[Music] [Applause] Cronkite's yet damn report real one tease take four [Music] these ruins are in Saigon capital and largest city of South Vietnam they were left here by an act of war vietnamese against vietnamese hundreds died here here in these ruins can be seen physical evidence of the Viet congs tet offensive but far less tangible is what these ruins mean and like everything else in this burned and blasted and weary land they mean success or setback victory or defeat depending upon whom you talk to I believe it give to the VC its source first to the VC not the be enemies of people from whom they hope to have a general uprising and to welcome the VC in the city this very much test for them I think that people have realized now that there's no secure areas your own home in the heart of the city he's not secure I am standing myself and I see that if you come could come to you door knock the door and just kill you instantly without any warning and yourself without any protection from the government there are doubts about the measure of success or setback but even more there are doubts about the exact measure of the disaster itself all that is known with certainty is that on the first two nights of the Tet Lunar New Year's the Vietcong and North Vietnamese regular forces violating the truce agreed on for that holiday struck across the entire length of South Vietnam hitting the largest 35 cities towns and provincial capitals how many died and how much damage was done however are still but approximations despite the official figures the very precise nough subs brings them under suspicion anyone who has wandered through these ruins knows that an exact count is impossible why just a short while ago a little old man came and told us that two VC were buried and I hastily drugged grave up at the end of the block had they been counted and what about these ruins have they gone through all of them for buried civilians and soldiers and what about those 14 VC we found in the courtyard behind the post opposite way had they been counted and tabulated they certainly hadn't been buried we came to Vietnam to try to determine what all this means to the future of the war here we talked to officials top officials civilian and military Vietnamese and American we toured damaged areas like this and refugee centers we paid a visit to the battle that way and to the men Manning the northernmost provinces where the next big communist offensive is expected all of this is the subject of our report who what when where why brought to you by the Connecticut general life insurance company at Connecticut general we do things a little differently tonight report from Vietnam by Walter Cronkite how could the Vietnamese communists have mounted this offensive with such complete surprise after all the cities were supposed to be secure except for the occasional unpreventable attack of terrorism as a matter of fact the whole measure of the success of this war had been that we were pushing out from the secure cities pacifying the countryside around them in an increasingly widening ring now all that seemed to be knocked into a cocked hat how could it happen well let's take a look well for one thing it was the enemy's timing the Tet Lunar holiday for Asiatics it's Christmas and New Year's fourth of July all rolled into one with a little touch of memorial they do just like Americans they all take to the roads to go visit their family and their friends well this is a normal day's traffic in Saigon imagine it two or three times this big for the Tet holiday the job of stopping each of these cars and searching them and checking the people for their papers why it staggers the imagination that staggered the ability of the Vietnamese police to handle - while some residents of Saigon certainly had to be privy to the communist plans or didn't have to be a lot of them with some people have charged just a few Vietcong sympathizers in whose homes arms could be stored arms smuggled into town one by one or even piece by piece and then on the night of death the soldiers Vietcong and North Vietnamese slipped into town one by one rendezvous at the arms caches and the offensive was on the intelligence people American and Vietnamese agree on the same story they figured the enemy might launch a big attack on Saigon or another South Vietnamese city but they admit they grossly underestimated the enemy's ability to plan to provision to coordinate the launch such a widespread full-scale attack as this there are some odd stories about this intelligence failure high American sources for instance say that they warned the Vietnamese but they let their troops go on Tet leave anyway until some units were down to just ten percent of normal strength some American newest men say they tried to reach the Vietnamese General Staff headquarters and only a sergeant was on duty there even stories believed by many Vietnamese intellectuals that Chief of Police slowed on and vice-president key warned president - but - thought it was some sort of a trick perhaps a coup and ignored the warnings to himself was at his country home at maid toe outside of town took him six hours to get back after the attack and in the meantime vice-president key signed the first defensive orders and many Vietnamese intellectuals thought that indeed Key had engineered a coup there was even a suspicion that - some of the police on checkpoint duty on the highways outside of town accept the bribes instead of identity papers all in the spirit of the tenth and that many communists got in that way with all of this planning