Michael Griffith

Uh-huh. You know this is false. Obviously, you have no explanation for the specious arguments that I identified in Laderman's review. I could have pointed out many other invalid arguments in his review, but that would have required many more pages. Every single one of Laderman's alleged examples of misrepresented sources is as erroneous as the ones I discussed in my previous reply. You would know this if you had read Moyar's book and his responses to the negative reviews. In the coming days, I will discuss more of Laderman's bogus examples of Moyar's alleged misuse of sources. A big problem here is that you really have no business making such accusations against Moyar's book, given that you have not read it, have not read his other books, have not read any scholarly books that support his position, and have read very few books of any kind on the war. One genuine "basic norm of scholarship" is that you do not comment on, much less stridently attack, a book you have not read. Another "basic norm of scholarship" is that you should read an adequate number of studies on both sides of an issue before forming a conclusion about it. The fact that you still call Laderman's review "devastating" after the serious errors I pointed out in it shows that you are not interested in genuine analysis and discussion on the Vietnam War. I suspect this is because your version of the JFK assassination conspiracy requires acceptance of the liberal position on the war. For the sake of other readers, I will conclude this reply by quoting from Dr. Robert F. Turner's review of Moyar's book in Triumph Revisited. For those who are new to Vietnam War scholarship, Robert Turner is a former professor of international law and national security at the University of Virginia, a former professor at the Naval War College, and the author of two best-selling books on the Vietnam War and the co-author of two other books on the war. Turner served as a news correspondent in South Vietnam in 1968. He then joined the U.S. Army and served in military intelligence in South Vietnam from 1968 to 1971. He later worked as Senator Robert Griffin's national security adviser and, as chance would have it, helped author the language of the measure that created the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, i.e., the Church Committee. He also served three terms as chairman of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security. Here are a few segments from Turner's review of Moyar's book: Anyone who cares seriously about the realities of the Vietnam War or wishes to learn its key lessons owes a great debt of gratitude to Mark Moyar, whose new volume is a landmark contribution to the subject. Indeed, it should be mandatory reading for any serious scholar seeking to understand that conflict, as well as any politician or senior aide who seeks lessons for the current conflict in Iraq or future armed conflicts. (p. 102). Moyar has taken advantage of resources that were simply not available when I wrote Vietnamese Communism thirty-five years ago, and by skillfully applying his considerable research and writing talents has given us the first volume of what truly must be viewed as an extraordinary contribution to the history of the Vietnam War. He has wisely drawn from the labors of those who went before him, but a great deal of this volume results from his own original research. From my perspective as a scholar who has been working in this field for more than four decades and teaching seminars on the war at both the graduate and undergraduate level since the 1980s, he has most of it right. (p. 103) Another major myth is that the Vietnam War was "unwinnable." Writing in the January/February 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs, Yale Professor John Lewis Gaddis—regarded by many as the dean of American diplomatic historians—observed: “Historians now acknowledge that American counter-insurgency operations in Vietnam were succeeding during the final years of that conflict; the problem was that support for the war had long since crumbled at home.” Many of America’s most experienced observers made the point that the war had been effectively won by the spring of 1972 if not earlier, including the C.I.A.’s William E. Colby in his Lost Victory, my old embassy colleague Douglas Pike, and journalist Robert Elegant in his superb essay, “How to Lose a War,” in the August 1981 issue of Encounter. (pp. 104-105) Many of the most effective arguments against the war pertained to alleged “human rights” abuses. Like virtually every Third World country, South Vietnam had serious corruption problems and its human rights record was far from perfect. But when contrasted with what the communists were offering (and what they later imposed on South Vietnam), there was no comparison. (p. 107) Perhaps the greatest myth about Vietnam is that there was no reason to go to war in the first place. Moyar does a great job of puncturing part of this argument—namely, the allegation that Ho Chi Minh was in reality but a Vietnamese “nationalist” who accepted communist assistance when the United States refused to help him free his country from French occupation. Had we simply permitted him to unite Vietnam, it is often alleged, he would have been an “Asian Tito” and a barrier to further Chinese expansion into Southeast Asia. This is an issue I addressed at some length in my 1975 book Vietnamese Communism, in which I observed that Ho spent thirty years outside Vietnam between 1911 and 1941, most of it in the paid service of the Communist International (Comintern). Indeed, numerous Hanoi publications note that when Ho Chi Minh was present at the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930, he was there as the official Comintern representative. Ho’s Viet Minh radio repeatedly denounced Tito as an American spy during the late 1940s, and even when Khrushchev made peace with Tito, Hanoi media continued to denounce him. (pp. 108-109)

