'The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick' Episode Review: 'The Weight of Memory (March 1973-Onward)'

Episode Ten: The Weight of Memory (March 1973-Onward)

Written by: Geoffrey C. Ward

Directed by: Ken Burns & Lynn Novick

While the Watergate scandal rivets Americans' attention and forces President Nixon to resign, the Vietnamese continue to savage one another in a brutal civil war. When hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese troops pour into the South, Saigon descends rapidly into chaos and collapses. For the next forty years, Americans and Vietnamese from all sides search for healing and reconciliation. 

On September 28, 2017, "The Weight of Memory (March 1973-Onward)" premiered on the 300 or so affiliates of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Written by historian Geoffrey C. Ward and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, it was the tenth and final episode of The Vietnam War, an 18-hour-long examination of "one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history." Ten years in the making, The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick  features interviews of participants from all sides, including civilians and veterans from North and South Vietnam. (Hence the series’ tagline: “There is no single truth in war.”)

(C) 2017 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and Florentine Films

"We would look at the map every day and see how far the ARVN had retreated. It was amazing. We were making more progress in one day than we made in years." - North Vietnam Army Col. Ho Huu Lan on the collapse of South Vietnam during the spring offensive of 1975

In March of 1973, nearly eight years after the first U.S. Marines landed on the beaches near Da Nang, South Vietnam, the Communists in Hanoi, North Vietnam's capital, begin releasing the 591 American prisoners of war they promised to release as a condition of the recently-signed Paris Peace Accord signed by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam's chief negotiator, Le Duc Tho.

Among the POWs released in mid-March is Maj. Hal Kushner, a flight surgeon who was shot down in 1967 aboard a helicopter in South Vietnam and was held captive by the Viet Cong in makeshift camps in the South, then transferred to Hanoi after a brutal march up the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Photo courtesy of Hal Kushner

"They called out names, and I walked out in the sunlight. The first thing I saw was a girl in a miniskirt. She was a reporter for one of the news organizations. I'd never seen a real miniskirt before. And there was a table with the Vietnamese and American authorities on one side, and there was an Air Force brigadier general in Class A uniform. He looked magnificent. I looked at him and he had breadth, he had thickness that we didn't have. He had on a garrison cap and his hair was plump moist and our hair was like straw. And I went out and saluted him, which was a courtesy that had been denied us for so many years. And he saluted me and I shook hands with him and he hugged me - he actually hugged me. And he said, 'Welcome home, Major. We're glad to see you, Doctor.' The tears were streaming down his cheeks. It was just a powerful moment. And then this liaison officer came out and got me and escorted me onto this C-141, this beautiful white airplane with an American flag and 'USAF' on the tail. And they had these real cute flight nurses on there. They were tall and blond and they were just gorgeous. And we got on this thing and we sat on those seats and one nurse said, 'We have anything you want.' You know. 'What do you want?' And I wanted a Coke with crushed ice and some chewing gum." - Major Hal Kushner, U.S. Army, recalling his release from North Vietnam in March 1975

Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm, U.S. Air Force, is greeted by his wife Loretta (second from right) and their four exuberant children at Travis Air Force Base in "Burst of Joy," the Pulitzer Prize-winning news photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Slava Veder. Unfortunately, behind the smiles there is a darker reality. Three days before his release, Lt. Col. Stirm received a Dear John letter from his wife, who had filed for a divorce under California's no-fault law. (C) 1973 Slava Veder/Associated Press

Hanoi's release of American POWs gave the Nixon Administration the green light to bring the last American combat troops home, nearly 28 years after America began its involvement in Southeast Asia. President Richard Nixon had long known that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable; indeed, his craven sabotage of the nascent peace talks on the eve of the 1968 Presidential election had merely postponed the sad and disgraceful denouement of a bitter and unpopular war by another seven years.

In addition, Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger both knew that the Paris Peace Accords were not going to bring peace with honor to Vietnam. In real terms, it was a surrender by any other name: America would withdraw her combat and support units in exchange for the nearly 600 men held by North Vietnam. There would be no "residual forces" left in South Vietnam to serve as a trip wire in case Le Duan and the other Politburo members decided to attempt to take over the South via a conventional attack by regular North Vietnamese Army units. And, in a clause that was essentially a death sentence for Saigon leader Nguyen Van Thieu's regime, North Vietnamese troops presently in South Vietnam at the time of the "cease fire" could stay there.

Hanoi knew that time was on its side. Nixon could try to prop up his South Vietnamese allies by sending military aid for a while, but that was all. America was war weary and grievously divided politically. Nixon, distracted as he was by the Watergate scandal, was losing popular support except in the more conservative wing of the Republican Party. Congress, focused as it was on the proceedings to determine if Nixon had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" by participating in the cover-up of a break-in of the Democratic Party Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, was also in no mood to keep pumping billions of dollars into a war everyone considered was over, at least from the U.S. perspective.

