YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → The Century: America's Time - 1965-1970: Unpinned

The Century: America's Time - 1965-1970: Unpinned — Transcript

by McDonnell Technology Services · 5,847 words · 941 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:05I am the
0:08[Music]
0:11Ed not what your
0:17country choose to be
0:19self-evident that all men are
0:22[Applause]
0:24created Mr
0:26gorbachov teared down this wall
0:29[Applause]
0:33[Music]
0:49as World fairs had in the past the fair
0:51in 1964 provided a timely glimpse of the
0:54planet's current realities and future
0:57expectations
0:59[Applause]
1:01the New York Times described it as a
1:03glittering mirror of our national
1:06opulence it seemed to portend a future
1:09where the biggest worry for average
1:10Americans would be how to spend their
1:12leisure time I just took it for granted
1:15that I you know I'd always have a rof
1:17over my head enough to eat the thought
1:19that I'd have to worry about where my
1:22next meal was coming from these thought
1:24just didn't occur to me but of course
1:26part of the reason we could think that
1:27way is that we took Prosperity more or
1:29less for GR
1:32granted in his speech at the World's
1:34Fair president Lyndon Johnson touted a
1:36world of prosperity but that people
1:39people they shall have the
1:42best all of these
1:47greens only to find himself interrupted
1:49in mid speech by demonstrators who felt
1:51themselves frozen out of the
1:58world despite a len struggle millions of
2:01black Americans still did not share in
2:03the nation's Prosperity or enjoy the
2:05full rights of their citizenship in
2:081964 many expected that such inequities
2:11would soon be addressed we thought that
2:14essentially the material problems of the
2:16world had been solved and that the
2:19important thing now is to solve the
2:20moral
2:21problems there was a society that had to
2:24be changed and it was not going to be
2:25changed unless some people decided that
2:27they would dedicate their lives to
2:29changing it it was not going to change
2:33spontaneously the world's fair that year
2:35was held in Flushing Meadows New York it
2:37was supposed to promote the culture and
2:39customs of people everywhere in keeping
2:42with its theme of peace through
2:44understanding but it would not be long
2:46before Americans would be driven apart
2:48by societal disagreements within their
2:51own borders and a terrible costly war on
2:54the other side of the globe the country
2:57was not about to experience much of
2:59either peace or
3:03[Applause]
3:06understanding in the mid 1960s the
3:08determination to challenge traditional
3:10boundaries seemed to be growing in
3:12almost every Arena perhaps most striking
3:15was a broadening struggle for civil
3:17rights a struggle that many whites now
3:19joined in large
3:22[Music]
3:24numbers in the summer of
3:261964 hundreds of college students white
3:29and black headed South to Mississippi
3:32where many blacks were still mired in a
3:35Jim Crow world of poverty and political
3:39impotence these students from the north
3:41H to register black voters and establish
3:45so-called Freedom schools to teach
3:47literacy skills to those who'd been
3:49denied them they were traveling into a
3:51world where many people were sat in
3:53their ways president Lyndon Johnson
3:56warned the students that the federal
3:58government could not guarantee their
4:01safety they received a lot of training
4:03to in order to prepare them for life in
4:05Mississippi which was not going to be
4:06very easy it wasn't easy for us and we
4:08tried to make that very clear to people
4:11I mean our lives AR you know in imminent
4:13danger every every minute of the
4:15day when we crossed the line into
4:19Mississippi and it said Mississippi
4:21welcomes
4:22you was the first time I felt really
4:28afraid in the first group to arrive in
4:30Mississippi were students Andrew Goodman
4:33Michael scherner and James Cheney within
4:36days all three of them were
4:39[Music]
4:43missing Bob Moses who is the head of the
4:45Mississippi summer
4:47project brought the group together told
4:51us that they were missing and it was
4:53clear to all of us that it was extremely
4:56likely that they were dead
5:02put your feet up in there and walk up on
5:04in there 6 weeks after their
5:05disappearance the three were discovered
5:07buried in an earth and Dam shot in the
5:16head in that summer of 1964 the Klux
5:20Clan was still trying to stop the forces
5:22of change but among the students and in
