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Indochina And Vietnam: The Thirty-five Year War 1940-1975
The Indochina and Vietnam Wars followed one another over thirty-five years, from 1940 to 1975, yet these two closely related conflicts are usually treated separately. This book seeks to tell the story of those wars as a single historical event. Within days of France's defeat by Nazi Germany and Japan's military expansion into Southeast Asia in July 1940, the United States became involved in Indochina. Most histories quickly mention the colonial past, usually limited to the battle of Dien Bien Phu, to concentrate exclusively on the American war. A selection of published sources explains the context and the development of the long war while providing an overview of France's imprint on Indochina and Vietnam. The question "Why were we in Vietnam?" comes up regularly regarding the root causes for the ultimate deployment of over five hundred thousand US troops, most of them conscripts, into a virtually unknown land. When France left Indochina in 1954 it became an American problem. Weeks before the murder of John F. Kennedy came the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem and the escalation of the war in 1965–68. Finally, Richard Nixon, after extending the war into Cambodia, enacted both the Vietnamization process and negotiations in Paris between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, until the final act in April 1975, when the US embassy rooftop with the last helicopter taking off was flashed around the world as the grand finale to the war.
275 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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July 8, 2018
This is an impressive, clearly written account of the long war of national liberation the people of Vietnam fought vs. a succession of foreign invaders, until they finally achieved unification and victory in 1975. Unfortunately, the US involvement in Vietnam was a dark chapter of American history. Certainly, for me, like millions of others Stateside, the escalation and the images of bloody warfare and the mounting losses of US troops, led to rejection of LBJ's and Nixon's war policies, and widespread disillusionment with the government's foreign policies. Kennedy's death would seem to end a hopeful chapter in US history, followed by the expanding US involvement in the unwinnable war.
The authors do not really have a specific slant on the subject, so the reader can draw their own conclusions. Certainly, the VC could not have won in S. Vietnam without popular support. The US was supporting a corrupt S. Vietnamese regime. Even strict communism seemed better - perhaps more authentic or derived from the people - than the S. Vietnamese government. Ho Chi Minh was obviously popular as a patriot - given that he struggled against the French and Japanese imperialists. Therefore, there was no S. Vietnamese victory possible - even if life under communism was to be miserable, in the minds of many, that was preferable to more years of rule by S. Vietnamese American puppets. Actually, the story is quite sad. National liberation didn't have to be communist national liberation. But that seemed to be the most powerful philosophical reason to fight for liberty - not just a revolution, but a communist revolution, that would level class differences and redistribute land and impose state control over the economy, to benefit the people/proletariat/common folk. In theory, it must have sounded quite attractive to the poor and landless. Unfortunately, communism many times is just another way for the ruling class, or ruling elite, to cement their rule - although often it also does lead to progress, such as literacy, medical care, development and so forth. People may think they'll get a say, and that it'll be different than monarchy or even liberal democracy, because the people will be in charge (theoretically). But unfortunately, the bureaucracy sets in. I'm not a political scientist, but the personal dictatorships or dynasties in some communist countries (though not all) seem to mirror the situation the revolutionaries were trying to get away from, when they overthrew monarchies, empires and so forth. Is it inevitable that human nature will create top-down power structures, no matter what, under any ideology? That is the question.
Anyway, there are many quotes from the book I want to note:
"The constant fear of a Chinese invasion was discouraged by indomitable Vietnamese pride and fierce attachment to independence."
"National spirit always played an important role in Vietnam far more than in Cambodia and Laos: the Vietnamese had a stronger and older culture and deeply resented all foreigners, whether they were Chinese, French, or in more recent times, Americans."
"...the King of France personally explained to the Catholic bishop, France had allocated huge sums to back the expedition to help the American insurgents [fighting the American Revolution] and could not afford any further financial strain [to help Emperor Gia Long of the Nguyen dynasty put down a rebellion in Vietnam]."
"[In the 19th Century] Captain Grammont ... would note that the vietnamese were "superstitious without being fanatics, anchored to tradition without having a political faith, they place the respect for the old ways above their attachment to the land and the worship of the family ahead of religion...they are eager to please you to avoid having to serve you..and are indifferent to the threat of death..."
