Showdown (Universal Newsreel, Feb 1965)

Description

The original release sheet reads: SHOWDOWN IN VIETNAM AT PLEIKU, 250 miles north of Saigon, a United States airbase was ripped by Vietnamese Communist guerrillas. Eight Americans died in the attack. This brought swift retaliation by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. From carriers and land bases 49 jets struck back at staging areas just across the border in North Vietnam. In the first raid land-based planes were forced back by the weather, but the carrier jets completed their strike with the loss of one plane. The confrontation between the Reds and the West was the most critical since the Gulf of Tonkin incident last summer when the U.S. replied just as swiftly to North Vietnam PT-boat attacks. The second raid came the next day when South Vietnamese pilots hit at other bases across the border. Asian reaction was that the two Red powers, Red China and Russia, had lost face in the East-West showdown. Meanwhile, McGeorge Bundy arrives home from Saigon where he had been during the attack and counter-attack. Mr. Bundy confers with the President and the National Security Council and says political and religious factions in South Vietnam are now more united in fighting the Vietcong. First official word of the retaliatory attacks came from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in a briefing for newsmen. He told how the decision was made.

Collection

MCA/Universal Pictures Collection

Series

Motion Picture Releases of the Universal Newsreel Library