Oliver Stone's New JFK Documentaries and the Vietnam War

[James DiEugenio]

As for Laos, this was probably even more ridiculous.  Laos was a country that was about 90 per cent farming in the fifities when it became a nation from the Geneva Accords.  But by the late fifties when the CIA and JCS targeted it for intervention, they sent more money into the country than their Gross National Product was worth!  In other words, the USA militarized the country: perpetual war for perpetual peace.  There could have easily been a settlement even after that. Since two brothers led two opposing sides.  But this was refused and since the royal family did not want to fight, the CIA recruited the Hmong. In other words, instead of some kind of settlement, the CIA created a proxy army to carry on an unnecessary war.  And they created a newspaper --largest in the country-- in order to militarize things further. (Bill Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History, p. 158). The CIA even created a phony invasion in 1959 by Hanoi to increase funding.  This is how bad the CIA and Pentagon wanted to go to war in Laos. (ibid, p. 159). We know that the JCS tried to push this on Kennedy almost right at the start.  He turned it down.  He simply did not think it was worth fighting over. (ibid) So the CIA and JCS now turned to Vietnam as an alternative.

Kennedy had tried for a neutralist solution.  Which lasted until 1964, because the forces of the right did not want it. (Ibid, p. 160) The CIA had invested too much already, and Hanoi wanted the supply route. Thus also began the whole saga of Air America.

With the neutralist solution gone,  it looked like the Pathet Lao were going to win, so the massive bombing campaign began. From 1965-73 about 2 million tons of bombs rained down on this poverty stricken country. As one newsman wrote, "Village after village was leveled, countless people burned alive by high explosives , or burnt alive by napalm and white phosphorus or riddled by anti personnel bomb pellets." (Blum, p. 160) This over a country that was one of the poorest in all of  Asia.  Again, the idea I guess is to destroy a nation in order to save it?  I guess so, since the CIA dropped millions of dollars in forged currency to destroy the economy also. (Blum, p. 161)

By 1975, the Pathet Lao took control over  an exhausted and wrecked country: " a land of nomads without villages, without farms; a generation of refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, many more maimed. When the USAF closed down its radio station, it signed off with the message: Good bye and see you next war." (ibid)

In the face of all this unnecessary destruction in Indochina, why Mike continues to think that JFK was wrong is simply kind of stunning. Kennedy's policy was trying to prevent the Indochina cataclysm caused by LBJ and RMN.

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

On 10/10/2022 at 3:42 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Great image capture.  

 

IMO, this is the best documentary ever made on the subject.  If you have not seen it, you should.

 

I graduated HS in 1974, started college that fall.  Still went to the theater and drive in to see new movies.  Read the newspaper about new ones coming out.  I don't remember seeing anything about it then or since.  Was it suppressed?  I can see why it would have been.  The most powerful thing I've ever seen on Vietnam.

[Michael Griffith]

Oh my goodness, in reviewing my previous replies, I realized that I have not yet mentioned one of the most important books on North Vietnamese sources: Merle Pribbenow’s landmark, 520-page work Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975 (University Press of Kansas, 2002). Pribbenow, native fluent in Vietnamese, translated the North Vietnamese army’s history of the war, making this invaluable source available for the first time in English and greatly advancing our knowledge of the war.

The history was written in 1994 by a group of senior military officers under the direction of Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense. Although the book contains many exaggerations, distortions, and omissions, it also contains a wealth of surprising admissions and other key information.

To put it mildly, liberal scholars were not thrilled about the book, because it proved to be a stark refutation of virtually every key component of the liberal version of the war. Conservative scholars, on the other hand, gladly began making use of the numerous important revelations contained in the book.

As just one example, I quote from Dr. William Duiker’s foreword to the book wherein, among other things, he describes what the PAVN authors revealed about the Tet Offensive (note that PLAF refers to the People’s Liberation Armed Forces, i.e., the military arm of the National Liberation Front, and that PAVN refers to the People’s Army of Vietnam, i.e., North Vietnam’s army):

The authors concede that the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam] war planners had underestimated the military capabilities of the enemy and overestimated the level of support for the insurgent forces in the urban areas. They thus tacitly confirm claims by the Pentagon that the attacking forces had suffered heavy casualties in the fighting, and would be unable to retain their gains in the countryside.