"The [French] republican and radical left took a strong anti-clerical position, seeking to limit the power of the Catholic Church in every aspect of national life and primarily in elementary and secondary education and the religious orders."
"In many ways, the Left Radical [Paul] Doumer brought with him ideas typical of the early Third Republic: a mixture of liberal reforms, republican ideals, and a pragmatic, positive approach to economic growth."
"The negative effect of Doumer's initiatives came with the need to balance the budget, which was mainly achieved by heavily taxing the poorest Indochinese."
"Everyone blamed the French for the inequities of the system and that resentment became almost universal when coupled with the natural xenophobia of Vietnamese society."
"By 1928 rubber plantations employed over 80,000 Vietnamese coolies who came mostly from Tonkin and were paid a pittance."
"...falling world commodity prices of rubber following the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression...sparked growing resentment among a population that was increasingly open to revolutionary ideas."
"...following the bloodletting of World War I...[France] suffered from exceedingly low birthrates and actually opened its borders to immigration."
"The image of France, the great colonial power that held sway over one hundred million non-Europeans across the globe, unexpectedly defeated in six weeks by the Germans represented an incredible loss of face."
"Parallel to winning the ar, FDR also wanted to accelate the opening of world markets to free trade, thereby helping American exports."
"With the Atlantic Charter Roosevelt wanted the colonial powers to remove all trade barriers and accept a trusteeship system that was to become the cornerstone of the future United Nations."
"Anti-colonialism was a key component of the American position and it directly targeted Great Britain, still viewed as the quintessential colonial power that the young United States had heroically expelled during the War of Independence."
"General George Marshall, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, and later James Forrestal, were all critical of the trusteeship principles and demanded instead the outright annexation of large areas that included most of the Pacific islands to ensure that no hostile Asian power would again gain the strategic advantage of being able to directly threaten the United States mainland."
"...Roosevelt and Churchill ...agreed that here should be no distractions from the main objective of defeating the Japanese on the home islands."
"The mainstream American press, including all of Henry Luce's publications, remained adamant in its opposition to colonial possessions by the European powers."
"It was clear to all observers that the main issue was the fundamental hostility of the Vietnamese population to French colonial presence or any foreign presence in the country."
"George Bidault decried [Emperor] Bao Dai: "...He was a also a complete sybarite and given to long bouts of laziness and fatalistic inertia. He spent far too much time at the roulette tables in Monte Carlo and Cannes rather than in Hanoi and Saigon, among his people."
"Lacking fire power the Viet Minh used human waves of fanatics in suicide attacks, as would the North Koreans and Chinese communists later on in Korea."
"While France ocntinued to fight to hold on to its empire, the United States and the United Nations were embarked on a crusade against communist aggression."
"[French officials] ...met with Bao Dai and agreed to create a 115,000-man Vietnamese national army in 1951, equipped and financed by the United States and trained by French officers."
"...the Viet Minh had no artillery at that time [the early 50s] and used human wave assaults to submerge the [French] enemy no matter the cost."
"The Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed on October 26, 1955, with Ngo Dinh Diem as its president. The constitution gave the president, elected directly by the people, almost full power with a parliament that could not directly oppose the executive branch. It was an authoritarian regime of a dogmatic nature whose mix of Confucian and Catholic thinking was translated into a paternalistic kind of dictatorship."
"While Diem was known and admired for his ascetic virtue and personal honesty, the same cannot be said for this entourage, which for one reason or another was considered either thoroughly corrupt or too eager to profit from their powerful connections."
"When [President] Diem and [his brother] Nhu were assassinated, [Madame Nhu's] ... comment was, "Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need enemies.""
"Ho gave an impassioned speech to the delegates [of the Socialist Party Congress held at Tours in 1920], stating among other things: "In Indochina the colonialists find all ways and means to force us to smoke opium and drink alcohol, to poison and beset us."
"[Ho:] "The main thing in my life and what I need most of all is freedom for my compatriots.""
"The [Indochinese] Communist party in its [1941] resolutions called for a temporary postponement of the class struggle in favor of the more urgent goal of national liberation that could include all moderate nationalists."
