This compilation of news footage from varied sources and filmed interviews traces French involvement in Vietnam from the 1940's through the fall of Dien Bien Phu, and American support from the period of the domino theory in the 1950's to all-out American intervention in the 1960's. Included are the words of such journalists, scholars, and statesmen as David Halberstam, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Jean Lacouture, Paul Mus, Oliver Todd, Harrison Salisbury, David Wurfel, Roger Hilsman, and Daniel Berrigan, most of whom opposed American involvement in Southeast Asia; but the film concentrates more on the hawks, whose attitudes generally prevailed in the early days of the war. Appearing in this footage are Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson; Vice President Richard M. Nixon; Senators Wayne Morse, Thruston Morton, and Joseph McCarthy; Rep. Gerald Ford; Generals Mark Clark, Curtis LeMay, Maxwell Taylor, and William Westmoreland; Col. George Patton III; former Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge; Secretaries of State Dean Rusk and John Foster Dulles; United Nations Secretary-General U Thant; former Special Forces Sgt. John Towler; the State Department's Director of Vietnamese Affairs, Charlton Ogburn; ex-president of the Executive Committee of the Friends of Vietnam, Joseph Buttinger; and former member of the Expeditionary Corps in Indochina Philippe Devilers. Also featured are Ho Chi Minh, Nguyen Cao Ky, Ngo Dinh Diem, and Mrs. Ngo Dinh Nhu.