5:24the homes and churches of the black
5:26community the feeling grew stronger that
5:28change could not be
5:30[Music]
5:34prevented we went up to the home of a
5:38very poor black woman sharecropper Shack
5:41she had a bunch of kids she came to the
5:43door she looked at her feet she said y
5:45some gnome to everything we said and we
5:48tried to persuade her to sign this and
5:51it was very clear she signed it she
5:52might get thrown out of her
5:54home after a few minutes of talking she
5:57suddenly straightened up looked Us in
5:59the eyes and said I'll sign it and she
6:01signed it that's how powerful the
6:04movement
6:11was and the movement expanded to other
6:14causes at the end of the so-called
6:16Freedom
6:17Summer the First Amendment didn't apply
6:20to any campuses in the country you you
6:23couldn't give a speech without getting
6:25it cleared by the administration when
6:28Freedom Summer Veterans the University
6:30of California at Berkeley tried to
6:32recruit others to their cause they were
6:34barred by University
6:37Regents it just set off this explosion
6:41among the students and people who had
6:43never had a political thought on their
6:45their head just got fired by the idea
6:48that someone couldn't tell them when and
6:50where to say what they wanted to say
6:53don't stand up for your freedom now
6:55you're dead guys United by what they saw
6:58as an inj thousands of students began a
7:01series of protests that lasted 8
7:04weeks when college officials threatened
7:06to expel several of the student leaders
7:09the conflict reached a boiling
7:12point there's a time when the operation
7:15of the machine becomes so odious makes
7:19you so sick at heart that you can't take
7:21part you can't even passively take part
7:24you have to put your body on the wheels
7:26and um we're going to go in there and
7:29we're going to uh take over this
7:31building and so when the crowd began to
7:33move I just went with it first FL is BU
7:38second
7:39floor and are some people looked a
7:41little scared because they' had never
7:42done anything like that before I was
7:46scared I think we're telling we got
7:49pissed off and we're sticking
7:52tired when the student takeover of a
7:55campus Building resulted in more than
7:57800 arrests the university found faculty
8:00finally weighed in on the side of the
8:04demonstrators cornered as they were the
8:07Regents granted free speech to the
8:10students and thus began an era of
8:13Confrontation at American
8:16universities in late 1964 another fight
8:19was looming for Americans this one
8:21thousands of miles from home and with
8:24far more devastating consequences for
8:27several years American advisers had been
8:29sent to South Vietnam to help prevent
8:31what the administration said was a
8:33takeover by the communist North things
8:36were not going well in the South
8:38president Lyndon Johnson decided to
8:40dramatically increase the US military
8:43commitment to Vietnam and just as they
8:46had throughout history Young Americans
8:49answered the call to
8:52Arms I didn't want to see my son go and
8:54he promised nothing was going to happen
8:56to him you know and uh that it was going
8:58to be over very soon shortly and he'd be
9:00home before I before I knew
9:03it you grew up watching those John Wayne
9:06movies where the good guys always
9:09win I was being John Wayne I was going
9:12to go and I was going to beat them and
9:14nothing could hurt
9:20me like many other young men in 1965
9:23Jack Bronson knew very little about war
9:26except that America didn't lose them
9:29this one looked at first to be no
9:31exception the United States which had
9:34defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
9:36and held back the Communist Chinese and
9:39Korea now faced a third world Army of
9:42North Vietnamese soldiers and South
9:45Vietnamese Viet Kong
9:47guerillas American commanders
9:50confidently predicted a Swift and
9:52positive conclusion I was excited about
9:55going to war the whole Battalion was
9:57excited about going to war we were uh we
9:59were
10:06gungho with 125,000 fresh troops and an
10:09armada of helicopters ranging all over
10:12South Vietnam American generals were
10:15spoiling for a good
10:17fight they were about to get
10:23one on November the 15th 1965 Lieutenant
10:27Larry Gwynn's unit was helicoptered to a
10:29valley in central Vietnam near the
10:32Cambodian border they had gone to
10:34intersect the North Vietnamese supply
10:37routs to the South North Vietnamese
