Video: 'Report from Vietnam (1968)'
(Tuesday, February 27, 1968, 10:30-11:00 p.m. EST; during the Vietnam War, part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War) — CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite broadcast a rare editorial on the Vietnam War tonight, declaring “it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.”
“To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.”
“To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, if unsatisfactory conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations.”
“But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”
The editorial closed “Report from Vietnam by Walter Cronkite,” a 30-minute CBS News special report on Cronkite’s recent visit to Vietnam to assess to war following the start of the Tet Offensive.
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