1 00:00:00,410 --> 00:00:07,890 Decades back, in late 1972, South Vietnam and the United States were winning the Vietnam War 2 00:00:07,940 --> 00:00:14,040 decisively by every conceivable measure. That's not just my view. 3 00:00:14,100 --> 00:00:19,580 That was the view of our enemy, the North Vietnamese government officials. 4 00:00:19,700 --> 00:00:23,760 Victory was apparent when President Nixon ordered the U.S. Air Force 5 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:29,600 to bomb industrial and military targets in Hanoi, North Vietnam's capital city, 6 00:00:29,660 --> 00:00:34,800 and in Haiphong, its major port city, and we would stop the bombing 7 00:00:34,820 --> 00:00:40,620 if the North Vietnamese would attend the Paris Peace Talks that they had left earlier. 8 00:00:40,660 --> 00:00:48,340 The North Vietnamese did go back to the Paris Peace talks, and we did stop the bombing as promised. 9 00:00:48,420 --> 00:00:56,780 On January the 23rd, 1973, President Nixon gave a speech to the nation on primetime television 10 00:00:56,789 --> 00:01:02,289 announcing that the Paris Peace Accords had been initialed by the United States, 11 00:01:02,289 --> 00:01:09,960 South Vietnam, North Vietnam, the Viet Cong, and the Accords would be signed on the 27th. 12 00:01:09,960 --> 00:01:15,740 What the United States and South Vietnam received in those accords was victory. 13 00:01:15,820 --> 00:01:22,220 At the White House, it was called "VV Day," "Victory in Vietnam Day." 14 00:01:22,230 --> 00:01:28,560 The U.S. backed up that victory with a simple pledge within the Paris Peace Accords saying: 15 00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:36,860 should the South require any military hardware to defend itself against any North Vietnam aggression 16 00:01:36,860 --> 00:01:41,880 we would provide replacement aid to the South on a piece-by-piece, one-to-one 17 00:01:41,890 --> 00:01:48,640 replacement, meaning a bullet for a bullet; a helicopter for a helicopter, for all things lost -- 18 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:55,660 replacement. The advance of communist tyranny had been halted by those accords. 19 00:01:55,760 --> 00:02:03,280 Then it all came apart. And It happened this way: In August of the following year, 1974, 20 00:02:03,380 --> 00:02:09,200 President Nixon resigned his office as a result of what became known as "Watergate." 21 00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:14,980 Three months after his resignation came the November congressional elections and within them 22 00:02:14,980 --> 00:02:21,410 the Democrats won a landslide victory for the new Congress and many of the members used 23 00:02:21,410 --> 00:02:30,530 their new majority to de-fund the military aid the U.S. had promised, piece for piece, 24 00:02:30,580 --> 00:02:36,600 breaking the commitment that we made to the South Vietnamese in Paris to provide whatever 25 00:02:36,610 --> 00:02:42,450 military hardware the South Vietnamese needed in case of aggression from the North. 26 00:02:42,450 --> 00:02:48,410 Put simply and accurately, a majority of Democrats of the 94th Congress 27 00:02:48,410 --> 00:02:53,130 did not keep the word of the United States. 28 00:02:53,130 --> 00:03:00,540 On April the 10th of 1975, President Gerald Ford appealed directly to those members of 29 00:03:00,540 --> 00:03:07,140 the congress in an evening Joint Session, televised to the nation. In that speech he 30 00:03:07,140 --> 00:03:13,190 literally begged the Congress to keep the word of the United States. But as President 31 00:03:13,190 --> 00:03:19,290 Ford delivered his speech, many of the members of the Congress walked out of the chamber. 32 00:03:19,290 --> 00:03:25,810 Many of them had an investment in America's failure in Vietnam. They had participated 33 00:03:25,810 --> 00:03:33,280 in demonstrations against the war for many years. They wouldn't give the aid. 34 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:40,140 On April the 30th South Vietnam surrendered and Re-education Camps were constructed, 35 00:03:40,150 --> 00:03:46,310 and the phenomenon of the Boat People began. If the South Vietnamese had received the arms 36 00:03:46,310 --> 00:03:51,280 that the United States promised them would the result have been different? 37 00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:53,420 It already had been different. 38 00:03:53,420 --> 00:03:57,599 The North Vietnamese leaders admitted that they were testing the new President, 39 00:03:57,599 --> 00:04:04,319 Gerald Ford, and they took one village after another, then cities, then provinces and our 40 00:04:04,319 --> 00:04:12,119 only response was to go back on our word. The U.S. did not re-supply the South Vietnamese 41 00:04:12,130 --> 00:04:17,269 as we had promised. It was then that the North Vietnamese knew they were on the road to South 42 00:04:17,269 --> 00:04:24,620 Vietnam's capital city, Saigon, that would soon be renamed Ho Chi Minh City. 43 00:04:24,620 --> 00:04:29,620 Former Arkansas Senator William Fulbright, who had been the Chairman of the Senate Foreign 44 00:04:29,630 --> 00:04:35,370 Relations Committee made a public statement about the surrender of South Vietnam. 45 00:04:35,370 --> 00:04:45,010 He said this, "I am no more distressed than I would be about Arkansas losing a football game to Texas." 46 00:04:45,140 --> 00:04:50,280 The U.S. knew that North Vietnam would violate the accords and so we planned for it. 47 00:04:50,280 --> 00:04:55,420 What we did not know was that our own Congress would violate the accords. 48 00:04:55,420 --> 00:05:01,660 And violate them, of all things, on behalf of the North Vietnamese. 49 00:05:01,780 --> 00:05:04,560 That's what happened. 50 00:05:04,580 --> 00:05:06,500 I'm Bruce Herschensohn.