"During his [November 1962] meetings with Diem [Mike] Mansfield [Democrat from Montana] and his Congressional party had to endure hours of numbing monolog by the Vietnamese president, who never allowed anyone to interrupt his train of thought."
"Despite the [20 months of Rolling Thunder] bombing, Hanoi would not surrender. As a result, the administration increased the bombing, which became less discriminate, until North Vietnam despite its lack of industrial targets, became history's most heavily bombed country. In addition, Johnson stepped up the bombing in South Vietnam. From mid-1965 to the end of 1967, the U.S. dropped more bombs on Vietnam than the Allies dropped on Europe during all of World War II. The intensified bombing campaign inadvertently killed large numbers of civilians. In South Vietnam this alienated much of the population, whose support was vital to U.S. success."
"[Johnson] ...hoped to bargain with the North Vietnamese the way he did with American business and labor leaders."
"To bolster South Vietnamese forces McNamara and his colleagues recommended further troop deployments."
"By June 1965, however, despite the air strikes and additional troop deployments, the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong were winning the war."
"By the end of 1965, American troop levels had risen to 180,000; by the end of 1966 to 380,000; and by the end of 1967 to 500,000. By then, the war was costing $30 billion a year, and the casualty toll had risen to more than 25,000 American battle deaths and 100,000 wounded."
"Because of America's great power status, Johnson argued that it had the responsibility to fight communism in Vietnam."
"That made the fight, [the doves] said, one by nationalists, seeking national independence, against foreign domination."
"The Vietcong...desired land reform and other measures helpful to the poor, who constituted the majority of the Vietnamese."
"The Vietcong could not long survive without aid from civilians, and their higher morale indicated that they had both popular support and more faith in their cause than did Saigon's troops."
"...the antiwar movement... argued that the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong were nationalists first, communists second, and that they were fighting not for worldwide Communism, but against Western imperialism and sought self-determination against foreign control."
"...the Selective Service System, referred to as the draft, was unfair. It deferred those who went to college and fell heavily on those young men who went into the labor market after high school."
"For the most part, the Vietcong were South Vietnamese."
"In eight weeks of fighting [during the Tet offensive, American] casualties totaled 3,895 killed. The South Vietnamese forces sustained 4,954 recorded deaths, and 58,000 North Vietnamese regulars and Vietcong, who suffered the most casualties, died."
"The press, television, and magazines carried pictures of ruined cities, and they published the statement of an American commander who said that "it was necessary to destroy Hue in order to save it.""
"Until [early 1968], ...[Secretary of Defense] Clifford, a hawk with ties to America's top financial leaders, had never analyzed the war in detail."
"...Johnson feared domestic collapse for this Vietnam policy, and withdrawal from the race helped him regain political momentum to better deal with it."
"...the 1968 Democratic... Convention's antiwar delegates clashed with the party's pro-Johnson leadership."
"Nixon, ... claiming to have a secret plan to end the war and win the peace, won by seven-tenths of a percent. ...12.5 percent of the vote went to the hawkish third-party ticket of George Wallace and his vice presidential candidate General Curtis Le May."
"...[Kissinger] argued that nationalism was a more powerful force than Communism."
"When Nixon took office, he wrote that he had two long-term foreign policy goals: "detente with the Soviet Union and an opening to Communist China" as the key to ending the Vietnam War."
"...[Kissinger] doubted whether America's initial planners understood the nature of guerrilla war. The guerrilla wins if it does not lose while the regular army loses unless it wins."
""If we had chosen to go for a knockout blow by bombing the dikes or using tactical nuclear weapons," [Nixon] ...said later, "the resulting domestic and international uproar would have damaged our foreign policy on all fronts.""
"...on September 3, [1969] the seventy-nine-year-old Ho died of a heart attack."
""We simply cannot tell the mothers of our casualties in Vietnam," [said Nixon] ... "that it was all to no purpose.""
"...Nixon hoped to persuade the Soviet Union and China to drop their support of North Vietnam."
"...if the Soviets helped, Nixon told them that America would grant them trade concessions."
"In March 1969 Nixon began a sustained bombing of the area of Cambodia that North Vietnam used to transport arms and supplies to their Vietcong allies in the south. He kept the bombing secret."
