Oliver Stone's New JFK Documentaries and the Vietnam War

[Michael Griffith]

On 9/18/2022 at 1:06 PM, Pat Speer said:

 

There seems to be a disconnect in Michael's thinking. My household was one of many (probably a majority of) American households that were against the war, but had no illusions about the North Vietnamese military. Yes, they were commies. Yes, they were brutal.

Then your household was in the minority in the anti-war movement. The anti-war folks, even many of them who were in Congress, repeatedly parroted North Vietnamese propaganda, such as the claims that South Vietnam was the aggressor, that North Vietnam would negotiate if only South Vietnam would get rid of Diem and then Thieu, and that North Vietnam's army (NVA) committed no war crimes. 

But many if not most Americans (certainly most by the end of the war) did not understand why we should send our young men to die in Vietnam, or bomb civilians so we could win. 

We sent our soldiers to keep North Vietnam from imposing communist tyranny on South Vietnam. We did not "bomb civilians so we could win." Far, far more North Vietnamese civilians were killed by the Hanoi regime than were ever killed in U.S. bombing raids, and we never targeted civilians in our bombing raids. We wanted South Vietnam to be another South Korea and Taiwan, not the Communist horror show in North Korea, North Vietnam, and Communist China. 

If the South Vietnamese army couldn't win the war without us, then so be it.

So just never mind that North Vietnam was getting massive shipments of weapons and supplies from the Soviets and the Chinese? Never mind that South Vietnam merely wished to be left alone? In other words, "We should just let South Vietnam get conquered and brutalized if the South Vietnamese army can't win without us against a Communist army equipped with tons of Soviet and Chinese weapons! Tough luck for them!"

As I've said, thank God that the liberals of the 1960s and 1970s weren't adults during the Korean War or else the entire Korean Peninsula would be under the despotic, brutal rule of the North Korean government. 

That was the American attitude.

I think that's a severe exaggeration and over-simplification of the American attitude at the time. 

Kennedy himself expressed this attitude. 

Another distortion. The best evidence indicates that JFK intended to provide South Vietnam with ample military and financial aid and was even willing to provide direct air support if needed.

And no, we weren't the good guys. This is demonstrated by what happened at My Lai. Hundreds of civilians were lined up and murdered.

I find that argument obscene. You are smearing an entire army based on the actions of a tiny, tiny fraction of its soldiers.  Our war crimes were few and far between, whereas the NVA's and the VC's war crimes were far more numerous and severe. 

And yet many Americans--including Nixon--were upset that the soldiers who'd orchestrated this mass slaughter of women and children were vilified. It was kinda like that Michael Douglas movie, where he suddenly realizes where his rampage is heading. He asks "I'm the bad guy?" That was America after My Lai. And a big chunk of America was like "No, don't blame our boys--the widespread slaughter of women and children was just a tactical mistake. Stuff happens. Oh well." (The same evil nonsense being spewed in Russia today, no doubt.) 

This is grossly unfair and exaggerated. My Lai was a one-off, the rare and worst exception in an otherwise honorable combat record. And there was no "widespread slaughter or women and children" by American forces in South Vietnam. That is a revolting Communist lie that some liberals still repeat. I notice you said nothing about the Hue Massacre, which dwarfed the My Lai Massacre in ferocity and size. 

In any event, I would be curious to know what Michael thinks would have happened should we have stayed. I know he thinks the North Vietnamese government was gonna collapse.

Uh, we KNOW the North Vietnamese government was on the verge of collapse during Operation Linebacker II. This isn't speculation. The problem is you've only read far-left sources on the war, so you are unaware of this fact. 

But what would this have looked like? Would the South Vietnamese Army have raced up north with little opposition and the North Vietnamese government have just surrendered?

Seriously? If we had continued Linebacker II for a few more weeks, the Hanoi regime would have collapsed and surrendered. South Vietnam had no intention of ever trying to conquer North Vietnam, nor did we. When the Hanoi regime collapsed, senior Politburo members would have stepped in to take over, just as happened when Ho Chi Minh died. North Vietnam probably would have remained communist for a long time to come. South Vietnam would have remained free and most likely would have developed into the same kind of thriving democracy that South Korea and Taiwan came to be. 

Would the CIA have then helped the victors with death lists of commies to be executed? Or would NV terrorists funded by China and Russia continue to fight the good fight from the jungles for decades to come?

Are these really serious questions? Do you honestly believe these things had any chance of happening? Clearly you have read nothing but far-left sources on the Vietnam War. Anyway, see above.

Please provide a rough estimate of the amount of death and carnage should we have stayed in comparison to that which occurred after we left... 