The price for Hanoi’s excessive optimism was paid in 1969. The insurgent forces in the south (PLAF units had been especially decimated) were unable to hold on to their territorial gains, and Saigon managed to regain control over many areas that it had lost during the offensive. In the meantime, U.S. troops managed to drive PAVN troops back to isolated areas of the country, such as the U Minh Forest in the Ca Mau Peninsula, the Plain of Reeds near the Cambodian border, and parts of the Central Highlands. Supplies and food and military equipment for the insurgents were severely affected, and pessimism about future prospects rose to dangerous levels within the ranks. (Kindle Edition, locs. 255-261, a “location” is about one fourth of regular page in Kindle)

But, of course, like most Communist histories, the PAVN history also contains some glaring omissions. Dr. Duiker:

How do the authors explain North Vietnam’s stunning victory in the Vietnam War? To the seasoned observer, their answers are hardly surprising: occupation of the moral high ground, a decade of experience in fighting the French, strong Party leadership, and the support of the Vietnamese people. What is most conspicuous by its absence is any reference to the assistance provided by Hanoi’s chief allies.

Beginning in 1965, the Soviet Union provided significant amounts of advanced military weaponry to help the DRV defend its skies from U.S. bombing raids. Over a period of two decades, China not only sent billions of dollars in military and economic aid, but also dispatched half a million technicians, advisers, and combat troops to assist the DRV in its struggle. (Locs. 282-289)

Another liberal myth debunked by the PAVN history is that the South Vietnamese army usually fought poorly and ran away when strongly attacked. The authors’ account of the final battles in March and April 1975 alone refutes this false claim. For example:

After some initial moments of terror and disorder, the enemy regrouped and fought to block our attack in this important sector. Vicious fighting swirled around the six-way intersection, the province administration area, the armored area, and especially at the Darlac Province Military Headquarters. Regiment 95B had to commit its reserve force to the battle and launch three separate assaults before it was finally able to capture the Darlac Province Military Headquarters. (Locs. 8600-8607)

Because our artillery was not able to completely suppress the enemy’s artillery firebases and because the enemy air force conducted a ferocious bombing campaign, none of the division’s assaults against the puppet 18th Division Headquarters and the 52nd Regiment Headquarters were successful. (Loc. 9418)

[James DiEugenio]

14 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I graduated HS in 1974, started college that fall.  Still went to the theater and drive in to see new movies.  Read the newspaper about new ones coming out.  I don't remember seeing anything about it then or since.  Was it suppressed?  I can see why it would have been.  The most powerful thing I've ever seen on Vietnam.

Ron:

When it was first coming out, Hearts and Minds was dropped by Columbia, a  major film distributor. The reason being that people like Walt Rostow and Westmoreland objected to how they were depicted in the film.  But since they had signed releases, all they could do was threaten and make noise and talk about how unfair the film was.  But they could not stop it from being released.  I will say this:  if I was them, I would have felt the same way.  Man do they come off badly.

 Peter Davis, the director, and Bert Schneider, the producer, had to find another distributor.  So the film did not get a major release as planned.  But what happened is that it got so many glowing reviews from so many big city critics, that it got nominated and then won the Academy Award for best documentary.  And that is how it got good exposure afterwards. To this day, Michael Moore says that this film impacted him to become a film maker and he calls it the best documentary he ever saw.

I think this film was the first to confront  most Americans with many of the truly barbarous, ugly, atrocious and grisly things that America was doing in this backward country.  All in the name of bringing Vietnam democracy and freedom.  As I noted, the ending of the film is unforgettable: with the napalming of the village, and the little naked girl running up the road with her burning skin and then someone gives her some water.  Then Davis cuts to the veteran soldier outside his American rural house and asks him, "Have we learned anything from all of this?"  And he says, "I think we are trying not to learn from it."

That last sentence was prophetic. 

Edited October 15, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Joseph McBride]

I covered the Oscars for Daily Variety the night HEARTS AND MINDS

won. I printed a brief sidebar about Bert Schneider

reading the telegram of congratulations from the NLF.

I foolishly did not realize what a firestorm that

would create, or I would have made

more of it and tracked down people for quotes

in response; usually I was more on the ball than that.

But I got an inkling when I attended (i.e., crashed) the Academy

ball after the show and was standing next to Danny Thomas, who

seethed when Schneider arrived with his Oscar. Thomas muttered

to himself, and, I guess, to me: "Look at that

guy in his five hundred-dollar white suit, pissing all

over the feet of the Academy!"

Edited October 15, 2022 by Joseph McBride

[James DiEugenio]

15 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

The most powerful thing I've ever seen on Vietnam.

And for me, its the best one also, even though its from 1974.

That is a great story by Joe about Danny Thomas.  It was really surprising at how rightwing many of the entertainment people were. And man the reaction that awaited Schneider when he and Davis won and he read that telegram.

