Television's Vietnam: The Real Story (1984)

Catholic American Thinker ^ | Vic Biorseth

[otness_e]

Vietnam War Topical information:

VHS Video tape: Television's Vietnam, narrated by Charlton Heston, Sony Vietnam Video Collection, produced by Accuracy In Media.

Note: PBS was legally forced to show this, but only once, as a response to their own completely false representation of the war history. Their response to my inquiry was quite negative, deceptive and misleading. I got my copy, years ago, from an 800 number for the AIM organization, but do not see it on their current website. Amazon no longer carries it, and I can't find it anywhere. It shows how the Mainstream Media, with Cronkite in the lead, not only politically Spun the news they reported, but outright lied - big, wide and continuous - throughout the entire Vietnam War, for the apparent purpose of lowering Democracy in the eyes of the public while helping the International Communist cause. It shows them lying, in their own footage. I wonder if I have the last copy in existence. Please let me know if you find a source for one.

Update Sun Sep 03 2017 (See Comments for that date):

Television's Vietnam, Part I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsYwdCoOIEI ).

Television's Vietnam, Part II (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaECqmMYtxM ).

[dfwgator]

I would still put Woodrow Wilson ahead of LBJ and even Obama in that department.

[dfwgator]

Also, Ho Chi Minh was ALWAYS a Communist, and in fact was a COMINTERN agent and even a founding member of the French Communist Party back during the 1920s, even attended Stalin’s funeral (and that was BEFORE Stalin got outed in that Secret Speech by Khrushchev). And yes, the North Vietnamese were Communists as well even during that time.

I get so tired of those who said that Ho looked up to George Washington and based his fight on our War of Independence. He was a Moscow Lackey through and through.

[otness_e]

I've got sources regarding the whole Duc/buddhist bit, as well. I'll even quote them.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Vietnam, page 46-52.

"Flaming Buddhists

"One of the enduring images of the Vietnam war is of an elderly Buddhist monk who set himself aflame in protest against the Diem government in 1963. The "burning monk" (Thich Quang Duc) became the symbol of a government allegedly unworthy of American support.

"Long before the "barbeque" of Thich Quang Duc, as Madame Nhu (the "evil brother's" wife) callously and foolishly called it (adding fuel to the fire, so to speak), Diem had been plagued by trouble with the Buddhists. It wasn't that Diem was anti-Buddhist. He certainly wasn't. Diem's vice president was a Buddhists (who told a group of foreign diplomats that the regime should "crush the Buddhist movement [against Diem] without pity."[13]), as was his Minister of Foreign Affairs. His eighteen member cabinet consisted of five Catholics, five Confucians, and eight Buddhists. Of the thirty-five province chiefs, twelve were Catholic and twenty-six were either Buddhists or Confucians. Some of his leading generals were Buddhist as well.

"So while Diem was not anti-Buddhist, the radicalized Buddhists of Saigon and Hue were certainly anti-Diem. Less often reported, but well-documented, is that these anti-Diem Buddhists were heavily penetrated by the Communists. Thich Tri Quang, the most prominent of the radical Buddhist leaders, was never proven to be a Communist himself, though he was born in the north, had served with the Viet Minh, and had a brother who was a senior official in Hanoi's Ministry of the Interior. What has been proven is that the Communists infiltrated the Buddhist movement, as well as groups who supported the radical Buddhists. If nothing else, the Communists and the radical Buddhists shared a few common goals: they wanted the Americans gone (because the Buddhists thought the departure of the big, hairy foreigners would "give peace a chance"), and they wanted Diem gone.[14]

"The Buddhists objected to Diem because they saw him as an obstacle to peace (even though the "peace" that came from the Communists meant religious persecution from the Buddhists), but also because of parochial issues: they believed that his administration was anti-Buddhist. It is true that the South Vietnamese government was top-heavy with Catholic appointees in relation to their percentage of the population. But this had more to do with the preference the French colonists had shown for the Catholic population than with any prejudice on Diem's part. Catholic Vietnamese were, in general, the best educated segment of the population and the segment with the most experience in government.

