The Century: America's Time - 1965-1970 Unpinned

The Century: America's Time
Episode 11 - 1965-1970: Unpinned

Riots and protests intensified in the U.S. as the war in Vietnam dragged on, with anti-war and civil rights activists seeking violent ways to agitate for peace and equality. This program presents the unrelenting rage that divided the nation during those perilous years, as the Watts race riots, the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the Kent State killing made Headline news.

(Intro music)

(excerpt from speeches)

Seig Heil! Seig Heil! Ask not what your country can do for you.

One small step for man. We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal.

Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

(sound effects)

(music)

As world fairs have in the past, the fair in 1964

provided a timely glimpse of the planet's current realities and future expectations.

The New York Times described it as a glittering mirror of our national opulence.

It seemed to portend a future where the biggest worry for average Americans

would be how to spend their leisure time.

"I just took it for granted that I would always have a roof

over my head and enough to eat. The thought that I'd have

to worry about where my next meal was coming from.

These thoughts just didn't occur to me. But, course

part of the reason we can think that way is that we took prosperity more or less for granted."

In his speech at the world's fair President Lyndon Johnson touted a world of prosperity.

"But that people, people they shall have the best. All of these dreams."

(People shouting) Only to find himself interrupted in mid speech by demonstraters

who felt themselves froze out of the world. (chanting)

Despite a lengthy struggle, millions of black Americans still

did not share in the nation's prosperity or enjoy the full rights of their citizenship.

In 1964 many expected that such inequities would soon be addressed.

"We thought that essentially the material problems of the world had been solved.

And that the important thing now was to solve the moral problems."

"It was a society that had to be changed. And it was not

going to be changed unless some people decided that

they would dedicate their lives to changing it. It was not going to change spontaneously."

The World's Fair that year was held in Flushing Meadows, New York.

It was supposed to promote the culture and customs of people everywhere.

In keeping with it's theme of peace through understanding.

But it would not be long before Americans would be driven

apart by societal disagreements within their own borders.

And a terrible costly war on the other side of the globe.

The country was not about to experience much of either peace or understanding.

(singing We Shall Overcome.)

In the mid 1960's the determination to challenge traditional

boundaries seemed to be growing in almost every arena.

Perhaps most striking was a broadening struggle for civil rights.

A struggle that many whites now joined in large numbers.

In the summer of 1964 hundreds of college students, white and black,

headed south to Mississippi, where many blacks were still

mired in a Jim Crow world of poverty and political impotence.

These students from the north hoped to register black voters

and establish so called Freedom Schools to teach literacy

skills to those who'd been denied them.

They were traveling into a world where many people were set in their ways.

President Lyndon Johnson warned the students that the

federal government could not guarantee their safety.

"They received a lot of training in order to prepare them for

life in Mississippi, which was not going to be very easy, it wasn't easy for us.

And we tried to make that very clear to people.

I mean our lives are, you know, in iminent danger every minute of the day."

"When we crossed the line into Mississippi and it said Mississippi welcomes you.

It was the first time I felt really afraid."

In the first group to arrive in Mississippi were students

Andrew Goodman, Michael Shwerner,and James Chainey.

Within days all three of them were missing. (music)

"Bob Moses, who was the head of the Mississippi Summer Project,

brought the group together. Told us that they were missing and it was clear

to all of us that it was extremely likely that they were dead."

(Police announcement)Six weeks after their disappearance

the three were discovered buried in a earthen dam, shot in the head.

(unclear talking)In that summer of 1964 the Ku Klux Klan was still trying

to stop the forces of change. But among the students

and in the homes and churches of the black community the

feeling grew stronger that change could not be prevented.

(music)"We went up to the home of a very poor black woman.

A sharecropper shack. She had a bunch of kids. She came

to the door. She looked at her feet. She said, "Yes'm, No'm"

to everything we said. And we tried to persuade her to sign this.

And it was very clear if she signed it she might get thrown out of her home.

After a few minutes of talking she suddenly straightened up,

looked us in the eyes, and said, "I'll sign it."

And she signed it. That's how powerful the movement was."

(crowd chatter)And the movement expanded to other

causes at the end of the so called Freedom Summer.

"The first amendment didn't apply to any campuses in the country.

You, you couldn't give a speech without getting it cleared by the administration."

When Freedom Summer veterans at the University of California, at Berkley

tried to recruit others to their cause, they were barred

by University regents. (Singing)

"It just set off this explosion among the students. And people

who had never had a political thought in their head just got

fired by the idea that someone couldn't tell them when

and where to say what they wanted to say."

"If we don't stand up for your freedom now your dead.(?)"

United by what they saw as an injustice, thousands of

students began a series of protests that lasted eight weeks.

When college officials threatened to expel several of the student leaders

the conflict reached a boiling point.

"In the time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,

makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part.

You can't even passively take part."

"You have to put your body on the wheels and, um, we're

going to go in there and we're gonna take over this building.

And so then the crowd began to move, I just went with it."

"First floor is filled. Second floor is filled."

"Some people looked a little scared because they had never

done anything like that before. I was scared."

(chanting) "I think we're (something). We got pissed off and we're sick and tired."

When the student takeover of the campus building resulted in more than 800 arrests

the University faculty finally weighed in on the side of the demonstrators.

Cornered as they were the regents granted free speech to the students.

And thus began an era of confrontation at American universities.

In late 1964 another fight was looming for Americans.

This one thousands of miles from home and with far more devastating consequences.

For several years American advisers had been sent to

South Vietnam to help prevent what the administration said

was a takeover by the communist North. Things were not going well in the South.

President Lyndon Johnson decided to dramatically increase

the US military commitment to Vietnam. And just as they had

throughout history young Americans answered the call to arms.

"I didn't want to see my son go again. They promised nothing was going to happen

to him, you know. And, uh, that it was going to be over very shortly.

And he would be home before I, before I knew it."

"You grew up watching those John Wayne movies where

the good guys always win. I was being John Wayne.

I was gonna go and I was gonna beat them. And nothing could hurt me."

(engine noise) Like many other young men in 1965 Jack Bronson

knew very little about war, except that America didn't lose them.

This one looked, at first, to be no exception.

The United States, which had defeated Nazi Germany and

Imperial Japan and held back the communist Chinese in Korea,

now faced a third world army of North Vietnamese soldiers

and South Vietnamese Viet Cong guerillas.

(helicopter noise) American commanders confidently predicted

a swift and positive conclusion.

"I was excited about going to war. The whole battalion

was excited about going to war. We were, uh, we were gung ho."

(Helicopter noise)

With a 125,000 fresh troops and armada of helicopters

ranging all over South Vietnam American generals were spoiling for a good fight.

They were about to get one.

On November the 15th 1965 Lt. Larry Gwin's unit was

helicoptered to a valley in central Vietnam near the Cambodian border.

They had gone to intersect the North Vietnamese supply routes

to the south. North Vietnamese soldiers watched them arrive.

"It was my first real hot landing zone. (Shots fired)

And it was so hot that I had exited my ship, knelt in the grass

for about 10 seconds, and a guy pops up next to me whom I knew

who had just been shot through the shoulder and

said, "I'm hit Lt." (boom)

A major battle with the enemy was just what the military

brass had been hoping for. Only it was not going according to plan.

At ten in the morning Lt. Gwin was fighting for his life.

"Our first platoon was overrun. Our second platoon was

pinned down by mortar fire. I saw about 40 North Vietnamese

soldiers coming across the landing zone at us. And all I did

was say, "Here they come. And start shooting at 'em."

1:00pm the American commander sent out an emergency

signal, Broken Arrow. US troops in danger of being overrun.

(radio communication) Every available aircraft was called

in against the North Vietnamese positions.

(airplane noise) (explosions)

Including the giant B-52 bombers.

"The B-52 is, uh, terrible. Terrible in many way.

Because firstly, there was no way you can fight back.

You can't run. There's no time for you to run.

We just lay there. Waited for the death to come and grip you.

(explosions)(radio communication)

And thousands of men died in those desperate hours.

By the time the battle was over 35 hundred North Vietnamese

and 305 Americans had been killed. It was obvious to the

men in the field what lay ahead.

(music)

Preoccupied as he was with the growing war in Vietnam

President Johnson knew that he had to address problems at home.

Despite America's prosperity, 40 million citizens still lived below the poverty line.

"This administration today, here and now, declares

unconditional war on poverty in America."

In May 1964 the President unveiled the grand plan for

what he called the Great Society. Mr. Johnson hoped to

match the power and vitality of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

With a list of welfare, job, and educational opportunities to