The American Revolution - History Channel (I know, I know) - I also really like Civil War Journals.

Ishi: The Last Yahi - 1992

I watched a documentary on Kissinger last night. I am not as familiar with some of the history as I should be since I lived through much of it. (Doesn't say much for our media, does it?)

I was intrigued but would like to know what others thought of it. How accurate is it? Is it biased, and if so, to what extent?

The report about Kissinger's conduct during the 1968 negotiations to end the Viet Nam War were particularly troubling to me. Could anyone tell me more?

I was out of the country during the final years of the war and did not follow what was going on as carefully as I might have had I lived in the US at that time.

My impression is that it was really good on the Continental Congress and Army and so so on Colonial life...

I didn't see very much bias in it, but that was about 4-5 years ago.

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I'm going to before I say this, but I think Kissinger gets a bad rap to some extent (except for Chile), when really it was Nixon driving the mistakes of Vietnam. I've never read anything that lead me to believe that Kissinger was anything less than forthright about trying to cut a deal with the North Vietnamese without selling out the South entirely.

There have been claims that Nixon sought to sabotage negotiations, most famously made by Seymour Hirsch, her recordings of Nixon and LBJ's conversations on this matter: http://hnn.us/articles/60446.html

Supposedly, it was Lt. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault's wife who was Nixon's go between in South Vietnam, and I'm not sure how much Kissinger knew, or if this was even really the case. We'll never really know. Kissinger is never mentioned by Johnson; if my memory is correct he was at Harvard right up until his appointment and not part of Nixon's operations at that point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Accords - Really it took so long because of the ridiculousness of the North in wanting to stall because they knew they were going to win and wanted as favorable terms as possible - I have never read anything to suggest that Kissinger acted in any manner less than a professional representative of the United States.

Perhaps it was foolish to think that we could facilitate a "political reality" in Vietnam, but I think it's always important to continue to think of Vietnam in the full Cold War context. It's not like after the Cuban Missile Crisis we suddenly became amigos with the Soviet Union and ultimately it did destabilize Cambodia and Laos with great suffering. I think the mistake was in the initial diplomacy and the slow creep towards war instead of confronting the situation head on with a unified international front like we did in Korea. Of course today, North Korea looks like hell compared to Vietnam, but I think a fair amount of that is by not considering the fate of the entire Indochina group of nations and peoples.

What happened in Cambodia especially was atrocious and only ended when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in in 1978: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese-Cambodian_War - another element that people forget is Vietnam's natural antipathy to China that resulted in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War of 1978. I think it would be mistaken to believe that our entire endeavor in South Vietnam was misplaced; rather it was poorly conducted both diplomatically and on the ground - the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boat_people - make clear that many in South Vietnam did not want to live under a Communist North and that the international community had a humanitarian interest and the strategic interest of the United States required us to take some step to check Soviet backed expansion.

I'm just the diplomatic history messenger, don't shoot, for Heaven's sake, don't shoot.

attended the 1968 negotiations, that they were about to reach an accord but that they did not because Kissinger told Nixon that they were about to pop the champagne corks. The allegation is that as a result the South Vietnamese leader refused to come to the talks and the talks ended in failure. Kissinger is accused of having made a deal with Nixon for a position in the Nixon administration.

I have no idea what to believe.

I remember reading one of Kissinger's books maybe in 1964 or 1964 when I was in college. I absolutely hated it. I felt then that what I understood to be Kissinger's theory about Russia and the US virtually fated to be rivals and enemies was overly simplistic.

That theory seems to me to be based on memories of an ugly sibling rivalry. Kissinger takes that idea much too far. In my opinion, that obsession with the USSR is just nutty.

Is there rivalry? Was Communism a horrible system? Yes to both questions. But we became absolutely paranoid about that rivalry and that system. And in fact as it turned out it was not Communism that brought our economy down. It was the greed of our own "friends" on Wall Street and an over-confidence in the ability of markets to regulate themselves.

Fortunately we have a very resilient system. I trust we will right ourselves and once again gain enough equilibrium to move forward. But all those years making ourselves miserable over the USSR. They could not even make a decent clothespin. I know that because when I lived in Europe, I bought a package of Russian clothespin. The metal was like putty. And we were terrified of them. I blame Kissinger among others.

Besides the questions surrounding the Paris Peace Accords, there are many unanswered questions about the role of Henry Kissinger in the coup in Chile, the death of Allende, and the terrorist attack carried out by Pinochet's agents in Washington DC in 1976 which killed Orlando Letelier and his US assistant, Ronni Moffitt. For some reason Kissinger squelched sending an official warning to Chile about assassinations just days before the attack. Appallingly right wing Republican pundits Evans and Novak used the event to mount an attack on Letelier as a left wing operative linked to Cuba, completely ignoring the fact that a U.S. citizen had been killed on a public street in Washington DC by foreign agents. Ronald Reagan also casually reflected to a journalist in 1980 that "it was a good thing that Letalier was bumped off." His running mate in 1980, George H.W. Bush had been CIA director at the time of the assassination. There are also many unanswered questions about what the CIA knew about the assassination.

Produced and Narrated by Jonathan Lewis

"The World At War" - since so many participants were still living and were interviewed for the series.

On the History Channel back in 2000 or so, before it completed the turn to the 'Guys Doing Jobs/Nostradamus' Network

My favorite line I still remember:

'It's not correct to say that George Washington married Martha for her money. He married here for her land and slaves as well.'

I don't have cable but watch some of their documentaries on You-Tube. A few years ago we tried cable and I wanted to watch the History Channel but was very disappointed in the quality of their programming. Some years earlier it was very good. Must be under different ownership or at least management.

It's nothing but Giant Spiders, Nostradamus, guys doing regular jobs, and aliens.

It has quite literally become the Weekly World News. Very sad.

Even when people referred to it as 'The Hitler Channel' it had actual historical programming. Unfortunately even those days are long gone.

I don't watch it anymore except for the occasional special. Vietnam in HD was good.

You never know what kind of crap is going to show up there. Occasionally it is a little interesting but it generally bears little resemblance to actually history.

I learned so much. It also made me more firm in my belief that the war on drugs is a bad idea. These prohibitive ideas cause more use and create criminal enterprise.

Here is a link:
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/

I also like Ken Burn's "Jazz" very much.

No don't hate me for mentioning this. But, I learned so much from this, I was like wow! I'm sure many younger Dems don't know much about him either and he was such a sleeze.

I do feel bad for the way he died though.

I'm nervous to say this but..

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/atwater/

Just added it to my Netflix list.
Thanks for the rec...

Michael Rose.

About halfway into it, it's real good.

available on Netflix

"Our power is in our ability to make things unworkable"
"We need, in every community, a band of angelic troublemakers".

He was a powerful civil rights activist from the 40's right thru the 60's, often alongside of Dr. King but never in the spotlight.
When I watch the video, my heart weeps for how much we have given up, have lost, of the spirit of standing up for our rights.