Uh, first off, the death and carnage never would have begun if North Vietnam had not invaded South Vietnam. You keep ignoring this central fact.

The death and carnage would have stopped very quickly if we had simply continued Linebacker II for a few more weeks. With Haiphong Harbor mined, the flow of Soviet and Chinese weapons into North Vietnam slowed to a trickle. The NVA could not replenish their SAM batteries, which left them defenseless against B-52 bombing. The power grids in and near Hanoi were disabled. Their transportation hubs were crippled. We could have done this in 1965 and ended the war in a matter of weeks or a few months at the most.

We most certainly were the good guys. We were on the side of the government that, for all its faults, allowed far more freedom than the Hanoi regime allowed.

The people of South Korea and Taiwan can just thank God that people with your views were not adults in the early 1950s, or else both nations would be under Communist tyranny today. 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

20 hours ago, Stu Wexler said:

Hard to imagine how we "win" the Vietnam War without raining down a level of destructive bombing that would have devastated the civilian population-- already plenty devastated-- to a level that would (rightfully) shame us as a country to the entire world for a generation.

Actually, it's not at all hard to imagine how we could have won the Vietnam War without devastating the civilian population, because we proved this could be done with Operation Linebacker II in December 1972. Linebacker II brought Hanoi to the verge of collapse in just 11 days and with minimal civilian casualties (and with only moderate damage to civilian buildings in Hanoi).

Also, North Vietnam's civilian population was not "already plenty devastated." Whatever suffering North Vietnam's population endured was inflicted almost entirely by their own government, not by us. 

Are you aware of what happened to the population of South Vietnam after our Congress, the Soviet Union, and China enabled North Vietnam to win? The Communists executed at least 60,000 South Vietnamese and sent another 1-2 million to concentration camps, where thousands more died from abuse and harsh conditions. Some scholars put the death toll from the camps at over 100,000. In addition, tens of thousands of other South Vietnamese, if not over 100,000, died trying to flee, many by boat. I'd call these crimes very shameful.

Nobody had any excuse to be "surprised" by North Vietnam's post-war brutality. The North Vietnamese murdered over half of the 11,000 French POWs captured at the battle at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Of the 11,000 French troops who surrendered to the North Vietnamese, over 7,000 were killed. Many of those 7,000 died on forced marches that rivaled the Bataan Death March for cruelty and savagery.

The North Vietnamese treated American POWs brutally more often than not. 15% of American POWs died in North Vietnamese POW camps, most from torture, forced labor, or neglect. And the North Vietnamese tortured many other American POWs.

South Vietnamese POWs were treated even worse by their NVA captors. The death rate among South Vietnamese POWs was nearly 30%, and most of those prisoners who were eventually released looked like Holocaust survivors. 

In contrast, the overwhelming majority of NVA and VC POWs were treated humanely in South Vietnamese POW camps, so much so that when it came to for the POW exchanges mandated by the Paris Peace Accords, thousands of NVA/VC POWs opted to remain in South Vietnam. 

 

 

 

[Paul Brancato]

Michael - this thread was supposed to be about JFK, not Vietnam. Jim’s evidence of JFK’s intent to pull out was not disproven by you. You’ve made your point that some people, yourself included, think we could and should have won that war. But you failed to disprove Jim and Stone and many others point on JFK, who he was, what his intents were. You’re version of JFK is convenient, but false. Convenient because it enabled you to hijack this thread, demonstrably false. 

[Michael Griffith]

A few more facts about Linebacker I and II, the Paris Peace Accords, North Vietnamese propaganda and the anti-war movement's parroting of that propaganda, and the Democrat-controlled Congress’s betrayal of South Vietnam:

-- Historian James Warren describes the devastating effects of Nixon’s Linebacker I bombing campaign to halt the NVA’s 1972 Easter Offensive:

Probably the most effective interdiction campaign in military history up to that point, Linebacker destroyed huge quantities of war materiel and production facilities in North Vietnam, including power plants, supply depots, and barracks. Communist antiaircraft efforts were stymied by electronic jamming. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was severely damaged by precision attacks against bridges, roads, and railroads with laser-guided bombs, used for the first time in history, and Haiphong Harbor was mined, sealing off the flow of seaborne Soviet high-tech weapons and desperately needed war materiel. The PAVN [aka NVA] official history makes it clear beyond all doubt that Linebacker effectively stanched the flow of troops and supplies to the battlefield. (Warren, Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam, Palgrave-MacMillan, 2013, p. 229)

Operation Linebacker I initially caused Hanoi’s leaders to resume peace negotiations and made them anxious to obtain a ceasefire agreement (Phillip Davidson, Vietnam at War, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 719-723). But, counting on the American anti-war movement to continue screaming on North Vietnam’s behalf, the North Vietnamese decided to see what the Democrat-controlled Congress would do and began to stall, since, in spite of Nixon’s landslide win over McGovern, the Democrats still held huge majorities in Congress (56-44 edge in the Senate, 242-192 edge in the House).