"Moreover, contrary to the impression left by many journalists, South Vietnam was not strictly a "Buddhist" country. In a country of fifteen to sixteen million people, probably no more than three or four million considered Buddhism their religion. Another four million were Confucians. One and a half million were Catholic. The rest of the country belonged to such exotic sects as the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, or were animists, Taoists, Protestant Christians, Hindus, or Muslims. A strong and visible concentration of Buddhists in Saigon gave rise to the impression that South Vietnam was strongly or solely Buddhist. No more than a handful of Buddhist temples out of thousands saw demonstrations against the South Vietnamese government.

"The flashpoint, so to speak, in the radical Buddhist versus Diem conflict came in May 1963, when thousands of Buddhists gathered in Hue to celebrate the 2,527th birthday of Buddha. The week before, during the Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc's (Diem's brother) twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination, the celebrants flew papal flags. For the Buddhists' celebration, however, the deputy province chief, a Catholic, tried to enforce an old decree prohibiting religious flags from being publicly displayed. Legally, only the national flag of South Vietnam could be flown from any church, pagoda, or other place of religious worship. In Vietnam, flags were enormously potent symbols, rousing even stronger feeling (much) than the stars and stripes do for ardent American patriots, which is why their use was circumscribed by government edict.

"But in this case, of course, the 1958 law on flag-flying appeared to have been applied inconsistently (though the province chief's defenders argued that he had reasserted the law because it had been violated during the Catholic celebrations), and the already aggrieved Buddhists now felt even more so. Protests and Buddhist flag-waving erupted in Hue, followed by what might be described as a riot. In the confusion of trying to break up the protestors, shots were fired and nine protestors were killed. The actual details of the incident are contested: the Buddhists said they were fired upon in cold blood; the government argued that its troops had first used fire hoses, then blanks, then shots in the air to disperse the crowed, and only opened fire after a VC agitator set off an explosion (or fired off the first shots).

"What is not contested is that two days after the incident, the provincial chief publicly apologized to the Buddhists, thousands of whom had gathered to protest the shooting, expressed sorrow for those who were killed, and promised that the government would provide compensation to their families. The American consul in Hue, seeing the event, cabled the embassy, "Believe crisis nearing end."

"Never to be mollified, Thich Tri Quang and other militant Buddhist leaders demanded punishment of the officials involved in the incident, removal of all restrictions on the display of flags, and a prohibition against the arrest of Buddhists involved in protests. The Buddhist militants didn't wexpect or want reconciliation. They wanted Diem gone and believed they could wage a propaganda war to that end.

"The government issued a communiqué in late May that reaffirmed constitutional protections of religious freedom and firmly forswore discrimination. It had no effect. Throughout the summer protests continued. Some were peaceful; some were broken up with tear gas, clubs, and arrests. The government replaced its top officials in Hue in early June, but that also failed to pacify the angry Buddhists.

"On June 11, 1963, Diem's battle with the militant Buddhists escalated out of control. Near the Xa Lao pagoda in Saigon, a sedan stopped and an elderly monk and two younger monks got out. The older monk seated himself on a pillow in the street while his associates doused him with gasoline. The monk, Quang Duc, calmly struck a match and set himself on fire. With loud speakers in hand, activist monks told the gathered crowd, in English and Vietnamese, that Quang Duc was dying to protest Diem's treatment of the Buddhists and refusal to meet their demands.

"Diem did reach a tentative agreement with some of the Buddhist leaders: in return for ceasing all demonstrations, the government would remove all uniformed government personnel from Buddhist pagodas, agree to let Buddhists fly religious flags outside their pagodas on holidays, and punish officials who interfered with Buddhist religious activities. But no press release of the ctual agreement between Diem and the Buddhists (announced in a communiqué released June 16) could possibly approach the impact of the photos of the burning monk, taken by Malcolm Brown and published around the world, often with this caption: "This Buddhist priest, the Reverend Quang Duc, has just set himself on fire. He dies to protest South Viethnam's religious persecution of Buddhists (70% of the population)." It was brilliant propaganda. For many Americans, their first introduction to our involvement in Vietnam began with the question, "what kind of people are we supporting over thing? How bad must a government be if people burn themselves to death in the street?" Quick to answer were correspondents like David Halberstam, who loathed Diem and wrote pieces vilifying his regime. Halberstam's idealistic view of how Diem should govern, and his obvious disdain for foreign journalists (who he sometimes felt were the cause of his problems with the United States) prejudiced him to the point that even President Kennedy lodged a mild rebuke with the New York Times at one point.