Let us look at some of Laderman’s most-questionable criticisms of Moyar’s book Triumph Forsaken: Moyar suggested that Ho was, above all else, a willing tool of the Soviets and Chinese, “firmly adher[ing] to the Leninist principle that Communist nations should subordinate their interests to those of the international Communist movement.” Moyar therefore saw in Ho’s professions of global solidarity not Vietnam’s placement at the forefront of a vast wave of anti-colonialism and revolutionary nationalism but, rather, machinations in pursuit of collapsing dominoes. The Vietnamese revolutionaries’ gestures towards the Soviets and Chinese were thus viewed invariably in Triumph Forsaken as genuine and nefarious, while their gestures towards the United States were dismissed as duplicitous and insincere. (p. 92) This is a variation of Zhai’s and Lawrence’s bogus arguments in Chapters 4 and 14, which Moyar answers in his first and third responses. It is also a sad but revealing repetition of the anti-war movement’s long-debunked falsehood that Ho Chi Minh and his fellow Communists were mainly nationalists who did not really care about Communist ideology or about aiding Comintern goals. As I mentioned in a previous reply, Zhai's claim that Ho Chi Minh was not a fanatical, dedicated Stalinist-Leninist Communist is astounding and inexcusable. Dr. Lien-Hang Nguyen's book Hanoi's War, Dr. William Duiker's Ho Chi Minh: A Life, and Dr. Christopher Goscha's recent book The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam prove that Moyar's description of Ho Chi Minh as a hardcore Communist who had no interest in an alliance with the West is indisputably correct. Le Duan, who was running North Vietnam years before Ho Chi Minh died in 1969, and who formally assumed the leadership of the country after Ho died, was even a more fanatical Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist than Ho had been, as Lien-Hang Nguyen documents in Hanoi’s War. As I also mentioned in a previous reply, in The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam, Goscha shows that Ho and other Communist leaders pretended to be willing to rule with non-communist nationalists and concealed their Marxist agenda from the people as a war expediency to defeat the French. When Ho, Le Duan, Le Duc Tho, etc., felt it was safe to do so, they ruthlessly purged non-Communists from all levels of power, murdering thousands of people and jailing thousands of others in the process. It is apparently inconceivable to Moyar that Ho could simultaneously have been both a nationalist and a Communist, or that he or his comrades could have been shrewd individuals willing to make pragmatic accommodations in pursuit of larger national objectives. (p. 92) Anyone who reads Moyar’s book will see that Laderman is severely misstating Moyar’s research and conclusions about Hanoi’s leaders. Laderman is also ignoring the mountain of evidence, acknowledged by untold numbers of scholars, that Ho and Le Duan et al were hardcore Communists who only made “pragmatic accommodations” that went against Communist doctrine and goals when they had no other choice. As for the widespread repression exercised by the Diem government, it is true, Moyar conceded, that Diem was authoritarian. But, whereas Ho’s heavy-handedness was a contemptible illustration of the Communist threat, for Diem it was an asset to be celebrated. (p. 93). This is perhaps Laderman’s most stunning display of distortion, falsehood, and far-left bias. Laderman fails to mention that Moyar documents that Diem’s regime was far less oppressive than the Hanoi regime. To his great credit, center-left historian Sir Max Hastings, in his book Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, acknowledges that Diem’s government was not as bad as Hanoi’s government. For a detailed examination on this subject, I recommend South Vietnamese historian Tuong Vu’s compilation The Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1975: Vietnamese Perspectives on Nation Building (Cornell University Press, 2020). Now let us look at Laderman’s specious, sophomoric attack on Moyar’s use of sources: James McAllister, for example, showed how the only documentary evidence cited by Moyar for his claim that some “high-ranking” U.S. officials were concluding in 1964 that “Tri Quang himself was a Communist” said nothing of the sort. (p. 94) More distortion and omission. Moyar addresses McAllister’s arguments on Tri Quang in his third reply. I wonder if McAllister even read the sources that Moyar cites. By the way, in an article that McAllister wrote in 2008, two years before Triumph Revisited was published, he admitted that Ambassador Lodge and General Maxwell Taylor came to believe that Tri Quang was a Communist, although he complains that they had no grounds for doing so (LINK, p. 754). Moyar’s 2004 article on the militant Buddhist monks is worth reading for more information on this issue (LINK). Gareth Porter, commenting on Moyar’s explication of the domino theory’s validity, accused the author of “violat[ing] the basic norms of scholarship” by, among other things, alleging that the Malay Communist insurgency “never really stopped” when, according to Porter, the allegation is “contradicted flatly by the very source [Moyar] cites.” (p. 94) Now this is just silly. It is not violating any “basic norm of scholarship” to reach a conclusion that differs from the conclusion of the book or books you are citing. Scholars often quote certain segments of works to support an argument even though those works do not agree with their argument. When I quote selected statements from the Warren Report to make the case for conspiracy, no credible critic would complain that I was violating a “basic norm of scholarship” because the Warren Report rejects the conspiracy position. Porter would never make such a sophomoric argument against a fellow orthodox scholar. Edwin Moïse, addressing the alleged attack during the Tonkin Gulf incident of August 4, 1964, expressed his annoyance with “the way Moyar carefuly [sic] selects from my own book only those facts that support” Triumph Forsaken’s argument that the available contemporaneous evidence “strongly supported the reality of the attack”—a point Moïse disputed and said was “very strongly contradicted” elsewhere in his same book. (p. 94) More abject silliness. Scholars routinely “carefully select” facts from books to support their arguments even though those books reject their arguments. Have Moise and Porter ever taken a course in debate and critical thinking? Just because I quote facts presented by Gerald Posner or Vincent Bugliosi because those facts support the conspiracy view does not mean I am misusing their books or that I am bound to agree with Posner’s and Bugliosi’s view on conspiracy. Nobody but an amateur, or a scholar looking for any excuse to criticize, would argue otherwise. And William Stueck, commenting on Moyar’s claims regarding the battle at Dien Bien Phu and the 1954 Geneva Conference, wrote that while Moyar cited for “some specifics” what are arguably the leading sources on Vietnamese relations with China and the Soviet Union, he “ignore[d] other details” in these sources that weakened his position “as well as these authors’ conclusions.” (p. 94) And still more “you can’t quote or cite a source unless the source agrees with you” silliness, not to mention that Laderman fails to tell the reader that Moyar presents new evidence to support his arguments regarding Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference. My own brief examination only further reinforced the concerns expressed above. And we just saw that those concerns are unfounded, to put it gently. To cite one easily confirmable example, Moyar wrote that “[i]n Vietnamese Communist parlance, the label ‘reactionary’ was applied to anyone who was not a Communist. Many more ‘reactionaries’ would suffer death during the remainder of 1946, bringing the toll of civilians killed by the Communists during the period of Communist rule into the tens of thousands.” Moyar then provided an endnote in which he added that “[i]ntra-Vietnamese killings, which the Communists perpetrated in greater numbers than everyone else combined, came to a total of as high as 50,000 in this period, according to recent estimates.” In support Moyar cited Shawn McHale’s Print and Power: Confucianism, Communism, and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam. Yet McHale did not write that “the Communists” killed “tens of thousands,” nor did he write that they perpetrated killings “in greater numbers than everyone else combined.” In fact, he did not mention “the Communists” at all; his discursion was, rather, about the Viet Minh (a “front organization... led by the communists”) and its opponents “assassinating each other.” (pp. 94-95) I guess Laderman was assuming that most readers would not bother to check Moyar’s book and then McHale’s book for themselves. When we do, we see that Laderman’s claim is false, and that Laderman had to know it was false when he wrote it. One, Moyar only cites McHale on the point that the death toll from intra-Vietnamese killings from 1945-1947 was “as high as 50,000,” and McHale does in fact cite this argument: Francois Guillemot has suggested that, from 1945 to 1947, from five thousand to fifty thousand Vietnamese were killed. The Viet Minh was not, it should be underlined, responsible for all of the deaths, as other nationalist and religious groups contributed to the carnage. I would argue that at least ten thousand were killed in intra-Vietnamese violence in these years and that the death toll is probably much higher. (Print and Power, p. 193) Two, Moyar does not cite McHale regarding how many of those killings were done by the Viet Minh, and he does not claim that the Viet Minh committed all the killings (Triumph Forsaken, p. 425). He says the Viet Minh perpetrated more of them than the other groups combined, but he does not say the Communists committed all of them. Three, on a side note, I can only chuckle at Laderman’s silly point that McHale did not mention the Communists but only the Viet Minh. This is as inane and petty as saying, “Oh, he did not mention organized crime; rather, he talked about the Mafia.” Or, “He did not mention the U.S. Government; rather, he talked about the U.S. Marine Corps.” Moreover, as Laderman surely knew, throughout his book Moyar uses the terms “Communists” and “Viet Minh” interchangeably, as have most other authors who have written on the subject.

