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I don’t know I’ve read a lot of legitimate criticism of the show, basically that it’s continuing the same old whitewashing of the war.

Having read for example, how Noam Chomsky describes the Vietnam war, I have a very different perspective on it that what is promulgated in the mass media.

According to the show “was begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War misunderstandings”. It also inaccurately says the Gulf of Tonkin attacks occurred when there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary (Pentagon papers!)

I haven’t watched the show but I bet it doesn’t characterize the war as the invasion of South Vietnam by the US, which it plainly was, a old style colonial war to prevent a nationalist revolution and to teach the region a lesson in what happens to those who pursue and independent course.

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You really should watch before judging. On the Gulf of Tonkin, this is how Burns describes the first incident involving the Maddox:

"The commander of a North Vietnamese torpedo-boat squadron moved to attack the Maddox. The Americans opened fire and missed. North Vietnamese torpedoes also missed. But carrier-based U.S. planes damaged two of the North Vietnamese boats and left a third dead in the water."

That pretty clearly states that the Maddox fired first - it doesn't even describe it as a 'warning shot', but rather a 'miss'. He also says that "Johnson knew the attack had been provoked by the South Vietnamese raids on North Vietnam's islands".

Then on the second attack, he says

"No second attack ever happened, but at the time, anxious American sonar operators aboard the Maddox and Turner Joy convinced themselves one had. The attack was probable but not certain, Johnson was told, and since it had probably occurred, the president decided it should not go unanswered."

This is interspersed with tape of Johnson and McNamara discussing how to react to a second attack, and discussion about how the North Vietnamese command had never authorized any attack on the Maddox.

What story of the Gulf of Tonkin were you hoping he would tell?

Well I read that it had gotten the Gulf of Tonkin incident wrong in an article here. I stand corrected that sounds like a pretty good description of the incident.

I would like to watch it, I’ll get hold of it sometime.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/19/getting-the-gulf-of-...

http://www.pbs.org/video/the-river-styx-january-1964-decembe... - Tonkin coverage starts around 18 minutes in, after considerable context being provided.

The author of that article can't possible have seen the episode in question, or has possibly seen only fragments of it — or he misinterpreted it — because his criticisms are completely false.

Yeah that’s why I say I stand corrected on that issue and I’ll watch it first, then criticize it.

Re Tonkin, for those who are curious, the coverage of it starts at around 18:30 - http://www.pbs.org/video/the-river-styx-january-1964-decembe...

It first mentions that Johnson wanted to escalate so had a congressional resolution drafted for when the time was right, then goes into how the whole incident was started by South Vietnamese boats attacking North Vietnamese islands (at the direction of the US), and then mentions that the events that followed were "one of the most controversial and consequential events in US history".

Considering this the third episode of the series and that fact that the first ~20 minutes are spent explaining how Johnson was looking for a reason to escalate in the context of the election, I really don't understand how anyone can portray this as Burns trying to whitewash the incident!

> It first mentions that Johnson wanted to escalate so had a congressional resolution drafted for when the time was right,

FYI, the documentary mentions that the resolution was already drafted before the second incident.

I don't think you should watch Burns' documentaries or any documentaries as history, but as works of art.

And Burns' Vietnam War is a great work of art. And you have to appreciate that he is making a film for an audience and naturally, he will cater a significant part of it to that audience.

There is no such thing as a completely unbiased documentary or history book or political text. They are all made by biased people.

But I think Burns' gave every major side and every major viewpoint a voice in his documentary. And that's all we can ask.

I think his film was as objective and fair as anyone, or any american, can be. But you have to be cognizant of the fact that it is an american documentary by american filmmakers for an american audience.

An antisemitic cartoon is also a work of art, on some level. That answers nothing.

A major theme of the series is how the American public was lied to about the reasons for the conflict and what happened during the war, with an emphasis on how successive Presidental administrations knew that the war was essentially unwinnable.

It also clearly highlights multiple times how the Americans were seen as invaders by much of the Vietnamese population.

There are legitimate reasons to criticize it but I wouldn't describe it as a whitewashing (I'm only 80% through it so maybe the tone changes later in the series).

I agree. The Americans look bad. The French look bad. Even worse is that at first the Americans looked like an ally since they were once a colony. They way they left the Vietnamese out to dry after WW2 is a tragedy.

I've watched every episode of the series and from what I saw, they cast it very close to how you described it.

I wish people wouldn't downvote so readily these days... but at least you got some good responses.

I just want to say it's ok to take a stance against the whitewashing of history especially regarding wars. I'm a combat vet and have spent a long time trying to decipher some of the darkness under the whitewashing in order to potentially find insights into timeless truths about war and politics, and most people truly just don't understand the extent to which it happens or just how much of what they think they "know" about something is half-truth surrounded by propaganda pushed by an education system with an agenda. It often hard to swallow ugly truths, and it's even harder to determine if they are "truth" or not in the first place, often since the evidence is lacking or hidden itself which forces us to use inductive logic instead of deductive logic. Many people don't understand the distinction.

What I like to do, especially on such controversial subjects as wars like Vietnam, is listen to a variety of positions and try to entertain their positions with as much openess as possible. Sometimes I find diamonds this way. For example, one of the most influential persons on my current views of Vietnam is Fletcher Prouty[1]. A more recent thread I have begun to unravel is the claims by Webster Tarpley[2] about Robert Thompsons[3] influence over the early strategic decisions. The point is that these matters are still being researched, foia'd, and analyzed, so don't be too discouraged at the pushback you get for going counter to the common narrative.

1: http://www.maebrussell.com/Prouty/JFK%20by%20Fletcher%20Prou...

2: https://youtu.be/EeQAYOqRvBk?t=1777 (this entire video is worth a view for those interested in alternative history)

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Grainger_Ker_Thompson

Hard to sit through, and obligatory IMO:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Soldier_(film)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrOBqC1A0sc

https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/ (because I saw it be on and disappear from YT before)

I agree with what you wrote.

Burns has said he makes films, not documentaries. PBS shouldn't have relied on him to do a Vietnam "film", but I guess he still brings in the ratings.

A good documentary on the Vietnam war would have every Republican and Democrat denouncing it and calling the director a traitor. That would never happen with a Burns film. Bill Moyers would have been a better choice.

Sidenote: "Kill Chain" (book) by Andrew Cockburn also has some Vietnam War era stories...that also relate to the current "war on terror".

I'm curious what you feel they left out?

I also think there is something to be said about media that is accessible to all and not just those of a certain political persuasion - the people that need to see/hear how futile the war ultimately was aren't going to watch something that calls them all traitors. The military, political, and social realities of Vietnam have such clear application to our current society, so I personally hope many people see the show.

edit: Disregard this comment due to @xefer comment below.

I meant: the director of a good war documentary would be called a traitor if he/she went deeper into topics like: LBJ's lies about Gulf of Tonkin, lies exposed by the Ellsberg Pentagon Papers, kept mentioning the killing of millions of Veitnanese , Cambodia, Lao, Nixon's prevention of a LBJ peace deal to help his own election, his talk of using nuclear bombs, etc.

I never said anything about calling the audience traitors. I think you mis-understood what I was saying. From your POV, it seems hard that Burns could leave out important stuff in 18 hours.

This page has links that answer what was left out better than I can: https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/pbs-lies-vietnam/

(but view it with an adblocker)

Every single item you mention is discussed in great detail through the course of the series.

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