The goal of The Vietnam War, as stated explicitly by one of its directors, Ken Burns (the other is Lynn Novick), is reconciliation: to account for the war in such a way that patriotic veterans and peace activists alike could each nod their heads in quiet approval and finally lay their grievances to rest. On these terms, the film is a failure. The only way to reconcile yourself to something is to acknowledge the truth about it, and Burns and Novick either soften or avoid or misrepresent the truth frequently enough to deal their own project a fatal blow, or rather, a series of little blows that have the same cumulative effect. They are both too concerned for the feelings of their audience and too dismissive of its intelligence. While putting the film together, a debate broke out about whether to describe what happened at My Lai as “killing” or “murder.” Burns won the debate, and went with “killing.” He justified this change to a New Yorker writer by citing My Lai’s “toxic, radioactive effect” on people’s emotions. That made “killing” better, “even though My Lai is murder.” Once you have consciously decided to not use the word that best describes something like My Lai, you’re lost. The best Burns and Novick can do under these circumstances is hope that a feeling of shared tragedy and tender patriotism will paper over all that remains unaddressed. It doesn’t work. Despite these failings, the film is invaluable.
The film’s most galling error, as many critics have already noted, occurs right at the beginning, in what amounts to a thesis statement: “It was begun in good faith, by decent people.” As a matter of historical fact, not interpretation, this is false. In 1954, having demonstrated the impossibility of continued French occupation of Vietnam at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the communist Viet Minh met with representatives of the United States, France, the Soviet Union, and other countries to negotiate a settlement. Ho Chi Minh and the communists enjoyed enormous prestige throughout the country; they, and no one else, had expelled a Western power that had occupied Vietnam since 1887. A just settlement at the Geneva Conference would have recognized the communists as Vietnam’s ruling government. Instead, with the insistence of the US, and the tacit approval of the Soviet Union, Vietnam was cut in half, with reunification and elections pushed off two years into the future. The Viet Minh would not have accepted these conditions except for the looming threat of American intervention.