Extracts
This page contains many of the quotations from the programme. It can be printed out as a guide for students watching the programme, or copied into a word processor or other application to provide an additional resource. Time codes refer to the points in the programme where the quotations appear.
1.07
New York Times
28 January 1973
1.24
Atlanta Constitution
24 January 1973
'PEACE WITH HONOUR' REACHED; POW FREEDOM IN 60 DAYS
The Agreement
1. Cease-fire 7pm Saturday
2. Release of POWs within 60 days
3. Withdrawal of all U.S. forces
4. Full accounting of missing in action
5. Self-determination for South Vietnam
2.05
Newsweek
5 February 1973
2.26
New York Times
28 January 1973
NATION CELEBRATES PEACE IN PRAYER AND MUTED JOY
2.42
Newsweek
5 February 1973
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
... the nation began at last to extricate itself from a quicksandy war that had plagued four Presidents and driven one from office, that had sundered the country more deeply than any event since the Civil War, that in the end came to be seen by a great majority of Americans as having been a tragic mistake.
... but its more grievous toll was paid at home - a wound to the spirit so sore that news of peace stirred only the relief that comes with an end to pain. A war that produced no famous victories, no national heroes and no strong patriotic songs produced no memorable armistice day celebrations either. America was too exhausted by the war and too chary of peace to celebrate.
3.30
New York Times
25 January 1973
MILITARY CASUALTIES
45,933 Americans killed, 153,000 wounded
183,528 South Vietnamese killed, 499,026 wounded
924,048 North Vietnamese and Vietcong killed
3.59
The Atlanta Constitution
24 January 1973
SOME CHEER, OTHERS SILENT One girl yawned when told the war was over - 'No kidding?' she said, 'I thought they did that some time ago.'
4.12
The Atlanta Constitution
25 January 1973
4.23
Atlanta Constitution
24 January 1973
Associated Press Photographer Eddie Adams took this famous picture February 1, 1968 at the same instant that Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnamese national police chief, executed a Viet Cong officer with a single shot.
But photographs like these turned the public against the Vietnam War when they were first shown. Many people were so outraged they started a great Peace Movement. There were huge street demonstrations by American men and women of all ages. But young people have been protesting the loudest. Students held massive demonstrations against the draft. Men as young as nineteen were drafted, or forced into the army. Some protestors got killed.
4.44
Los Angeles Times
24 January 1973
A girl knelt and screamed beside the body of a student slain at Kent State.
At least two Americans, one an 82-year-old woman, burned themselves to death to protest the war and four Kent State University students were shot to death by Ohio National Guardsmen during one of the many campus demonstrations against American action in Southeast Asia.
5.36
New York Times
25 January 1973
Concern Voiced on How Nation Has Changed
Walter Reddick, tax researcher
It gave us inflation and lack of jobs. It really started a revolution among people here - young against old. The older people were saying, Why end the war now? And the younger ones were saying, End it now.
Nell Kirby, restaurant owner
This war seems worthless, and a crushing amount of time was spent on it. We surely have gone down hill haven't we?
6.22
Time
19 February 1973
Air Force major Hayden Lockhart Jr., shot down over the North in 1965, was welcomed home by his wife, Jill and a son Jamie, whom he had never met.
7.03
Washington Post
28 January 1973
When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah ...
7.10
Washington Post
13 February 1973
VIETNAM VETS
AN UNPOPULAR WAR RUBS OFF
When the Vietnam veterans have come home, they have found themselves, too often, treated not as men who had made an extraordinary sacrifice for their country, but as chumps who had been suckered into playing a game the rest of us smart guys had figured out was rigged.
... They have not been borne home in triumph; instead, they have been treated, too often, as unwelcome reminders of an event we would sooner forget.
8.02
New Republic
3 February 1973
The USA will never again tell the people of other nations how to manage their own affairs.
8.13
New York Times
26 January 1973
Vietnam spanned the era of American foreign policy after World War II, from the epoch when the prime objective was containment of international Communism, to the present day when co-existence with communism is seen as possible, necessary and desirable - for mutual benefit and survival.