"In his struggle against the militant Buddhists, Diem had a dubious ally in the person of his brother and chief political advisor, Ngo Dinh Nhu. While Diem alternated between being dismissive of Buddhist complaints--saying they were demanding rights they already had--and trying to appease his opponents, Nhu and his wife took a harder line--and one that made for good copy. Madame Nhu's comments about the "barbequing" and "let them burn and we shall clap our hands," and her husband's addition that he would gladly supply the gasoline for more such barbecues, received greater press coverage and attention than Diem's attempts to settle the disputes.

"Meanwhile, militant Buddhist mobs continued to forment dissent against Diem. They threw rocks at the police, knowing the reaction would be swift and newsworthy. More monks lit themselves up in towns where there had not been any repression by the government. On August 18, some 20,000 protestors massed around the Xa Loi pagoda, the largest in Saigon, with militant monks calling for the overthrow of Diem's government. Diem declined to have the mob broken up, showing the restraint he had promised to American Ambassador Frederick Noting (who had not yet been replaced by Henry Cabot Lodge). But it bought him little credit with his American critics, and it prompted many in South Vietnam's government, among them his brother Nhu, to think Diem was too soft.

"On August 21, 1963, under cover of darkness, Vietnamese police and Special Forces, answering to Nhu, launched a series of raids against Buddhist pagodas, making hundreds of arrests and injuring thousands. Nhu struck during the interval when American ambassador Frederick Noting was making way for Henry Cabot Lodge. Nolting had told Lodge that Diem had agreed to do everythinghe could to pacify the Buddhists. Nolting felt betrayed and foolish, given Nhu's crackdown, and Lodge came to Saigon considering Diem a liar. In his first report from South Vietnam, Lodge passed along comments from Vietnamese generals and government officials calling for Nhu's removal from Diem's government."

Sources

13. Mark Moyar, Triumph Forsaken

14. Ibid.

[otness_e]

Yeah, agreed, and even if Ho DID in fact “base” his code on the Declaration of Independence (which the term “plagiarized” would be more of a fit), 1., that would make him more of a Thomas Jefferson fan, and 2., considering Jefferson sang praises for the Jacobins and similar French Revolutionary groups, and even personally helped draft their infamous “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”, and did so even after getting a first-hand look at the results of Bastille Day when the Parisian mobs were literally returning parading body parts of their kills as trophies, that speaks more of an indictment against Thomas Jefferson than any promotion of Ho Chi Minh at all (let’s also not forget that Washington disowned Jefferson after a while, the latter even denouncing Washington as being “an apostate of Liberty.”). And quite frankly, I also have a similar negative reaction when people, explicitly or implicitly, treat Che Guevara as the George Washington of the Cuban Revolution.

[otness_e]

Eh, I’m mixed with Woodrow Wilson surpassing Obama. As bad as Wilson was, even he at least was thoroughly against Communism, while Obama is firmly FOR communism, and doesn’t even TRY to hide it.

[dfwgator]

But without Wilson, I would dare say there never would have been an Obama.

[tired&retired]

Dime’s brother was the Catholic Bishop for Vietnam.

It was not a Buddhist movement.

All of Vietnam had been Buddhist for many centuries and the Diems were imposing French Catholic religion on them at gunpoint. It was a Catholic crusade war.

Only the cities had been partially converted. This was a religious war and is the reason all the rural Buddhist vietnamese supported North Vietnam.

The Catholic Church in Vietnam had declared war on it’s own people. Kennedy realized this after June 11, 1963.

[tired&retired]

The author of the book is a biased CIA agent spewing the CIA’s propaganda.

I ordered the book to check the sources as I always try to read both sides.

His statement that the USA win the war is absolute hogwash.

Last I checked, all of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is now communist!

[dfwgator]

The Catholic Church in Vietnam had declared war on it’s own people. Kennedy realized this after June 11, 1963.