10:40soldiers watched them
10:42arrive it was my first real hot Landing
10:49Zone and it was so hot that I had exited
10:52my ship knelt in the grass for about 10
10:56seconds and a guy pops up next to me
10:58whom I knew had just been shot through
10:59the shoulder and said I'm hit
11:01Lieutenant a major battle with the Enemy
11:04was just what the military brass had
11:05been hoping for only it was not going
11:08according to plan at 10: in the morning
11:12Lieutenant Gwyn was fighting for his
11:14life our first platoon was overrun our
11:17second platoon was pinned down by mortar
11:19fire I saw about 40 North Vietnamese
11:22soldiers coming across the landing Zone
11:24at
11:26us and all I did was say here they come
11:29and start shooting
11:31at 1 p.m. the American Commander sent
11:34out an emergency signal Broken Arrow US
11:38troops in danger of being
11:41[Music]
11:45overrun every available aircraft was
11:47called in against the North Vietnamese
11:49positions
12:00including the giant B-52 bombers the B52
12:05is uh terrible terrible in many way
12:09because firstly there was no way you can
12:13fight back
12:14it you can't run there's no time for you
12:17to
12:20run you just lay there waited for the de
12:24to come and and grip you
12:39and thousands of men died in those
12:41Desperate Hours by the time the battle
12:44was over 3500 North Vietnamese and 305
12:48Americans had been killed it was obvious
12:51to the men in the field what lay ahead
12:57[Music]
13:05preoccupied as he was with the growing
13:07war in Vietnam President Johnson knew
13:09that he had to address problems at home
13:12despite America's Prosperity 40 million
13:15citizens still live below the poverty
13:17line and this Administration today here
13:22and now declares unconditional war on
13:27poverty in America
13:31in May 1964 the president unveiled the
13:34grand plan for what he called the Great
13:36Society Mr Johnson hoped to match the
13:39power and vitality of Franklin
13:41Roosevelt's new deal with a list of
13:44Welfare job and educational
13:46opportunities to Aid underprivileged
13:49[Music]
13:50Americans but the privilege that many
13:52Southern blacks most desired was the
13:55right to vote still often Deni them
13:59in Selma Alabama 97% of 15,000 eligible
14:04black voters were
14:06unregistered some because of cynicism or
14:09apathy but most because they faced
14:11violence and intimidation from local
14:14authorities people could only attempt to
14:17register on the first and third Mondays
14:20of each month the reg is not in session
14:23this afternoon as you were informed you
14:25came down to make a mockery out of his
14:28Courthouse and you had to get some white
14:31person to vouch that you were a good
14:33character no white person in his right
14:35mind in the state of Alabama we going to
14:38vouch that a black person was a good
14:40character if we're wrong rers you arrest
14:42us we have come to register Selma
14:45rapidly became the new flasho of the
14:46Civil Rights
14:48Movement on March the 7th
14:511965 600 civil rights activists planned
14:54a March that was to take them from Selma
14:56to the state capital in Montgomery some
14:5954 miles
15:02away their route would take the
15:04nonviolent demonstrators through what
15:05amounted to enemy territory roads and
15:08highways controlled by the Alabama state
15:15police and they came toward
15:18us beating up with night states with
15:21bull Pips and tramping us with
15:25horses I was hit in the head and just
15:29left line there and I I felt like I was
15:32I felt like it was the
15:34last
15:39protest the violence and brutality which
15:41ended this March quickly provoked plans
15:44for a much larger one now joined by Dr
15:47Martin Luther King we've gone too far
15:50now to turn back Dr King was determined
15:53to focus national attention on Selma and
15:56he Enlisted the help of supporters from
15:58New York to Hollywood the Reverend
16:01said the white
16:04man can't cool it because he's never dug
16:07it Marlon brand was the one that got me
16:09involved in civil rights honestly he um
16:13um I was walking down the street and he
16:15just pulled up in the car and he said
16:19uh how'd you like to go down to
16:22Salma
16:23yeah I said s s we're going to have a
16:27March from s to Montgomery you want to
16:28come
16:29and I said
16:31[Music]
16:34sure before the second March had even
16:36begun the Reverend James ree a civil
16:39right sympathizer was beaten to death by
16:41a white mob but rather than intimidating