BTW, Schneider's company was remarkable.  It was called BBS.  And man did they put out some interesting films: Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show,  and Hearts and Minds. Man, those were the days.

I actually think there is a documentary about BBS.  They were that unusual.

[Joseph McBride]

Speaking of Danny Thomas: while researching

my biography FRANK CAPRA: THE CATASTROPHE

OF SUCCESS, I read all the (mostly dismal) scripts and

outlines Frank Capra tried to flog to studios

in the 1950s and '60s. Most were clumsily religioso

to an extent that embarrassed the studios,

which would do Bible epics but usually not the kind

of Catholic propaganda Capra was pushing.

One project stood out as unusually good:

THE CARPENTER OF GOD, about St. Joseph

and his bafflement and anger while trying

to understand how his virginal young wife,

who wouldn't sleep with him, could come

to him and tell him she was pregnant (by a bird).

Capra wanted to film it as a TV movie with Danny Thomas as St. Joseph.

It is a charming and touching script about

faith and humanity, by the estimable novelist

John Fante. But the Legion of Decency nixed

it, since it raised too many questions

about the touchy subject of the Immaculate Conception, and Capra dropped it like a hot potato.

Another unusual notion he had (although it probably wouldn't

have turned out well) was to do a movie about

a character like Elvis being used as a demagogue to corrupt

the youth of America (a rightwing notion, though

the British film PRIVILEGE did a similar story well

from a leftist POV). Col. Parker nixed that one by refusing

to let Elvis play the role. Elvis made few good movies

and a lot of dreck, thanks to the Colonel.

Capra's project, THE GENTLEMAN FROM

TENNESSEE, was too similar to A FACE IN THE CROWD

and reminiscent of MEET JOHN DOE and partly related to a terrible novel Capra

wrote and was published not long ago, CRY

WILDERNESS, a very muddled work politically, sexually,

and in every other way.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Joseph McBride

[W. Niederhut]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Ron:

When it was first coming out, Hearts and Minds was dropped by Columbia, a  major film distributor. The reason being that people like Walt Rostow and Westmoreland objected to how they were depicted in the film.  But since they had signed releases, all they could do was threaten and make noise and talk about how unfair the film was.  But they could not stop it from being released.  I will say this:  if I was them, I would have felt the same way.  Man do they come off badly.

 Peter Davis, the director, and Bert Schneider, the producer, had to find another distributor.  So the film did not get a major release as planned.  But what happened is that it got so many glowing reviews from so many big city critics, that it got nominated and then won the Academy Award for best documentary.  And that is how it got good exposure afterwards. To this day, Michael Moore says that this film impacted him to become a film maker and he calls it the best documentary he ever saw.

I think this film was the first to confront  most Americans with many of the truly barbarous, ugly, atrocious and grisly things that America was doing in this backward country.  All in the name of bringing Vietnam democracy and freedom.  As I noted, the ending of the film is unforgettable: with the napalming of the village, and the little naked girl running up the road with her burning skin and then someone gives her some water.  Then Davis cuts to the veteran soldier outside his American rural house and asks him, "Have we learned anything from all of this?"  And he says, "I think we are trying not to learn from it."

That last sentence was prophetic. 

     I haven't seen Hearts and Minds for almost 50 years now, but, along with the napalming, what sticks in my cabeza was that scene where some American jackass, possibly Westmoreland, said that, "Asian people don't value human lives" the way Americans do.

     Interesting commentary by Joseph McBride about the Hollywood Vietnam War mongers.  I vaguely recall John Wayne muttering some pro-Nixon trope on the stage at one of the Academy Award shows back in those days.

Edited October 15, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[James DiEugenio]

William:

 

That is what Westmoreland was so upset about because Davis had cut from a young boy weeping uncontrollably over his father being inserted into a coffin, and I mean uncontrollably.  To Westy saying that, like life is plentiful, life is cheap in Indochina.

One of the greatest film edits I can recall.

 

[Michael Griffith]

During the Vietnam War, liberal members of Congress and the anti-war movement, often repeating Communist propaganda, portrayed American and South Vietnamese military actions as negatively as possible, regardless of the facts on the ground. One sad example of this is the battle for “Hamburger Hill.” To this day, liberal scholars repeat most of the wartime North Vietnamese and Soviet myths and distortions about this battle.

“Hamburger Hill” was assaulted and taken during Operation Apache Snow in May 1969 under the command of General Melvin Zais. “Hamburger Hill” was actually Ap Bia Mountain (Dong Ap Bia) in the vital A Shau Valley, and was designated Hill 937 during the operation. The following is typical of the inexcusable falsehood and distortion that one finds in liberal sources on the subject:

Though the heavily-fortified Hill 937, a ridge of the mountain Dong Ap Bia in central Vietnam near its western border with Laos, had little strategic value, US command ordered its capture by a frontal assault, only to abandon it soon thereafter.

First of all, Hill 937 had significant strategic value, which is why the North Vietnamese army (NVA/PAVN) occupied it and fought so hard to try to keep it. The NVA occupied it to try to prevent us from taking the crucial A Shau Valley.

Hill 937 provided a commanding position in the A Shau Valley. The A Shau Valley branched off the Ho Chi Minh Trail and was therefore a critical part of the NVA’s logistical network. The valley also provided a major avenue of approach for the NVA to assault Hue and other populated areas in the coastal lowlands. During the Tet Offensive, the NVA launched their attack on the city of Hue from the A Shau Valley. Another reason the valley was vital was that it was barely 3 miles from the border with Laos, where the NVA had sanctuaries with large bases.

Yes, we “abandoned” Hill 937 after we took it because we took the A Shau Valley and remained in the valley for nearly three years.

Our losses in Operation Apache Snow, which included the taking of Hill 937, were mild by any rational measurement, whereas the NVA regiment in the valley was destroyed as a fighting force and was compelled to flee. Out of the entire 1,800-man 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, 78 soldiers were killed in the operation, 47 to 56 of whom died in the taking of Hill 937, while the NVA had at least 600 soldiers killed. The NVA were usually fanatical about not leaving behind corpses, weapons, and supplies, but they were forced to flee with such haste that they left behind over 600 corpses and large amounts weapons and supplies.

Military historian Kelly Boian explains the importance of the A Shau Valley and the losses suffered in the operation to secure the valley, in his monograph “Major General Melvin Zais and Hamburger Hill,” published by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College:

Gen. William C. Westmoreland . . . was determined to deny the ability of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army from resupplying itself via the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam. Key to removing this logistical superhighway was controlling the A Shau Valley, where the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army had developed logistical bases. . . .

Gen. General Creighton Abrams . . . approved the 1969 XXIV Corps mission APACHE SNOW to prevent a potential North Vietnamese Army offensive as the enemy built up stockpiles of supplies in the A Shau Valley. . . .

The assault on Dong Ap Bia resulted in the death of approximately 600 North Vietnamese soldiers, and reports of another 1,100 enemy dead and wounded removed from the hill to Laos, or buried in collapsed tunnels and bunkers. For the Screaming Eagles [i.e., the 101st Airborne Division], 56 soldiers died, with another 367 soldiers wounded. General Zais had achieved his objective of wearing down the north’s 29th Regiment, having virtually wiped out the 7th and 8th battalions of the enemy. (pp. 24-25, 35, ADA569331.pdf (dtic.mil), emphasis added)

Yet, during this successful and important battle, Senator Ted Kennedy, displaying an inexcusable ignorance of the facts, called the battle “madness” and “senseless and irresponsible.” Similarly, most news outlets in the U.S. portrayed the battle as a costly, needless, and useless effort.

Boian discusses General Zais’s efforts to respond to the media’s warped coverage of the operation:

After operations at Dong Ap Bia, Zais interacted with the media to ensure the proper story of Dong Ap Bia was told. In his own words, General Zais stated, “I didn’t care about me, but I just thought that we had fought such a gallant and brilliant fight, and that Honeycutt had done well. For those men to think that it had all been a needless, suicidal attack just galled me, and that is why I was willing to talk to the television, radio, and newspaper people who obviously were aware of what Senator [Edward] Kennedy said and were clamoring to talk to me.”

General Zais learned that the media can be extremely critical, and later reflected in his retirement that the media could bolster the military, as occurred in World War II, or undermine it as Maj. Gen. Zais believed it did in Vietnam.

General Zais conducted his interaction with the media in a professional manner, even though he felt the media were ruining the war for the United States. General Zais commented later in his life that reporters covering the war in Vietnam were at a “D” grade level compared to the “A” grade level of reporters during World War II. Even when second-guessed about actions he directed, such as continuing the fight, or not pulling back and conducting strategic bombing on Hill 937, he swallowed his anger and calmly explained why certain actions had to be conducted. Zais emphasized the need to accomplish the mission accomplishment and to avoid losing contact with the enemy.

