when you were
Speaker 2: asking that question, I thought you were going to talk
Speaker 2: about the VA. The VA is uh you know, has
Speaker 2: been has been a source of controversy and uh, but
Speaker 2: it was created.
Speaker 1: The VA was created in some ways as a response
Speaker 1: to distrust by by soldiers of the Pentagon, right, yes,
Speaker 1: that's why we have it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's looking like it's getting good here. I don't
Speaker 2: know the stats, but I just not Yeah.
Speaker 1: I will promise you this. If it is getting gutted,
Speaker 1: that's bad politics, and that will get restored pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Like that is the one thing you can I think
Speaker 1: that they're touching a few things that are third rails
Speaker 1: and that they're going to find out or are going
Speaker 1: to electrocute them politically. Yeah, I mean, there's she'll see.
Speaker 3: There are these.
Speaker 2: Rumors that you know, as eight eighty thousand people might
Speaker 2: be getting fired from the VA, that this is This
Speaker 2: is devastating, and honestly, it's it's a it's disrespectful to
Speaker 2: the people who really deserve.
Speaker 1: Well, especially when you have such a It's always been
Speaker 1: tenuous the trust between in the VA, more so than
Speaker 1: most because right who is getting the line's share of
Speaker 1: healthcare right now, it's the Vietnam veteran generation, and who
Speaker 1: began with the most distrust of the military. The Vietnam
Speaker 1: Veteran generation right like it is. It is not an accident.
Speaker 1: So it's like, guys, you're messing this. Of all generations
Speaker 1: to start short circuiting things, that's the last one you
Speaker 1: should be doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's important. I like the idea of
Speaker 2: you know, your point about Carrie and McCain being in
Speaker 2: the in the Senate and you know, having people that
Speaker 2: understand wars that have been through this that that aren't glorifying,
Speaker 2: you know, the military.
Speaker 1: And that matters to my uncle, who's still a lot
Speaker 1: of Vietnam VET. He's like, he doesn't he didn't like
Speaker 1: the chicken hawks. He gets really angry at chicken hawks,
Speaker 1: as he calls it. He says, I want people who
Speaker 1: have had to deal with war deciding whether something's worth
Speaker 1: sending troops over for. He'll support it, but he wants
Speaker 1: to know that somebody in there has had to pull
Speaker 1: a trigger. He's actually had to do the worst part.
Speaker 1: He goes, because if you can stare that, if you
Speaker 1: can stare into that abyss and you still believe this
Speaker 1: is righteous, okay, but but you've got to you've got
Speaker 1: to be able to have stared into that, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting.
Speaker 4: Gentlemen, when when I was in Vietnam, we used to
Speaker 4: talk all night about the war.
Speaker 3: But are we gonna talk? How much longer are we
Speaker 3: gonna talk?
Speaker 1: We're about done here? Well, let me let me wrap
Speaker 1: you all right, I'm gonna rap you this. This is great,
Speaker 1: and let me wrap up right, But athbassador, I will
Speaker 1: let you go. But let me let you go with
Speaker 1: this question, which is the fall of Saigon, the leaving
Speaker 1: Saigon and leaving Afghanistan? How similar? How different?
Speaker 4: I would say they're very similar in the sense that
Speaker 4: we kind of just got tired of each of these
Speaker 4: conflicts and couldn't figure out a sustainable way, uh to
Speaker 4: leave those two countries.
Speaker 3: And I think there was a sustainable way.
Speaker 4: That would have not involved great cost for the United States,
Speaker 4: but might have prevented a lot of misery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I am happy to let you go if
Speaker 1: you need to run, and I will ran. Let me
Speaker 1: wrap up with you this way, which is, how do
Speaker 1: you think that the seventy fifth anniversary of the fall US?