"Wow" is right. So this is your response to all the evidence and points presented in my previous three replies? Has it occurred to you that you should read Moyar's book and read the books in question that he is citing, and then compare what he says with what the cited pages say? No, obviously not. You still have not learned your lesson from when you got burned by running with Chapman's vacuous review in the roundtable review. "Denial" indeed. Let us back up and remember that you started off by making the false claim that even some other revisionists view Moyar as "extreme" and that they say that he sometimes misrepresents his sources. I knew that was hogwash. Thus, when I called your bluff and asked you to name one such revisionist scholar, you could not. Then, you found a scholar who had never written anything about the Vietnam War before but who labeled Moyar's views as "extreme." You failed to mention that she only labeled him "extreme" in reference to two of the areas she was analyzing; you also failed to mention that she said that Moyar is highly qualified. You uncritically ran with Chapman's review from the roundtable review, obviously without bothering to read Moyar's response, and then fell silent when I showed that Moyar proved that Chapman's review is not only flawed but petty and unserious, that her errors and false characterizations are so bad that one is led one to wonder if she actually read the book or if she deliberately misrepresented Moyar's arguments. Next, you announced that you had found "devastating" reviews of Moyar's book in Triumph Revisited, and you specifically cited Miller's and Zhai's error-riddled reviews as two of those "devastating" reviews (although you could not remember Zhai's name). You did not realize that Miller's and Zhai's reviews are two of the worst, error-packed reviews in the book. It is apparent that you still have not read the North Vietnamese sources themselves, and that you also have not read any of the scholarly books that support Moyar's position. Nor have you read L.H.T. Nguyen's and Max Hastings' books, which, though not revisionist, support many of Moyar's key arguments. Finally, just to give other readers some idea of how Moyar's book has been received among scholars who are not stridently anti-Vietnam War, consider these assessments of Triumph Forsaken: “a stunning performance” -– James M. Murphy, The Times Literary Supplement “one of the most important books ever written on the Vietnam War” -– Mackubin Thomas Owens, former professor at the Naval War College and the University of Rhode Island, author of Abraham Lincoln: Leadership and Democratic Statesmanship in Wartime and US Civil-Military Relations after 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain. “groundbreaking” -– Evan Thomas and John Barry, Newsweek “a brilliant analysis” -– Lewis Sorley, military historian and author of A Better War “akin to reading Euripides’ tales of self-inflicted woe and missed chances” -– Victor Davis Hanson, professor of history at Hillsdale College “a bold, courageous, and brilliant book” -– Christina Goulter, Asian Affairs “a landmark contribution” -– Robert F. Turner, military historian and former professor of history at the University of Virginia, author of Vietnamese Communism: Its Origin and Development and Myths of the Vietnam War: The Pentagon Papers Reconsidered “Moyar makes so many striking contrarian arguments that one hardly knows where to begin…. This is an important book, a history that serves as a mirror on the present.” -– Robert H. Scales, Wall Street Journal “thought provoking, exhaustively researched, highly organized, and above all, outstanding.” -– Rick Baillergeon, History “Moyar, who has strong credentials, has an engaging writing style and supports his arguments with dispassionate research, unlike many earlier revisionists’ works… Highly recommended.” -– Michael O’Donnell, Choice “Thoroughly researched and richly informative.” -– George Cohen, Booklist “The author is an immensely talented academic and writer… Moyar marshals the fruits of his research into a devastating attack on the conventional wisdom about the Vietnam War.” -– James C. Roberts, founder of the American Veterans Center and an award-winning journalist and author “[a] definitive examination… It is essential reading for anyone wanting a fresh understanding of one of America’s longest and most misunderstood conflicts.” –- Charles Melson, chief historian at the Marine Corps Historical Division “Impressive and scrupulously researched… elevates the arguments of Vietnam War revisionists to a higher, more respected, level.” -– Karl Helicher, ForeWord Magazine “the sheer scholarship behind Moyar’s book demands that we take his views seriously.” -– Ian Horwood, Reviews in History “Moyar is a fine writer and switches from broad strategic and geopolitical issues to heart-gripping accounts of key military actions…. Triumph Forsaken will go a long way toward vindicating and restoring respect for Vietnam vets and those who supported the war, often at great personal cost.” -– Robert A. Hall, military historian, Vietnam veteran, and contributing author for the journal Leatherneck “will prove to be the indispensable history of the Vietnam War.” -– Scott W. Johnson, Claremont Institute Fellow “throws down a mighty challenge to orthodox historians” -– Paul Beston, The American Spectator “The book is meticulously documented; it draws on the substantial U.S. documentary record of the war, bringing fresh perspectives to familiar evidence. Moyar augments and supports his analysis with extensive use of North Vietnamese archival material, most of which was unavailable to the orthodox historians of the 1970s and ’80s. In sum, Triumph Forsaken is an important book.” -– James S. Robbins, historian, author of This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive “Extensively researched from communist as well as Western sources. . . . gripping.” -– John M. Taylor, historian, author of Garfield of Ohio: The Available Man “This is revisionist history at its best.” -– Christian Nelson, VietNow “Moyar is refreshingly frank in his appraisals.” -– Curtis Hooper O’Sullivan, Air Power History “I know of no scholar more dedicated to bringing a thorough and accurate portrayal of America’s involvement in Vietnam than Mark Moyar. Everyone who is interested in a full picture of that of-tmisunderstood war should be grateful for his effort.” -– Senator James Webb, Marine combat veteran, author of Fields of Fire and Born Fighting “Mark Moyar tells how and why the United States did not win its first war in Vietnam, 1954–1965. Triumph Forsaken replaces its predecessors because it shows how the counterinsurgency campaign might have been won at acceptable cost, thus avoiding ‘the big war’ that followed.” -– Allan R. Millett, Director, Eisenhower Center for American Studies, University of New Orleans “Numerous bits of conventional wisdom have accreted around the Vietnam War. It is commonly held that Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese nationalist above all, not a true communist, and that his victory was inevitable. That Ngo Dinh Diem was an unpopular and repressive reactionary. That the United States had no vital strategic interest in defending South Vietnam. That the ‘domino theory’ was a myth. That the U.S. was right not to invade North Vietnam or Laos for fear of triggering Chinese intervention. Mark Moyar, a young, bold, and iconoclastic historian, takes a sledge hammer to these hoary beliefs. It is ‘revisionist’ in the best sense of the word.” -– Max Boot, author of The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power and The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam “Mark Moyar provides detailed accounts of Saigon politics and of actual battles that are unmatched in any other study. He gives particular emphasis to southern Vietnamese views and experiences, and he encourages us to think about the war in fresh ways.” -– K.W. Taylor, professor of history at Cornell University “Triumph Forsaken is a remarkable book. Moyar’s work is the most powerful challenge to the orthodox interpretation of the origins of America’s war in Vietnam. In taking a fresh look at the primary sources, as well as exploiting new materials from the American and communist archives, Moyar has constructed an alternative explanation for the roots of the American commitment. Moyar’s book compels historians to reopen the debate about the meaning of the Vietnam War.” -– Thomas Alan Schwartz, professor of history at Vanderbilt University “Such is the quality of this book and the rewriting of history it effects that you will not only see the Vietnam War in a different light but understand current events in Iraq more clearly. That’s quite an accomplishment and makes this the best book you’re likely to read for some time. Grade: A+” -– BrothersJudd.com “One of the most important books of the last several years. This book is a must for anyone interested in either the Vietnam War, or in American security policy in general.” -– George Mellinger, Old War Dogs “Mark Moyar has joined the company of a select group of serious war scholars, including Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp, Colonel Harry Summers, and Colonel H. R. McMaster, who have provided fact- and logic-based analyses of the Vietnam War.” -– Thomas Snodgrass, The Conservative Voice “[Moyar] goes to great lengths to stress Uncle Ho’s communist ties and ideals, and he turns the father of his country idea on its ear, making a case that South Vietnamese Premier Ngo Dinh Diem, not Ho, was the George Washington of Vietnam…. His fiercely argued book covering the early years of American involvement in the war is a salvo against what he calls the ‘orthodox school’ of Vietnam war historians…. Moyar marshals a good deal of evidence to make his points.” –- Marc Leepson, historian and Vietnam War veteran, author of four books on military history

The palmprint was allegedly found on the bottom side of the rifle's barrel, which was only accessible if the wooden stock was removed. IOW, Oswald could not have handled that part of the barrel unless he had first removed the wooden stock. Also, Lt. J. C. Day, who allegedly found the palmprint, said the print was several "weeks or months" old. To answer your question in a general way, yes, most rifle parts can be swapped, IF the rifles are the same make and model. When I was in the Army, we used to take parts from one M-16 rifle and use them for a different M-16 rifle when necessary. With Savage rifles, you can even swap bolt heads because they are intended to be interchangeable. However, with some types of rifles, you cannot swap bolts without having the bolts fitted and headspaced to the action and barrel, and you must pin the recoil lug.

