country
Oh
self-evident
Mr Gold
down this wall
he don't hit the we see on a terrible on
the night of July the twentieth nineteen
sixty-nine to American astronauts were
attempting to do something no human
being had ever done before Neil
Armstrong from Ohio and Buzz Aldrin from
New Jersey where the two men sent to
complete a promise made by President
Kennedy at the beginning of the decade
during our descent everything looked
good approaching the point coming around
the moon except our communications a
little scratchy there's an anxious
moment Donna go for landing retro oh I
don't go right so the trawl now calm no
jinsuk oh god no surgeon go Capcom we're
go for landing altitude 4,200 thing year
ago for landing over I was in the
control center of houston hundred feet
or and a half down five and a half pound
you know there was some doubt about this
clear up to the last just where they
were coming in within the fuel or not
we're gonna be
he knew there was a surface it was going
to be reasonably good for them to land
on and Gordy babe here hinkle air
planted it's a g-wiz and a few it's a
let's say yeah we're down and then I can
remember just looking this way and
leaning over and Pat Neal on the back
and just kind of saying well we made it
we copy you down eagle a journey of a
quarter million miles it took three
hundred thousand American workers to
make it happen step off the LEM mountain
at 10 simple and
I am pleased 600 million people were
watching one-fifth of the entire world's
population seeing things that no one had
seen before stark Beauty so pure and
it's so perfect magnificent desolation
on the Sea of Tranquility Armstrong and
older left a plaque that red we came in
peace for all mankind
on earth in the summer of nineteen
sixty-nine peace and tranquility were
merely concepts at the end of the 60s
America was still haunted by memories of
the young president whose election had
ushered in the decade and whose
assassination had shattered it's
optimism Kennedy's inaugural pledge to
pay any price and bear any burden to
defend freedom was being severely tested
in Vietnam President Johnson's further
escalation of the war had cost him the
presidency and in 1968 Richard Nixon was
elected largely on the promise to win
peace with honor to his supporters that
meant an outcome that would further
American interests and ideals in the
world to his critics it meant prolonging
the horror
january twentieth nineteen sixty-nine
inauguration day for the 37th president
of the United States
difficult years America has suffered
from a fever of words we cannot learn
from one another until we stop shouting
at one another until we speak quietly
enough so that our words can be heard as
well as our voices there were virtually
to America's when Richard Nixon took
office and they collided that day in the
first major disruption of an inaugural
ceremony in the history of the Republic
eggs were throwing obscenities were
thrown the placards were out there that
were just awful that we were so torn
apart that we couldn't even inaugurate a
freely elected president with the
dignity the pomp and circumstance it's
such an occasion demands it was really a
terrible low point American history what
I seen on newspapers and television it
was hard to believe desecration of a
flag that I personally fought for and
put my life on the line along with many
other people and here you are carrying
Kong flags this this really disturbed me
to really bad boiling points he divided
the public and he was in some ways the
worst possible leader that we could have
had in the time of this great divisive
pneus because that was meconium politics
to play to the device earnest to divide
the body politic and to them and we
the we in that equation were the people
the administration referred to as
hard-working taxpaying patriotic
Americans
their enemies the them were represented
by the vociferous demonstrators who said
they were Patriots to move by conscience
to oppose the war in November the 1969
700,000 of them came to Washington
I'm not sure looking back that going to
a rally like this was gonna make any
difference but that was a time where
there was no electricity everybody's
soul was was involved everybody's heart
was involved we felt that we had some
input in the world and we could change
the world a revolution going on and we
were all a part of it I think the people
were really fed up with that crowd by
the time we went into office I think
that uh during the Nixon administration
Patrick Buchanan was a speech writer for
the President and the Vice President
silent majority was what we call middle
America it looked upon these kids is
very privileged they were going to
college and then they were behaving like
that and the other kids were in Vietnam
doing their duty so as more a sense of
disgust and fed up this and while the
counterculture made him worship its rock
stars vice president Agnew gave middle
America at hero of its own
but AG news role was the pan out of the
Republican Party and the Tribune of the
silent the dragon and he played that
role extremely well the man who had been
a joke in 1968 at the end of 69 was the
third most admired man in America behind
the President and Billy Graham a spirit
of national masochism prevails
encouraged by an effete core of impudent
snobs who characterized themselves as
intellectuals Agnew speeches delivered
to enthusiastic audiences attacked
everything from professors students and
reporters to the counter cultures
favorite music and movies by the late
60s everything was politically a popular
recent movie I won't name it here
because I don't want to promote it as as
its heroes two men who are able to live
a carefree life off the proceeds of
illegal sales of drugs no sympathy is
wasted on the wrecked lives of the
people who bought their drugs are
financed our heroes easy ride
one of the big movies in this
superheated time became a metaphor for
the widening gap between the straight
and the hip gold and the young Easy
Rider oh yeah easy right in there we are
yeah well um Easy Rider yeah well where
do you want to start there that film was
so extraordinarily unlike anything that
had gone before its sense of really
growing out of a culture not even trying
to reflect the culture but just being
the culture what the hell is in trouble
making that had so much to say about the
society about the becoming a society of
two cultures along generational lines
and other kinds of minds why'd you get a
cut
that it was like getting hit in the gut
bye sis
my idea was basically the talked about
America talked about the problems and at
that time I felt that the country was
going to explode it was explained wasn't
going to it was explode and it was
really happy as the 60s came to a close
the violent and deadly backlash in Easy
Rider was an eerie foreshadowing of real
events to come
in cooperation with the Armed Forces of
South Vietnam attacks are being launched
this week to clean out major enemy
sanctuaries on the Cambodian Vietnam
border this is not an invasion of
Cambodia in may of nineteen seventy when
president nixon announced that american
troops were being sent into cambodia 350
college campuses erupted in violent
protest
and Nixon had been promising we're
getting out of it and all of a sudden
here comes this invasion of Cambodia
another country added to the list with
just a shock wave around the nation at
Kent State University in Ohio the ROTC
building was firebombed the governor
called in the National Guard
tonks and rocks were thrown
before it was over for college students
were shot and killed
representative country gone man American
troops shot down American students who
were taking classes that's the point we
had gotten to after the violence of kent
state polls found fifty-eight percent of
the respondents sided with the guardsmen
only eleven percent with the students
university campus include please return
to the dormitories and leave the campus
by the shorter the backlash of opinion
against campus demonstrators would only
grow following Kent State some 75
colleges were closed down for the rest
of the year the cause they said was
student unrest
four days after Kent State a massive
demonstration in lower Manhattan set off
legions of hard hats whose Ray's had
been building for years it was never
plan to explode but it did explode well
I was on Water Street and we all just
headed towards broadway and all you
could hear was just shouting and census
of let's get the bastards and let's
finish this once and for all
then there were some blood spilt
but it was all in anger all in vengeance
let's get them and a lot of people
including myself was was releasing the
hate and the feelings that you have of
course a lot of us felt the winners we
felt very proud we scattered the enemy
the part hats were heroes for a few days
praised by Wall Street workers when free
coffee by area luncheonette owners the
leaders of the construction unions were
invited to the White House where they
presented President Nixon with an
honorary hard hat and the hard hat
became a symbol for the so called silent
majority those who felt their way of
life was now under siege by the early
1970s it wasn't just a d Vietnam
protesters on the streets and on the
news anymore about a dizzying array of
other forces as well women Native
Americans Chicanos Puerto Ricans Black
Panthers gray Panthers the openly gay
Pink Panthers all these groups forged in
this era of so-called identity politics
were all militantly demanding their
rights the backlash against this
politics of protest was just about ready
to explode an event in September of 1971
hastened the eruption when 1500 prison
inmates rioted and demanded of air
rights the nation's anger and
frustration became focused on the Attica
Correctional Facility in upstate New
York
the inmates captured 50 hostages took
control of the prisons D yard and issued
what they call five non-negotiable
demands wait at home New York Times
reporter Tom wicker was one of the
outside observers the inmates called on
to help negotiate that non-negotiable
the Attica inmates revolted basically
against many internal prison conditions
but the rhetoric of the revolt was very
Marxist you know the oppressed peoples
of the world arise the entire incident
that has erupted here at adequate is a
result of an unmitigated oppression
brought by the races administrative
network of this prison as this tense
real-life drama unfolded families of the
hostages desperate for word on the
condition of their husbands or fathers
or brothers clustered around the prison
they saw Black Panther leader Bobby
Seale come to visit the inmates they
heard that North Vietnam offered the
rioters asylum Attica quickly became a
symbol for all of America's boiling
hatreds I went outside prison to report
on what was happening inside an oven
that can be these shouts from screen
from the ground I hope they kill you all
that sort of thing they identified us
observers with it with the inmates the
tensions mounted as neither side seemed
willing to make concessions and the
state ready to take the prison back by
force
on the morning of the revolts fourth day
prison officials did not let the
observers back into dr arm state
