The Vietnam War

[Mav617]

Series on BBC iPlayer currently, recommended and worth the licence fee for the year.

[Varastorm]

Thanks Mav, I did notice it but was wondering if it was fact or fiction.

I've seen the series "Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States" which covers it also & thought was very informative & interesting.

The deal breaker is if it mentions the infamous "Gulf of Tonkin episode".

The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that played a critical role near the beginning of the Vietnam War. An agency historian argued that the agency's intelligence officers "deliberately skewed" the evidence passed on to policymakers on the crucial question of whether North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. destroyers on Aug 4, 1964. Based on the mistaken belief that such an attack had occurred, President Lyndon Johnson ordered air strikes on North Vietnam, and Congress passed a broad resolution authorizing military action.

[MacV2]

This series is deff worth a watch. 10 parts has been on BBC2 so bloody ad's.

AS is the norm with this type of prog a lot of the footage is stock stuff that has probably been seen before but there are a lot of stills & some footage that I have not seen before.

Lots of talking heads from both sides so you get the story from both sides.

Delves deep into the shady politics on the US side...basicaly coruption & lying all round...

I watched the last episode last night... The septics lost...whoops spoiler sorry...

[BigVeeGrin]

Thanks Mav, I did notice it but was wondering if it was fact or fiction.

I've seen the series "Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States" which covers it also & thought was very informative & interesting.

The deal breaker is if it mentions the infamous "Gulf of Tonkin episode".

The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that played a critical role near the beginning of the Vietnam War. An agency historian argued that the agency's intelligence officers "deliberately skewed" the evidence passed on to policymakers on the crucial question of whether North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. destroyers on Aug 4, 1964. Based on the mistaken belief that such an attack had occurred, President Lyndon Johnson ordered air strikes on North Vietnam, and Congress passed a broad resolution authorizing military action.

Superb. And it does.

[xeris]

Funny how history keeps repeating. In my dictionary "skewed" is not a synonym for lied.

[Stratman]

I'm watching that. Brilliant series. As someone once said "what we learn from history is that we never learn from history"