16:44the Marchers that violence seemed to
16:46give them a powerful Ally that night I
16:49was with M the King Jr in selo when we
16:53heard Lyndon Johnson we watched him make
16:55one of the greatest speeches any
16:57American president ever made on the
17:00whole question of civil rights their
17:03cause must be our cause too it's all of
17:08us who must overcome the crippling
17:12Legacy of
17:14bigotry and
17:17Injustice and we shall
17:21overcome just think of a president with
17:26a Southern accent from Texas
17:29saying to the Congress of the United
17:31States we shall
17:33overcome
17:35finally popular protest and Public Power
17:39had come together and Dr King literally
17:41started crying tears came down his
17:45face I knew then that we would make it
17:49from selon to
17:50[Music]
17:55Montgomery on March 21st 1965 30 3200
17:59people sat out from
18:00[Music]
18:04Selma 4 days later as the March
18:07approached Montgomery there were 25,000
18:09people
18:12marching it was an amazing moment it was
18:15it was scary it was scary there
18:17helicopters everywhere like some sort of
18:20angry bugs and there were only
18:22Confederate flags fing we were the only
18:24ones with American flags yeah and Martin
18:26Luther King gave a great speech
18:29all the world today knows that we are
18:32here and we are standing before the
18:35forces of power in the state of Alabama
18:38saying we ain't going to let nobody turn
18:40us
18:43around there's very few times in your
18:46life that you know that you're at
18:47someplace that you're at a moment where
18:49this is one of those things that as long
18:52as there's time is going to be this
18:53moment that was it United States of
18:55America on August the 6th Lyndon Johnson
18:58signed the Voting Rights Act finally
19:00guaranteeing black Americans the right
19:03to
19:04vote but just as it reached a high point
19:07the Civil Rights Movement seemed to
19:09split into Waring factions a revolution
19:12of rising
19:13expectations stirs people to believe
19:16that the promised land is there it was
19:19when change was coming when there was a
19:21sense of
19:23possibility uh that everything broke
19:26loose and went wild yeah better than the
19:29white man you are better than the white
19:32man and that's not sayen anything
19:34despite the gains of recent years it
19:36seemed to many blacks that the pace of
19:38change was too slow that Martin Luther
19:40King was too
19:42accommodating these blacks began to
19:44adopt the separatist rhetoric of the
19:46charismatic Malcolm X I used to hear
19:49Malcolm say if a man slaps me in the
19:51face I'm not turning my cheek if I slap
19:53him back he won't slap me again that
19:56made a lot of sense
19:58at that time said clearly all right what
20:00we need is power while king would say
20:02what we need is morality to help bring
20:04out Malcolm say forget about them just
20:06get guns and that's how they're going to
20:07regulate the problem the contradiction
20:09however was that Manu the King was
20:11involved in action confronting the enemy
20:13malx was
20:15not so what you had to do was take the
20:18confrontation of King and match it as
20:20best you can with the philosophy of
20:21Malcolm X which is precisely what uh we
20:23did we want black power we want black
20:27power the is response was overwhelming
20:30do
20:32you do you
20:33want do you want in 1966 militants in
20:38Oakland California founded the Black
20:40Panther Party for self-defense and told
20:43America that the fight for civil rights
20:45would never be the
20:48same if you come down here jumping on us
20:51and beating us up like you were beating
20:52up the peaceful protesters with your
20:54dogs your calpro and are shooting them
20:56and are murdering these peaceful
20:58protesters
21:00we're not going to take it when you
21:02start shooting we shooting back
21:08re The Call by militant leaders for
21:11total Revolution received a sympathetic
21:13he in many of the nation's impoverished
21:15inner cities where the Great Society was
21:19still nowhere to be seen when in the
21:22South we had a powerful nonviolent
21:25movement people had a way to chall that
21:28frustration in in many parts of America
21:31especially outside of the South the
21:34fires of frustration the fires of
21:37discontent will beginning to
21:40burn in 1967 that anger and discontent
21:44exploded into violence in new Yark New
21:47Jersey Detroit Michigan and more than
21:49100 other cities 80 people died in urban
21:53riots that summer
21:59lynon Johnson was shocked I think at the