When Nixon realized that Hanoi was stalling again, he ordered Operation Linebacker II. Warren’s description of the results of Linebacker II is too brief, but it conveys some sense of the operation’s devastating effects. He notes that it was the “most destructive” air operation of the war, which means it was even more destructive than Linebacker I. Says Warren,

In an effort to bring the North Vietnamese back to the table, Nixon once again unleashed US airpower over North Vietnam in the most destructive attacks of the entire air war. Operation Linebacker II wreaked havoc on Hanoi’s war-making facilities and transport grid. It depleted its surface-to-air missile (SAM) inventory to the point where the country was rendered almost defenseless against further attack. (Warren, Giap, p. 233)

Sir Robert Thompson, the renowned British expert on Southeast Asia, argued that Linebacker II won the war and left North Vietnam prostrate:

In my view, on December 30, 1972, after eleven days of those B-52 attacks on the Hanoi area, you had won the war. It was over! They had fired 1,242 SAMs; they had none left, and what would come in overland from China would be a mere trickle. They and their whole rear base at that point were at your mercy. They would have taken any terms. And that is why, of course, you actually got a peace agreement in January, which you had not been able to get in October. (The Lessons of Vietnam, New York: Crane, Russak, & Co., 1977, p. 105.)

If Nixon had not had to worry about a pro-North Vietnam U.S. Congress poised to cut off all funding for the war if a peace treaty were not achieved, he surely would have been able to insist on better terms in the Paris Peace Accords. The Accords were hardly perfect and contained some bad provisions; however, they also contained enough concessions that South Vietnam could have survived if Congress had provided the military aid permitted in the Accords. Yet, instead of honoring the Accords, Congress shamefully cut military aid to South Vietnam by over 60% after the Accords were signed. Even though Congress disgracefully reduced are aid to Saigon, it took the fully supplied NVA over two years of hard fighting to conquer South Vietnam.

-- Warren also acknowledges that North Vietnam violated the Paris Peace Accords right after they were signed, noting the massive amounts of weapons and troops that Giap moved into South Vietnam in the 12 months following the signing of the Accords:

Initially, Communist forces in South Vietnam operated at a disadvantage because they were exhausted and depleted by the Easter Offensive and were heavily outnumbered by Saigon’s armed forces, which numbered about 300,000 ARVNs and 600,000 Regional and Popular Force troops. Yet in the year following the signing of the accords, Giap infiltrated 120,000 regulars into the South, acquired hundreds of replacement tanks and artillery pieces from China and the Soviet Union, and methodically built up the Ho Chi Minh Trail in preparation for another major conventional attack. In 1973 alone, PAVN shipped 27,000 tons of weapons and 6,000 tons of petroleum products to the south. (Warren, Giap, p. 235)

-- North Vietnam’s Politburo waged a propaganda campaign to attempt to prevent the U.S. from defending South Vietnam after the Paris Peace Accords, and American anti-war activists and many Congressional Democrats actually repeated this propaganda. In addition, the Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress even passed legislation based on this propaganda. Military historian Phillip Davidson:

The Politburo’s propaganda arm within the United States had three objectives: 1. Reduce American support to the RVN [Republic of Vietnam, i.e., South Vietnam], particularly military and economic aid; 2. Make sure that United States forces did not reenter the war; and 3. Build up the credibility of the PRG [Provisional Revolutionary Government, which was North Vietnam’s political arm in South Vietnam] as a legitimate government. The program’s main effort was devoted to the simple, but lethal, theme that the RVN did not deserve American support. Hanoi launched a systematic campaign to show that the RVN had consistently and aggressively violated the terms of the Paris Agreement. . . . It was Communist disinformation, but it worked. . . .

The next charge the Communists used to attack the RVN was the accusation that the South held 200,000 political prisoners. The charge was grossly exaggerated. . . . So effective was this propaganda thrust that Congress passed a law in late 1973 that read: “no assistance furnished under this part . . . will be used for support of police or prison construction or administration within South Vietnam.”

The third charge the Communists leveled against the Thieu government was that it obstructed the process of political accommodation called for in the agreement. This is another falsehood. In fact, neither side wanted “reconciliation and concord.” The Communists wanted victory, and Thieu wanted to survive. . . .

