Vietnam: An Historical Document (Part 2)

Duration: 12:00

Year Published: 1975

Creator: CBS

Complete Record: Uses television news reports to trace the history of American involvement in Vietnam from the early 1950's to the fall of South Vietnam in 1973. Walter Cronkite sits at a news desk and speaks about the US involvement in Vietnam, starting with the year 1969. Cronkite introduces a correspondent. The correspondent wears glasses and sits on a park bench while explaining the war further. Fade to a shot of a Huey helicopter landing in a field and dropping off several soldiers. Shots of soldiers walking through the jungle and firing M16’s. Shot of the student protest at Kent State University. Several members of the National Guard point rifles into the crowd. Cut to shots and stills of shot students. More footage of soldiers in the jungle, some talk on radios. Soldiers smoke marijuana out of a pipe, then out of a shotgun. The correspondent closes the segment. Walter Cronkite continues with the year 1971 and he sends the camera to another correspondent. Several US pilots imprisoned in Hanoi sing Christmas carols. Stills of the My Lai massacre. Mike Wallace interviews massacre participant, Paul Meadlo, who wears glasses and a sweater. Shots of bomber airplanes taking off from an airfield behind a barbed wire fence. Shots of planes taxiing on the runway. Cronkite continues with the year 1972 and he sends the camera to a new correspondent. Shot of soldiers standing behind a sandbag wall as a single soldier fires a mortar. Soldiers in combat in a field. Soldiers examine dead Viet Cong in a trench. Shots of civilian casualties. The United States deals with the South Vietnamese government in their chambers. Cronkite introduces the year 1975. A correspondent introduces the new segment. Aerial shots of refugees and soldiers fleeing Saigon. People and vehicles fill roads and stampede towards escape. People pile on airplanes. An airplane takes off as people rush toward it. Pilots fly the plane in the cockpit. Vietnamese soldiers carry corpses tied to sticks. Injured soldiers receive medical treatment. Thousands of Vietnamese people line up at the US embassy, trying to escape the country. President Gerald Ford announces the end of the war and Cronkite gives his closing statements.