22:03riots and angry he took it personally
22:07and he got angry at blacks for being
22:11ungrateful for have these great laws
22:14have been
22:15passed despite his disappointment Linda
22:18Johnson believed that his war on poverty
22:20could still succeed all he needed was
22:23more money well the president said to me
22:25you know we have this war going on now
22:28in Vietnam Nam it's going to take up all
22:30of the extra money we have right now uh
22:33to fight that war but he said sry look
22:36we're going to be out of that where
22:37that'll be finished in the next 12 to 18
22:39months as soon as that's finished I will
22:41take the money we now are devoting to
22:43the war in Vietnam and we'll put it into
22:45the war against
22:47poverty obviously that never happened
23:00in 1964 a British rock band showed up in
23:02the United States that was described by
23:04one historian as runch and more
23:07rebellious Than the Beatles they were
23:09called The Rolling Stones and in the mid
23:131960s they created a song that became an
23:17Anthem I had one of the first early
23:20Nelco sort of cassette players
23:2319645 and I put it next to the bed and I
23:27with the guitar
23:29um and I crashed out and when I woke up
23:32in the morning I noticed that the tape
23:34had gone to the end and I put it in at
23:36the beginning you know and I ran it back
23:40push play and somewhere in the middle of
23:43the night I had woken up and
23:46played can't
23:49get and it's there the verse and the
23:52chorus are there and then it stops and
23:54the rest of the tapable is me snoring
23:59[Music]
24:06rock music had accompanied America's
24:08youth on its Journey to the Forefront of
24:09the nation's Consciousness with songs
24:12like satisfaction number one in the
24:13charts in
24:141965 the journey took quite a radical
24:20[Music]
24:24turn the message is the ordinary order
24:28of things is either broken or
24:33corrupt I Can't Get No Satisfaction got
24:36do something Wilder that's how you get
24:37your
24:41satisfaction the message in a sense is
24:43cut
24:45[Music]
24:47loose it was music that gave us as an
24:50entity as a community a sense of of of
24:54cohesion and a sense of existing a real
24:56sense of being more than a few demonstr
24:59the Rolling Stones Janice Joplin the
25:02doors Bob Dylan all of them sang in a
25:05way that invited challenge to The
25:07Establishment I think people were
25:09absolutely waking up but they didn't
25:11know exactly how to get out of bed yet
25:14and what to do when they put their feet
25:15on the
25:19floor we began to look around
25:22for things to do which would alert
25:25people to other possibilities other ways
25:28of living
25:31[Music]
25:33living for some other possibilities
25:36meant completely rejecting the values
25:38that had United their parents'
25:41generation I mean where is it written in
25:44stone that people have to work from 9 to
25:475 the ha Ashbury section of San
25:49Francisco became the center of the
25:51country
25:53culture suddenly there was uh an
25:56environment where your personal history
25:58did not matter nobody cared who your
26:01parents were whether you were Rich
26:03whether you were poor you get up every
26:05day and you had no idea what the day
26:09would
26:09bring there were the greatest looking
26:12women parading up and down the
26:16street there was a sense of adventure
26:20random
26:24[Music]
26:27combinations you could catch a woman's
26:29eye and offer her your arm and without a
26:33word walk away and spend an afternoon
26:36making love and if you didn't talk that
26:39was okay I was looking for a new way to
26:42express myself you know and I think
26:44everybody was and unfortunately a lot of
26:47people um went to
26:50drugs because it came naturally out of
26:53it came naturally out of what we were
26:55doing at the time it's a food for the
26:57soul right now I'm on LSD right now
27:01every color is going through my mind the
27:04psychedelic drug LSD became a right of
27:06passage for many in The Counter
27:09Culture these were awfully hard on on
27:11people who were in their 40s at that
27:13time just awfully hard with the hair and
27:16the drugs and the music and the dirty
27:19clothes and the foul language that all
27:21became oan regardless of a political
27:24position one
27:25took brothers and sisters mothers and
27:28fathers if you truly care about despised
27:30by many people in the older generation
27:33the social firment of the 1960s would
27:35nonetheless change forever the way Young