That was the number one reason the South lost the war. We didn't lose the Vietnam War, the South did, and precisely for that reason.

[dfwgator]

By that I mean to say, the South Vietnamese Catholics lost the war, because they ignored the Buddhist majority, and gave them no reason to support them over the North.

[tired&retired]

SNIE 53-2-63, “The Situation in South Vietnam, 10 July 1963

Source: The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2, pp. 729-733

SNIE 53-2-63
10 July 63

THE SITUATION IN SOUTH VIETNAM

Thus far, the Buddhist issue has not been effectively exploited by the Communists, nor does it appear to have had any appreciable effect on the counterinsurgency effort. We do not think Diem is likely to be overthrown by a Communist coup. Nor do we think the Communists would necessarily profit if he were overthrown by some combination of his non-Communist opponents. A non-Communist successor regime might be initially less effective against the Viet Cong, but, given continued support from the US, could provide reasonably effective leadership for the government and the war.

[tired&retired]

Please read and try to refute this narrative in Wiki. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_crisis Shortly after midnight on August 21, on the instructions of Nhu, troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under Colonel Lê Quang Tung executed a series of synchronized attacks on the Buddhist pagodas in South Vietnam. Over 1400 Buddhists were arrested. The number killed or "disappeared" is estimated to be in the hundreds. The most prominent of the pagodas raided was that of Xá Lợi, which had become the rallying point for Buddhists from the countryside. The troops vandalized the main altar and managed to confiscate the intact charred heart of Thích Quảng Đức, the monk who had self-immolated in protest against the policies of the regime. The Buddhists managed to escape with a receptacle holding the remainder of his ashes. Two monks jumped the back wall of the pagoda into the grounds of the adjoining US Aid Mission, where they were given asylum. Thich Tinh Khiet, the 80-year-old Buddhist patriarch, was seized and taken to a military hospital on the outskirts of Saigon.[36] The commander of the III Corps of the ARVN, Tôn Thất Đính soon announced military control over Saigon, canceling all commercial flights into the city and instituting press censorship.[37] Once the US government realized the truth about who was behind the raids, they reacted with disapproval towards the Diệm regime. The Americans had pursued a policy of quietly and privately advising the Ngos to reconcile with the Buddhists while publicly supporting the alliance, but following the attacks, this route was regarded as untenable. Furthermore, the attacks were carried out by American-trained Special Forces personnel funded by the CIA, and presented incoming Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., with a fait accompli.[38][39] The State Department issued a statement declaring that the raids were a "direct violation" of the promise to pursue "a policy of reconciliation".[36][40] Main article: Cable 243 On August 24, the Kennedy administration sent Cable 243 to Lodge at the embassy in Saigon, marking a change in American policy. The message advised Lodge to seek the removal of Nhu from power, and to look for alternative leadership options if Diem refused to heed American pressure for reform. As the probability of Diệm's sidelining Nhu and his wife was seen as virtually nil, the message effectively meant the fomenting of a coup.[41][42][43] The Voice of America also broadcast a statement blaming Nhu for the raids and absolving the army of responsibility.[44]

[tired&retired]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_crisis

[tired&retired]

Bottom line

Even though JFK was Catholic, he recognized the persecution of the Buddhists was wrong.

JFK changed his position against the Deep State (CIA). He was already angry at the CIA and fired the director Dulles after the Bsy of Pigs fiasco. He made a statement the he would smash the CIA into a million pieces so events like this could never happen again.

JFK realized his mistakes and issued orders to withdraw troops from Vietnam. He was furious over the assassination of Diem and his brother.

The CIA needed Kennedy dead. And it happened just 20 days after Diem was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

Johnson escalated the was to please the CIA and win the 1964 election against Goldwater.

[otness_e]

Actually, the US DID win the war, and there’s at least one other source that makes clear we did, which is that Prager University thing I linked earlier. There’s also the book “This Time We Win.”

Also, the reason why Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are now communist is because the anti-war left, taking advantage of Watergate, took advantage of the supermajority they got and deliberately sabotaged our part of the peace treaty signing at Paris (which we had helmed in the first place, making our victor status EXTREMELY obvious, since losers don’t helm the peace treaty signings, the winners do that), which was to make sure the South Vietnamese were well armed. To put it another way, we never lost Vietnam. Our victory was literally stolen from us by sore losers among the anti-war left.