troopers were perched on the prison
walls
and certainly those scared young
troopers thought the inmates were gonna
kill the hostage so they came in scared
they came in shooting they came in
taking no chances good night that their
throat
the four-day standoff ended in nine
minutes of mayhem helicopters dropped CS
gas on D yard and state police marksmen
opened fire killing 29 inmates and ten
hostages
it's crazy didn't have to do that if the
state of just SAT there just SAT there
for two more weeks maybe three at the
outside where those guys have been given
up
what is it now twenty-odd years later I
can't get over that fitting that didn't
have to do it but they did
what happened at Attica was the largest
and deadliest attack on Americans by
other Americans since the Civil War and
in 1971 it often looked as though the
country was in the middle of another
Civil
I'm just like the love most of the guys
I was saying Vietnam I'm just gonna do
my time and get out of here if I can I'm
not here to win a war I'm just here to
do my time I rotate how sure that line
how much time do I have that's the
biggest concern of her
and can I make it the war was not gonna
be one it was just gonna be exited in
the best possible political manner
and it was about dougie Dogg and
surviving really a very brutal prison
like existence of survival inside that
really eats away that has a tremendous
negative effect on your spirit and your
your sense of Worth and your sense of
purpose and I was tired of all that
weary of it too many deaths in too much
pain to what suffering
you
by 1970 American troops left in Vietnam
felt the country was abandoning the war
and then the number of American ground
forces had been cut in half as part of
President Nixon's pledge to win peace
with honor as the pullout continued new
recruits overwhelmingly draftees felt
they were being asked to fight a war
already lost on the battlefield and
despised at home the enemy had no doubt
about its purpose it's only way out of
the war was victory or death unlike
American soldiers who came to Vietnam
and they came only for one GM them
around in Vietnam there was no drop
period like a one or two years so you
would go on to the end of the day to the
end of the war
you can do that
they were tough and it proved when the
trails were bombed they would carry all
of their gay Lonnie back then hump it
for days they were fighting for home
which is something I wasn't doing when
you're fighting for home you get down
as American ground forces were being cut
back air attacks were being stepped up
in an effort to pound concessions out of
the enemy
we had to rely on caves and tunnels and
underground bunkers to defend us because
the b-52 is a terrible I take if you see
half of the long bomb like it then we
know for sure that they would go to
another place but when you look up and
you see Rob on like this it means that
it's right on you
but continuous rounds of bombing and
hundreds of thousands of casualties did
little to deter an adversary
continuously resupplied by China and the
Soviet Union and able to recruit
seemingly endless numbers of people that
is truly a national mobilization in
their own people men and women young
children took part in the national
effort of war we saw an escalation of
the anti-war movement all over the world
and even in America we heard about the
killing of the student in can state and
everything the news from the anti-war
movement all over the world gave us
strength
Walt Kurtz tennessee for bryanstars in
America by the early 70s protesters
against the war included some of the men
who had fought in it once eager soldiers
who now felt lied to and betrayed I pray
the time will forgive me my breast what
we did I wasn't Washington where they
threw their medals I thought I'd try to
do one better and I set my campaign
ribbons to President Nixon i saw the
wars is completely unwinnable which made
it even worse even more criminal go on
fighting a war that you know you can't
and won't win struck me as his worse
than crema struck me is insanity as the
war dragged on into the tenth year of
american military involvement there was
still no end in sight vietnam had
already brought down one president and
was now threatening to bring down
another president nixon standing in the
polls dropped severely as the promise of
peace with honor proved elusive peace
talks in Paris with the North Vietnamese
were stalled over the concept of mutual
withdrawal and the release of American
prisoners of war secret negotiations
between National Security Advisor Henry
Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were not making
any progress but in February of 1972
another set of secret negotiations did
lead to one of the biggest diplomatic
kuz of the 20th century in one stunning
swoop the Cold War politics of the
post-war era changed America was
recognizing and dealing with the
Communists Nixon was the great
anti-communist and to come on national
television and announce that I've been
invited to China and I've accepted with
pleasure it was astonishing and you
could tell by the reaction of the press
White House aide Patrick Buchanan was on
the trip the president called the week
that changed the world
we have at times in the past than
enemies we have great differences today
he went to Beijing frankly because he
was trying to work the foreign policy
game to get the United States out
Vietnam with nixon's aim was to have the
Chinese pressure their North Vietnamese
allies to come to terms at the peace
table and just four months after China
richard nixon became the first American
president to visit Moscow where he and