27:38Americans looked at
27:41themselves a long dormant struggle for
27:43the quality was revived by the New
27:45Freedom that many young women were
27:47feeling women were given more Choice
27:49with the introduction of the birth
27:51control pill we could now
27:54control when and if we chose to have
27:57children
27:59and it helped to propel I think the
28:02development of a women's movement in the
28:041960s discrimination against women was
28:07solidly entrenched particularly in the
28:10workplace job ads were divided into
28:14sections marked male and female Airline
28:17stewardesses were simply dismissed on
28:19their 32nd birthday that the great
28:22majority of American women are not
28:24participating in terms of their full
28:26potential of ability in 19 66 a group of
28:29feminists most notably batty fedan
28:32founded the National Organization for
28:34Women this was a turning point in the
28:36women's Liberation movement that was
28:37typical of many struggles at the time
28:40thus began another era of militancy
28:43women have been particularly oppressed
28:45and now women are on the move and there
28:46ain't going to be no stopping us this
28:48one was was my struggle in which I was
28:51the actor new Miss America stands 5'7
28:54weighs 125 lb and measures 36 4 and a
28:58half
28:5936 on September the 7th 1968 the new
29:03Miss America was crowned in Atlantic
29:05City New
29:07Jersey outside 200 women demonstrated
29:10against the pageant they threw their
29:13bras and their high heel shoes which
29:16they called instruments of Oppression
29:18into so-called Freedom trash
29:21cans brains not your
29:24[Music]
29:29we had learned that from the Civil
29:30Rights Movement you demonstrate you
29:32stand up you get in their face and you
29:34get behind the scenes and you pass your
29:36legislation we learned we were
29:39[Music]
29:42political take the
29:45point for American soldiers in the field
29:48it was grinding and bloody but by mid
29:521966 the Vietnam War was settling into
29:55just the kind of conflict The General
29:58William West Morland believed America
30:00would win a war of
30:06attrition what general West Morland
30:08didn't recognize was that the North
30:10Vietnamese also saw a war they could win
30:13as long as they didn't meet the
30:14Americans head on the booby trap the
30:19land
30:20mine the raid the
30:25Ambush any square yard uh Vietnam could
30:29be this absolutely utterly peaceful
30:31place one
30:33second and the next second it was it was
30:36the end of the
30:41world we are not fighting a
30:43convention we would go in a kind of
30:46surprise attack and then withdraw
30:52immediately very
30:55effective as the US grew frustrated by
30:58its inability to score decisive
31:00victories against the North Vietnamese
31:02and the Viet Kong the administration
31:05continued to pour more men and more
31:07Machinery into Vietnam by mid 1967 close
31:11to half a million Americans were
31:13involved in the
31:17fight in the face of these escalations
31:20the North Vietnamese continually adapted
31:23their strategies the only option they
31:26never discussed among themselves was
31:28surrender as long as a live Vietnam
31:32there the resist would go
31:37on WE CH wouldn't accept a two
31:48Vietnam that rice is wet spread it out
31:51on the ground otherwise burn it for
31:54American troops most of whom left
31:55Vietnam after one year of Duty things
31:57were not quite as clear at all almost
31:59anyone was a potential enemy as the
32:02North Vietnamese and the Viet Kong
32:03enjoyed widespread sympathy in South
32:06Vietnam in such an atmosphere of
32:08confusion areas were conquered and then
32:11abandoned Villages saved and then
32:15destroyed I believe I'm correct in
32:17saying that in the past 4 and a half
32:20years the Viet in the time
32:24in have lost 89,000 men
32:28kill many Americans were dying too
32:31without ever understanding what they'd
32:33been fighting
32:38for there was one kid who was grievously
32:41injured and I had my arms around him
32:43that trying to to comfort him but he was
32:46losing
32:47Consciousness and he just kept staring
32:49up with an expression on his face of uh
32:52why why what's happening to me what's
32:54happening to
32:55me by then 19 67 and 68 when we were
33:00losing hundreds a week in that same
33:03fashion you had to start questioning how
33:05much longer could this go
33:12on on January the 20th 1968 US Marines
33:16got involved in a battle with the North
33:18Vietnamese near the American base at
