To publicize the launch of the Vietnam Collection on Open Vault, WGBH producer Elizabeth Deane (American Experience, Latin Music USA, Vietnam: A Television History) and archivist Karen Colbron selected several sound excerpts from the collection for use in 60 second radio “interstitials”

Deane then worked with WGBH Radio producer Gary Mott to edit and broadcast the clips over the course of 4 weeks in April, culminating in the following clip airing on the collection launch day, April 30th, 2010, which was also the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon:

Clark Clifford, Former Secretary of Defense for President Johnson, 1981

Listen to the interstitial | View the full interview

“It is my belief that our country made a mistake by going into Vietnam. I think we would have done better to stay out. We could have watched it a while and had we watched it longer, I think we would have seen it more clearly… We made an honest mistake. I feel no sense of shame about it. Nor, should our country feel any sense of shame. We felt we were doing what was necessary. We had nothing to gain by going in. We asked for no territory. We asked for no advantage. We went in because we thought we were doing it for the purposes of the nations involved and really for all humanity. It proved not to be a sound basis.”

Other clips included:

• Journalist Bill Moyers, special assistant to President Johnson for legislative and political affairs and later Johnson’s press secretary (interstitial) (full interview)
• Robinson Risner, Air Force pilot and former Prisoner of War in Vietnam (interstitial) (full interview)
• William Daniel Ehrhart, American poet, writer, scholar and Vietnam veteran (interstitial) (full interview transcript)
• William E. Le Gro, a colonel in Vietnam and author of Vietnam from Ceasefire to Capitulation (interstitial) (full interview)