February 10 is day 48 of the Gregorian Calendar year,
Pungenday, Chaos 48, 3186 YOLD (Discordian)
And let us not forget 13.0.7.4.14 by the Mayan Long Count
Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through his great power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies.
- Ecclesiasticus 44:1-4
In my review of episode 8, I said:
Tet was like the chain reaction phase of an A-Bomb - it's all over in 30 nanoseconds; but it takes another whole second for the enormous energy released to begin to become manifest macroscopically.
That energy should have ended the war in 1968. Instead, we got Nixon, who prolonged it for another seven years. Nixon was what nuclear weapons people call "a tamper".
This episode dumps a lot of negative stuff all at once. While this episode finally has some useful facts, the spin is quite pronounced. When I see personal stories of undistinguished soldiers getting more airtime than the entire Phoenix Program, I feel like I am being played by professionals. Personal stories engage people and are remembered. Dry recitals of facts and statistics, images without stories, those things are quickly forgotten due to the lack of an emotional hook.
Episode 6 continues the complete disappearence of the CIA from Viet Nam. There is also an almost complete minimization of the technological advantage the US had, via "electronic battlefield" programs, such as Arc Light B-52 strikes. To hear Mr. Burns's version it was merely our guys with machine guns and artillery and ordinary close air support versus VC/NVA guys with their machine guns and artillery and anti-aircraft guns.
These two episodes are heavy on personal reminiscences of soldiers, very light on policy. Once again, not a word is spoken about the CIA. Let's dive in:
1. The Phoenix Program (also, see ADDENDUM)
We have pictures of elections in South Vietnam, but zero mention of the beginning of the infamous Phoenix Program, which began in 1967, in the time frame of these two episodes.
This episode covers the Tonkin Gulf incident and the arrival of US combat troops, in the 1964-65 time frame. That means there is plenty of combat to fill the time.
Once again, what was missing is more important than what was shown. Because what was missing would have given more weight and context to the anti-war movement. I am assuming that the narrative of this series is chronological. If he jumps back in time in later episodes, I will rethink these comments.
Yeah, I know, I put in a cute comment about arendt's use of "Mr. Burns" -- standard academic writing would have been "Burns" or "Ken Burns." Apologies to arendt.
Well, I was certainly not expecting real history. I watched to see the pictures.
Real history? In the first episode, they interview Donald Gregg, whom they caption only as "CIA". (factoid: Gregg joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951. He served in Japan from 1964 to 1973.) He voices the opinion that Viet Nam was a mistake.
Yeah, that Donald Gregg:
Iran-Contra