33:20keson it was the beginning of a critical
33:24campaign for several weeks the North
33:27Vietnamese hammered keson and its
33:33Defenders we were moving our way up the
33:35trench line and it came to a machine gun
33:38book and there was someone was firing a
33:40machine gun and I said where's everybody
33:42else and he said there isn't anybody
33:44else and I said where's your crew and he
33:46said they're gone The Siege continued
33:49throughout February and into March
33:54[Music]
33:59at home television viewers were shocked
34:02by the
34:07spectacle Jack Bronson was a medic they
34:11screamed for me they screamed for their
34:14mothers it is not like the movies you
34:17are looking at this person who is beging
34:22not to Die the first question they
34:25always would ask me am I going to make
34:26it backck and I had a lie a lot of
34:33times when I was hit I know I was hurt
34:36bad and I can remember laying there and
34:39I could hear the Vietnamese cuz they
34:41were throw kept throwing grenades at I
34:43could hear them
34:44talking and I can remember saying to
34:46myself you were going to die I got this
34:49telegram telling me that he was very
34:53seriously hurt and that the prognosis
34:57was not
34:59good he was so far away that if I could
35:02only see him it wouldn't be so bad but
35:05he's way out there he didn't know
35:07whether I loved him or if I could only
35:10hold his hand or something cuz I didn't
35:13I didn't expect to see him
35:15again severely wounded Jack Bronson
35:18would return home to a country unsure
35:20what to make of his
35:21sacrifice in late March the North
35:24Vietnamese simply melted away and C on
35:28became another in a growing tally of
35:30dubious victories a base desperately
35:33fought over and Van
35:37abandoned yeah I don't know they they
35:40say we're fighting for something I don't
35:41know by now many Americans in the home
35:45front didn't see the Vietnam War as one
35:46of national
35:48survival opposition to the high price
35:51being paid in American serviceman began
35:53to
35:55build as we began to see what was
35:59happening in that war watching on
36:01television it was stunning you know it
36:04was something that we had never seen we
36:06never seen that face of War you know it
36:07was always World War II the good war and
36:10nobody ever saw the Korean War I mean
36:12how many pictures have you ever seen of
36:13the Korean
36:14War suddenly there was 6:00 you know
36:18there were bodies and and firefights
36:21what made the experiences of the Vietnam
36:24War generation so different from those
36:25of the World War II
36:28their parents hadn't had TV when they
36:29were kids that made them different from
36:31every generation that had gone
36:35before the anti-war demonstrators in the
36:38United States now took their protests to
36:40a new
36:42level stuan took part in one of the
36:45growing number of demonstrations against
36:47the
36:48war the confrontation was very intense
36:51the cops very suddenly had moved in on
36:54people and started to crack heads and
36:56they beat people pretty pretty
36:58[Applause]
37:00badly there was a lot of blood uh there
37:03were a lot of injuries and all of a
37:06sudden people understood themselves as
37:09being uh at odds with the powers that be
37:14that for us was a signal that we needed
37:15to come back strong become more
37:19militant in trying to stop the war in
37:21Vietnam the demonstrations intensifi the
37:24war at home yeah burn the back burn the
37:27back
37:29join our you don't have to go you say no
37:32there was a class Dimension to the
37:35Vietnam protest to a large extent it was
37:37college kids saying they didn't want to
37:39go fight this war that they didn't see
37:42much point in so the blue collar kids
37:46did it it was one of the uglier things
37:49about
37:50the yet on more to what extent it was
37:53fought by the the less fortunate uh in
37:56the society
38:01in February and March 1968 television
38:04brought another set of horrifying images
38:06home to
38:08[Music]
38:16Americans US soldiers were fighting for
38:18their lives from one end of South
38:20Vietnam to the other the US Embassy in
38:22Saigon was being overrun
38:29gas this was the T offense of a military
38:32defeat for the North Vietnamese but
38:35ultimately a political Victory despite
38:37hearing repeatedly that there was light
38:39at the end of the tunnel most Americans
38:41came to realize they were not going to
38:43win the war in Vietnam anytime soon if
38:47ever on March the 31st 1968 with the
