The Vietnam War | Christmas Bombing | First Look | PBS Video Lecture | The Impact of the Vietnam War Era on the Present day - Personal Learning

(jet engines roaring)
- [Narrator] On December
18th, Nixon unleashed
round-the-clock airstrikes
that flattened targets
around Hanoi and Haiphong.
(bombs whistling)
(explosions echoing)
It would be remembered
as the Christmas Bombing.
(explosions rumbling)
(fires crackling)
(crowd chattering)
- And, all of the sudden,
around Christmastime,
we hear an Arc Light operation, B-52s,
bum, bum, bum, bum,
bum and it's all around
and it is just exploding and
everyone knew they were B-52s.
And, it's, in the two
years that I was there,
that was the first time
I ever heard a bomb
and it was close;
(sirens wailing)
it was really close.
It was frightening, but
we were still cheering.
I mean, we were cheering
'cause something was happening.
(explosions echoing)
(speaking foreign language)
(tense synthesizer music)
(crowds chattering)
- [Narrator] Around the
world, anti-war demonstrators
returned to the streets.
The Prime Minister of Sweden
compared the United States
to Nazi Germany.
The Pope called the bombing,
which killed more than 1,600 civilians,
"The object of daily grief."
James Reston of the New York
Times pronounced the raids,
"War by tantrum."
Republican Senator
William Saxbe of Ohio said
the President had taken
leave of his senses.
(helicopters rumbling)
(tense synthesizer music)