landed Brezhnev signed the first
strategic arms limitation treaty
president got something else as well he
wanted Mao and Joanne lion Beijing to
have sleepless nights wondering what's
Nixon talking to Brezhnev about over
there in moscow tonight and he was a
genius at this and putting those
tensions on would had the effect of
blocking soviet or chinese getting
together to present a united front
against the United States and Vietnam
Nixon had taken a calculated chance and
it had worked the Soviet Union cared
more about getting controls on American
offensive missiles and preventing the
Americans from broadening and thickening
an anti-ballistic missile system and
they did about their little allies in
North Vietnam who were getting the
living hell bombed out of them and there
was a sense of being betrayed sold up
you know at that time by the by the
superpowers
no longer able to depend on their
powerful allies the North Vietnamese
appeared ready to make concessions at
the peace talks in October of 1972 there
was an announcement from the National
Security Advisor we believe that peace
is at hand a month later President Nixon
now seen as a seasoned world statesman
was reelected in a landslide
but by December peace was still not at
hand the North Vietnamese had left the
negotiations and President Nixon ordered
the bombing of Hanoi and the port of
Haiphong to force them back for 11 days
American b-52 s pounded Hanoi with
40,000 tons of bombs
a noi was in roubles the railroads
bridges were all down they had selected
targets obviously and the u.s. knew
where we work and the only thing that
happened in poww camp was a piece of
plaster fell down and it hit one of the
POWs in the head and cut his head that's
the only the only injury throughout that
whole bombing Bob Jones was in Hanoi
during the Christmas bombings he was one
of five hundred American prisoners of
war held in a prison they called the
Hanoi Hilton there was a loudspeaker
every morning and every afternoon we had
an English broadcast the prisoners of
war whose release had become a crucial
part of the peace negotiations were
scolded about the bombings by their
captors and Hanoi Hannah said how can
the United States continue with their
bellicose and obdurate policies bombing
and strafing innocent women and children
churches hospitals how can they do all
that after they've placed a plaque on
the moon saying we come in peace for all
mankind and everyone said on the moon
and that was the first we knew about our
moon landing and there were cheers all
the way through the camp
after that we'd point the guards that
guards would come up when we'd go we
point to the moon you know and say us us
for some prisoners of war it was their
seventh Christmas in captivity at the
end of 1972 there was still no guarantee
they never get home
the end of America's longest war was met
with no celebration in Times Square no
honking of horns on Main Street USA the
day the peace agreement in Vietnam was
signed went by like any other people
were prospering economy was booming and
most of people didn't give a damn about
Vietnam whatever they say now they
really didn't I was very despairing
they're very rough years coming back
from their war from most vets I didn't
feel like I fit or something I wouldn't
same person mr. soon and I feel like a
civilian it's hard to explain I was very
uncomfortable coming home very
uncomfortable
I'm on a civilian plane i'm flying from
Los Angeles to newark non-stop and
gentlemen sat down he was in a
three-piece suit he had a briefcase and
he kind of flipped down his tray and he
was going through his briefcase and we
made small talk before we took off you
know rain I go up and see that were you
coming from untold Vietnam and as soon
as the sign came on then you were free
to move around the cabin he pushed the
button for the stewardess she came and
he looked up at her and she said can I
help you and he said yes I need another
seat on this airplane as far away from
this gentleman as I can get
returning vets often felt they
represented a war that Americans wanted
to forget but if there was one moment
that felt like a victory it was the
return of the American POWs so we
thought well you know maybe you get your
name in the paper but nothing like that
it was people everywhere we went that
didn't know us we didn't know them
outpourings of motion and feelings tears
it was just overwhelming really was
President Nixon invited us to the white
house for a party at dinner and
everything though many believe we never
could win I choice his word grim but you
had faith in there was a lot of
celebrities and I remembered John Wayne
was there so we're walking around
talking with with the Duke you know was
pretty pretty cool the bet we have now
right off into the sunset with you
anytime
I was it was a grand time is fun
it was the next pleasant EMP hit ended
the war with honor the POWs were were
there at the White House and mixer was
at seventy percent is really the apex I
think of the Nixon administration
and then a month of course the Watergate
thing ruptured and broke
the crisis in Vietnam would soon be
replaced by a new crisis at home a
growing scandal stemming from a break-in
of the Democratic National Committee
headquarters in the office complex known
as Watergate hearings on Watergate drag
one White House aide after another in
front of Congress to answer questions
about systematic wrongdoing in the
highest office in the land Watergate was
certainly a fascinating spectacle
suddenly all the bad things the left had
been saying throughout the Vietnam
