:30:03
he wrote I think it was seven letters to
this government and received no reply.
:30:07
The-The-The pathos, almost,
the sadness--
:30:12
Here's a man who felt
and believed the United States...
:30:16
would be sympathetic to his purpose
of gaining his independence...
:30:19
from a colonial power.
:30:21
And then to find we--
You know, this is what he'd read.
:30:25
He'd been here, read our Constitution
and Declaration of Independence.
:30:28
He thought surely the United States
would be interested.
:30:31
We had testimony in the committee
that his one worry...
:30:34
was that
it was so insignificant--
:30:36
Vietnam was so far away, insignificant--
we would never bother about it.
:30:40
It's too small to ever attract
the attention of the United States.
:30:45
He was sure in his own mind...
:30:47
that if we ever put our minds
in focus upon it, we would be for him.
:30:50
How different history would have
been for us and for them...
:30:55
if we had felt a common interest...
:30:58
in the colonial province like Vietnam...
:31:01
seeking its independence
from France.
:31:04
The Ho Chi Minh of'56,
:31:06
I don't think could have got elected
dogcatcher in South Vietnam.
:31:10
Ho Chi Minh, uh, dead--
[Laughing]
:31:14
could beat any candidate
we've ever put up in Vietnam.
:31:20
[Man]
You asked me about my oldest son Bing.
:31:24
He was a graduate of Harvard, 1965.
:31:29
And he was not a soldier at heart.
:31:32
Uh, but he realized,
I'm sure, there's no question,
:31:36
he realized he was part of a big job
that had to be done,
:31:42
and he was gonna do it
the way he did everything--full out.
:31:47
And he went out on this mission--
Minh River--
:31:50
and it was a big assault mission
bringing elements...
:31:53
to this area just south of Da Nang
along the railroad line.
:31:57
And they encountered heavy, sustained,
uh, automatic weapons fire.