The Politburo’s program to ensure that United States forces did not reenter the war was more muted. After all, the United States Congress had done most of that job for them. Nevertheless, Hanoi tried to buttress its American anti-reentry supporters by a campaign reciting the terrors of aerial bombing, the most likely form of United States retaliation. Horror stories (which were untrue) of the “carpet bombing” of Christmas, 1972, were revived and promoted by Hanoi and its supporters in America. (Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 745-746)

-- North Vietnam’s political arm in South Vietnam, the PRG (Provisional Government of Vietnam), along with the NVA, committed 15,000 acts of terrorism in 1973 alone:

Communist propaganda drummed out the message that the PRG wanted “concord and reconciliation” and an end to bloodshed and strife. This in spite of the fact that the PRG and NVA had carried out 15,000 acts of terrorism in 1973 alone. (Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 747)

-- In July 1973, the Democrat-controlled Congress, once again appearing determined to help North Vietnam and betray South Vietnam, passed a law that prohibited all “direct or indirect” combat operations “over, on, or near” North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia after August 15, 1973. As Davidson notes, this gave North Vietnam a big green light to attack South Vietnam:

With this bill, Congress freed the Politburo’s hand to strike the RVN [South Vietnam] whenever it so desired. (Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 741)

In a sad display of their brainwashed condition, some American college students, such as students at Tufts University, publicly cheered North Vietnam’s conquest of South Vietnam. Senator William Fulbright, a longtime critic of the war, expressed the feeling of many Congressional Democrats when he said he was he was “no more depressed” about the fall of Saigon “than I would be about Arkansas losing a football game to Texas.”

Yet, these same students and Congressional Democrats expressed no regret when the Communists began executing tens of thousands of South Vietnamese and sending 1-2 million more to concentration camps, where many thousands more perished from harsh conditions and abuse. Yes, a few Democrats did say they were surprised and saddened by the brutality, but they hastened to make the inexcusable claim that they “had no idea” the North Vietnamese would do such a thing. But most Democrats either said nothing or claimed the reports of post-war atrocities must be exaggerated (actually, it turned out the reports understated the degree of brutality).

To this day, many Democrats continue to deny or minimize the “reign of terror” that the Communist North imposed on the South Vietnamese. They also seek to minimize or ignore the tyrannical nature of Vietnam’s government in our day. Vietnam remains one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet, according to every major human rights group. It is scary and troubling to contemplate the fact that 10-20 years ago, Vietnam was even worse than it is now.

Neocon Republicans still won’t admit that the Republican-driven 2003 invasion of Iraq was a travesty that led to the needless killing and wounding of thousands of American soldiers. Similarly, liberal Democrats (and a few liberal Republicans) won’t admit that the liberal betrayal of South Vietnam was a travesty that caused the deaths of tens of thousands of South Vietnamese and caused the incarceration of 1-2 million others in concentration camps.

[Pat Speer]

On 9/26/2022 at 9:46 AM, Michael Griffith said:

There seems to be a disconnect in Michael's thinking. My household was one of many (probably a majority of) American households that were against the war, but had no illusions about the North Vietnamese military. Yes, they were commies. Yes, they were brutal.

Then your household was in the minority in the anti-war movement. The anti-war folks, even many of them who were in Congress, repeatedly parroted North Vietnamese propaganda, such as the claims that South Vietnam was the aggressor, that North Vietnam would negotiate if only South Vietnam would get rid of Diem and then Thieu, and that North Vietnam's army (NVA) committed no war crimes. 

But many if not most Americans (certainly most by the end of the war) did not understand why we should send our young men to die in Vietnam, or bomb civilians so we could win. 

We sent our soldiers to keep North Vietnam from imposing communist tyranny on South Vietnam. We did not "bomb civilians so we could win." Far, far more North Vietnamese civilians were killed by the Hanoi regime than were ever killed in U.S. bombing raids, and we never targeted civilians in our bombing raids. We wanted South Vietnam to be another South Korea and Taiwan, not the Communist horror show in North Korea, North Vietnam, and Communist China. 

If the South Vietnamese army couldn't win the war without us, then so be it.

So just never mind that North Vietnam was getting massive shipments of weapons and supplies from the Soviets and the Chinese? Never mind that South Vietnam merely wished to be left alone? In other words, "We should just let South Vietnam get conquered and brutalized if the South Vietnamese army can't win without us against a Communist army equipped with tons of Soviet and Chinese weapons! Tough luck for them!"

As I've said, thank God that the liberals of the 1960s and 1970s weren't adults during the Korean War or else the entire Korean Peninsula would be under the despotic, brutal rule of the North Korean government. 

That was the American attitude.

I think that's a severe exaggeration and over-simplification of the American attitude at the time. 