The media’s reporting on Hamburger Hill became one of the elements in increasing the unpopularity among Americans of the Vietnam War. Dong Ap Bia became another rallying point for anti-war protestors and political platforms for politicians to argue against continued U.S. involvement. Media on the battlefield continue to play a critical role in explaining military actions on the battlefield, and are another means of achieving strategic objectives as was evident when Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler reinforced Zais’ message to the White House press corps 23 May 1969. The media will always be in the field to gather information for stories that sell best to the public. It is the job of leaders to ensure honest, truthful, and full aspects of the situation are highlighted, and to be forthcoming with any perceived negative actions. (pp. 37-38, ADA569331.pdf (dtic.mil))

If you want more information on “Hamburger Hill,” I recommend the video The Media Myth of Hamburger Hill, available on YouTube. Dr. Lewis Sorley provides a good scholarly analysis on the issue in his book A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (Mariner Books, 1999), pp. 138-141.

[Pat Speer]

On 10/14/2022 at 10:07 PM, Ron Bulman said:

I graduated HS in 1974, started college that fall.  Still went to the theater and drive in to see new movies.  Read the newspaper about new ones coming out.  I don't remember seeing anything about it then or since.  Was it suppressed?  I can see why it would have been.  The most powerful thing I've ever seen on Vietnam.

The movie received lots of attention and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. 

As a documentary, of course, it didn't play in drive-ins or at the mall. It was confined to the art houses, where, prior to the advent of cable, all docs went to live or die. 

Edited October 16, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Jeff Carter]

I saw Hearts And Minds in the late ‘80s on a double bill with Emile DeAntonio’s In The Year of the Pig (1968). I thought, in comparison, the latter was more incisive and pointed. It was, to use a loose analogy, Ramparts while Hearts And Minds was The Nation. Though I would not downplay the obvious strengths of the Davis/Schneider film, I found some portions needlessly manipulative - such as the staged sequence of American GI’s trawling for local prostitutes.

This thread, in general, is quite revealing of the extent of right-wing revisionism on the war - which is largely, fortunately, just an academic exercise, and appears motivated by a lingering anti-communism. In context of the gnashing of teeth over communist atrocities, the widespread carnage spreading out through the region generated by U.S. policy should be remembered, as should the massive repressive political violence conducted in Indonesia. Also, the beginning of the Korean conflict in the 1950s was sparked by large-scale massacres of left-leaning South Koreans by the SK dictatorship facilitated by the Americans, a fact which had not really been generally known until the last 20 years or so.

[James DiEugenio]

JC: Also, the beginning of the Korean conflict in the 1950s was sparked by large-scale massacres of left-leaning South Koreans by the SK dictatorship facilitated by the Americans, a fact which had not really been generally known until the last 20 years or so.

I was not aware of this Jeff, can you explain a bit?

[Joseph McBride]

Also this, from the Washington Post (2015):

The bombing [of North Korea by the U.S.] was long, leisurely and merciless, even by the assessment of America’s own leaders. “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — 20 percent of the population,” Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, told the Office of Air Force History in 1984. Dean Rusk, a supporter of the war and later secretary of state, said the United States bombed “everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.” After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops.

Although the ferocity of the bombing was criticized as racist and unjustified elsewhere in the world, it was never a big story back home. U.S. press coverage of the air war focused, instead, on “MiG alley,” a narrow patch of North Korea near the Chinese border. There, in the world’s first jet-powered aerial war, American fighter pilots competed against each other to shoot down five or more Soviet-made fighters and become “aces.” War reporters rarely mentioned civilian casualties from U.S. carpet-bombing. It is perhaps the most forgotten part of a forgotten war.

[Jeff Carter]

50 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

JC: Also, the beginning of the Korean conflict in the 1950s was sparked by large-scale massacres of left-leaning South Koreans by the SK dictatorship facilitated by the Americans, a fact which had not really been generally known until the last 20 years or so.

I was not aware of this Jeff, can you explain a bit?

Here are links to some information re; Korean War:

Mass executions in summer of 1950:

https://www.fosters.com/story/news/2008/05/19/ap-impact-thousands-killed-by/52408147007/

 

Review of academic coverage from History Dept University of Chicago:

https://alethonews.com/2011/03/17/the-korean-war-the-unknown-war/

 

A My Lai like incident in July 1950:

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/no-gun-ri-massacre/

 

An academic named Jeffrey Kaye has been working with declassified documents which establish that the U.S. military was indeed using biological weapons in Korea. Kaye’s work is extensive and detailed:

https://jeff-kaye.medium.com/a-concealed-war-crime-u-s-anthrax-bombings-of-china-during-the-korean-war-14782ceb40a9