Path to War Page #9

That's how we figure it, sir.

I mean that seems a high number

to lose

for a target like this.

Give it a D for civilian casualties

let's see what we've got,

C, A, A, D...

let's give it a solid C+

and put it before the President.

All right, what's the...

Jesus, there's a guy on the wall

at the river entrance!

Look at that guy.

Hey, wait a minute! Stop!

Stop! Don't! Don't!

Get down from there! Get off!

Please, please, the baby, stop! Stop!

Yes, Mr. President?

You wanted to see me?

Yes, sir.

You could come down now.

Yes, Dick?

Mr. President,

as uh Bill Moyers told you,

I've been offered a fellowship

at Wesleyan University in Connecticut

Well, good for you.

Ha! That ain't easy to get.

No, no, I'm very fortunate.

Well, don't wait too long

to turn it down

so they can call the next guy

on the list.

Mr. President,

I have already accepted.

No, problem. You didn't know

you weren't free to go.

Call em up, put me on if they give

you any trouble.

What do you mean I'm not free to go?

I mean you can't go.

Can't get along without you.

That makes you a pretty big fellah.

How big a fellah you gonna be

with some fellowship?

Well, you've got along

without me before I came.

You want more money?

I got plenty of money.

I'll arrange a payment

from the Johnson Foundation.

Money isn't the issue, Mr. President.

This is something that I want to do.

Well, it ain't gonna be,

so make your call.

Mr. President, I uh, I'm very sorry.

Well now, Dick...

you either stay here

with me or you go

over to the Pentagon and get yourself

a pair of shiny

black boots,

because there's a statute,

I asked McNamara,

says we can draft specialists vital

to the National Interest

and that's what I'll do.

You won't to serve here,

you know where I can send you.

Will you make me a General?

No, you won't want to be a General.

You'll want to be

a Private Marine infantry,

that's where the action is,

I know you like

to be around the action,

that's why you stayed here so long.

You listen to me, Dick,

you go ahead and take your fellowship

but your hands are all over this.

You and Moyers and Bundy

and everybody else talkin

about jumpin ship!

But most of all, you.

You put your name all over

the Great Society,

you put the tune

to those words of war, too

and hidin out on some college campus

or anything else you ever do

is never gonna change that!

Dismissed!

An entire generation

of North Vietnamese have been born

and lived and died in the pursuit

of one thing

a united Vietnam under Communist rule

The North Vietnamese

have never known anything but war.

At CIA

we've just completed a study of

their staggering

recuperative abilities.

Bridges,

this one was knocked out

in a morning raid,

two hours later some bamboo planks

across a bunch of wooden canal boats

and there's foot traffic again.

By three p.m.

it's a pontoon bridge, strong enough

for a fully-loaded truck.

A bomb knocks out a rail line,

they call the bicycle brigades.

some as old as seventy

or seventy-five,

put the cargo on their bikes,

each one balances up to a six hundred

pound load across the frame,

they wheel it across a jerry-rigged

bridge to another train

waiting to move it on south.

Filling a bomb crater to make

a road passable again,

that's as routine

to a school kid there

as getting a malt down

at the corner shop here.

It's a first date.

They have a brand of cigarettes,

Mr. President,

called Dienbienphu

that's their Yorktown,

their Waterloo where they defeated

the French in 54.

Reminders of war are

in the most casual

moments of daily life.

In a smoke, Mr. President,

their heroes,

he kid who was put to death

for trying to assassinate Secretary

McNamara last year in Saigon,

there's a song about him,

It's a top ten hit.

And Norman Morrison.

Norman Morrison was the Quaker

who burned himself to death

in front of the Pentagon last month,

a great hero.

Hanoi just issued a postage stamp.

Thank you, John. Thank you, Scott.

A great hero?

He almost took his one year

old daughter with him a baby!

It's a miracle she was unharmed.

The man was disturbed.

Three young children are fatherless.

Hero.

So, what do we do?

Mr. president, the most strategic

targets in North Vietnam

remain intact because Hanoi

and Haiphong

continue to be off-limits.

We're not hitting their oil supply,

major power plants,

rail links to China.

We're not mining the ports,

hitting the dikes...

CIA says hittin the dikes

would flood the whole damn country!

Kill the rice crop!

Starve em to death!

Isn't that right?

Yes, sir.

And I have one more problem

for your big computer,

ask how long

it'll take 500,000 angry Americans

to climb that White House wall

and lynch their President

he does somethin like that!?

This is why the Chiefs

and I have been urging for months

that we take the next logical step

and destroy their oil reserves.

Nothin stopped em yet,

why should that stop em!?

That oil goes in trucks,

Mr. President,

trucks that carry troops

and guns and bullets

across the border to kill our men.

They don't need damn trucks!

Weren't you watchin !?

They got hundred year old women

auling crap!

What do you want me to do,

kill everybody's grandmother

in that place!?

Mr. President,

Ambassador Dobrynin says

that Moscow would try

to bring Hanoi to the table

if we stop the bombing for three

or four weeks.

This would be a grave mistake,

Mr. President.

They'll send down everything they can

Westy's against it,

Admiral Sharp, Bob,

I know apposes it and every one

of the Chiefs.

Look, the North Vietnamese

have 9 regiments down there,

we thought they had 3.

VC has more than doubled theirs

from 5 to 12,

which is twice our build up.

And I just feel that we need

to do something

before we send another 200,000 men

over there.

Yes, Bob, we can try bombing them

where it hurts.

The enemy lost over a thousand

in recent fighting,

didn't they?

They lost 1,200

in the Ia Drang Valley

and we lost 300.

But it's clear they're willing

to take those kinds of casualties,

which is something

we were not counting on.

Some where not counting on.

Bob, are you now sayin

that no matter what we do

militarily there's no sure victory?

I believe we may have been overly

optimistic about an early end.

China, Russia, although they do not

want a general war,

have stepped up their aid.

Just a moment, gentlemen,

the President undertook this program

because General Westmoreland

was confident we could win.

Why are we considering

/ another 200,000

if you now believe victory

to be unlikely?

That's my question.

I still believe we can win.

But if there is the slightest

chance of obtaining a settlement

without sending over hundreds

of thousands more men,

and hitting their cities,

I think we should do it.

Right now we are incurring

significant casualties,

if the buildup continues

we may be facing a thousand per month.

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