Kennedy himself expressed this attitude. 

Another distortion. The best evidence indicates that JFK intended to provide South Vietnam with ample military and financial aid and was even willing to provide direct air support if needed.

And no, we weren't the good guys. This is demonstrated by what happened at My Lai. Hundreds of civilians were lined up and murdered.

I find that argument obscene. You are smearing an entire army based on the actions of a tiny, tiny fraction of its soldiers.  Our war crimes were few and far between, whereas the NVA's and the VC's war crimes were far more numerous and severe. 

And yet many Americans--including Nixon--were upset that the soldiers who'd orchestrated this mass slaughter of women and children were vilified. It was kinda like that Michael Douglas movie, where he suddenly realizes where his rampage is heading. He asks "I'm the bad guy?" That was America after My Lai. And a big chunk of America was like "No, don't blame our boys--the widespread slaughter of women and children was just a tactical mistake. Stuff happens. Oh well." (The same evil nonsense being spewed in Russia today, no doubt.) 

This is grossly unfair and exaggerated. My Lai was a one-off, the rare and worst exception in an otherwise honorable combat record. And there was no "widespread slaughter or women and children" by American forces in South Vietnam. That is a revolting Communist lie that some liberals still repeat. I notice you said nothing about the Hue Massacre, which dwarfed the My Lai Massacre in ferocity and size. 

In any event, I would be curious to know what Michael thinks would have happened should we have stayed. I know he thinks the North Vietnamese government was gonna collapse.

Uh, we KNOW the North Vietnamese government was on the verge of collapse during Operation Linebacker II. This isn't speculation. The problem is you've only read far-left sources on the war, so you are unaware of this fact. 

But what would this have looked like? Would the South Vietnamese Army have raced up north with little opposition and the North Vietnamese government have just surrendered?

Seriously? If we had continued Linebacker II for a few more weeks, the Hanoi regime would have collapsed and surrendered. South Vietnam had no intention of ever trying to conquer North Vietnam, nor did we. When the Hanoi regime collapsed, senior Politburo members would have stepped in to take over, just as happened when Ho Chi Minh died. North Vietnam probably would have remained communist for a long time to come. South Vietnam would have remained free and most likely would have developed into the same kind of thriving democracy that South Korea and Taiwan came to be. 

Would the CIA have then helped the victors with death lists of commies to be executed? Or would NV terrorists funded by China and Russia continue to fight the good fight from the jungles for decades to come?

Are these really serious questions? Do you honestly believe these things had any chance of happening? Clearly you have read nothing but far-left sources on the Vietnam War. Anyway, see above.

Please provide a rough estimate of the amount of death and carnage should we have stayed in comparison to that which occurred after we left... 

Uh, first off, the death and carnage never would have begun if North Vietnam had not invaded South Vietnam. You keep ignoring this central fact.

The death and carnage would have stopped very quickly if we had simply continued Linebacker II for a few more weeks. With Haiphong Harbor mined, the flow of Soviet and Chinese weapons into North Vietnam slowed to a trickle. The NVA could not replenish their SAM batteries, which left them defenseless against B-52 bombing. The power grids in and near Hanoi were disabled. Their transportation hubs were crippled. We could have done this in 1965 and ended the war in a matter of weeks or a few months at the most.

We most certainly were the good guys. We were on the side of the government that, for all its faults, allowed far more freedom than the Hanoi regime allowed.

The people of South Korea and Taiwan can just thank God that people with your views were not adults in the early 1950s, or else both nations would be under Communist tyranny today. 

You can live in your bubble if you like, but you should really not confuse apples with oranges.

1. While we supported the nationalists in China, we did not thrust hundreds of thousands of young American soldiers into a seemingly endless ground war. So, no, it is not the same. 

2. Our support for South Korea was in league with the United Nations. And, if I'm not mistaken, there was no significant support for North Korea in the South. So, no, this is also not the same. 

 

P.S. Neither myself nor anyone in my family are or were "far-left." We were a Republican pro-Reagan, pro-Nixon household up until 1972 or so, at which time my sisters and mother became anti-war--in large part because we had Marines in our house every weekend, who accepted that they could get shipped off to die any moment..for a cause they did not understand. My sisters and mother shifted further to the left as the seventies dragged on and the women's movement and anti-nuclear movements gained momentum. But my father remained a die-hard Republican until his death, and my brother was a small government Republican until Trump took away his party. 

I, myself, was a huge fan of Lincoln's as a child, and always rooted for the Republicans growing up. But that changed with Watergate, and then Reagan. And yet, even so, I've remained Independent and have never registered as a Democrat. 