"...the United States intensified its bombing of Cambodia, and the Soviets increase increased their aid to the Communist Khmer Rouge that would eventually enact genocidal policies against its opponents."
"[The Nixon administration created]...a strategy calling for a wide-ranging domestic surveillance of radical groups. it planned to intensify electronic surveillance, opening mail, placing informants on college campuses, lifting restrictions on burglary, and enhancing coordination of all government security agencies."
"Written at the direction of Robert McNamara, the Pentagon Papers, labeled "top secret," described the history of American involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968."
"The Ellsberg matter laid the foundation for the later Watergate scandal of 1972."
"...on June 17, 1972, the Plumbers were caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office and apartment building."
"A prolonged series of developments eroded his image and ability to govern. In the summer of 1974, with declining poll ratings and Congress on the verge of starting impeachment proceedings, Nixon resigned from office and turned the presidency over to Vice President Gerald R. Ford."
"Lasting twelve days [in December 1973, Nixon] ... ordered all available B-52 bombers to Vietnam for a round-the-clock bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong."
"The U.S. and North Vietnam signed a new agreement on January 27, 1974."
"At the same time, Nixon promised to give North Vietnam $2.5 billion in reconstruction aid."
"Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war."
"In 1974, 240,000 South Vietnamese soldiers deserted."
"...it took the Vietcong and North Vietnamese fifty-five days to defeat the Saigon regime."
"A month before Saigon Fell, on April 1, [1975] Lon Nol fled Cambodia and the Communists moved in."
"The fall of Vietnam was the most humiliating defeat in America's history."
"Although the Russians took over the gigantic former U.S. naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, the U.S. did not, as President Johnson had predicted, lose control of the Pacific."
"America had lost 58,000 men, with 300,000 wounded and 1,400 missing. Many veterans came home with psychic scars. ...America had spent $300 billion dollars on the Vietnam War."
"[The doves] ...said that no amount of military force could compel the Vietnamese to accept the division of their county indefinitely or to support a U.S.-armed and 'equipped Saigon regime."
"Asians...would no longer accept Western imperialism or regimes tied too closely to the West."
"[Americans] were unable to defeat Vietnamese Communists, who had such strong popular support."
The authors do not really have a specific slant on the subject, so the reader can draw their own conclusions. Certainly, the VC could not have won in S. Vietnam without popular support. The US was supporting a corrupt S. Vietnamese regime. Even strict communism seemed better - perhaps more authentic or derived from the people - than the S. Vietnamese government. Ho Chi Minh was obviously popular as a patriot - given that he struggled against the French and Japanese imperialists. Therefore, there was no S. Vietnamese victory possible - even if life under communism was to be miserable, in the minds of many, that was preferable to more years of rule by S. Vietnamese American puppets. Actually, the story is quite sad. National liberation didn't have to be communist national liberation. But that seemed to be the most powerful philosophical reason to fight for liberty - not just a revolution, but a communist revolution, that would level class differences and redistribute land and impose state control over the economy, to benefit the people/proletariat/common folk. In theory, it must have sounded quite attractive to the poor and landless. Unfortunately, communism many times is just another way for the ruling class, or ruling elite, to cement their rule - although often it also does lead to progress, such as literacy, medical care, development and so forth. People may think they'll get a say, and that it'll be different than monarchy or even liberal democracy, because the people will be in charge (theoretically). But unfortunately, the bureaucracy sets in. I'm not a political scientist, but the personal dictatorships or dynasties in some communist countries (though not all) seem to mirror the situation the revolutionaries were trying to get away from, when they overthrew monarchies, empires and so forth. Is it inevitable that human nature will create top-down power structures, no matter what, under any ideology? That is the question.
Anyway, there are many quotes from the book I want to note:
"The constant fear of a Chinese invasion was discouraged by indomitable Vietnamese pride and fierce attachment to independence."
"National spirit always played an important role in Vietnam far more than in Cambodia and Laos: the Vietnamese had a stronger and older culture and deeply resented all foreigners, whether they were Chinese, French, or in more recent times, Americans."