38:51presidential election just a few months
38:52away an exhausted Lyndon Johnson seemed
38:55to come to the same conclusion
38:58I shall not
39:00seat and I will not
39:03accept the nomination of my party for
39:06another term as your president and I
39:08looked at the guys in the bunker with me
39:11and I thought I said he's getting out
39:14and the other guy said what do you mean
39:14I said he's not going to run for
39:16president he's not running
39:18anymore he's getting out he's the
39:20commander-in-chief and so if he's
39:22getting out what are we doing here
39:30[Music]
39:37in America 1968 peace and understanding
39:40were fast becoming Distant
39:44Memories as the Vietnam War became the
39:48longest war in American history over 100
39:51college campuses were racked by Furious
39:55protest in the spring of the nation
39:58cities exploded once again with racial
40:03violence propelled by the terrible
40:05events of April the 4th
40:081968 when I heard over the news that
40:11Martin Luther King had been shot in
40:12Memphis and then seconds later killed in
40:15Memphis it was as if a member of my
40:18family had been killed and it said to me
40:20here's this guy has been going around
40:23preaching peace and nonviolence and
40:26peaceful resist assistance and now
40:28someone has shot him
40:29dead and it shattered my belief that we
40:34could work these things out in a
40:35peaceful way it's perhaps well to ask
40:38what kind of a Nation we
40:40are and what direction we want to move
40:43in that night Robert Kennedy the leading
40:45candidate for the Democratic
40:46presidential nomination announced King's
40:49death to a room full of campaign
40:51workers in Kennedy many Americans both
40:54black and white saw a man who Could Turn
40:56Back the tide of violence 2 months after
40:59the death of Martin Luther King Robert
41:01Kennedy was
41:04killed my wife came into the bedroom and
41:07said you know you know what what they've
41:09done now they shot Bobby Kennedy this
41:12they a sort of paranoid moment of our
41:14own but uh the sense of of the
41:17everything coming
41:20[Music]
41:21undone and you never quite get over it
41:24you no longer feel safe in your life the
41:27way you did as a child when your parents
41:29were
41:30[Music]
41:33alive in those turbulent days um you
41:37felt you never really will be
41:39safe will the convention be in order in
41:42late August the city of Chicago was the
41:44host City for the Democratic National
41:46Convention will the convention be will
41:49the Sergeant at Arms in force order in
41:53the convention delegates from all 50
41:56states AR to find Chicago an armed Camp
42:00the city's mayor Richard Dy knew that
42:02tens of thousands of young demonstrators
42:04were also on their way chman they're
42:07here as guest of the democratic party
42:10and let them conduct themselves
42:11accordingly they were determined to have
42:14their say all across the country the new
42:17left was trying to provoke people into
42:19actions that would escalate the whole
42:23thing you never saw people so provoked
42:26in all your life as ocean called police
42:27the things those kids said to him I take
42:30one look at these KS out here and I know
42:32what America's about the gestures they
42:34made to him deliberately designed to
42:36bring on this
42:38[Applause]
42:47[Music]
42:50[Applause]
42:55reaction volunteer to go to the
42:57Democratic Convention because I wanted
42:59to see it yeah I can remember up at um
43:022: in the morning trying to get to sleep
43:04it a little difficult because uh our
43:06windows were open it very hot and all we
43:09could hear was the chant Fu Dale Lee it
43:13was quite an event the Democratic party
43:15was coming apart right there in the
43:16streets of
43:18Chicago it seemed to many the country
43:20itself was coming
43:22apart in November America elected a new
43:26president who promis to heal the
43:28nation's wounds Richard Milhouse Nixon
43:31we're going to suck a Tom from
43:35[Music]
43:49now just as American unity and
43:51confidence seem to be crumbling a man
43:54from Ohio lands on the moon we'll see
43:57that on the next episode of the century
44:00America's time thank you for joining us
44:03I'm Peter Jennings
44:05[Music]
44:28the

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of The Century: America's Time - 1965-1970: Unpinned by McDonnell Technology Services, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 5,847 words across 941 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.