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San Francisco Chronicle
28-04-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Turning Point: The Vietnam War' resurfaces ugly truths, exposes America's shameful repeat of history
In marking the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, Vietnam War documentaries have become a television genre. This week, Netflix joins the trend with 'Turning Point: The Vietnam War.' The third of Brian Knappenberger's 'Turning Point' miniseries (previous entries looked at 'The Bomb and the Cold War' and '9/11 and the War on Terror'), its five episodes cover much the same ground as Ken Burns' 2017 PBS series ' The Vietnam War ' and ' Vietnam: The War That Changed America,' which Apple TV+ released earlier this year. That's unavoidable; the historical record is the historical record. But America's mid-20th century involvement in what was essentially a Southeast Asian civil war was so complex and camouflaged in deception — not to mention brutal, racist, socially disruptive and ultimately, unforgivably senseless — that every one of these extended documentaries illuminates new, or at least different, tragedies. We're talking small degrees of emphasis here. Knappenberger lays out the pertinent aspects more comprehensively than the Apple TV+ series did and in a less plodding manner than Burns. 'Turning Point: The Vietnam War,' may be dense with information, yet is edited and delivered in a manner that feels fleet while still getting the job done. This show relies a lot on CBS news archives, hence the prominence of network stars Dan Rather (who is also an elderly, insightful talking head here), Morley Safer, Ed Bradley and, of course, Walter Cronkite. However 'Turning Point,' like its predecessors, prides itself on newly discovered sources such as declassified government records and personal footage taken by U.S. and Vietnamese troops of both sides. Most enraging are secret White House tape recordings. It's clear John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had reels turning long before the system led to Richard Nixon's Watergate Waterloo. The audio evidence of how all three administrations lied to the public about the war's feasibility makes for an appalling indictment. Grunts, POWs, anti-war protesters, U.S. military and government higher-ups, historians, Graham Nash (CSNY's 'Ohio' is predictably prominent on the soundtrack) and especially sharp book authors explain America's tactical and moral failings and the resulting, ongoing credibility gap between citizens and our leaders. The complicated story of post-World War II Indochina is cleanly laid out, while a well-balanced array of North Vietnamese, Viet Cong and South Vietnamese combatants and civilians describe the awful things people did to each other in the names of freedom from colonialism or communism. The program's most chilling sequence is a kind of virtual walk through the My Lai Massacre, when a U.S. unit methodically murdered hundreds of women, children and seniors in a rural hamlet soon after the 1968, attitude-changing Tet Offensive. Ronald Haeberle, a military photographer who took pictures with a personal camera that the Army couldn't censor, provides grisly graphics and soul-throttling commentary of what he saw that day. Wizened Vietnamese survivors will break your heart. If I recall, My Lai wasn't even mentioned in 'War That Changed America,' which speaks to this docuseries' more traditional, full-picture approach. The Apple TV+ series placed more emphasis on human factors, though Knappenberger is no slouch in that department. The first vet we hear from this time around is Scott Camil, a Marine who also figures prominently in the Apple TV+ show. I think Knappenberger uses the same footage of G.I.s turning their weapons into bongs that we saw a few months ago, as well. But whatever seems repetitious in these Vietnam documentaries is mitigated by necessity. 'Turning Point' concludes noting the invasion of Iraq was justified by Gulf of Tonkin-style lies, and our 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal looked strikingly like that chaotic, 1975 airlift from Saigon. Bob Strauss is a freelance writer.
Fox News
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Alec Baldwin claims America is in a 'pre-Civil war' environment after watching PBS miniseries
In an Instagram post on Tuesday night, actor Alec Baldwin claimed that Americans are currently living in a "pre-Civil war" environment. The embattled "Rust" actor told his followers on Instagram that after arriving home from his trip abroad, without any "explicable provocation," he decided to watch Ken Burns' "The Civil War" on PBS. The 1990 miniseries details the American Civil War from beginning to end, and dives into the lives of historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and General Stonewall Jackson. Baldwin said that "in the world of the subconscious," something told him to "pick up the remote and turn on" his television to watch Burns' iconic Civil War miniseries. "Something told me, something led my hand to pick up the remote and turn on my television… and watch Ken Burns' famous miniseries," Baldwin claimed. "And boy, you can see now that we are in a pre-civil war culture now." The actor drew comparisons between today's political environment, and the political environment leading up to the Civil War, albeit with some "profound differences, of course." "When they describe things back then, politically, there are profound differences, of course, in terms of just history… and age, and what life was like back then, and cotton, and slavery, and Lincoln, and Robert E. Lee and so forth," Baldwin explained. "But I look at the politics of it, of where people are in this country today, in the division and how they're holding-fast, and no-one's going to falter, no-one's going to break or compromise. And it's bad." After noting that he was tired from jet lag following his trip abroad, Baldwin claimed that it "doesn't seem likely right now" that the country will be able to come together. He then claimed that "we are in a very similar state now" to how the country was leading up to the Civil War. "Watching this show [The Civil War] really reminded me how we are in a very similar state now, in a pre-civil war culture, in a pre-civil war environment… It's hard to believe," the actor asserted. Baldwin finished his video by recommending that his followers also watch Burns' "epic" miniseries on the Civil War. The actor previously went viral in late February after threatening to snap a Trump-impersonating comedian's neck while unloading luggage outside his apartment in Manhattan. After a vocal back-and-forth between the pair on the street, Baldwin physically threatened to snap the comedian's "neck in half." He also made headlines in April of last year after he smacked a phone out of the hands of an anti-Israel agitator who was asking him to say "free Palestine," while at a coffee shop in New York. A coffee shop worker at one point unsuccessfully attempted to intervene and stop the woman from harassing Baldwin, who then appeared to ask the worker to call police on the agitator. "You know he's a criminal, you know he's a f--king criminal," the woman told the worker, apparently referring to Baldwin. Baldwin then smacked the agitator's phone after appearing to ask the worker, "Can you do me a quick favor?"