No Mike, I did read Moyar’s replies. Those reviews are indeed devastating, and I think any objective reader not already wedded to Moyar’s position would agree. If you think those reviews are "devastating," then I am left to wonder if you really did read Moyar's responses to them, because he proves that they make one erroneous claim and straw-man assumption after another. Miller's and Zhai's reviews are especially pathetic. Are you going to address the evidence I have presented regarding some of the errors in their reviews? Also, you are once again misrepresenting what I said about the North Vietnamese sources. I never once said that Laderman and Miller’s reviews proved that Moyar had misrepresented North Vietnamese sources. Humm, you are drawing a very fine-line distinction between misrepresenting and exaggerating/misusing. How ever you want to spin your attack now, anyone who reads your previous replies will see that, at the very least, you clearly implied that the North Vietnamese sources do not say everything that Moyar says they say. I will not harp on the fact that in this thread you have made a number of demonstrably false claims about Moyar's scholarship and about how he is viewed by other scholars. The conclusive examples of Moyar egregiously misrepresenting his citations in those reviews are from other types of source material. Laderman even used quotes from the authors of books Moyar cited that describe how Moyar misrepresented and cherry-picked their work to push his arguments. But if you would bother to actually read those authors' books, you would see that Moyar does not misrepresent them to push his arguments. What I said about the North Vietnamese sources is that not one scholarly reviewer in Triumph Revisited agreed with Moyar’s massive and unwarranted leap from military progress in ‘62-63 over previous years to decisive progress that could have won the entire war, including the military history review which was otherwise very positive. And you are telling me that you read Moyar's responses to the negative reviews??? Did you only read every third line or something??? Just the evidence presented in the segments that I have quoted from Moyar's responses shows that Moyar is not making a "massive and unwarranted leap." And, needless to say, you obviously still have not read any of the books written by other scholars who make the same argument that Moyar makes about the winnability of the war. I listed several such books in a previous reply, several of which were written by senior military officers who actually served in Vietnam (as opposed to liberal historians who have never spent a day in the military and have no formal training in military tactics, intelligence, logistics, and strategy). "Decisive progress that could have won the entire war"? FYI, Moyar never says that we nearly had the war won in 1963. No one has ever said that. Moyar does, however, say that the war was going well in 1963, contrary to the false portrayal that liberals have been pushing for decades, and the North Vietnamese sources indisputably verify that the war was going well for us before Diem was murdered. But, rather than admit this, Moyar's critics pretend that Moyar claims the war was nearly won in 1963 and then accuse him of going beyond what the North Vietnamese sources say. It is telling that some liberal scholars, faced with the evidence in Moyar's book, now admit that we were making substantial progress until Diem was killed, which is the exact opposite of what liberals had been saying until Moyar's Triumph Forsaken was published. It is also the exact opposite of what JFK was being told by Hilsman, Forrestal, Mendenhall, Ball, and Harriman. Liberal scholars dread any evidence that we made steady progress in our war effort and that the war was entirely winnable. This is one reason that the North Vietnamese sources sent such shockwaves through liberal academia. It is also the reason that liberal scholars have yet to provide a comprehensive response to all the evidence on this point contained in the North Vietnamese sources. Triumph Revisited only deals with the war through mid-1965, since it is reviewing Triumph Forsaken. But the North Vietnamese sources also have plenty to say about progress in the American war effort in the years following 1965, and Moyar's new book, Triumph Regained, presents that evidence, as do the books authored by a number of other scholars (Veith, Sorley, Turner, Kort, Hunt, Tuong Vu, L.H.T. Nguyen, N. Nguyen, N.M. Vo, etc., etc.).

Stone did not say what you are saying he said. And Oliver always insisted that the whole thing about Lansdale was an example of someone who could have been the guy who laid out the plot Mike. Let's get real. It was reckless and irresponsible to use Lansdale as an "example" of someone who could have "laid out the plot." Furthermore, the movie clearly goes further than just citing Lansdale as a hypothetical example. And there was no mythical plan, it was a real plan to leave Vietnam. Its in black and white now with the May 1963 Sec Def meeting and the October 1963 tapes of the White House conferences where JFK and McNamara rammed the plan through. You are once again using verbiage that is misleading and comparing apples to poison. There was no plan for an unconditional total disengagement from South Vietnam after the election, contrary to what you have been claiming for years. There was a plan for a conditional, gradual withdrawal, and that plan called for continued aid to South Vietnam after the withdrawal, as well as for leaving behind some support troops to facilitate the provision of aid. Even James K. Galbraith has admitted this, as I have personally documented for you in previous exchanges. Fletcher Prouty brought that to Oliver Stone. Since he had written a long, finely wrought article several years before that on the subject. That article, which Len Osanic has on his site, was essentially Newman's first book in micro. And Prouty was wrong. I again repeat the fact that even extremely liberal, stridently anti-Vietnam War historians reject your claim that JFK planned on abandoning South Vietnam after the election. The White House tapes alone refute this notion, as Selverstone has documented. Now as Tom Gram has shown in his exposes of Moyar's phony book, and I have shown with my review of Selverstone, any attempt to amend this is ridiculous. Nonsense. Tom Gram has not "exposed" Moyar's "phony book." Go read our exchanges in the Top 5 Books on JFK & Vietnam thread, which is the thread where you think he has done this. Tom Gram, who is clearly a novice on the Vietnam War, ran with error-filled negative reviews of Moyar's book without bothering to read Moyar's responses to those reviews. I point out just some of the many erroneous claims made in those negative reviews in the Top 5 Books thread. I also quote sizable segments from Moyar's responses to those negative reviews in which he refutes one false claim after another found in them. As for your review of Selverstone's book, as I have noted in replies in this forum, you simply ignore most of the evidence that Selverstone presents, especially regarding the White House tapes whereon we hear JFK repeatedly express his desire to keep South Vietnam free and never so much as hints about any intention to abandon the cause after the election. Taylor, Bundy and McNamara are all on the record as saying that Kennedy was never going into Vietnam. And Taylor said that it was Kennedy who stopped that attempt dead in its tracks. Mike, why you insist on denying this . . . escapes me: I have answered this silly argument at least five times in this forum, but you just keep ignoring my counter arguments. Once again: One, JFK increased our military presence in South Vietnam from a few hundred troops when he took office to some 16,000 by November 1963. Two, JFK never confronted the kind of situation that LBJ confronted in 1964-1965, because the Hanoi regime vastly escalated their war effort after Diem's death. Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan began sending vastly larger amounts of weapons and equipment and vastly larger numbers of troops into South Vietnam than they had ever sent before Diem's removal, so Kennedy was never faced with having to deal with such a massive escalation. But you keep ignoring this crucial difference in the situations that JFK and LBJ faced, and then you proclaim that you are certain that JFK never would have escalated the way LBJ did because, gee, he did not do this before he died. Three, in his April 1964 oral interview, Bobby himself flatly rejected the idea that JKF was considering withdrawing from South Vietnam. Bobby even said that JFK may have sent combat troops (i.e., regular infantry troops) to South Vietnam if it became necessary. when it ended up in a colossal disaster--in Laos and Cambodia also . . . 5.8 million deaths. Your far-left extremism is showing again. So I take it you blame America for those 5.8 million deaths and not the Communist aggressors? And there was only a disaster when your anti-war buddies in Congress slashed aid to South Vietnam soon after the Paris Peace Accords. And I hate to mention this, but I think it bears repeating that you are wholly unqualified to be making claims about the Vietnam War. People can read our exchanges on the war in other threads (such as the Top 5 Books thread) and see how many times you have made embarrassing, inexcusably erroneous claims about the war, how many times you have cited fringe, shoddy sources, and how many times you have proved that your research on the war has been extremely limited and one sided. Maybe you want to join the Max Boot club? The guy who never saw a war he did not like. That is an egregious distortion of Max Boot's views. If you have read Boot's book The Road Not Taken, I cannot fathom how you could so brazenly misrepresent his views. And let me add, Fletcher did not just do this, he also brought in the Secret Service angle. Huh? Several authors had discussed the Secret Service angle before Prouty came along. And, in his ARRB interview, he back-peddled all over the place about his alleged role in presidential protection. But beyond that, Fletcher was in a good documentary on the KIng case, and secondly, he was one of the first people to say that Watergate was not what it appeared to be. Yeah, there is a real cover up artist for you. Huh? Uh-huh. "Fletcher" also spoke at an IHR Holocaust-denial conference and at a Liberty Lobby convention where he co-chaired a panel with David Duke's running mate, Bo Gritz, after blaming Israel for high oil prices in his convention speech. "Fletcher" also wrote a glowing letter to the editor of the IHR's journal praising the IHR's primary goals (which were and still are denying the Holocaust and bashing Israel). "Fletcher" also said he was "no authority in that area" when he was asked about his good buddy Willis Carto's Holocaust denialism. "Fletcher" also expressed concern about what would happen if a Jewish sergeant were manning a warfare-system computer during military operations (just imagine for a second if he had said "African-American sergeant" instead of Jewish sergeant). "Fletcher" also smeared critics of Ron Hubband and his Scientology fraud and proved he had no clue how to read military service records. "Fletcher" also appeared on Liberty Lobby's extremist radio program 10 times in four years. "Fletcher" also had the IHR republish one of his book and praised Marcellus and Carto for their "vision" and "courage" in agreeing to republish his nutcase book. "Fletcher" also said he wouldn't be surprised if the Secret Team killed Princess Diana, and he took seriously the whacky theory that Churchill had FDR poisoned.