As "The Weight of Memory (March 1973-Onward)" shows, Nixon's fall from grace was the nail in South Vietnam's coffin. When the disgraced President resigned from office on August 9, 1974, Thieu knew that he could not count on Nixon's successor, Gerald R. Ford, to provide South Vietnam with the umbrella of American air support Nixon had promised him late in 1972 in exchange for Thieu's acquiescence to the Paris peace treaty.

Finis, Vietnam. Photo Credit: Hugh Van Es

In addition to the tragic account of South Vietnam's doomed efforts to defend itself against North Vietnam's last great offensive of late 1974 and early 1975, the episode covers such topics as:

• The experiences of veterans returning to "the World" (as Americans who served overseas called the U.S.), and the lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• The desperation and sense of betrayal felt by America's erstwhile allies, the South Vietnamese, by Congressional cuts to military and economic aid after Nixon's downfall
• The brutality of the Vietnamese civil war and Thieu's inability to keep South Vietnamese territorial integrity
• The tragic events of the spring of 1975, including the infamous Convoy of Tears, the 12-day-long siege of Xuan Loc, Thieu's resignation on April 21, and the last-minute helicopter evacuation of the last Americans and a number of their South Vietnamese allies from Saigon
• The long and bitter aftermath of the war, both in America and Vietnam
• The conflicted feelings of American "draft dodgers" and deserters who left the U.S. and moved to Canada, including Jack Ford, a journalist and Army deserter who renounced his U.S. citizenship - and now regrets it
• The campaign by veteran Jan Scruggs and others to build a memorial for the more than 58,000 Americans who were killed in the Vietnam War, and public reaction - pro and con - to Maya Lin's winning design

 My Take

I was 10 years old and living in Miami, Florida when Hanoi released the American POWs from their long captivity. By then, my English language skills had improved exponentially in the year since Mom and I had arrived back in the States after living abroad for nearly seven years and I understood most of what the TV news reports said. I knew now that many of the Americans were pilots that had been shot down over North Vietnam, and that one, Lt. Commander Everett Alvarez, had been a POW for nearly eight years. So, even though I did not understand what the war had been about, I was happy to see the images of the erstwhile prisoners coming home.

Of course, even though I was a precocious kid and read the newspaper and watched the news shows on TV, I was too young to understand the war, its causes, and its disruptive effect on American politics, culture, and society at large. I knew - vaguely - that it was the first war our entire country had lost since its founding. But I didn't know then that the simmering Watergate scandal was connected intimately to the war, nor did I realize that Presidents, bureaucrats, politicians and generals are often capable of deceiving the American people - and do it more often than one would imagine.

As a result, because the events depicted in "The Weight of Memory (March 1973-Onward)" occurred at a time in my life that I recall with some clarity, this episode really struck some chords in my heart and mind.

Maybe this sounds like a cliché to those of you who have been reading this 10-part series of reviews about Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War, but watching "The Weight of Memory" and the other episodes of this epic 18-hour documentary reaffirms my belief that history may not repeat itself, but echoes of the past do recur, like an earworm that won't go away.

I also share Ken Burns' belief that recent American history, including the acrimonious split in the American body politic between liberals and conservatives is one of the war's most devastating legacies. Just as Vietnam era conservative construction workers sneered disdainfully at young high school or college age kids who had joined the antiwar movement out of either moral conviction or simple self-interest, many Americans who presently support the current President of the United States look down on Americans who oppose him.

In both cases, the conservatives dismiss the protests as being "disloyal" and "unpatriotic." Extremists who believe Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogans take their cues from Nixon's playbook and claim the protesters and the "mainstream media" are supported by a Communistic Democratic Party and the 21st Century right wing's favorite target of vitriol, George Soros.

In part, the hatred aimed at liberals, especially those that did not support the war in Vietnam, stems from some of the harsh words that the protesters said in mass demonstrations and to returning war veterans at the time. For conservatives, especially those in rural and working-class America who could not get their sons exempted from the draft or actually believed the U.S. was in the right, it must have been hard to hear returning GI's being greeted with epithets like "war criminal" or "baby killer" at the airport or while waiting for a taxi cab or a bus ride home.

And yet, The Vietnam War's conclusion also gives me a sense of hope that with age comes understanding and wisdom. In the segment about the creation of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC, veterans who fought in the war and members of the antiwar movement that tried to end it by any means necessary talk about "the wall" and how it affects them when they visit it.

 "I've been to the wall more than once," says Nancy Biberman. "When I look back at the war and think of the horrible things we said to vets who were returning, calling them 'baby killers' and worse, I feel very sad about that. I can only say that we were kids too, just like they were. It grieves me, it grieves me today. It pains me to think of the things that I said and that we said. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry." 

A South Vietnamese helicopter - the iconic aircraft of the war - is heaved off the deck of a  U.S. Navy warship and into the South China Sea during the last hours of the evacuation from South Vietnam, April 1975. Photo Credit: (C) 1975 Associated Press file photo