Jan 19, 1995  Vintage footage from the Vietnam war is presented in High Definition video format along with narration from both war veterans and Hollywood voice talent. The documentary follows key events. See full summary » Stars: Tempestt Bledsoe, Edward Burns, Dean Cain. Battlefield Series Three: Vietnam was the first definitive documentary of the Vietnam War as a war. It will intentionally avoid the subsidiary issues which cloud judgement of the war, so that a clearer picture of what actually happened on the ground and in the air will emerge.

The Geneva Peace Accords
The Geneva Peace Accords, signed by France and Vietnam in the summer of 1954, reflected the strains of the international cold war. Drawn up in the shadow of the Korean War, the Geneva Accords represented the worst of all possible futures for war-torn Vietnam. Because of outside pressures brought to bear by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, Vietnam's delegates to the Geneva Conference agreed to the temporary partition of their nation at the seventeenth parallel to allow France a face-saving defeat. The Communist superpowers feared that a provocative peace would anger the United States and its western European allies, and neither Moscow or Peking wanted to risk another confrontation with the West so soon after the Korean War.

According to the terms of the Geneva Accords, Vietnam would hold national elections in 1956 to reunify the country. The division at the seventeenth parallel, a temporary separation without cultural precedent, would vanish with the elections. The United States, however, had other ideas. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles did not support the Geneva Accords because he thought they granted too much power to the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Instead, Dulles and President Dwight D. Eisenhower supported the creation of a counter-revolutionary alternative south of the seventeenth parallel. The United States supported this effort at nation-building through a series of multilateral agreements that created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

South Vietnam Under Ngo Dinh Diem
Using SEATO for political cover, the Eisenhower administration helped create a new nation from dust in southern Vietnam. In 1955, with the help of massive amounts of American military, political, and economic aid, the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN or South Vietnam) was born. The following year, Ngo Dinh Diem, a staunchly anti-Communist figure from the South, won a dubious election that made him president of the GVN. Almost immediately, Diem claimed that his newly created government was under attack from Communists in the north. Diem argued that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV or North Vietnam) wanted to take South Vietnam by force. In late 1957, with American military aid, Diem began to counterattack. He used the help of the American Central Intelligence Agency to identify those who sought to bring his government down and arrested thousands. Diem passed a repressive series of acts known as Law 10/59 that made it legal to hold someone in jail if s/he was a suspected Communist without bringing formal charges.

The outcry against Diem's harsh and oppressive actions was immediate. Buddhist monks and nuns were joined by students, business people, intellectuals, and peasants in opposition to the corrupt rule of Ngo Dinh Diem. The more these forces attacked Diem's troops and secret police, the more Diem complained that the Communists were trying to take South Vietnam by force. This was, in Diem's words, 'a hostile act of aggression by North Vietnam against peace-loving and democratic South Vietnam.'

The Kennedy administration seemed split on how peaceful or democratic the Diem regime really was. Some Kennedy advisers believed Diem had not instituted enough social and economic reforms to remain a viable leader in the nation-building experiment. Others argued that Diem was the 'best of a bad lot.' As the White House met to decide the future of its Vietnam policy, a change in strategy took place at the highest levels of the Communist Party.

Ncaa march madness 08 xbox 360. Henry Diltz, AFP/Getty ImagesOn the battlefield, the Vietnam War was just as shrill as the wars that came before it. Thanks to rock ’n’ roll, however, it also had a sound all its own — at times joyful, sad, angry, hopeful, woeful, inspiring, fearful and forgiving. Sometimes—in The Beatles’ 1970 song Let It Be, for example — even peaceful.“Music is the fastest art form there is. Two notes, and you feel something,” says documentarian Ken Burns, whose latest film series with partner Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War, premieres Sept. Music plays a lead role.“The music of the time is a character in the film,” says Novick, who co-directed The Vietnam War with Burns.

“It helps you understand the experience of people living through the Vietnam War better than almost anything else.”In truth, music isn’t one character in the film; it’s three: popular music from the period, an original score by Academy Award-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and interpretations of traditional Vietnamese melodies arranged and recorded by Grammy Award-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble. Each adds something special to the 10-part series, the sounds of which make Vietnam reverberate in America’s eardrums just as loudly today as it did 50 years ago. Licensed to RockRetired Air Force general Merrill McPeak opens The Vietnam War’s eighth episode with commentary on music’s role in the cultural revolution coinciding with the war.“The late ’60s were a kind of confluence of several rivulets,” says McPeak, a fighter pilot who flew 269 combat missions in Vietnam. “There was the anti-war movement itself, the whole movement towards racial equality, the environment, the role of women. And the anthems for that counterculture were provided by the most brilliant rock ’n’ roll music that you can imagine.”Meanwhile, The Beatles’ 1968 song While My Guitar Gently Weeps plays hauntingly in the background, the phrase “I look at the world, and I notice it’s turning” bleeding from George Harrison’s vocals. John Pratt, Hulton Archive via Getty ImagesThat’s the kind of musical synergy Burns and Novick sought in The Vietnam War. They achieved it with the help of 120 licensed tracks from the Vietnam era.“While there’s popular music in other films we’ve made, this was on a very different scale,” says Sarah Botstein, who co-produced The Vietnam War with Burns and Novick.

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Bruce Fleming, AP“The way they approached this film made being part of it an easy decision,” says John McDermott of Experience Hendrix, which manages the estate of Jimi Hendrix. Several Hendrix songs were licensed for the film after the artist’s sister, Janie Hendrix, spent a day previewing it with Botstein. “We saw right away that it wasn’t about trading on famous names; it was about understanding what actually went on during that era. And Hendrix certainly was a part of that.”Thanks to his iconic performance of The Star-Spangled Banner on the electric guitar at Woodstock — a commentary on America that was simultaneously scathing and celebratory — some might even call him a symbol of it.“Young people always looked at Jimi as one of the leaders of that era,” McDermott says. “We’ve heard from countless people over the years who said he made an incredibly difficult experience more endurable. For that reason alone this project really resonated with us.” Setting the MoodThe film’s original score, composed by Reznor and Ross, is a surprising complement to the likes of Hendrix and Dylan. A discordant potpourri of severe guitars, menacing synthesizers and intriguing percussion, it’s restless, raw, anxious and austere—just like the war was.“Our film changed profoundly when we began working with Trent and Atticus,” says Novick, who approached the pair after hearing their score for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Along with Burns and Botstein, she shared with them some of the film’s raw footage; sound effects from the era, like helicopter rotors; and a list of feelings they wanted the music to convey — fear, love, panic, confusion, guilt, alienation, despair, adrenaline. Composed over two years, the score consists of 17 “themes” with titles like The Forever Rain, Counting Ticks and Haunted. “We wanted original music that would amplify, enhance and explain the emotional moods of the film; the music they created does that in ways we can’t possibly understand,” Novick says.Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble achieve a similar effect with their contribution: a collection of traditional Vietnamese folk songs rearranged and reinterpreted during a daylong recording session that also yielded several improvisations used in the film.“Sitting in the studio and watching Yo-Yo Ma and this group of musicians create art on the spot was one of the great joys of this project,” Novick says. “They gave us some truly remarkable music.”With 18 hours of footage, there’s no shortage of things to see in The Vietnam War. Clearly, however, the viewers who understand the war best will be those who listen as intently as they watch.“We’re very fortunate,” Burns concludes.

“It’s one hell of a soundtrack.”.