Your posts border on being schizophrenic and are increasingly diving off the deep end. After pretending to acknowledge that Prouty was a crackpot and a fraud, now you say he did "brilliant work." No, he did not. He made one bogus claim after another, including a number of downright nutty claims. FYI, there are several liberal JFK conspiracy theorists, as well as several ultra-liberal anti-fascist activists, who recognize that Prouty was a flake and a fraud.

Just SMH. Uh, did you not read my responses to Tom's replies? Tom is the one who failed to do any cross checking. Tom obviously did not read any of Moyar's responses in Triumph Revisited before he posted the quotes from Miller, Stueck, Zhai, Laderman, etc. As he did with the roundtable review, Tom ran with his favorite negative reviews in Triumph Revisited without bothering to read Moyar's responses to them. What is it that you and he cannot seem to understand about the basic need to read both sides before commenting? The reviews by Miller, Zhai, Chapman, and Stueck are the worst in the book, with Laderman's not far behind. Miller's and Zhai's reviews, in particular, are loaded with embarrassingly erroneous claims and misrepresentations. You see, one advantage that I had over Tom is that I had already read Triumph Revisited. Thus, I knew Tom was jumping to conclusions and had not read Moyar's responses when he called Miller's and Laderman's false and misleading arguments "devastating," and especially when he claimed that Miller and Laderman proved that Moyar has misrepresented the North Vietnamese sources.

Prouty had no credible, believable benign explanation for the actions and statements that I have documented (much of the documentation coming from his own mouth). His "contributions" to Stone's milestone film ruined the film's credibility with virtually every member of the academic community and with most journalists. The film's inclusion of Prouty's obscene claims about Lansdale as a plotter and about the mythical plan to abandon South Vietnam after the election provided low-hanging fruit for critics to destroy. Prouty made no valuable contributions to the JFK case, and in his ARRB interview, when he had the chance to affirm and defend his case under oath, he back-peddled on virtually every major claim he had been making up to that point. What is the "benign explanation" for Prouty's writing a glowing letter to the editor of the Holocaust-denying IHR journal and praising the IHR's primary goals, which were and are to deny the Holocaust and bash the state of Israel? What is the "benign explanation" for his shameful attacks on the principled critics of Ron Hubbard and Scientology? What is the "benign explanation" for Prouty's appearing on Liberty Lobby's nutcase radio show 10 times in four years? What is the "benign explanation" for Prouty's speaking at an IHR conference and at a Liberty Lobby convention and publicly praising Carto and Marcellus? And on and on we could go.

I am skeptical of RFK Jr.'s comments, at least as they have been quoted, but I will say this: These family members and others who are attacking him over those comments had nothing negative to say about the senseless, unnecessary, and destructive lockdowns that destroyed tens of thousands of small businesses, ruined millions of people's lives, and arguably did more harm than good in preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Here are my final segments from Moyar’s responses in Triumph Revisited. One of the segments deals with the bogus claim that Moyar misrepresented the content of his sources and embellished the record: In Miller’s estimation, Diem’s land reform was “desultory.” Before the start of Diem’s land reform in 1956, nearly 80 percent of the peasants in the highly populous Mekong Delta owned no land. By 1960, only 44 percent of Delta peasants remained landless.23 How Miller considers this achievement unimpressive is difficult to fathom. Would we consider it unimpressive if the number of Americans below the poverty line in a large and populous area went from 80 percent to 44 percent in four years? (p. 221). Miller then claims that I overlooked Diem’s relocation of peasants to the highlands, but in fact I discuss how and why Diem relocated these peasants, as well as their subsequent influence on the war in the highlands (72, 392). (p. 221) Comment: One wonders if Miller actually read Moyar’s book or deliberately misrepresented it. Miller then asserts that I “misrepresented” the “textual content” of sources, which “dramatically embellishes the available record” and “raises worrisome questions about whether and how frequently he plays fast and loose with his sources.” Miller seems to be asserting that I seriously misrepresented the meaning of sources, but when he gets down to specifics, it turns out that he is discussing something of much less significance, which begs the question of why he used such ominous and inflammatory language. What he is discussing is merely the use of meeting notes as verbatim transcripts—a matter of style rather than content, upon which reasonable people sometimes disagree. Other historians have employed this same method without incurring invective. Richard Reeves, for example, used it extensively in his highly acclaimed President Kennedy, which won best non-fiction book of the year accolades from Time Magazine and P.E.N. In Miller’s opinion, I invoke “an outdated and condescending understanding of the peasants.” He offers no explanation to back up this accusation, although presumably he takes exception to some of the same interpretations as previous contributors. His next bold denunciation, that I possess a “superficial understanding of Vietnamese political history and political culture,” also goes unsubstantiated. (p. 222) William Stueck calls into question my assertion that the Viet Minh were in serious trouble at the time of Dien Bien Phu, and argues that unless the communist forces at Dien Bien Phu had been completely annihilated, the communists would have occupied a favorable military position across Indochina after the battle. He asserts that my argument is based primarily on Khrushchev’s memoirs and Janos Radvanyi’s book. But the two endnotes supporting my interpretation (426, notes 63 and 64) cite six different sources. One of the sources is a book by Ilya Gaiduk, for whom Stueck expresses respect elsewhere. Two of the other sources, written by North Vietnamese leader Le Duan and North Vietnamese witness Bui Tin, show that the Viet Minh had sent most of their mobile armed forces to Dien Bien Phu, refuting the view that the Viet Minh had great numbers of troops elsewhere that would have pressed on to victory had the Dien Bien Phu attack failed. Just after the completion of Triumph Forsaken, additional communist sources emerged that showed deep trouble on the communist side in early 1954. The early stages of Dien Bien Phu, contends Stueck, were very favorable for the Viet Minh, which he says casts doubt on Khrushchev’s claim that the Viet Minh were in dire straits during the battle. Owing to space constraints, I did not get into the details of this battle in my book, but communist sources, as well as some Western accounts, show that the Viet Minh did suffer major reverses in March 1954. A decade ago, Pierre Asselin revealed that the Viet Minh suffered a whopping 9,000 casualties in the first four days at Dien Bien Phu. Asselin reported that the staggering losses compelled the Viet Minh to turn away from the use of human wave tactics. (p. 63) Comment: In his recent book The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam (Princeton University Press, 2022), Dr. Christopher Goscha presents evidence that supports Moyar’s portrayal of the state of the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu. For example, Goscha notes that the French recapture of the position named Eliane on April 11 caused a drop in Viet Minh morale, and in a few weeks the situation among the Viet Minh was so bad that Giap ceased operations for three days to conduct mandatory propaganda sessions among the troops: Apparently, the French (re)capture of the position they called Eliane on 11 April sapped confidence along parts of the front line. On 29 April, as the third attack got underway, Giap sent strict orders to his political officers in which he criticized widespread manifestations of “rightist, negative thinking” among the troops, cadres, and officer corps. . . . In sharp language designed to pull his cadre and officers together and take the fortress in one last attack, Giap singled out for severe criticism and punishment manifestations of this “rightist deviationism.” This was communist doublespeak for troubling cases of insubordination, cowardice, fear of death and injury, exhaustion, and lack of morale: “Upon encountering the enemy, they refused to shoot. They had weapons but did not want to use them to destroy the enemy.” This, he told his divisional commanders on 29 April, had happened in “our army.” To fix these problems, the party center organized three days of intensive study sessions, propaganda drives, and rectification campaigns to raise morale, assert party control, and, in so doing, return as many men to their combat positions as possible. Criticism, emulation, and rectification sessions were mandatory for soldiers and cadres. Looking through their field binoculars, French officers could see commissars unleashing this on their own troops in the distance—literally, on the battlefield. . . . It is hard to convey how desperate the situation truly was on the food front. The People’s Army had already depleted rice reserves in the northwest during its operations in the highlands in 1952–3, triggering famine in large parts of the Tai country where Dien Bien Phu was nestled. Many areas in the northwest were still experiencing famine. . . . Despite attempts to hammer them into line through emulation campaigns and heavy doses of propaganda, the communists had to accept the desertion of several civilian teams. Even an official history had to admit that these people were simply terrified of dying in a hail of fire. (The Road to Dien Bien Phu, pp. 562-563, 567-569) Goscha’s observations about Viet Minh losses and the aftermath of the battle are also worth quoting: Glorious though the victory was, Dien Bien Phu came at a great cost for the Vietnamese. The official number of Vietnamese military casualties for the battle is 13,930, with 4,020 of that number listed as killed or missing in action. But French military intelligence estimated that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam lost around 20,000 combatants. The latter number is closer to the truth, in my view. On related fronts where fighting occurred, the casualties on the Vietnamese side totaled 15,004, including 5,833 dead. None of these statistics count the several thousand porters killed or missing in action. During the Dien Bien Phu campaign (November 1953–May 1954), one can safely assume that the DRV lost 25,000 souls in all, men and women, civilians and combatants, in the area stretching from the Chinese border to Zone V [where Dien Bien Phu was located]. Meanwhile, on another, connected battlefront, Ho Chi Minh had already marched his cadres into villages to launch class warfare on their fellow Vietnamese. Several thousand would die at the party’s own hands by the time this horrifying extension of the war on the civilian front finally ended. This, once again, was Vietnamese War Communism writ large. This was its human cost. This, too, was Dien Bien Phu. (The Road to Dien Bien Phu, pp. 569-570).