Also, while it IS true that Buddhists had more congregants than Catholics, they’re actually tied with the Confucianists at most in terms of overall religious population, and at a bare minimum are actually one million less than the Confucianists. They’re not an actual majority (and it’s not even close to 70% of the population despite the reporter’s claims. At most, it’s more like 25%. Sure, still more than the 6% that Catholics are composed of, but nowhere near an actual majority (which I define as being over 50%, bare minimum), barely breaking even with Confucianists.).

One last thing, the CIA had little involvement in Diem’s assassination, and in fact was most likely not even sanctioned by them (of the people who literally didn’t get the memo and reviewed it before it occurred, John McCone, the CIA director at the time, was among those, alongside Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Likewise, Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor did get a very brief summary of the cable during lunch at a restaurant, but not much else to go by, and Kennedy’s did give approval via cable, albeit under the explicit condition that they notify Rusk and Namara beforehand, something which they obviously didn’t do. Needless to say, all four of them were downright furious). And just as an FYI, if ANYONE was responsible for Diem’s assassination, it was Halbersham, with even Kennedy condemning him and explicitly comparing him to the guys who got Fidel Castro into power.

[otness_e]

And another thing, you ARE aware that the whole “CIA being responsible for JFK’s assassination” was actually Soviet disinformation, right? Yeah, that was actually made as a result of a KGB disinformation campaign called Operation Dragon, which went into effect literally a DAY after JFK’s assassination. Ion Mihai Pacepa actually goes into full detail about that whole operation, which his boss had some involvement in, as did him to a certain degree. Just read up on his book “Disinformation”. He goes into full detail about that bit, and various other KGB disinformation campaigns (and he’d know, he also played a role in Operation Ares [which was the disinformation campaign relating to the anti-war movement regarding the Vietnam War] and Operation Che [you don’t need two guesses as to what, or rather, who that referred to].).

Besides, why would the CIA want JFK dead for withdrawing from Vietnam when both he and McCone (the boss of the CIA at the time) never approved of Diem’s assassination in the first place (well, approved as in signed off on it with full knowledge and a definite order, as Kennedy specifically stated he intended to make sure McNamara and Rusk were notified BEFORE the op was cleared, and even kicked himself over having approved it on a Saturday.).

[otness_e]

Correction, all FIVE of them were furious. Kennedy included.

[otness_e]

Not to mention, if assassination was how they would get rid of presidents they didn’t favor, they would have gotten rid of Trump via that method rather than just try to do a [poorly planned] smear campaign against him. So no, they obviously weren’t responsible for JFK’s assassination even if they DID hate him (and they’d have more reason for hating JFK regarding Bay of Pigs than Diem’s assassination because that time, JFK DID in fact order to cancel air support due to chickening out). If anything, they’d just leak dirty stuff about him to the press, including the fact that he slept with an East German Spy within the White House, and get him impeached.

In fact, if anyone was responsible for his assassination, it was the Soviets, or at least the Cubans (Markus Wolfe, Oscar Marino, Ion Mihai Pacepa, and others from within the Soviet Bloc gave pretty dang convincing arguments for how those two parties were responsible, and is even backed up by the Mitrokhin Archive that had been smuggled to Britain.).

[otness_e]

Actually, the REAL reason the South Vietnamese Catholics lost the war was because the guys in Congress decided to just cut any arms shipments to South Vietnam, many of whom KNEW they stood no chance. It had absolutely NOTHING to do with South Vietnam at all.

And for the record, Diem ATTEMPTED to placate the Buddhists, it was a radical sect of Buddhists who were causing all the trouble, many of whom had been Communist infiltrators. If anything, Diem was TOO capitulating for the Buddhists, too willing to back down (though to be fair to him, the foreign press composed of Americans certainly didn’t help in fanning the flames).

[otness_e]

Sorry, it had NOTHING to do with Catholics ignoring Buddhists (and for the record, the Buddhists, while it’s true that they outnumbered Catholics, were not a majority, since they were tied with Confucians at most).