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Michael Davidson]

The blokes a BFA . Anyone wanting to re fight the Vietnam war is welcome to fly to Vietnam and try ( and you'd still get beat : )

[James DiEugenio]

In two weeks at Black Op Radio, we will have on a guest who lives in Saigon and has lived there for about 15 years.

 

He teaches at a a college that has been there since the seventies.  Its a college of business and finance.

[Michael Davidson]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

In two weeks at Black Op Radio, we will have on a guest who lives in Saigon and has lived there for about 15 years.

 

He teaches at a a college that has been there since the seventies.  Its a college of business and finance.

All well and good but why should Vietnam ( or anywhere else for that matter ) have to conform to what Americans want ? 

[James DiEugenio]

That is true of course.

But what is significant is that it was there before Hanoi swept down into Saigon.

The north left it there intact.

 

[W. Niederhut]

5 hours ago, Michael Davidson said:

All well and good but why should Vietnam ( or anywhere else for that matter ) have to conform to what Americans want ? 

Like Domino's Pizza, for instance?

I think it's the Domino's theory about the fate of Southeast Asian nations.

Ultimately, if capitalism prevails, they may all end up with Domino's Pizza franchises-- a marked decline from the culinary standards of the French colonial period.

[James DiEugenio]

That is a good one William. 😀

Lisa Pease once said that to me also.

[Michael Griffith]

Here is more information on the harmful, self-defeating restrictions that LBJ and McNamara placed on our air operations. This comes from Dr. Wayne Thompson’s book To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam 1966-1973, published by the U.S. Air Force (2000) and available online:

Jacob Van Staaveren’s Gradual Failure: The Air War over North Vietnam, 1965–1966 took our story through the belated attempt to destroy North Vietnam’s oil storage facilities in the summer of 1966. By then the North Vietnamese had dispersed gasoline and other oil products from tank farms to barrels scattered around the country. It was another lesson in the weakness of a gradual bombing campaign like Rolling Thunder. After eighteen months of bombing, even North Vietnam’s airfields were still largely unscathed, not to mention its principal port at Haiphong and its capital city of Hanoi. The Air Force had proposed bombing targets in all those areas at the outset with B–52s, but President Lyndon Johnson kept all air attacks well away from the major cities for months and eventually permitted only fighter aircraft to attack targets near them. No earlier president had so involved himself in the details of target selection and tactics. . . .

During the long Rolling Thunder air campaign over North Vietnam from March 1965 to November 1968, Johnson con[1]fined B–52 targets in North Vietnam to supply depots and transportation routes near the border with South Vietnam and Laos. Even these marginal B–52 raids on the North did not begin until April 1966. . . .

About a third of North Vietnam’s imports came down the northeast railroad from China, and most of the rest came by sea through Haiphong. Since North Vietnam imported almost all its military supplies, including gasoline, General Momyer deemed it essential to close the port of Haiphong and the rail connection with China. But Soviet ships at Haiphong caused President Johnson to worry that an international incident might lead to a wider war. [Of course, when Nixon bombed targets in Hanoi and Haiphong and mined the Haiphong Harbor, no international incident resulted. The Soviets and the Chinese were not about to risk war with the U.S. over North Vietnam.] The President refused to approve Navy bombing or mining of Haiphong harbor, and the Air Force was left to bomb the northeast railroad without much hope of making a critical difference. In any case, bridges along the route were hard to hit with unguided bombs in the teeth of heavy enemy air defenses. Johnson had not even approved striking the biggest bridges across the Red River at Hanoi and across the parallel Canal des Rapides for fear of civilian casualties. Nor were railyards promising targets without the heavy bomb loads only forbidden B–52s could carry. Trains could make a quick run from the Chinese border to Hanoi at night, skipping the intervening yards, and the downtown yard was, of course, off limits. . . .

The Air Force and the Navy had sought permission to go after oil from the beginning of the war. Without gasoline, North Vietnamese trucks would be useless. But the big tank farms were in the cities of Haiphong and Hanoi, where President Johnson hesitated to do any bombing. By the time he gave the go-ahead, the enemy had dispersed gasoline around the country in drums and small underground tanks. When bombing caused the tank farms to go up in billowing flames and smoke, their significance had already been reduced to a minimum. Planes spent the rest of the summer chasing gasoline drums, while the trucks kept moving. . . .

In Rolling Thunder the Johnson administration devised an air campaign that did a lot of bombing in a way calculated not to threaten the enemy regime’s survival. President Johnson repeatedly assured the communist rulers of North Vietnam that his forces would not hurt them, and he clearly meant it. Government buildings in downtown Hanoi were never targeted. Even the government’s ability to communicate was left almost untouched. . . .