what did the North Vietnamese the Vietcong hope to accomplish we talked to a longtime expert on the Vietcong who translated many of the captured documents and interrogated prisoners douglas pike about that well i think that general Giap who i see is the master architect of the offensive was trying to do three things i think he was trying to cause the disintegration of Arvin the Vietnamese Armed Forces as an organized military system I think he was trying to cause an uprising people in the cities civilians and the kind of spontaneous outburst of support for the Vietcong and I think he was trying to throw a monkey wrench into what he considers the well-oiled American military machine here [Music] it seems to me all the evidence trying to put things together after this this battle that those were his major calculation if the Communist intention was to take can seize the cities they came closer here at way than anywhere now three weeks after the offensive began the firing still goes on from here on the new side of the city across the Perfume River to the old side of the Citadel probably a week before this offensive began the army of North Vietnam with Vietcong support began moving into the mountains a south of here one day's march away and then the day before the offensive began January 30th to 31st they began that march toward the city meanwhile another regiment of the NVA were moving in from the north into the city the old citadel from the north and they swept quickly through it too except for a small corner in the north east of the Citadel held by the South Vietnamese Army headquarters it was a tough fight it was house-to-house door to door room to room they found they couldn't get into the doors in the windows the North Vietnamese Army held them too tightly and booby-trapped them as well they had to blast their way in with plastic charges placed against the sides of the houses was such a tough fight that although the American army hoped not to use heavy weapons and air strikes against this old city they finally had to bring them in to begin to win the battle the destruction here was almost putting the scarcely uninhabitable building in the city of weigh whatever price the Communists paid for this offensive they price to the Allied cause was hot for F our intention is to restore normalcy peace serenity to this country the destruction of those qualities and this is the most historic order probably serene of all South Vietnam cities is obviously a setback now a job no one had dreamed we were going to have to undertake it is now a rebuilding of an entire city and the lives of the people in what did the Communists hope to achieve by this attack on the cities as to their ultimate objective their maximum goal prisoner interrogations and captured documents seemed to leave no doubt they hoped at the best to bring down the Saigon government then win the war presumably either by forcing a defeated enemy to the peace table or by actually capturing his capital to achieve that knockout victory 60,000 or so troops they committed to the battle had two prime targets first to seize as much real estate as possible such as the presidential palace the US Embassy military headquarters provincial capitals and second to kidnap or assassinate members of the thinning ranks of Vietnamese leadership but they had shorter range objectives about which they could be far more certain of success they expected the Allies to pull their troops off the pacification campaign in the countryside and bring them in for the defense of the cities they expected the Americans to to commit some of their reserves at least to the defense of the cities rather than hold them for the big battles expected at the Demilitarized Zone expected to create maximum economic confusion and disruption and to create new hordes of refugees among which the seeds of discontent against the government could be sown expected by destroying the myth of the security of the cities to widen the credibility gap that exists here - between what the people are told and what they see about them and the experts do not agree on the objectives or on the amount of success the Communist hired in achieving they have certainly disrupted the pacification effort for the time being for how long I don't know we haven't yet full reports on the situation me they have interrupted and addicted lines of communication which are now being opened up again what other effect they may have had I don't know on the population raw damages I think have been tremendous I have talked to quite a few Vietnamese here who have been in Vietnam during the struggle for independence during the participation during the partition of the country and they all say they all concur in the opinion that nothing has been so seriously I think that it will take perhaps weeks if not much much more for the people to realize that we are going back to normal production easily suffered you will have the problem shortage of jobs in the future the refugee problem is tremendous the rehabilitation of the sort of the damaged areas is a tremendous job and I think that this is all the things which the attempt to achieve by this attack in that sense they were successful then in that sense I think it had been very successful barren volcanic wasteland in Hawaii could man ever make it useful man did on volcanic ashes and rock he built and Hawaiian Paradise and money the helpful Ansett came from an insurance company Connecticut general half an ocean away in California another investment to develop cattle land and in Washington water from a river far