FIRING LINE: VIETNAM TRAGEDY (TV)
Summary
One in this talk/interview series hosted by William F. Buckley, Jr. In this edition, Buckley speaks with writers Neil Sheehan and Richard Clurman about Sheehan's book, "A Shining Bright Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam." After guest moderator Howard Fineman introduces the topic and the guests, Buckley asks Sheehan to explain why he chooses to present Vann as a symbol of the American experience in the Vietnam War. In addition, Clurman asks about Sheehan's reasons for devoting so much of his book to Vann's personal flaws. Sheehan talks about the experiences he had with Vann while he (Sheehan) worked as a war correspondent, and he, Buckley, and Clurman debate the media's role in America's losing the Vietnam War. Buckley argues that President John F. Kennedy's retreat from Wilsonianism and advancement of the containment policy (arresting the spread of communism) ended with the loss of the Vietnam War, and he asks if Sheehan has any regret about the collapse of these doctrines. Clurman maintains that the war correspondents were all in agreement that the war was just, but they felt that "the war could not be won the way we [the U.S. troops] were fighting it." They discuss the morality of the war, and Buckley suggests that any "war that you don't intend to conclude with moderate dispatch...is an immoral war." Then, Buckley and Sheehan discuss the end of the war and the factors that contributed to America's losing the war.
(Network affiliation varies; this program was also syndicated from 1966 to 1971 and from 1975 to 1977.)
Cataloging of this program was made possible by Mr. and Mrs. Theodore R. Stanley.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: June 30, 1989
- RUNNING TIME: 0:28:36
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:61226
- GENRE: Talk/Interviews
- SUBJECT HEADING: Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 - United States; War correspondents; War - Moral and ethical aspects
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1971-1999
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Warren Steibel … Producer, Director
- Paul Sweeney … Associate Producer
- George Kahookele … Direction (Misc.), Assistant Director
- Dorothy McCartney … Researcher
- William F. Buckley, Jr. … Host
- Howard Fineman … Moderator
- Neil Sheehan … Guest
- Richard Clurman … Guest
- John F. Kennedy
- John Paul Vann