# Ken Burns new "The Vietnam War" documentary on PBS **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 18, 2017, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616 "2017-09-18T05:33:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/61 "2017-10-09T12:03:52Z")
Just finished this thing last night. If you ever had any doubts that maybe Nixon’s reputation as a miserable piece of shit was overblown you won’t after finishing this. Kennedy and Johnson both come of looking poor but at least they clearly struggled with the human toll while they were in charge. Not Nixon. Not even a little bit. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro ---
**Author:** ![Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zetetic_Skeptic)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/62 "2017-10-09T12:47:29Z")
I would really like to find a documentary like this about the Korean War. If anybody knows of a few, I’d be grateful for info on where to find it. There are a few books that I’ve found, but I find the Inchon campaign absolutely fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/63 "2017-10-09T13:53:08Z")
I just finished episode 4. What I find most fascinating is all the taped conversations between President Johnson and Robert McNamara. Johnson is more sympathetic than I ever gave him credit for. McNamara is, well, …chilling. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/64 "2017-10-09T17:27:31Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > I just finished episode 4. What I find most fascinating is all the taped conversations between President Johnson and Robert McNamara. Johnson is more sympathetic than I ever gave him credit for. McNamara is, well, …chilling. One man knew he was being taped for the benefit of history and the other didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/65 "2017-10-09T18:46:33Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > Just finished this thing last night. If you ever had any doubts that maybe Nixon’s reputation as a miserable piece of shit was overblown you won’t after finishing this. Kennedy and Johnson both come of looking poor but at least they clearly struggled with the human toll while they were in charge. Not Nixon. Not even a little bit. This wasn’t in the program but Nixon came to the conclusion the Vietnam War could not be won in _1966_–two years before he successfully ran for President and seven years before he finally withdrew American troops. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/66 "2017-10-15T15:24:31Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > This wasn’t in the program but Nixon came to the conclusion the Vietnam War could not be won in _1966_–two years before he successfully ran for President and seven years before he finally withdrew American troops. They crammed those seven years into just a couple episodes which were dominated by Watergate. Did we miss anything else? ---
**Author:** ![richw211](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@richw211](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/richw211)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/67 "2017-11-02T18:14:21Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I didn’t know that we were rather chummy with Ho Chi Min in the early days, but I can’t say I am surprised. That seems to be a recurring problem with the US. Yes, I was very surprised to hear that also. I was nearly floored when I heard that Ho Chi Min read from the US Declaration of Independence in an early speech (after the French left, I think). I’m finding this series very informative. I was born in 1964, so I was aware of some of the later things that happened stateside, in a very limited way. I remember seeing a “Welcome Home POWs” button in the early '70s and wondering who are the ‘pows’? My family didn’t talk about these things - Vietnam, protests, Watergate…, so I grew up quite ignorant of many of the events shaping our society. ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/68 "2017-11-10T01:13:27Z")
> [@Pippers](#): > > Nice article from a four star general that was involved in the film. [Oregon's General Merrill McPeak on PBS' 'The Vietnam War,' mistakes made, and lessons learned - oregonlive.com](http://www.oregonlive.com/tv/2017/09/oregons_gen_merrill_mcpeak_on.html) “For his part, McPeak looks calm as he sits at the desk in the office of the Lake Oswego condo he shares with his wife. Nearby, McPeak’s dog, Maddie, sleeps quietly on a cushion next to a couch.” That’s nice. Very Ken Burns. On TV married people smile and spin a colorful wheel solving simple word puzzles for cash prizes. > [@Dinsdale](#): > > 4 eps in - other than an early mention of a small protest of DOW, I haven’t heard much (anything?) about the “military industrial complex” and its involvement/encouragement of our war efforts. You still can’t explore this at home, so for now every successive régime in South Viet Nam, many too short-lived to even mention, was hopelessly corrupt and never had the support of the people. Nobody questions this. The war profiteers aren’t talking and neither are the dead junkies. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/69 "2017-11-10T01:20:41Z")
I watched a few of the episodes (admittedly not in their entirety) and of all the documentaries that Burns has produced, this one interested me the least. The documentary itself isn’t the problem; it’s that I’m part of a generation that has grown up being guilted at every god damn turn to support the troops and that the “mistake” we made in Vietnam was not supporting them enough. We’ve allowed our Vietnam experience to guilt people into not protesting an immoral and illegal war and to encourage the heirs to the “silent majority” to claim a monopoly on patriotism. And here we are fighting two (or is it three or four) wars with no end in sight. Our debt to GDP ratio has doubled. Our income inequality is reached levels not seen since the 1920s. We now live in a surveillance state. Honestly, I’m done with Vietnam. It’s clear that the revisionists who make our military and foreign policy aren’t interested in the real lessons of that war. I’d say it’s more important to understand the present and to consider how we can extricate ourselves from these ongoing commitments before we become a bankrupted nation. ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/70 "2017-11-24T07:18:58Z")
I finished the series… I was struck by. well I recall finding a book on Kent State by James Michener and devouring it one weekend. We seem to forget what the actually numbers are in terms of support. One forgets that even after Kent State the majority of Americans blamed the students… that while the war became increasingly unpopular those arguing against it were equally so… The footage of Jane Fonda is striking. My dad is pretty much a solid democrat his entire life… the one issue the old guy would get salty about what Ms Fonda. I think he finally let it go when my mother begged him to see 9-5 LOL. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/71 "2017-11-24T08:35:08Z")
> [@Chicagojeff](#): > > The footage of Jane Fonda is striking. My dad is pretty much a solid democrat his entire life… the one issue the old guy would get salty about what Ms Fonda. I think he finally let it go when my mother begged him to see 9-5 LOL. I still know a number of people (of a certain age) who still abhor Jane Fonda for what she did, 45 years ago, in fighting against the war (as they see her as having sided with North Vietnam). Similarly, I still know people who never forgave Muhammad Ali for refusing to be drafted. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/72 "2017-11-24T14:11:50Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I still know a number of people (of a certain age) who still abhor Jane Fonda for what she did, 45 years ago, in fighting against the war (as they see her as having sided with North Vietnam). Similarly, I still know people who never forgave Muhammad Ali for refusing to be drafted. Ali never visited North Vietnam and engage in photo ops…like manning AA guns and cavorting around with NV military. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616/73 "2017-11-24T17:49:09Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Ali never visited North Vietnam and engage in photo ops…like manning AA guns and cavorting around with NV military. No, he didn’t, but all I was noting was that, like Fonda, I know people who never forgave him for his anti-war stance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ken-burns-new-the-vietnam-war-documentary-on-pbs/796616.md?page=3)