The U.S. response to SAMs was almost as inadequate as its failure to attack North Vietnamese airfields. In April 1965 when American reconnaissance began to observe the construction of SAM launch sites within twenty miles of Hanoi, Secretary of Defense McNamara took Assistant Secretary McNaughton’s advice and forbade attacks on the sites. . . .

Since SAMs proved too mobile and antiaircraft artillery too numerous and most of the MiG fields were off limits, all three arms of North Vietnam’s air defense remained deadly. They worked increasingly well together through practice and through a growing radar-communications network. By putting SAMs and guns on or near dikes, hospitals and schools, the North Vietnamese found they could put American pilots in a no-win situation—either permit these units to fire unhampered or give the North Vietnamese the kind of publicity that could win friends in the United States and threaten a pilot’s career. . . .

In such ways did North Vietnam’s rulers seek to persuade their own people, as well as Americans, that American high technology could be beaten. The U.S. government cooperated to a remarkable degree by giving Rolling Thunder a gradual, even tentative character of self-imposed sanctuaries and bombing pauses. Since the North Vietnamese took the position that they would not negotiate while they were being bombed, the Johnson administration found itself under pressure to stop bombing to prove its interest in a negotiated peace. . . .

President Johnson’s prohibition on bombing near Hanoi came at the beginning of the most important North Vietnamese propaganda initiative before the Tet Offensive of 1968. TASS, the Soviet news agency, issued reports that the December 1966 bombing attacks had killed civilians in downtown Hanoi, capturing headlines in the United States and Europe. (To Hanoi and Back, pp. vii, 3, 26, 29-31, 35, 37, 44, available at https://media.defense.gov/2010/Oct/01/2001309673/-1/-1/0/ToHanoiAndBack.pdf)

This is just small sample of the information in Dr. Thompson’s book. He also spends considerable time debunking the North Vietnamese/Soviet/American liberal claim that we engaged in carpet bombing and that our bombing killed large numbers of civilians who lived far away from valid military targets.

 

[Tom Gram]

If America had never entered the war, all of the people who died as a result of American munitions, massacres, chemicals, etc. would not have died. It’s as simple as that.

I don’t really get the logic of blaming the deaths of civilians at the hands of American munitions on the NVA. Do you really think their strategy was just to let the Americans kill off as many people as possible? The source you cited states that the choice left to the NVA was either 1) let themselves be obliterated by locating their defensive sites in easily-bombable locations; or 2) hope the Americans wouldn’t bomb civilians. You are basically criticizing the NVA for creating a scenario where America couldn’t just bomb them into oblivion and take over without consequences, and criticizing America for not just saying f*** it and bombing them to hell anyway. 

There is no easy or “acceptable” answer here, but if minimizing loss of human life is the goal and the choices are 1) what actually happened; 2) blast North Vietnam into the Stone Age and maybe win the war; or 3) complete American withdrawal by 1965, I think any rational person would pick option 3. 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Tom Gram

[Michael Griffith]

On 9/27/2022 at 7:52 PM, Pat Speer said:

 

You can live in your bubble if you like, but you should really not confuse apples with oranges.

You're the one who appears to be living in a bubble, a liberal echo chamber. In a previous reply, you made the incredible claim that "nearly everyone knows" that the Vietnam War was wrong and unwinnable. What an astonishingly erroneous claim. 

No one who had done even a semblance of balanced research on the Vietnam War would make such an assertion, especially given the new information that has come to light from North Vietnamese sources over the last two decades, information that has badly embarrassed liberal scholars because it has demolished so many of their arguments.

1. While we supported the nationalists in China, we did not thrust hundreds of thousands of young American soldiers into a seemingly endless ground war. So, no, it is not the same. 

There are so many things wrong with this argument, it's hard to know where to start. Until Truman and Marshall treacherously cut off aid to the Nationalists, we were supplying the Nationalists with tons of weapons and supplies and with financial aid. We also had American pilots flying American planes that we had given to the Nationalists. We also had military officers advising Nationalist leaders. 

By 1972, we did not have "hundreds of thousands" of American soldiers in South Vietnam. For that matter, if Johnson had carried out the air operations in 1965 what Nixon carried out in 1972, the Hanoi regime would have been able to continue the war. Additionally, when the NVA launched the Easter Offensive in 1972, 99.9% of the ground fighting was done by the South Vietnamese. 

The Easter Offensive proved that if we merely provided air support and military aid, South Vietnam's army could not only match but defeat the NVA. There was no need for American ground troops after 1972. But, after the Paris Peace Accords, Congress slashed our aid to South Vietnam, refused to fulfill the Accords' provision that we could resupply South Vietnam on a one-for-one basis if hostilities resumed, and treasonably brazenly signaled to Hanoi that we would not respond to another NVA invasion. 

2. Our support for South Korea was in league with the United Nations. And, if I'm not mistaken, there was no significant support for North Korea in the South. So, no, this is also not the same. 

Oh my goodness. You can't be serious. There was no "significant support" for North Vietnam in South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive proved this in spades. The vast majority of the South's population rejected the NVA and VC calls to rise up and help them overthrow the Saigon government, even in the initial days of Tet when the Communists managed to take a number of cities. The Communists were both shocked and enraged when they realized that most South Vietnamese did not want Hanoi's version of "liberation."

The fact that the UN backed our support and defense of South Korea does not change the fact that every criticism that liberals made of South Vietnam's government could have been made against South Korea's government. Thank God that the liberals of the '60s and '70s weren't around during the Korean War  to demonize South Korea, to whitewash North Korea, and to push for betraying South Korea to the Communists.

By the way, are you aware that South Korea and Australia sent sizable forces to South Vietnam to help us battle the Communists? More than 60,000 Australian troops served in South Vietnam, and more than 300,000 South Korean troops served there.

P.S. Neither myself nor anyone in my family are or were "far-left." We were a Republican pro-Reagan, pro-Nixon household up until 1972 or so, at which time my sisters and mother became anti-war--in large part because we had Marines in our house every weekend, who accepted that they could get shipped off to die any moment..for a cause they did not understand. My sisters and mother shifted further to the left as the seventies dragged on and the women's movement and anti-nuclear movements gained momentum. But my father remained a die-hard Republican until his death, and my brother was a small government Republican until Trump took away his party. 

Well, remarkably, the Marines who visited your house every weekend must have all been part of that tiny minority of military personnel who did not support the war.

"For a cause they did not understand"??? Really??? How did those Marines who visited your house every weekend not understand that we were trying to prevent the brutal Soviet-Chinese proxy regime of North Vietnam from conquering South Vietnam? What didn't those Marines understand about that? How did they not grasp that we were trying to prevent the 18 million people of South Vietnam from having to suffer under the brutality and oppression of the Hanoi regime?

By the way, after South Vietnam fell and the Communists imposed a reign of terror on the South Vietnamese, did any of those Marines ever come back to your house and say, "Gee, gosh, now we understand why we were fighting to keep South Vietnam free"?

I, myself, was a huge fan of Lincoln's as a child, and always rooted for the Republicans growing up. But that changed with Watergate, and then Reagan. And yet, even so, I've remained Independent and have never registered as a Democrat. 

"And then Reagan"??? So a mainstream, inspiring conservative such as Ronald Reagan caused you to stop rooting for Republicans??? Clearly, you were always well left of center, regardless of which party you favored. Your comments in this thread make that very clear. Many of your arguments in this thread are literally the same arguments that North Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and China made during the war. 

 

[James DiEugenio]

There was no significant support for the north in South Vietnam?

Mike.  Even for you that is a startling statement.

Going all the way back to the French regime, there had always been a strong resistance to colonialism in the south.  Back then, they were called the Viet Minh.  And they were a significant force against Paris.

As time went on, they were renamed the Viet Cong.  Westmoreland tried to understate their numbers, but veteran analyst Sam Adams figured they were in the hundreds of thousands.  And he proved that at the Westmoreland/CBS trial: that Westy had kept the numbers down in order to fulfill LBJ's political agenda.  Your argument about Tet is really kind of a puzzler. The pure power and range of Tet was shocking.  As was the fact that Shackley had missed it so completely. If LBJ and Westy were right, then what the heck was going on? The estimates were that, just in the first wave, about 80,000 were involved. And they struck about 100 towns and cities: not just in the rural areas, but Saigon itself.  There was a second "mini Tet" in May and then one last one in August.

What is amazing about this is that Khe Sanh was taking place about the same time.  So you had two huge battles going on just about everywhere in South Vietnam. When Westmoreland tried to request more troops and LBJ called his Wise Men meeting at the White House--to say they had really won-- Acheson told Johnson to shove Vietnam up his ass. This is Dean Acheson!

The point about the citizenry not supporting the Tet offensive is simply pointless.  The mass of people in South Vietnam did not support anyone. They just wanted peace after 20 years of war.  The proof of that is how quickly Saigon fell in 1975.  It was a matter of months, weeks really. South Vietnam was always a mirage, since the beginning when Lansdale created the dictatorial DIem regime.

There was no there, there.  Our effort at nation building was a necessary illusion.

Edited September 30, 2022 by James DiEugenio