Speaker 1: I got what does that retrospective look like?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: With most of it, with all of the folks that
Speaker 1: were involved with Vietnam no longer around. Really, it will
Speaker 1: be people like you and I who are who are
Speaker 1: in our seventies or eighties telling stories about our fathers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the great human drama as it marches on, right,
Speaker 2: I think that Vietnam is important to the lessons of
Speaker 2: Vietnam are important to keep alive.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: We tell these stories about what we've been through, and
Speaker 2: hopefully history plays the role of helping us be better
Speaker 2: educated about the decisions that we'll be facing in twenty
Speaker 2: five years. And there are lots of decisions, and there
Speaker 2: are lots of lessons to be learned from Vietnam. I mean, really,
Speaker 2: these military lessons are profound, and Vietnam War forced this
Speaker 2: incredible reckoning with our role in the world. Who are
Speaker 2: we what sorts of interventions should we should we use
Speaker 2: our military to intervene in? Where is it important to
Speaker 2: take a stand and where is it and what are
Speaker 2: all the corrupting factors that might play into those decisions.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is something that we really need to understand.
Speaker 2: We learned lessons from Vietnam, but as I think what
Speaker 2: we've been saying here, you know, some of those lessons
Speaker 2: were largely ignored, leading to similar repeat disasters in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: In Iraq. So the storytelling and the history history is important, right,
Speaker 2: nothing is really the past.
Speaker 3: This is well.
Speaker 1: I found it interesting listen to what John said about
Speaker 1: why were we we didn't want to pull another Munich?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: What got us into Vietnam? We weren't going to do
Speaker 1: another Munich? Right? Why are so many of us and
Speaker 1: I consider myself somebody who's very supportive of doing everything
Speaker 1: we can for Ukraine? Why are we doing that because
Speaker 1: of the lesson of Munich and of those European lessons, right,
Speaker 1: So you know you're right that in some ways there
Speaker 1: are still lessons to be learned from World War two
Speaker 1: and before World War two. Frankly, we haven't dealt with
Speaker 1: the fall of the Ottoman Empire very well. But that's
Speaker 1: a whole other that drives me crazy. I always joke
Speaker 1: we resolved World War two. We never resolved World War One.
Speaker 1: We're still dealing with the fallout of World War One
Speaker 1: every day in the Middle East. But that's for another podcast, which.
Speaker 4: A little bit like the famous joke of Kissinger asking
Speaker 4: Joe and Lai, the Prime Minister of China, what he
Speaker 4: thought of the French Revolution, and Joe and la responded
Speaker 4: it's too soon to tell.
Speaker 1: It's a great one, Ambassador. This was a treat. It
Speaker 1: was great to get your perspective.
Speaker 3: I enjoyed talking, listening and talking to both well. I
Speaker 3: always loved to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and it was it was I actually think
Speaker 1: we captured Brian right, this sort of debate right the
Speaker 1: good and this is exactly I think what makes your
Speaker 1: documentary brilliant is you do this. This is you bring
Speaker 1: in voices that disagree, that sort of explain. When you
Speaker 1: put it all together, you see how it all unfolded.
Speaker 1: So thank you both. This was terrific than you.
Speaker 3: Really appreciate both of you.
Speaker 1: So I told you it was pretty lively, but back
Speaker 1: and forth there and and I think John Negroponte, I
Speaker 1: think it was a you know, there's there's sort of
Speaker 1: a conventional wisdom about the war and the aftermath and
Speaker 1: the politics of it, and he tried to challenge that
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom, which I think made for a healthier conversation.
Speaker 1: So I hope you appreciated that special edition. Uh, Like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, we're gonna we're going to drop
Speaker 1: these every now and then, especially when we think it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, these these momentous occasions that we do
Speaker 1: need to sometimes stop. Uh take you know, take our
Speaker 1: temperature of where where things are, and look there's you
Speaker 1: know we don't we don't. We don't teach enough history
Speaker 1: these days, even though we've never had more documentaries available
Speaker 1: to us. But in many ways, particularly in the in
Speaker 1: the sort of fast pace of the of the news
Speaker 1: cycle these days, sometimes we don't sit back and and
Speaker 1: sort of uh sort of simmer if you will, in
Speaker 1: a topic as as much as we should. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I thought it was important to have this standalone. Hope
Speaker 1: you appreciate it. Uh it uh So We're going to
Speaker 1: skip any uh viewer questions for this episode, but of course,
Speaker 1: if you've got some questions or comments about this episode
Speaker 1: or anything else, you can drop them in the YouTube
Speaker 1: comments section and drop them on our Instagram feeds anywhere
Speaker 1: where we post on socials, or you can just simply
Speaker 1: send an email to Aschuck at Thechuckcodcast dot com. So
Speaker 1: with that, I'll see you Monday when we upload again.