protest seemed to be proven true in
spades just about a field will you stand
the televisor he's drew in an enormous
audience you swam the ambulance that you
should give this was the first time the
American people had ever heard that the
president I today's did things like that
but I guarantee he knew what the private
saucers had done it didn't all start
with Watergate it was ample precedent
for everything that Nixon did next thing
I caught there was one outrageous charge
after another break-ins spying on
anti-war activists punishing political
enemies and all of the millions of words
of testimony there is not the slightest
suggestion that I had any knowledge of
the planning for the Watergate break-in
congressional committees and their
battery of lawyers were bringing the
charges closer to the Oval Office one of
the president's lawyers at the time was
Leonard garment business the show of the
week month year decade for young lawyers
hello young lawyers wherever you are and
they were drawn by the excitement of the
the pursuit of this the great white
whale all these a Habs
there was a constant pursuit by Congress
and the press it sometimes seemed the
administration was coming unpinned it
looked that way in New Orleans when
President Nixon shoved press secretary
Ron Ziegler toward a horde of reporters
and Nixon was trying every which way how
can he save his presidency how could he
pin it on somebody else how could he
rationalize what happened the Nixon
White House was in least from the
external and even from the journalist
pond views in real shambles they were
paralyzed I mean that it could do
nothing but defend against Watergate and
in the middle of all that the country
was subjected to further signs of
collapse I will not resign if indicted I
will not resign if any in October of
1973 vice president Agnew the
administration's top spokesman for law
and order did resign after he was
charged with extortion bribery and tax
evasion in a separate scandal all his
own ladies and gentlemen the President
of the United States but even as his
allies were falling around him the
president was determined to finish his
watch
I welcome this kind of examination
because people have got to know whether
or not their presidents a crook well I'm
not a crook I've earned everything I've
got imagine a predator in the United
States in a news conference on to
national television safe I am NOT a
crook you know you never even before he
had ever conceived that a president
might be a crook it just all began to
mount up and ultimately it was a
collapsing good evening this is the 37th
time I have spoken to you from this
office where so many decision it was all
to me overwhelming even for the toughest
of battle-scarred politicians i shall
resign the presidency effective at noon
tomorrow he could never take the
presidency quite as seriously again it
may be was purgative it kind of ended
ended that particular unhappy decade to
have Nixon resign and they'd rather
blank but the nine figure of Jerry Ford
take over
his resignation was a relief
yeah casting off of an old snakeskin
moving forward
in april of nineteen seventy five two
years after an American combat troops
and left Vietnam North Vietnamese forces
reach the outskirts of Saigon the South
Vietnamese capital an ally the United
States had supported with men and
material for nearly two decades was
about to fall to the Communists it's
almost like we were never there now and
that's the tragedy of it I think
on April the 29th there were still more
than a thousand American personnel of
the city they and 6,000 desperate South
Vietnamese were helicoptered out as the
last remnants of American power fled
Saigon
Metron Phil Caputo had returned to
Vietnam as a reporter North Vietnamese
were shelling town sanu near base
I remember some of those shells landing
closed about the building was just
trembling and somebody said go go go and
I remember running out and just leaping
in this big ch-53 helicopter huge
must have been 60 70 maybe 80 Vietnamese
refugees and a few American news men
handful of people from the embassy and
in the helicopter check off
remember just looking down and just
seeing this this brown and green country
and then we cross the coast the site
i'll never forget the 7th fleet can
muster it out there then we're gonna
take refugees out eyes looked at all of
this might and i said we got whipped by
a bunch of peasant gorillas in the earth
on the next day victorious North
Vietnamese troops rolled into Saigon ten
o'clock in the morning the radio
announced that you know the South
Vietnamese at surrender and and that was
it you know we hop one another and cried
for me it's a long many long years and
now we see the final day
I felt in a whole range range of
emotions I mean I felt sad I felt
grateful I felt relieved that it was
over maybe they were the one emotion I
didn't feel was any sense of happiness
or or joy I felt a sense of loss like it
stays with you forever be and I will be
there until the day I joined the so I
joined the friends of mine who died
before me I think they won't ever go
away
for America the fall of Vietnam would
symbolize the end of an era the post-war
era of confidence unity and optimism
America had found that there were some
burdens too great to bear and some
prices too steep to pay
the fall of Vietnam was the nadir of a
humiliating episode in American history
the desire to begin again to recover
some sense of national purpose would
drive American life through the
remaining years of the 1970s that's on
the next episode of the century
America's time and we hope you'll join
us I'm Peter Jennings