'Vietnam: a Television History' is public television's series that chronicles three decades of struggle in Vietnam (1945-1975).
It premieres with a two-part broadcast Oct. 4 and 5, with the subsequent 11 programs airing on Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. EDT.
The series analyzes the costs and consequences of the American war in Vietnam for both countries and provides a visual and oral account of the war which changed a generation and continues to color American thinking on many military and foreign policy issues.
Executive Producer Richard Ellison, Chief Correspondent Stanley Karnow and Director of Media Research Lawrence Lichty, along with 60 consultants and four production units (two American, one French and one British) comprised the collective Vietnam team.
The members of that team traveled the length of Vietnam, garnered hundreds of interviews, researched 70 film archives worldwide and labored six years to create an exhaustive historical documentary series.
Nearly 100 hours of archival footage -- more than 200,000 feet of film -- were compiled from sources in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Vietnam, East Germany, Japan, France, West Germany, Holland, Poland, Belgium, and the United Nations.
Series producers returned to Vietnam in 1981 and 1982 to record over 100 interviews with citizens, soldiers and key decision-makers including General Vo Nguyen Giap and current Premier Pham Van Dong. In addition, Vietnam teams recently interviewed prominent figures of the former South Vietnamese regime, among them Air Vice-Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, Ambassador Bui Diem and Emperor Bao Dai.
American veterans of the war also figure prominently in the series, along with those architects of policy whose mandate they carried out - among them General William Westmoreland, U.S. Ambassadors Maxwell Taylor and Henry Cabot Lodge, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, CIA official William Colby, Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, Presidential aide Bill Moyers and many others.
Vietnam: A Television History is produced for PBS by WGBH Boston, with Central Independent Television-UK and Antenne-2-France and in association with LRE productions. Major funding for the series was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, public television stations and the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. Additional funding was provided by the George D. Smith Fund, The Christopher Reynolds Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The series includes the following episodes:
'Roots of a War': Despite cordial relations between American intelligence officers and communist leader Ho Chi Minh in the turbulent closing months of World War II, French and British hostility to the Vietnamese revolution laid the groundwork for a new war.
'The First Vietnam War (1946-1954)': The French generals expected to defeat Ho's rag-tag Vietminh guerrillas easily, but after eight years of fighting and $2.5 billion in U.S. aid, the French lost a crucial battle at Dien Bien Phu -- and with it, their Asian empire.
'America's Mandarin (1954-1963)': To stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, America replaced France in South Vietnam -- supporting autocratic President Ngo Dinh Diem until his own generals turned against him in a coup that brought political chaos to Saigon.
'LBJ Goes to War (1964-1965)': With Ho Chi Minh determined to reunite Vietnam, Lyndon Baines Johnson determined to prevent it, and South Vietnam on the verge of collapse, the stage was set for massive escalation of the undeclared Vietnam War.
'America Takes Charge (1965-1967)': In two years, the Johnson Administration's troop buildup displatched 1.5 million Americans to Vietnam to fight a war they found baffling, tedious, exciting, deadly and unforgettable.
'America's Enemy (1954-1967)': The Vietnam War as seen from different perspectives -- by Vietcong guerrillas and sympathizers; by North Vietnamese leaders rank and file, and by Americans held prisoners in Hanoi.
'Tet, 1968': The massive enemy offensive at the lunar new year decimated the Vietcongar and left GI's wondering which of them would be the last to die in Vietnam.
'Cambodia and Laos': Despite technical neutrality, both of Vietnam's smaller neighbors were drawn into the war, suffered massive bombing, and, in the case of Cambodia, endured a post-war holocaust of nightmare proportions.