"...the King of France personally explained to the Catholic bishop, France had allocated huge sums to back the expedition to help the American insurgents [fighting the American Revolution] and could not afford any further financial strain [to help Emperor Gia Long of the Nguyen dynasty put down a rebellion in Vietnam]."
"[In the 19th Century] Captain Grammont ... would note that the vietnamese were "superstitious without being fanatics, anchored to tradition without having a political faith, they place the respect for the old ways above their attachment to the land and the worship of the family ahead of religion...they are eager to please you to avoid having to serve you..and are indifferent to the threat of death..."
"The [French] republican and radical left took a strong anti-clerical position, seeking to limit the power of the Catholic Church in every aspect of national life and primarily in elementary and secondary education and the religious orders."
"In many ways, the Left Radical [Paul] Doumer brought with him ideas typical of the early Third Republic: a mixture of liberal reforms, republican ideals, and a pragmatic, positive approach to economic growth."
"The negative effect of Doumer's initiatives came with the need to balance the budget, which was mainly achieved by heavily taxing the poorest Indochinese."
"Everyone blamed the French for the inequities of the system and that resentment became almost universal when coupled with the natural xenophobia of Vietnamese society."
"By 1928 rubber plantations employed over 80,000 Vietnamese coolies who came mostly from Tonkin and were paid a pittance."
"...falling world commodity prices of rubber following the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression...sparked growing resentment among a population that was increasingly open to revolutionary ideas."
"...following the bloodletting of World War I...[France] suffered from exceedingly low birthrates and actually opened its borders to immigration."
"The image of France, the great colonial power that held sway over one hundred million non-Europeans across the globe, unexpectedly defeated in six weeks by the Germans represented an incredible loss of face."
"Parallel to winning the ar, FDR also wanted to accelate the opening of world markets to free trade, thereby helping American exports."
"With the Atlantic Charter Roosevelt wanted the colonial powers to remove all trade barriers and accept a trusteeship system that was to become the cornerstone of the future United Nations."
"Anti-colonialism was a key component of the American position and it directly targeted Great Britain, still viewed as the quintessential colonial power that the young United States had heroically expelled during the War of Independence."
"General George Marshall, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, and later James Forrestal, were all critical of the trusteeship principles and demanded instead the outright annexation of large areas that included most of the Pacific islands to ensure that no hostile Asian power would again gain the strategic advantage of being able to directly threaten the United States mainland."
"...Roosevelt and Churchill ...agreed that here should be no distractions from the main objective of defeating the Japanese on the home islands."
"The mainstream American press, including all of Henry Luce's publications, remained adamant in its opposition to colonial possessions by the European powers."
"It was clear to all observers that the main issue was the fundamental hostility of the Vietnamese population to French colonial presence or any foreign presence in the country."
"George Bidault decried [Emperor] Bao Dai: "...He was a also a complete sybarite and given to long bouts of laziness and fatalistic inertia. He spent far too much time at the roulette tables in Monte Carlo and Cannes rather than in Hanoi and Saigon, among his people."
"Lacking fire power the Viet Minh used human waves of fanatics in suicide attacks, as would the North Koreans and Chinese communists later on in Korea."
"While France ocntinued to fight to hold on to its empire, the United States and the United Nations were embarked on a crusade against communist aggression."
"[French officials] ...met with Bao Dai and agreed to create a 115,000-man Vietnamese national army in 1951, equipped and financed by the United States and trained by French officers."
"...the Viet Minh had no artillery at that time [the early 50s] and used human wave assaults to submerge the [French] enemy no matter the cost."
"The Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed on October 26, 1955, with Ngo Dinh Diem as its president. The constitution gave the president, elected directly by the people, almost full power with a parliament that could not directly oppose the executive branch. It was an authoritarian regime of a dogmatic nature whose mix of Confucian and Catholic thinking was translated into a paternalistic kind of dictatorship."
"While Diem was known and admired for his ascetic virtue and personal honesty, the same cannot be said for this entourage, which for one reason or another was considered either thoroughly corrupt or too eager to profit from their powerful connections."
"When [President] Diem and [his brother] Nhu were assassinated, [Madame Nhu's] ... comment was, "Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need enemies.""