The HSCA photographic experts detected in the Willis photos a human figure behind the knoll with a straight-line object apparently in his hands. That is as far as they would go.

Well, most of us, myself included, felt confident that Obama would release all the JFK files, but he did not. I was even more confident that Trump would release all the files, given his friendship with Roger Stone and other factors, but the FBI and the CIA, most assuredly using invalid claims, persuaded him to err on the side caution and not to honor his promise to release all the files. I am certain that De Santis is sincere in promising to release all the files, but you just never know what will happen once a candidate gets in office and intel officials swear up and down to him that national security will be damaged if all the files are released.

What? Huh? Did you not say that Prouty may have known more about the conspiracy than he ever revealed? Did you not say that he was involved in setting up an operation that may have played a role in the assassination? Did you not say these things? And are you not relying partly on Prouty for this stuff? I quote you: The following passage, from pages 137 & 138 of Christopher Simpson’s “Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Destructive Impact on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy,” which demonstrate that COL. Prouty, by his own admission, was a driving force behind creation of the United States Army’s “Special Forces” units—and that these same units later morphed into assassination teams. A network of Nazi commandos and assassins that COL. Prouty says he created himself! And the information about this network of Nazi commandos and assassins was provided by interviews given to author Christopher Simpson by COL. Prouty personally. Whether anyone will agree with me or not, I believe COL. Prouty may have known a helluva lot more than he revealed, and took valuable information concerning the real murderers of President Kennedy to the grave... So you will have to forgive me for inferring that you are positing a conspiracy theory that involves Prouty as someone who set up an operation that later morphed and took part in JFK's death and/or as someone who knew more about the plotters than he ever revealed. And are you not relying partly on Prouty for this stuff?

It would really help if you would provide a summary of the article's contents, especially since only subscribers can read the article.

Yes, I get that you are seeking to implicate Prouty in criminal actions, including the JFK assassination, based on some of his own comments. My point is that Prouty was so erratic and unstable and kooky, that it is risky to accept anything he said, much less to build a conspiracy theory around his statements, even if the theory includes him as one of the culprits (direct or indirect, intentional or unintentional). I am glad we agree about Prouty's ARRB interview. We have a few folks who claim that Prouty was "ambushed" by the ARRB. I cannot imagine what transcript of his ARRB interview they are reading. If anything, the ARRB interviewers were too gentle with Prouty and did not press him to explain some of his dubious statements. And, yes, I agree with you that for some conspiracy theorists Prouty is a golden calf that must be worshipped, no matter what. But, you are spinning an anti-Prouty conspiracy theory based substantially on some of Prouty's statements. I am saying that any such exercise is a waste of time if it is based on Prouty's statements, whether partly or wholly. The guy was a crackpot, a fraud, and possibly a disinformation agent (I'm agnostic on this; I see it only as a possibility).

My intention here is to say that we must, must, must stop citing and quoting a downright crackpot and fraud such as Fletcher Prouty. The evidence against Prouty is irrefutable. If a lone-gunman theorist had said and done half the embarrassing, bizarre things that Prouty said and did, everybody here, from all points of view, would agree he/she should be repudiated and never cited or quoted. But, sadly, we have a few hardcore ultra-liberals here who refuse to admit the truth about Prouty because he is their main source for certain myths that they cherish. And then we wonder why the vast majority of the academic world dismisses and scorns the case for conspiracy. I happen to know that a number of academic historians monitor this forum. Can you imagine what they think when they see researchers here citing and praising Prouty, and, even worse, when they see researchers here excusing or lamely denying Prouty's close and prolonged association with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, his obscene defense of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, his self-discrediting and back-peddling under friendly and respectful questioning during his ARRB interview, his "Jewish sergeant" remark, his warm praise of the IHR's "primary goals," and his nutty claims about Princess Diana's and FDR's deaths, etc., etc.? For some folks here, Prouty's version of the JFK assassination has become their religion, has become the paradigm through which they make sense of world events, and whenever that happens, it becomes very hard for the adherents to be objective and dispassionate about Prouty himself.

The evidence that Prouty was a crackpot who made fraudulent claims is too clear and compelling to deny. Anyone who is aware of that evidence but continues to defend and use Prouty is proving themselves to be too ideologically driven to be objective.

If you want to be credible, you should never quote or cite Prouty. Here are a few other things that Prouty said and did: He spoke at a Holocaust-denial conference sponsored by the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) (whose main function is to deny the Holocaust and attack the state of Israel). He arranged for the IHR's publishing arm, Noontide Press, to republish his book The Secret Team, and praised Holocaust deniers Willis Carto and Tom Marcellus for having the "vision" and "courage" to republish his book. Go look at the other books published by the IHR/Noontide Press (LINK) (LINK). He wrote a glowingly positive letter to the editor of the IHR's journal and spoke of how "important" the IHR's "primary goals" were (LINK). He spoke at a convention held by the anti-Semitic, white-supremacist group Liberty Lobby, founded by Holocaust denier Willis Carto. Among other things, during his speech, he said the real culprit for high oil prices was--you guessed it--Israel. At the convention, Prouty also chaired a panel discussion with Bo Gritz, David Duke's running mate. He appeared on Liberty Lobby's anti-Semitic, pro-white supremacist, Holocaust-denying radio show 10 times in four years. He recommended that people read Liberty Lobby's newspaper The Spotlight, which carried ads by neo-Nazi groups, unceasingly bashed Israel, unceasingly slandered Jews, whitewashed Nazi war crimes, and promoted the idea that an international Jewish conspiracy was trying to take over the world. When asked specifically about Carto's Holocaust denial, Prouty said, "I'm no authority in that area." He expressed concern that about Jewish sergeants manning weapon-system computers during anti-air operations. And this is not to even mention Prouty's other bizarre and embarrassing claims, such as his slanderous nonsense about Lansdale (which even Oliver Stone has repudiated), his scurrilous defense of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, his nutty tale about JCS and intelligence involvement in the Jonestown mass suicide, his nutjob speculation about Princess Diana's death, his whacky speculation about Churchill poisoning FDR, his failure to produce his putatively historic notes when the ARRB asked for them, his bogus tale about a "stand down" call from the 112th MI Group, his curious claim that oil is not a fossil fuel but that oil companies want us to believe it is, his bogus suggestion that he was sent to the South Pole to help strip JFK of security (JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, pp. 283-285)--a claim that he back-peddled from with the ARRB, and his bogus claims about the F-16 vs. the MiG-25 (not what you'd expect from a competent intelligence officer), etc., etc. Prouty's crackpot claims have done enormous damage to the case for conspiracy in the JFK case. The Prouty-based claims in Oliver Stone's movie JFK provided easy targets for critics to demolish. Educated people will not take any book, article, or documentary seriously as soon as they see that it approvingly cites or quotes Prouty--at the very least, they will wonder about the author's reliability and judgment. Further reading on Prouty: LINK LINK LINK LINK LINK LINK LINK LINK LINK

Here are more segments from Moyar’s responses in Triumph Revisited. I have changed their order because I want to start with part—not all, but part—of Moyar’s response to McAllister regarding the militant Buddhist monk Tri Quang and the Communist role in the Buddhist protests. The other segments deal with Diem, the Viet Minh, and the amount of progress in the war effort: McAllister disputes my assertion that Tri Quang was likely to have been a communist agent. The evidence of Tri Quang’s communist affiliation presented in Triumph Forsaken, he contends, is no more convincing than what Marguerite Higgins presented in her 1965 book Our Vietnam Nightmare. First, it must be said that Higgins presented some important, and wrongfully neglected, evidence. My research shows that Higgins’ work was more accurate than that of David Halberstam or Neil Sheehan; the fact that she has largely been forgotten, while Halberstam and Sheehan have become iconic figures, reflects the biases of many who have written about Vietnam and the unfortunate fact that Higgins died in 1966. Higgins revealed, among other things, that Tri Quang’s brother was a senior North Vietnamese official, and that Tri Quang had at one time belonged to the Viet Minh State Department, and C.I.A. documents from 1963 and 1964 confirm that Tri Quang acknowledged both of these facts to be true (458, note 59). I also incorporated some evidence not used by Higgins. During the 1963 crisis, Tri Quang advocated collaboration with the communists, and in 1964 some of Tri Quang’s followers turned against him and declared him to be a communist (218). In 1964 and 1965, Tri Quang frequently used false charges of wrongdoing to demand that the Saigon government remove some of the best anti-communist officers (317, 319, 364, 394). Tri Quang had ties to the People’s Revolutionary Committees established in Annam in 1964, which were viewed by many as tools of the communists (317). Tran Van Huong, like Diem, believed Tri Quang to be an accomplice of the communists, and both Huong and Diem knew more about Vietnamese politics than any Americans (334). Furthermore, Triumph Forsaken is the first history to provide evidence from North Vietnamese sources of extensive communist participation in the Buddhist movement in 1963, evidence that none of the reviewers has disputed (217, 231). McAllister states, “The communists, both during and after the war, certainly saw [Tri Quang] as an irreconcilable enemy rather than as a partner,” and backs this view with a communist document from late 1966 that denounced Tri Quang. This document is interesting and significant, but it does not prove that Tri Quang was not a communist. If Tri Quang had been working secretly for North Vietnam, most North Vietnamese officials, including the author of this document, would not have been informed of it. Extraordinarily tight security procedures would have been maintained with such a profoundly important agent. In addition, the date of the document in question comes well after the events I describe in Triumph Forsaken, and after the showdown between the Buddhists and the government in the spring of 1966, and it is possible that the communists parted ways with Tri Quang sometime between the end of Triumph Forsaken and late 1966. (pp. 216-218, emphasis added) Lawrence contends that I overturn simplistic caricatures of the Vietnamese only to replace them with new ones, which, he says, “often seem inspired by a deeply conservative agenda rather than a deep reading of the available evidence.” He appears to be saying, as Edward Miller appears to say later, that I first decided that American support for Diem and Vietnam was good and then I looked for ways of portraying the Vietnamese and Diem to prove that point. But if one looks at my first book [Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam], I portrayed the Vietnamese in much the same way but did not come out in favor of Diem—at that time, I had studied peasant culture extensively but had not discovered the gross fallacies in the conventional depictions of Diem. As stated in the previous chapter, I changed my views on central questions of the war while researching Triumph Forsaken in accordance with the discovery of new facts. (pp. 209-210) My treatment of the Franco-Viet Minh War comes under attack from Lawrence for “saying nothing of the fluidity of Viet Minh ideology as the movement struggled desperately to find foreign support.” Yet I do mention that the Viet Minh professed to be a conglomeration of diverse nationalists, rather than a hierarchy led by doctrinaire communists. I also argue this portrayal was a deceitful attempt to gain support from the United States and other foreign powers; the Viet Minh organization was always controlled by people dedicated to communist ideology. Ho’s ideology and that of his Communist Party did not change; he was merely resorting to the old communist trick of gaining the temporary assistance of one enemy to destroy another as a stepping stone towards destroying all of his enemies (1–25). (p. 210) Comment: Dr. Christopher Goscha documents these facts in exhaustive detail in his recent book The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam (Princeton University Press, 2022). Goscha shows that Ho and other Communist leaders pretended to be willing to rule with non-communist nationalists and concealed their Marxist agenda from the people as a war expediency to defeat the French. When Ho, Le Duan, Le Duc Tho, etc., felt it was safe to do so, they ruthlessly purged non-Communists from all levels of power, murdering thousands of people and jailing thousands of others in the process. Let us continue: According to Lawrence, David Elliott’s study shows that the Denounce the Communists campaigns undermined “the government’s legitimacy in the eyes of its people,” contrary to what I argued in Triumph Forsaken. Elliott argues that the repression following Decree 10/59 of May 1959 “pushed tensions in the countryside to the breaking point,” creating grassroots resentment that sparked the communist assassination campaign of 1960. . . . Other sections of Elliott’s book, in fact, contradict the claim that the government’s actions produced mass unrest. Elliott himself acknowledges that the peasants looked back fondly on the period up to 1960 as a time of peace and tranquility, not a time of seething discontent with the government. He also states that the Diem government’s arrests during the campaigns of the late 1950s mainly created popular fear of aiding the Viet Cong, rather than popular anger against the government. Communist histories make clear that the reason the assassination campaign began in 1960 was that higher headquarters ordered it to begin at that time, not that popular opposition to the government surged at that time. (pp. 211-212) Lind contends that the United States lost the Vietnam War because its pacification efforts failed to defeat the insurgents. But, as is shown in my first book and also in Lewis Sorley’s A Better War, pacification ultimately succeeded. South Vietnamese and American forces wiped out the Viet Cong insurgents by the early 1970s. South Vietnam fell in 1975 because over half a million well-equipped North Vietnamese regulars attacked South Vietnamese forces that had been deprived of fuel, weapons, ammunition, and spare parts by American aid cuts. (p. 215) Miller takes me to task for not mentioning that the South Vietnamese government ceded large amounts of territory to the communists in 1963 in Binh Duong province—the province from which Philip Catton extrapolated in his book—and other provinces. But the Saigon government’s abandonment of some territory in Binh Duong, which resulted from unusually intense enemy military activity and difficult terrain, ran contrary to trends in most provinces. Nationwide, the South Vietnamese government was increasing its control of both population and territory in the summer and fall of 1963 (248, 283–285). Within Binh Duong, withdrawal from certain areas did not prevent the Diem government from using the Strategic Hamlet program to expand its control over the province’s population, which mattered more than territory. Although the Strategic Hamlet program encountered more difficulties in Binh Duong than in the other III Corps provinces, it was not in the same category as the worst Delta provinces (247–248, 284–285). A September 1963 U.S.O.M. report stated that, in Binh Duong, the South Vietnamese were succeeding militarily, and “substantial gains are being made in the strategic hamlet program.” It noted that of 205 strategic hamlets planned for Binh Duong, 108 had been completed and fifty were under construction. The strategic hamlets contained 209,944 people of the province’s total population of 302,655. A Viet Cong report on Binh Duong in the late summer of 1963 confirms that the South Vietnamese government was militarily and politically aggressive and was able to recruit most of the province’s youths into its service, while the Viet Cong were enduring heavy losses and could not obtain any popular support in the strategic hamlets. (pp. 219-220)

Correction: Anthony Summers is not the author of LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination. Phillip Nelson wrote the book.