below has made farmlands lush and fertile the first privately financed irrigation project in the area Connecticut General has made investments all over America in land in buildings and in the way people live what is being done to improve the way people live what will the community of the future be like Connecticut general is helping to finance a bold new answer on 22 square miles of rolling land between Baltimore and Washington a group of nine villages in a privately financed imaginative new city a city called Columbia where stores schools work and recreation are close to home where families have room to live to grow to enjoy where kids don't have to be driven everywhere all insurance companies invest but Connecticut general feels that a sound investment can also be created the Connecticut general life insurance company at Connecticut general we do things a little differently the government's first big test in the wake of the Tet Offensive was the speed with which it could pick up the shattered pieces of its pacification program and translated into priorities that meant how quickly could it get the troops that have been poured into the cities for their defense back into the countryside the American military leadership believing this a matter of great urgency watched carefully with some trepidation the government's performance would it permit the troops brought into the cities to simply hunker down there indefinitely or would it move with dispatch to get them back on the offensive out in the country well these are pacification troops the black pajamaed men of the government so-called revolutionary development teams but they are not back in the countryside bringing it and keeping it under government control they are standing guard in the city this one happens to be canine because the South Vietnamese feel the city's still are far from secure this is the nature of the subtank what's left of a typical hamlet once believed secure but abandoned as the pacification forces rush to the cities this district used to be a model of pacification now again most of it is at the mercy of the enemy correspondent Robert Schack knee talking to captain Donald Jones deputy pacification advisory for the district to a folk district used to be considered just about one of the most pacified areas in Vietnam it isn't anymore is it no it used to be considered the bowl of pacification for South Vietnam it was the area where the revolutionary development program first began it was a test phase for the pacification in South Vietnam now I cannot say that any longer if it's not contested the district is certainly challenged by main force units well in effect is there any pacification program left for two efik district at this point no for most the district pacification does not exist this is a war there were places we used to be able to go to and to a [ __ ] fact where we film like tin Yong and go boy and bin Quang could we go back there today we couldn't go to vent Wan we might be able to get to tin yang I wouldn't want to try it unless we have some local security go boy we can get to the south part of go boy we can go straight out the road here to go boy we can't cross a bridge I want unarmed with just one major casually through go boy in December could I do it today no you could not you could not walk to go boar today are you discouraged yes Assaf acacia is not the only casualty of Tet Offensive these are refugees most pathetic of all the victims of the attacks on the cities just yesterday the u.s. command in Saigon estimated their number at four hundred and seventy thousand new human flotsam living an unbelievable squalor huddled in schools in sheds and shanties before tent there were eight hundred thousand officially listed as refugees one of the South Vietnamese government's greatest failures had been to provide them with decent food and shelter and a role in economic life the government could salvage a measure of victory from defeat by moving with decision and dispatch to ease the plight of the new homeless but there are a few signs that it has the capacity or will deducing and there may be more refugees to come but the battle for the cities probably is not over here in Saigon three weeks after the first wave of the attack was beaten back they're still small but ferocious battles on the city's perimeter and even within the city's limits at the big airbase and US military headquarters on the edge of town there's still occasional mortar and rocket attacks the reports of elements of three North Vietnamese divisions perhaps 15,000 men within a day's march of the city the helicopters fill the air during the day in the constant hunt for them and at night air dropped flares light the city as the search goes on and this is but phase two of a master Vietcong plan called the winter spring offensive part one was the fall campaign against the allied positions astride the Vietcong supply routes through the Central Highlands the attacks on Dokdo and Locke men were part of that campaign and they failed if they had succeeded the Vietcong would have opened up a supply route to bring in even more troops for the attack against the cities along the coast those attacks against 35 cities from Quang tree in the far north to the Delta and the far south were Phase two which at least in their initial military phase also have failed failed that is to seize the cities although they brought them to near paralysis now let's believe the enemy is ready to move on to Phase three of the winter Spring Offensive but the hope that he can Riku there what he lost in the first two phases phase three is to be the attack along the Demilitarized Zone he is masked perhaps forty thousand men along here is expected to kick off at any moment a wide scale offensive believed intended to overrun Viet Nam's two most northern most provinces and perhaps thus to bring the Saigon government in defeat to the conference tape he may move against any of those positions but perhaps the most dramatic in significant battle may develop at Khe Sanh Khe Sanh was designed to be a small border stronghold to block enemy infiltration and to provide forward air observation now surrounded and bypassed it no longer serves that function but for reasons of us pride as much as us tactics Khe Sanh has been built up into a major Bastion where 5,500 Marines are isolated and not far from which 20,000 more reserves are tied down far from the now unprotected coastal plains from the North Vietnamese point of view Khe Sanh is an ideal target for rocket and mortar attacks from the surrounding hills while they decide the time to attack or whether to attack but in an interview with CBS News correspondent Jack Lorenz the Marine general in charge was confident as men can outlast the enemy at Khe Sanh and elsewhere how long do you feel that he can continue this increased tempo of the fighting well I can't really give a finite answer but it would seem to me it would be in terms of a matter of months four or five how long I wouldn't know exactly he always has the capability of course of suddenly stopping this tremendous sacrifice of personnel and going back into the guerrilla type of war so it's hard to prophesy but if he continues this all-out attack day and night exposing himself to our firepower I just don't think he can keep it up for longer than a matter of month whatever the battle for case on the DMZ means whatever all of this means there is one meaning to the vietcong's winter Spring Offensive that is inescapable the nature of the Vietnamese war has changed it no longer is a series of small engagements fought for local areas against small bands of Communists and no longer is to be fought primarily in the sparsely occupied countryside it is now more along the classic or western fashion of war large armies locked in combat moving toward a decision on the battlefield some final personal observations will be the concluding portion of this report this is no ordinary briefcase you know that when you look at the price tag $26,000 what could make this briefcase worth $26,000 the workmanship the materials no it's the man who carries it because the 26000 is invested in him in his training and these modern tools demanding training that qualifies him to be a Connecticut general man Connecticut general spends this 26,000 gladly because only a man so thoroughly trained can help you solve the financial problems most important to you that's what makes a CG man so special the connecticut general life insurance company at Connecticut's general we do things a little differently tonight back in more familiar surroundings in New York we'd like to sum up our findings in Vietnam an analysis that must be speculative personal subjective who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities I'm not sure the Vietcong did not win by a knockout but neither did we the referees of history may make it a draw another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone Khe Sanh could well fall with a terrible loss in American lives prestige and morale and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground another standoff on the political front past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems now compounded by the attack on the cities it may not fall it may hold on but it probably won't show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation another standoff we have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders both in Vietnam and Washington to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds they may be right that a noise winter spring offensive has been forced by the communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition and not the Communists hoped that any success in the offensive would improve their position for eventual negotiations it would improve their position and it would also require our realization that we should have had all along that any negotiations must be that negotiations not the dictation of peace terms for it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate this summer is almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation and for every means we have to escalate the enemy can match us and that applies to invasion of the north the use of nuclear weapons or the mere commitment of 100 or 200 our 300,000 more American troops to the battle and with each escalation the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster to say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence the optimists who have been wrong in the past to suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism to say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic if unsatisfactory conclusion on the off-chance the military and political analysts are right in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations but it is increasingly clear to this report that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could this is Walter Cronkite who what when where why was brought to you by the Connecticut general life insurance company at Connecticut general we do things a little differently this has been report from Vietnam by Walter Cronkite [Music] [Music]