"Ho gave an impassioned speech to the delegates [of the Socialist Party Congress held at Tours in 1920], stating among other things: "In Indochina the colonialists find all ways and means to force us to smoke opium and drink alcohol, to poison and beset us."
"[Ho:] "The main thing in my life and what I need most of all is freedom for my compatriots.""
"The [Indochinese] Communist party in its [1941] resolutions called for a temporary postponement of the class struggle in favor of the more urgent goal of national liberation that could include all moderate nationalists."
"During his [November 1962] meetings with Diem [Mike] Mansfield [Democrat from Montana] and his Congressional party had to endure hours of numbing monolog by the Vietnamese president, who never allowed anyone to interrupt his train of thought."
"Despite the [20 months of Rolling Thunder] bombing, Hanoi would not surrender. As a result, the administration increased the bombing, which became less discriminate, until North Vietnam despite its lack of industrial targets, became history's most heavily bombed country. In addition, Johnson stepped up the bombing in South Vietnam. From mid-1965 to the end of 1967, the U.S. dropped more bombs on Vietnam than the Allies dropped on Europe during all of World War II. The intensified bombing campaign inadvertently killed large numbers of civilians. In South Vietnam this alienated much of the population, whose support was vital to U.S. success."
"[Johnson] ...hoped to bargain with the North Vietnamese the way he did with American business and labor leaders."
"To bolster South Vietnamese forces McNamara and his colleagues recommended further troop deployments."
"By June 1965, however, despite the air strikes and additional troop deployments, the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong were winning the war."
"By the end of 1965, American troop levels had risen to 180,000; by the end of 1966 to 380,000; and by the end of 1967 to 500,000. By then, the war was costing $30 billion a year, and the casualty toll had risen to more than 25,000 American battle deaths and 100,000 wounded."
"Because of America's great power status, Johnson argued that it had the responsibility to fight communism in Vietnam."
"That made the fight, [the doves] said, one by nationalists, seeking national independence, against foreign domination."
"The Vietcong...desired land reform and other measures helpful to the poor, who constituted the majority of the Vietnamese."
"The Vietcong could not long survive without aid from civilians, and their higher morale indicated that they had both popular support and more faith in their cause than did Saigon's troops."
"...the antiwar movement... argued that the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong were nationalists first, communists second, and that they were fighting not for worldwide Communism, but against Western imperialism and sought self-determination against foreign control."
"...the Selective Service System, referred to as the draft, was unfair. It deferred those who went to college and fell heavily on those young men who went into the labor market after high school."
"For the most part, the Vietcong were South Vietnamese."
"In eight weeks of fighting [during the Tet offensive, American] casualties totaled 3,895 killed. The South Vietnamese forces sustained 4,954 recorded deaths, and 58,000 North Vietnamese regulars and Vietcong, who suffered the most casualties, died."
"The press, television, and magazines carried pictures of ruined cities, and they published the statement of an American commander who said that "it was necessary to destroy Hue in order to save it.""
"Until [early 1968], ...[Secretary of Defense] Clifford, a hawk with ties to America's top financial leaders, had never analyzed the war in detail."
"...Johnson feared domestic collapse for this Vietnam policy, and withdrawal from the race helped him regain political momentum to better deal with it."
"...the 1968 Democratic... Convention's antiwar delegates clashed with the party's pro-Johnson leadership."
"Nixon, ... claiming to have a secret plan to end the war and win the peace, won by seven-tenths of a percent. ...12.5 percent of the vote went to the hawkish third-party ticket of George Wallace and his vice presidential candidate General Curtis Le May."
"...[Kissinger] argued that nationalism was a more powerful force than Communism."
"When Nixon took office, he wrote that he had two long-term foreign policy goals: "detente with the Soviet Union and an opening to Communist China" as the key to ending the Vietnam War."
"...[Kissinger] doubted whether America's initial planners understood the nature of guerrilla war. The guerrilla wins if it does not lose while the regular army loses unless it wins."
""If we had chosen to go for a knockout blow by bombing the dikes or using tactical nuclear weapons," [Nixon] ...said later, "the resulting domestic and international uproar would have damaged our foreign policy on all fronts.""
"...on September 3, [1969] the seventy-nine-year-old Ho died of a heart attack."
""We simply cannot tell the mothers of our casualties in Vietnam," [said Nixon] ... "that it was all to no purpose.""
"...Nixon hoped to persuade the Soviet Union and China to drop their support of North Vietnam."
"...if the Soviets helped, Nixon told them that America would grant them trade concessions."
"In March 1969 Nixon began a sustained bombing of the area of Cambodia that North Vietnam used to transport arms and supplies to their Vietcong allies in the south. He kept the bombing secret."
"...the United States intensified its bombing of Cambodia, and the Soviets increase increased their aid to the Communist Khmer Rouge that would eventually enact genocidal policies against its opponents."
"[The Nixon administration created]...a strategy calling for a wide-ranging domestic surveillance of radical groups. it planned to intensify electronic surveillance, opening mail, placing informants on college campuses, lifting restrictions on burglary, and enhancing coordination of all government security agencies."
"Written at the direction of Robert McNamara, the Pentagon Papers, labeled "top secret," described the history of American involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968."
"The Ellsberg matter laid the foundation for the later Watergate scandal of 1972."
"...on June 17, 1972, the Plumbers were caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office and apartment building."
"A prolonged series of developments eroded his image and ability to govern. In the summer of 1974, with declining poll ratings and Congress on the verge of starting impeachment proceedings, Nixon resigned from office and turned the presidency over to Vice President Gerald R. Ford."
"Lasting twelve days [in December 1973, Nixon] ... ordered all available B-52 bombers to Vietnam for a round-the-clock bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong."
"The U.S. and North Vietnam signed a new agreement on January 27, 1974."
"At the same time, Nixon promised to give North Vietnam $2.5 billion in reconstruction aid."
"Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war."
"In 1974, 240,000 South Vietnamese soldiers deserted."
"...it took the Vietcong and North Vietnamese fifty-five days to defeat the Saigon regime."
"A month before Saigon Fell, on April 1, [1975] Lon Nol fled Cambodia and the Communists moved in."
"The fall of Vietnam was the most humiliating defeat in America's history."
"Although the Russians took over the gigantic former U.S. naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, the U.S. did not, as President Johnson had predicted, lose control of the Pacific."
"America had lost 58,000 men, with 300,000 wounded and 1,400 missing. Many veterans came home with psychic scars. ...America had spent $300 billion dollars on the Vietnam War."
"[The doves] ...said that no amount of military force could compel the Vietnamese to accept the division of their county indefinitely or to support a U.S.-armed and 'equipped Saigon regime."
"Asians...would no longer accept Western imperialism or regimes tied too closely to the West."
"[Americans] were unable to defeat Vietnamese Communists, who had such strong popular support."
November 18, 2013
This book was a good overview of the Vietnam conflicts. The first chapter gives a brief history of the constant struggle of Vietnam to avoid being conquered by the Chinese It then traces the development of French influence and eventual colony status. After being ruled by the Japanese during WW 2 the French tried to re- establish their control. This resulted in the first Vietnam war as the viet Minh rose up to resist the French. This French effort resulted in the same quagmire that the US would later experience. The US was funneling military aid to the French to fight what they saw as a war against communism. Vietnam saw the fight as unifying the country that they felt had been promised after the world war.
The French wanted to restore their colony to retrieve their place as a world power. With the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the US took their place still seeing the conflict as against communism. This view ruled our decisions regarding the war until our exit from Vietnam. The take over of the conflict by the US marked the beginning of the second Vietnam war. We could never see the war in nationalistic terms. This fact was why we couldn't grasp how the out numbered and poorly equipped viet cong could continue the struggle. The book follows the efforts of Eisenhower , Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon to fight and win the war.
The French wanted to restore their colony to retrieve their place as a world power. With the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the US took their place still seeing the conflict as against communism. This view ruled our decisions regarding the war until our exit from Vietnam. The take over of the conflict by the US marked the beginning of the second Vietnam war. We could never see the war in nationalistic terms. This fact was why we couldn't grasp how the out numbered and poorly equipped viet cong could continue the struggle. The book follows the efforts of Eisenhower , Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon to fight and win the war.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews