CoachJim

“It is becoming increasingly clear that, without an effective government, backed by a loyal military and some kind of national consensus in support of independence, we cannot do anything for South Vietnam. The economic and military power of the United States … must not be wasted in a futile attempt to save those who do not wish to be saved.”
(Page 399)”
― Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall

“The liberal hegemony was so firmly ensconced after the 1950s that when the ‘Reagan Revolution’ arrived in 1980, it did not revolutionize things as many anti liberal conservatives hoped and many liberals feared. Reagan’s victory did return anti liberal conservatives to positions of power for the first time since the 1920s, and, perhaps more important, gave them the feeling that they were finally being listened to, which encouraged them to organize and expand their efforts to push back against the liberal onslaught. Many of the institutions that would later play a role in the takeover of the Republican Party in 2016 were hatched and nurtured during the Reagan years.”
(Pages 149-150)”
― Robert Kagan, Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart – Again

“As American involvement in Vietnam deepened, the gap between the true nature of that commitment and the president’s depiction of it to the American people, the Congress, and members of his own administration widened. Lyndon Johnson, with the assistance of Robert S. McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had set the stage for America’s disaster in Vietnam.”
― H. R. McMaster

“By the time a settlement was reached, at the beginning of 1973, under terms no better than Washington could have had in 1963 or 1964 to 1965, fifty-eight thousand Americans, and between 1.5 and three million Vietnamese, lay dead.”
(Page 335)”
― Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam