Laos had enormous strategic importance in the fight for Vietnam. The Vietnamese communists from the north had been using a secret trail which ran through Laos to direct troops, weapons and supplies to fight the US troops in the south of Vietnam. The Americans couldn’t invade Laos, so the CIA was called in and ordered to take care of the problem. Secrets of the CIA
A huge quantity of the heroin produced by the tribesmen was delivered straight into the hands of the American GIs stationed in Vietnam. ibid.
The American war in Vietnam – there were no front lines drawn on the map, no neatly marked positions defining enemy territory. Or safe territory. Secrets of War: Vietnam s1e21: Alpha Strike
Vietnam has a two thousand-year history of resisting foreign invasions. ibid.
By early spring of 1968 the Johnson administration was facing several harsh realities concerning the air war over north Vietnam. ibid.
Perception often created reality ... Truth and fact were routinely manipulated and rearranged in the pursuit of national interests. Secrets of War s1e22: Vietnam: Hidden in Plain Sight
It was President Richard Nixon who finally approved the sending of American troops into Cambodia on 1st May 1970. ibid.
The United States fought an elusive enemy with helicopters and superior firepower ... A failure to understand the political and military situation they faced in Vietnam. Secrets of War s1e25: Vietnam: Special Operations
By 1968 Special Forces had created a myriad of classified units to satisfy military intelligence needs. ibid.
In the fall of 1963 South Vietnam was in a state of near anarchy. The Viet Cong controlled the countryside and were operating freely … The new president was shocked at what he heard. Secrets of War s1e54: Vietnam: Johnson’s Battleground
North Vietnam was backed by America’s Cold War adversaries: China and the Soviet Union. Any direct confrontation carried the potential for igniting a much greater conflict. ibid.
For Lyndon Johnson it was over. On March 31st just two months after Tet began he stunned the nation with a decision he had kept secret for months. ibid.
Ho Chi Minh: National hero and leader of the North Vietnamese people … At the age of 79 Ho Chi Minh died. Ho’s followers began to dig in for the long haul. Secrets of War s1e53: Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh’s Revolution
The conflict escalated in 1950 when communist China sent advisers and equipment to Vietnam, and the United States began to acquaint the defeated Ho Chi Minh with the containment of communism. ibid.
Ho’s colleagues in the Politburo were opposed to compromise. ibid.
‘Vietnam was, and still is, the only question that can mobilise the masses. Grin Without a Cat aka The Base of the Air is Red, Paul Verges, 1977
The most significant aspect has been the suppression of political activity. Emile de Antonio, In the Year of the Pig, Philippe da Villiers, 1968
I have just hatred. ibid. Ho Chi Mihn
We are not sending combat troops. ibid. Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense
I didn’t get you in Vietnam. You’ve been in Vietnam ten years. ibid. LBJ
There is no two Vietnams. There is only one Vietnam temporarily divided in Geneva in 1954 between a Free Zone for the north of Vietnam and an occupied zone. ibid. Philippe de Villiers
Ho Chi Mihn would be elected president in South Vietnam by at least 80% of the vote. ibid. Wayne Morse, senator
Communist aggression must result in communist disaster. ibid. General Curtis Lemay
We’re going to S & D: Search & Destroy. ibid. troops’ briefing
We teach them propaganda for three months; we hold them for three months. ibid. interpreter
Your government has not bombed civilians. ibid. Hubert Humphrey
Prisoners were executed in our outfit as a standard policy. ibid. David Tuck
For France it represents a tremendous sacrifice. Hearts and Minds, 1974, newsreel
The ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and the minds of the people who actually live out there. ibid. LBJ
Throughout the war in Vietnam the United States has exercised a degree of restraint unprecedented in the annals of war. ibid. Tricky Dicky
Renewed hostile actions against United States’ ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply. ibid. LBJ
There’s no-one else who can do the job. ibid. LBJ
To say it’s thrilling, yes, it’s deeply satisfying. ibid. Lt George Coker
With this spraying and bombing so many have died … Hundreds of tons are dropped each day. ibid. Vietnamese
I wanted to go out and kill some gooks. ibid. grunt
I don’t know where they are, that’s the worst thing. ibid. grunt
The reason we went there was to win this war. ibid. Coker’s school pep-talk
Instead of helping and aiding, we saw that we were party to their deliberate and systematic destruction. ibid. Edward Sowders, Congressional hearings
We are going to win. ibid. LBJ
The Domino Theory was a false theory … I could not have been more wrong in my attitude toward Vietnam. ibid. Clark Clifford
What kind of freedom would you give us? ibid. Diem Chau, editor Trinh Bay magazine
This is what I like – a captive audience. ibid. Bob Hope, reception for POWs
When we started thinking about the evacuation … the key is, Who will go away and who will stay? Last Days in Vietnam, Stuart Herrington, 2014
We today agreed to end the war and bring peace to Vietnam. ibid. Nixon
We had about five to seven thousand Americans in this country … many have a Vietnamese wife or girlfriend. ibid. witness
The north viewed Nixon as a maniac. ibid.
On 10th March 1975 North Vietnam launched a massive invasion into South Vietnam. ibid.
You saw ships with thousands of refugees. ibid.
There are tens of thousands of South Vietnamese employees of the United States government. ibid. Gerald Ford
We pushed three helicopters into the water. ibid. witness
Their lives seem to be normal but they are not: ‘When I drive my car I often hear the voices of my dead friends.’ Little Dieter Needs to Fly, 1997
‘I was shot down over Laos in 1966 in the early phase of the Vietnam War. I never wanted to go to war. I only got into this because I had one burning desire and that was to fly.’ ibid. Dieter Dengler
Six months later after his rescue: he was down to 85 pounds. ibid.
It all looked strange like a distant barbaric dream. ibid.
From then on the torture began. ibid.
Some of the prisoners didn’t want to escape. ibid.
‘We had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little we went insane.’ Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, 1991, director, 1991
In February of 1976 Francis Coppola went to the Philippines to shoot Apocalypse Now. Based loosely on Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, the film is set in the Vietnam War. ibid. caption
Coppola’s wife Eleanor accompanied him and shot documentary footage covering the 238 days of principal photography. ibid.
‘The war was becoming a psychedelic war.’ ibid. director
‘They were just snatched up and used as cannon fodder for this war.’ ibid. Laurence Fishburne
He realised Marlon never read Heart of Darkness. ibid.
‘Coming home from Vietnam was as close to traumatic as the war itself. For years nobody talked about Vietnam.’ Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War I: Deja Vu (1858 - 1961), Karl Marlantes, BBC 2017
‘The killing in this tragic war must stop.’ ibid. Nixon
America’s involvement in Vietnam began in secrecy. It ended thirty years later in failure, witnessed by the entire world. Before the war was over more than 58,000 Americans would be dead; at least 250,000 South Vietnamese troops died in the conflict as well; so did over a million North Vietnam soldiers and Viet Cong guerrillas; two million civilians north and south are thought to have perished as well as tens of thousands more in the neighbouring states of Laos and Cambodia. ibid.