Ok, thanks for that clarification. I agree that pinning all the blame on the CIA is problematic. However, when we talk about anti-Castro Cubans, we are talking about CIA operatives or at least CIA-trained-and-supported fighters. And, yes, I certainly agree that we cannot dismiss the considerable evidence of Mafia involvement. Really, most of our best evidence in terms of identifying suspects points to Mafia figures, and certainly the Mafia had a powerful, existential motive for wanting JFK dead. It is beyond dispute that certain senior military officers were involved in the cover-up. As for LBJ, the most I will say is that he obviously benefitted from JFK's death.

So essentially what you are saying is if someone is reading a critique of the Warren Report e.g. Accessories After the Fact, and Meagher quotes directly from the Warren Report, then puts the citation for that claim from the Hearings and Exhibits right next to it, demonstrating conclusively that that the citation does not support the claim in the report, the reader is not qualified to comment unless they have read the entire Report itself along with Case Closed and Reclaiming History and already believes with religious fervor that Oswald did it. And if the reader posts Meagher’s work verbatim for others to make up their own minds that is somehow nonsense and a “bluff” just because you said so. Got it. This is a curious argument for a conspiracy theorist to be making, since your view--our view--is considered to be fringe, baseless, wildly speculative, and unscholarly by the vast majority of academic historians who have written anything about JFK or the late 20th century. Anyway, what do you say about Moyar's response to the charge that some of his references do not support the claims for which they are cited? How do you specifically answer his points on this issue? Remember that Chapman accused Moyar of not presenting evidence for key points, and Moyar proved that he did, which is why I openly wondered if Chapman actually read Moyar's book or just skimmed through it. And by the way, there is such a thing as non verbatim quote apparently: Moyar’s imaginary conversations he invented from non-verbatim memos. One, a quote is by definition verbatim; otherwise, it is not a quote but a paraphrase. Two, see above. Have you read Moyar's responses yet? Regarding the progress of the war effort, you are again trying to shoot the messenger. I’m just reporting what is said in Triumph Revisited, including the very positive military history review of Moyar’s book. I will post some more quotes when I have the time. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that that guy is pretty far removed from the “liberal historian” caricature label you’re assigning to anyone who isn’t already a full blown revisionist zealot. I could be wrong though. Instead of posting more quotes from the negative reviews, you should take the time to read at least two of the books that I recommended on the progress of the war effort and the winnability of the war, not to mention Moyar's Triumph Forsaken (and his new book Triumph Regained). I would be embarrassed to be seen so stridently attacking a book that I had not read. I am careful about my use of labels. I only call someone a liberal if they are a liberal. For example, I have not called Max Hastings a liberal or a defender of the orthodox view, because he is more of a centrist and because his book departs from the orthodox line on a number of issues (which is why it has received negative reviews from some anti-war liberals). Similarly, I have not described Lien-Hang Nguyen as a liberal nor categorized her as an apologist for the orthodox view, because she is, as far as I can tell, a centrist of some type, and because her book presents a wealth of information that contradicts the orthodox position. Why don’t you post the comments from Miller, Stueck, Zhai, etc. that Moyar is replying to so readers can make up their own minds on the validity of Moyar’s replies? Uh, gee, why have you only posted comments from Miller, Zhai, and other negative reviewers from Triumph Revisited?! Why did you only post comments from Chapman's review when you quoted from the roundtable review? Why did you not post any of Moyar's comments from his roundtable reply? Why did you not post any of Moyar's comments from his responses in Triumph Revisited? Etc., etc. Every single comment you have quoted has come from negative reviews of Moyar's book or from attacks on revisionist scholars. For other readers, some might be wondering why virtually all liberal scholars deny that Communists played a key role in the Buddhist crisis in 1963, and why they deny that the leader of the militant Buddhists was in league or sympathetic with the Communists, in spite of the considerable evidence that contradicts their denials? Because certain influential journalists and key liberals in the Kennedy administration greatly exaggerated the Buddhist crisis and used it as an excuse to push for a coup against South Vietnam's president, Ngo Dinh Diem, and because the coup proved to be a disaster. The murder of Diem erased much of the progress that had been made since 1960, caused the Hanoi regime to decide to vastly escalate their war effort, and led to crippling political instability in the Saigon government for nearly two years. Liberal scholars do not want to admit that liberals used false information to push for Diem's removal. Similarly, why do so many liberal historians persist in denying that Ho Chi Minh was a hardcore Communist, despite the overwhelming and indisputable evidence that he was? This, too, was another one of the lies that the anti-war movement peddled to undermine the war effort. "Ho is mainly a nationalist, not a Communist, and he is not in league with the Soviets and the Chinese," the John Kerrys and Jane Fondas falsely claimed. And, why do so many so many liberal scholars continue to doggedly argue that ARVN was a feckless and unwilling army, in spite of the wealth of evidence we now have that refutes this view? Because the myth of a weak, reluctant ARVN was one of the big lies that the anti-war movement peddled in their effort to undermine support for the war, and one of the lies that the anti-war majority in Congress used as their excuse to slash aid to South Vietnam soon after the Paris Peace Accords were signed.

"Perfectly logical explanations"? You mean explanations that claim that virtually every witness was lying or "mistaken," that nit-pick every minor discrepancy, that see discrepancies where there are none, and that chalk up all remaining evidence to coincidence. The Oswald who called the Soviet consulate in Mexico City spoke "terrible, hardly recognizable Russian," said the CIA translator who translated the call, but the real Oswald was fluent in Russian, according to numerous Russian speakers who knew him: Mrs. Natalie Ray, a native of Stalingrad, Russia, who met Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union, testified to the Warren Commission that his conversational Russian was "just perfect. . . . it's just too good speaking Russian for such a short time." [24] Mrs. Ray complimented Oswald while speaking in her own broken English: "I said, 'How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long and still don't speak very well English." When Mrs. Ray was asked by attorney Wesley Liebeler, "You thought he spoke Russian better than you would expect a person to be able to speak Russian after only living...there only 3 years?", she replied, "Yes; I really did." George de Mohrenschildt, another native Russian speaker, praised Oswald's skills in the Russian language, informing the Warren Commission that Oswald "had remarkable fluency in Russian. . . . he preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English to Russian." Peter Gregory, a native of Chita, Siberia, told the Warren Commission that "I thought that Lee Oswald spoke [Russian] with a Polish accent, that is why I asked him if he was of Polish descent....It would be rather unusual...for a person who lived in the Soviet Union for 17 months that he would speak so well that a native Russian would not be sure whether he was born in that country or not." Gregory's son, Peter Paul Gregory, was a graduate student in Russian language and literature at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s. At the time, he conversed with Oswald and later told the Warren Commission that Oswald "was completely fluent. He understood more than I did and he could express any idea...that he wanted to in Russian." Other witnesses, including George Bouhe, Mrs. Teofil (Anna ) Meller, Elena Hall, and Mrs. Dymitruk, vouched for Oswald's exceptional skills in speaking Russian."

So you find Stevens' research convincing and Hargrove's research unconvincing? Do you believe that Oswald was ever impersonated in Dallas and/or Mexico City? Who do you believe was behind the assassination?