The Century: America's Time - 1971-1975: Approaching the Apocalypse

Part twelve of a 15-part series of documentaries produced by the American Broadcasting Company on the 20th century and the rise of the United States as a superpower.

The turbulence of the 1960s paved the way for the election of Richard Nixon. Distraught at the violence and unrest of the nation, Nixon's "Silent Majority" voted loudly. But the turmoil of the decade continued with riots and generational conflicts, and, despite the success of Apollo 11 and Nixon's historic trip to China, the era ended in the disgrace of Watergate and the fall of Saigon.

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