Top 5 Books On JFK & Vietnam

[Michael Griffith]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

 

Yeah Mike, what I said was well over 100,000. Which would signify anything up to 200,000.

Yes, I know, and that represents an astounding gaffe for someone who pretends to be qualified to review books and documentaries on the Vietnam War.

Again, the number was at least several million. No one, but no one, disputes that over 1 million fled by boat. You know, the "boat people"? You've heard of them, right? And we know that many, many, many more wanted to leave but either did not have the means or could not escape. 

No one knows for sure. 

Phew! Uh, maybe no one among your fringe associates knows, and I'm sure the fringe books you've read, such as Swanson's error-riddled work, say nothing about it, but if you ever do break down and actually do some serious research, you will look back and cringe over your denial.

With your politics and your sources you would write that the whole country wanted to leave to avoid poison gas extermination.  Which of course is what you wrote.  

Huh? I am genuinely starting to wonder about your level of education. Do you understand what an analogy is? I was pointing out that saying that only "well over 100,000" South Vietnamese wanted to leave the country is as egregious a gaffe as saying that only "well over 300,000" European Jews wanted to leave German-held territory. 

I mean geez.  Yeah that is why the north left the business school intact in Saigon--filthy communists.

You spew this obscene garbage, joking about the terrible human suffering that the Communists imposed, and then you deny that you're far left. Never mind that the Communists murdered tens of thousands of people. Never mind that the Communists sent about 1 million people to concentration camps, where tens of thousands of other people also died. Never mind that the Communists abolished private property rights, private education, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Nah, never mind all those things because the Communists left the business school in Saigon intact. 

John Newman is a conservative.  He is the man who wrote the first book length study of Kennedy and his withdrawal plan. You try and tar everyone with political smears for thinking JFK was getting out in 1965.  But you cannot do that with him.  And that is my point.  Those are all nothing but cheap shots by you.

This is a jumbled bunch of nonsense. One, Newman has made some very un-conservative statements about the Vietnam War itself, such as claiming that McNamara was responsible for the deaths of 2 million people. Two, as Selverstone has documented, Newman is simply wrong in claiming that JFK was determined to abandon South Vietnam after the election, whatever his political views may be. Three, it is a demonstrable matter of fact that the view that JFK was going to abandon South Vietnam after the election is a far-left claim that is rejected even by nearly all liberal historians. Four, I haven't tarred anyone with "political smears." Accurately describing your ideology as far left is not a smear. Describing your fellow fringe authors who hold views far to the left of the mainstream is not "smearing" them. 

The whole thing about the Decent Interval has been proven by Jeff Kimball and Ken Hughes with written data from the Nixon Archives in Yorba Linda.  When is the last time you visited there?  Just read their books.  You are too busy reading those Heritage Foundation sponsored propaganda tomes about how Vietnam was really a noble cause and how Saigon could have really won the war.

Nixon said twice that Saigon could not win the war.  So he and Henry played for a decent interval for Saigon to fall after the truce, and Kissinger wrote about this in his notes, and Kimball found it.  The whole Peace Accords was a knowing charade, there would be no peace and no honor, and the pair actually joked about it.  And then they sold Thieu down the river. Read the book The Palace File.  Oh, too busy reading  that propaganda piece Triumph Forsaken?

There is a very good reason that Nixon fought tooth and nail not to have his papers and tapes declassified during his lifetime.  And now we know why.  Just the opposite of JFK: They make him look even worse than he appeared much worse. Don't even ask about Kissinger and his files.  That one is sickening.  

But Henry knew how bad it would be.  He told Haldeman: we sat hare and listened to his ranting.  History will not be kind to us. You got that one right Hank.

As I've said, I already addressed your distorted spin on the decent interval in another thread, so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, even though you've doubled down on your spin and have added more distorted claims. The problem in dealing with you on this issue, as on other Vietnam-related issues, is that your reading has been so limited and one sided, and that you just keep repeating your claims over and over without addressing contrary evidence that I present to you. Given these things, I just do not feel inclined to waste time revisiting the issue with you.

I will note, however, that you again ignored the point, confirmed by North Vietnamese sources, that during the first year after the Paris Peace Accords, when American aid was even just barely adequate, South Vietnam's army was able to more than hold its own against the NVA. Do you not understand the implications of this fact for your spin on the decent interval? 

You cite utter trash like Turse's book Kill Anything That Moves, a book that even famous anti-war author Neil Sheehan condemned, a book whose author and publisher were forced to issue a formal retraction to avoid a lawsuit they knew they would lose--you cite this kind of garbage and then you call a widely acclaimed work such as Mark Moyar's Triumph Forsaken a "propaganda piece." Such a comment just reinforces the point that you have no business talking about the Vietnam War in a public forum. 

Just FYI, the UOT Clements Center for National Security calls Moyar's book "groundbreaking" (LINK). Military historian and former Naval War College professor Dr. Mack Thomas Owens calls the book "one of the most important books written on the Vietnam War" (LINK; his comments on the book start under "Lacking the Will"). Foreword Reviews says the book is "impressive and scrupulously researched" (LINK). Steven Rosen concludes the book is "succinct and insightful" and "deep and probing" (LINK). Military historian and Vietnam veteran Dr. Mark Scales gives the book high praise (LINK). Vietnam War scholar Dr. Tom Glenn says that Triumph Forsaken is "useful to historians" and opines that Moyar's new book, Triumph Regained, provides "scrupulously thorough descriptions of events that affected the war" (LINK). Military and foreign policy historian Dr. Mark Sempa gives Moyar's new book a very favorable review and favorably mentions Triumph Forsaken (LINK; LINK).

Even most liberal historians who have critically reviewed Moyar's Triumph Forsaken have acknowledged it is a serious work of scholarship, that it has much worthwhile content, and it that contains new information from North Vietnamese sources (LINK, LINK, LINK). But you, who've read very little on the war, call it a "propaganda piece." Again, you are a fringe amateur who has no business pretending to be qualified to review books and documentaries on the Vietnam War. 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

This is from part four of my review of Novick /Burns. You  got blown up Mike. But you asked for it.

What they wanted was political cover for the 1972 election. For in a taped conversation in August of 1972, Kissinger said to Nixon that all they needed was a way to keep the country together for a year or two beyond the agreement, after which “Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater, no one will give a damn.” (Ken Hughes, Fatal Politics, pp. 84-85) In fact, from the Chinese, Le Duc Tho understood what Nixon and Kissinger were angling for, since Kissinger had made the “decent interval” concept clear to Zhou en Lai. (Hughes, p. 86; also Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, p. 187)

BTW, that phrase "decent interval' was in Kissinger's notebooks for his trip to China.

[James DiEugenio]

Now, here is the evidence that Nixon knew the war was not winnable, and admitted it before he went into office:

 

Nixon had heard about the Wise Men meeting and understood what it meant. In March of 1968, before the presidential campaign began, he told three of his speechwriters: “I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no way to win the war. But we can’t say that, of course. In fact, we have to seem to say the opposite, just to keep some degree of bargaining leverage.” (Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War, p. 52)

[James DiEugenio]

The following  is why Nixon backed out: he was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, btw this really sounds like Hanoi was worried about losing the war right?

Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger set up a series of secret negotiations in Paris in 1969. For a long time they did not go anywhere. The main negotiators were Kissinger and Hanoi’s Le Duc Tho. The latter saw through all the bluster that Nixon and Kissinger tried to throw at him. He told Kissinger in 1970 that Nixon’s Vietnamization program—the attempt to gradually turn over the war to South Vietnam as American troops left—was not working and would not work. He specifically mentioned the failure in Laos, and the previous failure of Johnson’s bombing campaign, Rolling Thunder. He then was quite frank: he told Kissinger that America had failed in Vietnam. (Jeffrey Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, p. 127) Hanoi’s representative made the following cogent observation: “Before, there were over a million US and puppet troops, and you failed. How can you succeed when you let the puppet troops do the fighting? Now, with only US support, how can you win?” (p. 127)

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Griffith]

23 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Most of what you post on this forum is complete bunk, Griffith-- like your ludicrous claim that the arrest and FBI incarceration of the "Five Dancing Israelis" on 9/11 is a "wingnut myth," and your tropes about 9/11 research scientists, engineers, and architects being "nutcases."  It's the kind of blatantly dishonest bunk we see in the M$M, and on government-funded disinformation websites.

Your McAdams-esque tropes about Fletcher Prouty are similarly deranged.

In a nutshell, you are a purveyor of disinformation, and a shameless defamer of honest, educated scholars who have worked on their own dime to debunk false M$M narratives about U.S. military and intelligence black ops.

It's truly a pity that you ever joined this forum, and spent the past ten months flooding the zone here with bunk.

I repeat again that 99.9% of scientists dismiss the 9/11 Truther claims as absurd, baseless, and unscientific. I know that in your echo-chamber liberal La La World, such things don't matter, but they matter to everyone else. Similarly, the claim that the Israelis were involved in the 9/11 attacks is just obscene. Radical Muslim groups began peddling this nonsense early on, and it is astounding to see it repeated in this forum. 

My "McAdams-esque tropes" about Prouty are "deranged"?! Funny that you should use that word, since most people who've looked into Prouty use that word to describe him. I will just repeat again that the information I provided on Prouty came from liberals (especially Chip Berlet), from the ADL, from pro-Prouty sources, and from Prouty's own writings and interviews. I think someone who have to be deranged to use him as a source given what we now know about him. 

What "disinformation" have I "purveyed" in the forum? I've made the case for a conspiracy in JFK's death. I've argued that elements of the CIA, the Secret Service, the Mafia, the FBI, the DPD, and the military were involved in the plot. I've cited and praised Dr. Mantik's ground-breaking research on the evidence of a frontal shot to the head and of a low rear head entry wound, and on the evidence that the skull x-rays have been altered. I've argued that Jack Ruby's shooting of Oswald was a Mafia hit facilitated by elements in the DPD. I've argued that the Zapruder film refutes the single-bullet theory and the lone-gunman theory. Etc., etc., etc. 

But you're upset at me because I don't buy your wingnut, bizarre theories that have nothing to do with the JFK case, and because I have the objectivity to acknowledge that Prouty was an anti-Semitic fraud, if not a genuine nutcase, who gave WC apologists a boat load of bogus claims to knock down.

Part of the problem is that you and some others here subordinate the JFK case to your political agenda and merely use the JFK case as an excuse to peddle your political views. If someone disagrees with your wingnut views, you attack them, even if they ardently defend the conspiracy position in the JFK case. 

Since you keep trying to associate me with McAdams just because I repudiate Prouty, you might want to read my detailed critique of McAdams' claims:

Some Comments on John McAdams' Kennedy Assassination Home Page

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[W. Niederhut]

Folks,

      I'm responding to Michael Griffth's latest, redundant nonsense in red below.

     When propagandists repeat lies, we're supposed to repeat the truth, right?

     Or so the RAND corporation has advised.

 

Michael Griffith wrote:  I repeat again that 99.9% of scientists dismiss the 9/11 Truther claims as absurd, baseless, and unscientific. I know that in your echo-chamber liberal La La World, such things don't matter, but they matter to everyone else.

I'll ask again, Michael.  Which "9/11 Truthers" are you referring to as "absurd, baseless, and unscientific?"

Are you referring to the many Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth?

Can you cite any of their scientific papers that are "absurd, baseless, and unscientific?"

Also, what scientific education have you had-- on a collegiate or post-graduate level-- that qualifies you to judge the scientific merit of their research?

 

Similarly, the claim that the Israelis were involved in the 9/11 attacks is just obscene. Radical Muslim groups began peddling this nonsense early on, and it is astounding to see it repeated in this forum. 

So, are you still claiming that the "Five Dancing Israelis" were not arrested near Giants Stadium on 9/11, after witnesses saw them filming and celebrating the WTC demolitions?

Did you read the references posted for you on that subject?

My "McAdams-esque tropes" about Prouty are "deranged"?! Funny that you should use that word, since most people who've looked into Prouty use that word to describe him.

The world's leading authorities on Prouty-- e.g., Len Osanic and Greg Burnham-- have precisely the opposite opinion.

Go back to the top of our recent Prouty thread and do some remedial reading.

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[Tom Gram]

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Yeah Mike, what I said was well over 100,000. Which would signify anything up to 200,000.

Yes, I know, and that represents an astounding gaffe for someone who pretends to be qualified to review books and documentaries on the Vietnam War.

Again, the number was at least several million. No one, but no one, disputes that over 1 million fled by boat. You know, the "boat people"? You've heard of them, right? And we know that many, many, many more wanted to leave but either did not have the means or could not escape. 

No one knows for sure. 

Phew! Uh, maybe no one among your fringe associates knows, and I'm sure the fringe books you've read, such as Swanson's error-riddled work, say nothing about it, but if you ever do break down and actually do some serious research, you will look back and cringe over your denial.

With your politics and your sources you would write that the whole country wanted to leave to avoid poison gas extermination.  Which of course is what you wrote.  

Huh? I am genuinely starting to wonder about your level of education. Do you understand what an analogy is? I was pointing out that saying that only "well over 100,000" South Vietnamese wanted to leave the country is as egregious a gaffe as saying that only "well over 300,000" European Jews wanted to leave German-held territory. 

I mean geez.  Yeah that is why the north left the business school intact in Saigon--filthy communists.

You spew this obscene garbage, joking about the terrible human suffering that the Communists imposed, and then you deny that you're far left. Never mind that the Communists murdered tens of thousands of people. Never mind that the Communists sent about 1 million people to concentration camps, where tens of thousands of other people also died. Never mind that the Communists abolished private property rights, private education, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Nah, never mind all those things because the Communists left the business school in Saigon intact. 

John Newman is a conservative.  He is the man who wrote the first book length study of Kennedy and his withdrawal plan. You try and tar everyone with political smears for thinking JFK was getting out in 1965.  But you cannot do that with him.  And that is my point.  Those are all nothing but cheap shots by you.

This is a jumbled bunch of nonsense. One, Newman has made some very un-conservative statements about the Vietnam War itself, such as claiming that McNamara was responsible for the deaths of 2 million people. Two, as Selverstone has documented, Newman is simply wrong in claiming that JFK was determined to abandon South Vietnam after the election, whatever his political views may be. Three, it is a demonstrable matter of fact that the view that JFK was going to abandon South Vietnam after the election is a far-left claim that is rejected even by nearly all liberal historians. Four, I haven't tarred anyone with "political smears." Accurately describing your ideology as far left is not a smear. Describing your fellow fringe authors who hold views far to the left of the mainstream is not "smearing" them. 

The whole thing about the Decent Interval has been proven by Jeff Kimball and Ken Hughes with written data from the Nixon Archives in Yorba Linda.  When is the last time you visited there?  Just read their books.  You are too busy reading those Heritage Foundation sponsored propaganda tomes about how Vietnam was really a noble cause and how Saigon could have really won the war.

Nixon said twice that Saigon could not win the war.  So he and Henry played for a decent interval for Saigon to fall after the truce, and Kissinger wrote about this in his notes, and Kimball found it.  The whole Peace Accords was a knowing charade, there would be no peace and no honor, and the pair actually joked about it.  And then they sold Thieu down the river. Read the book The Palace File.  Oh, too busy reading  that propaganda piece Triumph Forsaken?

There is a very good reason that Nixon fought tooth and nail not to have his papers and tapes declassified during his lifetime.  And now we know why.  Just the opposite of JFK: They make him look even worse than he appeared much worse. Don't even ask about Kissinger and his files.  That one is sickening.  

But Henry knew how bad it would be.  He told Haldeman: we sat hare and listened to his ranting.  History will not be kind to us. You got that one right Hank.

As I've said, I already addressed your distorted spin on the decent interval in another thread, so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, even though you've doubled down on your spin and have added more distorted claims. The problem in dealing with you on this issue, as on other Vietnam-related issues, is that your reading has been so limited and one sided, and that you just keep repeating your claims over and over without addressing contrary evidence that I present to you. Given these things, I just do not feel inclined to waste time revisiting the issue with you.

I will note, however, that you again ignored the point, confirmed by North Vietnamese sources, that during the first year after the Paris Peace Accords, when American aid was even just barely adequate, South Vietnam's army was able to more than hold its own against the NVA. Do you not understand the implications of this fact for your spin on the decent interval? 

You cite utter trash like Turse's book Kill Anything That Moves, a book that even famous anti-war author Neil Sheehan condemned, a book whose author and publisher were forced to issue a formal retraction to avoid a lawsuit they knew they would lose--you cite this kind of garbage and then you call a widely acclaimed work such as Mark Moyar's Triumph Forsaken a "propaganda piece." Such a comment just reinforces the point that you have no business talking about the Vietnam War in a public forum. 

Just FYI, the UOT Clements Center for National Security calls Moyar's book "groundbreaking" (LINK). Military historian and former Naval War College professor Dr. Mack Thomas Owens calls the book "one of the most important books written on the Vietnam War" (LINK; his comments on the book start under "Lacking the Will"). Foreword Reviews says the book is "impressive and scrupulously researched" (LINK). Steven Rosen concludes the book is "succinct and insightful" and "deep and probing" (LINK). Military historian and Vietnam veteran Dr. Mark Scales gives the book high praise (LINK). Vietnam War scholar Dr. Tom Glenn says that Triumph Forsaken is "useful to historians" and opines that Moyar's new book, Triumph Regained, provides "scrupulously thorough descriptions of events that affected the war" (LINK). Military and foreign policy historian Dr. Mark Sempa gives Moyar's new book a very favorable review and favorably mentions Triumph Forsaken (LINK; LINK).

Even most liberal historians who have critically reviewed Moyar's Triumph Forsaken have acknowledged it is a serious work of scholarship, that it has much worthwhile content, and it that contains new information from North Vietnamese sources (LINK, LINK, LINK). But you, who've read very little on the war, call it a "propaganda piece." Again, you are a fringe amateur who has no business pretending to be qualified to review books and documentaries on the Vietnam War. 

Did you actually read those reviews you linked? Here’s a particular gem of an excerpt: 

On final analysis, though, Moyar has contributed little of substance to what he terms the revisionist perspective. If anything, his consistent overstatement of the originality and importance of his arguments, his fragmentary and often questionable use of evidence, and his easily discredited attacks on the well respected, rigorous scholars, merely validate the orthodox view, perhaps undeservedly, and does a great disservice to the complexity of Vietnam’s recent history and to the story of American involvement there. 

Your repeated personal attacks on Jim D. and others whose position on Vietnam you disagree with, merely validate the view you are trying to discredit. Despite the merit of some of your arguments, you are coming across in these Vietnam threads as a heck of a lot more biased than Jim. Readers with limited knowledge of Vietnam are going to get turned off by the invective and not even bother to check your sources. Is really that the approach you’re going for here? 

Based on that roundtable review collection alone, a lot of these liberal historians who (according to you) acknowledge that Moyar’s book is a “serious work of scholarship” would actually agree with Jim’s assessment. 

[James DiEugenio]

Nice one Tom.  

👌

[Michael Griffith]

18 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The whole thing about the Decent Interval has been proven by Jeff Kimball and Ken Hughes with written data from the Nixon Archives in Yorba Linda.  When is the last time you visited there?  Just read their books.  You are too busy reading those Heritage Foundation sponsored propaganda tomes about how Vietnam was really a noble cause and how Saigon could have really won the war.

Nixon said twice that Saigon could not win the war.  So he and Henry played for a decent interval for Saigon to fall after the truce,  and Kissinger wrote about this in his notes, and Kimball found it.  The whole Peace Accords was a knowing charade, there would be no peace and no honor, and the pair actually joked about it.  And then they sold Thieu down the river. Read the book The Palace File.  Oh, too busy reading  that propaganda piece Triumph Forsaken?

There is a very good reason that Nixon fought tooth and nail not to have his papers and tapes declassified during his lifetime.  And now we know why.  Just the opposite of JFK: They make him look even worse than he appeared much worse. Don't even ask about Kissinger and his files.  That one is sickening.  

But Henry knew how bad it would be.  He told Haldeman: we sat hare and listened to his ranting.  History will not be kind to us.

You got that one right Hank.

I've decided to address the "decent interval" after all, for the sake of other readers, even though I addressed this issue in another thread ("Oliver Stone's New JFK Documentaries and the Vietnam War": LINK; see also LINK, LINK).

In a nutshell, the issue of the decent interval boils down to this: liberal scholars pounced on the discovery of the decent interval as a way to divert attention from Congress's betrayal of South Vietnam and to blame Nixon and Kissinger for South Vietnam's defeat. This is the crux of the matter. 

As with most issues, context and assumptions are crucial. Here are some bullet points that boil down the problems with the liberal spin on the decent interval:

-- It assumes a priori that the war was unwinnable, ignoring the information we now have from North Vietnamese sources, among other evidence.

-- It includes the false claim that South Vietnam would have lost even if U.S. aid had been maintained at adequate levels as allowed by the Paris Peace Accords, ignoring the undeniable evidence that the South Vietnamese army more than held its own until Congress began to slash aid.

-- It ignores the fact that Nixon and Kissinger lobbied furiously to try to get Congress to give South Vietnam adequate aid. 

-- It ignores the fact that after Nixon resigned, Kissinger continued to exert strenuous efforts to get Congress to give South Vietnam adequate aid. 

-- It ignores the fact that Nixon privately expressed fury and sadness over Congress's refusal to maintain adequate aid to South Vietnam.

-- It ignores the fact that Nixon was under great pressure to conclude a peace agreement as quickly as possible because the incoming anti-war Congress was voicing threats to cut off all funding for the war if an agreement were not reached. Nixon would have preferred a better deal, but he did the best could under the circumstances. 

-- It claims that Nixon "knew" the Paris Accords would lead to South Vietnam's defeat. This is misleading. The record shows that Nixon believed the Accords would cause South Vietnam's defeat IF South Vietnam received no support. 

-- Yes, needless to say, Nixon and Kissinger strongly suspected that North Vietnam would not honor the Paris Peace Accords. This is a "Captain Obvious" point that liberals try to twist in their favor, as if Congress would have let Nixon refuse to make a peace deal until he could be certain North Vietnam would honor it. 

-- It claims that "Nixon knew the Accords were a sham." No, not quite, but he strongly suspected this, which is why he tried so hard to get Congress to provide adequate aid to South Vietnam.

Much more could be said, but in the interest of time I will stop here. By the way, here are some other issues that I addressed in the thread "Oliver Stone's New JFK Documentaries and the Vietnam War" that readers might want to check out given Jim's comments in this thread:

James DiEugenio calls the far-left Vietnam War documentary Hearts and Minds "the best documentary ever made on the subject" (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=475713; see also  https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=475571).

James DiEugenio's use of Nick Turse's sleazy book, and Turse and his publisher's agreement to issue a formal retraction to settle the Equels lawsuit (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=472065). 

Recent studies show that approximately 65,000 South Vietnamese were executed by the Communists after Saigon fell (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=471069).

Facts about the NVA and the VC and American soldiers (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=471235).

New information from North Vietnamese sources, information that most liberals studiously ignore (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=471655).

Response to the myth that JFK was going to abandon South Vietnam after the election (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=471893  ; https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=471912; https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=471934; https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=471971 ; https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=475319).

Devastating impact of Congress's aid cuts on South Vietnam's army (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=472358).

The war was winnable (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28074-oliver-stones-new-jfk-documentaries-and-the-vietnam-war/?do=findComment&comment=473700).

Edited May 11, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

I have no idea what Mike is talking about above, this is just another one of his Bugliosi style word salads which never hone to a point.

Look Mike, it does not matter if one is liberal or conservative.  The decent interval was real.

There have been two whole books written about it, by Snepp and Hughes. The phrase was in Kissinger's notebooks and he talked about it with China and China told Hanoi.  That is prima facie evidence.

Secondly, from my post above, the two war criminals--Kissinger and Nixon--actually talked about the concept and its on tape. And they also talked about how they would nail their enemies with it by saying:  "Well we asked for more money but they would not give it to us. It was really their fault."  This was their fallback plan.  Kissinger even says that is what they will do.

So the tapes and the notebooks have you coming and going.  From the moment the Peace Accords were signed, proably before that, the Decent Interval was the strategy.  They knew the war was lost, they just wanted a delay as to when Saigon would fall. 

And they sold Thieu down the river and he knew it.  

Edited May 11, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Tom Gram]

https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/nixon-kissinger-and-the-decent-interval

(President Nixon): Let's be perfectly cold-blooded about it. If you look at it from the standpoint of our game with the Soviets and the Chinese, from the standpoint of running this country... I think we could take, in my view, almost anything, frankly, that we can force on Thieu. Almost anything. I just come down to that. You know what I mean? Because I have a feeling we would not be doing, like I feel about the Israeli, I feel that in the long run we're probably not doing them an in- uh... a disfavor due to the fact that I feel that the North Vietnamese are so badly hurt that the South Vietnamese are probably gonna do fairly well. Also due to the fact, because I look at the tide of history out there, South Vietnam probably is never gonna survive anyway. I'm just being perfectly candid-I- 

(Henry Kissinger): In the pull-out area- 

(President Nixon): There's got to be- if we can get certain guarantees so that they aren't... as you know, looking at the foreign policy process, though, I mean, you've got to be- we also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important. It's terribly important this year, but can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam? That's the real question. 

(Henry Kissinger): If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it's the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. If we now sell out in such a way that, say that in a three- to four-month period, we have pushed President Thieu over the brink, we ourselves, I think, there is going to be- even the Chinese won't like that. I mean, they'll pay verbal... verbally, they'll like it- 

(President Nixon): But it'll worry them. 

(Henry Kissinger): But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run it won't help us all that much because our opponents will say we should've done it three years ago. So we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which... after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74 no one will give a damn.

 

From the horse’s mouth. 

[Michael Griffith]

Some additional points about the liberal spin on the “decent interval”:

-- A key point that needs to be remembered as we read the private Nixon and Kissinger statements quoted by liberal scholars is what Nixon and Kissinger desired, what they hoped and wanted to happen. This key factor is usually ignored in sources that advocate the liberal version of the decent interval.

If the White House tapes and other sources reveal anything about Nixon and Kissinger’s privately expressed sentiments, they reveal that both men intensely hoped and desired that South Vietnam would remain free. For example, in Nixon’s private instructions to Kissinger before Kissinger went to Saigon to place heavy pressure on President Thieu to accept the peace agreement, Nixon said the following:

          I personally want to stand by Thieu and the South Vietnamese government, but as I have told him in three separate messages, what really counts is not the agreement but my determination to take massive action against North Vietnam in the event they break the agreement. . . .

          I do not give him this very tough option by personal desire, but because of the political reality in the United States it is not possible for me, even with the massive mandate I personally received in the election, to get the support from a hostile Congress. . . . (Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam, Touchstone Edition, 2002, p. 196)

A short time later, Kissinger sent Nixon a memorandum that noted the looming threat of a Congressional cutoff of funding for South Vietnam if a peace deal that included South Vietnam's signature were not reached. Significantly, Nixon wrote notes on the memo that made clear his desire to maintain aid for South Vietnam, and his desire to have the option of retaliating if Hanoi violated the agreement:

          [Kissinger:] “Thieu must realize that the alternative is a Congressional cutoff of funds within weeks and suicide for South Vietnam.” At the same time, it was essential that Thieu and the GVN approach the settlement with confidence in its abilities and U.S. backing. “We must reassure the South Vietnamese that they have the assets to prevail under the terms of the settlement, and most importantly, that you will do whatever is required to ensure that the agreement is observed by the communists.”

          Nixon wrote across the top of this memorandum that, “if not settled, aid is cut.” Most relevant, however, was Nixon’s notation, “agreement meets our realities” and “I need support for aid—for massive retaliation.” (No Peace, No Honor, p. 198)

Clearly, Nixon had every intention of providing aid to South Vietnam after the peace agreement, i.e., after the Paris Peace Accords, and was even prepared to inflict “massive retaliation” if North Vietnam violated the Accords.

In contrast, many if not most people in the anti-war movement and in the anti-war majority in Congress either openly hoped a Communist victory or did not care one bit if South Vietnam fell.

I should add that the vast majority of those people fell silent when it became clear that the Communists were imposing a reign of terror on the South Vietnamese. To their credit, a few anti-war people did express remorse and regret over South Vietnam’s terrible fate, but they were a distinct minority. Nothing but denial and then silence was heard from most of those who had endlessly bashed South Vietnam, who had actually praised the Viet Cong and North Vietnam, and who had portrayed the American war effort as a senseless act of aggression and oppression.

-- An assumption of the liberal version of the decent interval is that continued U.S. aid to South Vietnam would not have changed the course of the war. As I’ve mentioned, this myth was debunked years ago and has been further refuted by new information from North Vietnamese sources. Dr. Lewis Sorley:

          Major General Ira Hunt served during 1973—1975 as deputy commander of the U.S. Support Activities Group, in effect MACV in exile, at Nakhon Phanom in Thailand. . . .

          After the Paris Accords were signed, said Hunt, it was almost always the NVA that initiated combat actions, “and for about two years the ARVN were cleaning their clocks. The South Vietnamese were giving more than they were getting, there’s no question about it. But when we pulled the plug logistically there was no way they could carry on.”

          Confirmation from the enemy side was provided by General Tran Van Tra, who admitted that by the time of the cease-fire “our cadres and men were exhausted. All our units were in disarray, and we were suffering from a lack of manpower and a shortage of food and ammunition. So it was hard to stand up under enemy attacks. Sometimes we had to withdraw to let the enemy retake control of the population.” (A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007, p. 357)

-- Liberal historians have been misleadingly selective in the private statements they’ve quoted, and sometimes they’ve inferred meanings from those statements that the statements don’t actually support.

One of the private statements that historian Ken Hughes frequently quotes is the following comment that Nixon made to Kissinger before the Paris Peace Accords were signed:

          "I look at the tide of history out there, South Vietnam probably is never gonna survive anyway.  I’m just being perfectly candid."

Did you catch Nixon’s use of the word “probably”? Liberals act like Nixon said “certainly,” but he did not. “Probably” implies a degree of doubt. If I say I’m “probably” going to see the movie, it would be misleading to pretend that I said I would “definitely” see the movie.

Furthermore, liberals ignore other statements wherein Nixon expressed the view that South Vietnam could survive if it received sufficient aid. They also ignore the private statements in which he made it clear that he fully intended to maintain adequate aid to South Vietnam and even to provide air support if needed.

In later years, Nixon expressed his views on the war forcefully in his 1985 book No More Vietnams:

          When we signed the Paris Peace agreements in 1973, we had won the war. We then proceeded to lose the peace. The South Vietnamese successfully countered Communist violations of the ceasefire for two years. Defeat came only when the Congress, ignoring the specific terms of the peace agreement, refused to provide military aid equal to what the Soviet Union provided Hanoi. (p. 18)

          Congress turned its back on a noble cause and a brave people. South Vietnam simply wanted the chance to fight for its survival as an independent country. All that the United States had to do was give it the means to continue the battle. Out South Vietnamese friends were asking us to give them the tools so they could finish the job. Congress would not, so our allies could not. (p. 202)

Bullseye. Exactly.

-- In other cases, liberals have failed to put private Nixon and Kissinger statements in their proper context. For example, authors who push the liberal version of the decent interval frequently quote Kissinger’s reported remarks to Zhou Enlai when Kissinger was trying to persuade the Chinese to pressure Hanoi to make a peace deal. Hughes’ argument is a typical example:

          But a transcript prepared by Kissinger's own aides of his first meeting with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai reveals how willing Nixon was to sacrifice America's credibility abroad to preserve his political credibility at home.  As Kissinger explained it, the president would agree to complete withdrawal of American troops in return for Hanoi's release of American prisoners of war and a ceasefire ("say 18 months or some period").

          "If the agreement breaks down, then it is quite possible that the people in Vietnam will fight it out," Kissinger said (as historian Jussi Hanhimaki found).  "If the government is as unpopular as you seem to think, then the quicker our forces are withdrawn, the quicker it will be overthrown.  And if it is overthrown after we withdraw, we will not intervene."

Apparently it has never occurred to the spinners of the liberal version of the decent interval that Kissinger said this in order to persuade the Chinese to pressure Hanoi to agree to a peace deal, and not because he actually meant it. The liberal spin ignores the fact that, just weeks after the Accords were signed, when Kissinger became aware that North Vietnam was already violating them, he recommended to Nixon that the U.S. conduct air strikes. Dr. Sorley:

          By 14 March Henry Kissinger was alerting President Nixon that NVA personnel and matériel were pouring into South Vietnam, so brazenly that the enemy was now “operating in daylight and the traffic is so heavy as to be congested”—traffic jams on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Kissinger recommended planning for a series of air strikes against the trail in southern Laos, to be conducted immediately after release of a third increment of American prisoners two days hence. (A Better War, p. 354)

So obviously Kissinger misled the Chinese when he promised the U.S. would not intervene to save South Vietnam, unless by “not intervene” he meant only that the U.S. would not put ground troops in South Vietnam again.

In fact, March 14 was not the only time Kissinger recommended air strikes. Two weeks earlier, Kissinger recommended air strikes. In response, on March 6, Nixon ordered an air strike. However, now under intense fire from Congress over Watergate and fearing the reaction of Congress to any military action in Vietnam, Nixon cancelled the air strike the next day (George Veith, Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75, Encounter Books, 2013, pp. 22-23).

So clearly, Nixon and Kissinger had intended to keep their promise to South Vietnam to provide air support if North Vietnam seriously violated the Accords, regardless of what Kissinger had told the Chinese to get them to pressure Hanoi for a peace deal.

-- A component of the liberal spin on the decent interval is that in June 1973, Nixon himself agreed to a ban on U.S. military action in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Says Hughes, “Nixon claimed Congress tied his hands, but he tied his own.” This is a severe distortion, to put it mildly.

For one thing, Hughes fails to mention that the ban that Nixon agreed to support was a compromise measure, and that Nixon only supported it because it was not as drastic as the previous version, and because his veto of the previous version had barely been upheld.

Yes, as Hughes notes, Republican vote-counters told Nixon they believed they had the votes to sustain another veto, but, as noted, Hughes fails to mention that Nixon was acutely aware that his veto of the previous version just a week earlier had barely been sustained.

Furthermore, just four months later, Nixon vetoed further Congressional restrictions on his ability to intervene to help South Vietnam, but his veto was overridden. Hughes fails to mention this fact as well.

The overriding fact of the matter is that Nixon and Kissinger, and then Ford and Kissinger, never stopped lobbying Congress to provide adequate aid to South Vietnam, and that if Congress had maintained sufficient aid, South Vietnam would have been able to remain independent.

Even if we were to assume that Nixon and Kissinger acted for purely domestic political motives and were willing to see South Vietnam fall after a “decent interval,” this would not change the fact that it was Congress, not Nixon and Kissinger, that slashed funding for South Vietnam’s army at the very time it was engaged in increasingly heavy fighting with North Vietnamese forces. Nor would this change the fact that Nixon and Kissinger clearly wanted South Vietnam to remain free and exerted great effort to get Congress to provide adequate aid to South Vietnam.

 

[Michael Griffith]

On 5/10/2023 at 3:03 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Oh, too busy reading that propaganda piece Triumph Forsaken?

Another reason your comment here is curious and revealing is that Dr. Mark Moyar's Triumph Forsaken was the first book to make extensive use of newly disclosed/available North Vietnamese sources, as well as previously unavailable/neglected South Vietnamese sources. The numerous negative liberal reviews of Moyar's book are noteworthy for their odd-but-predictable failure to address the crucial information revealed in those sources, especially in the North Vietnamese sources. This inexcusable failure is as bad as the failure of the negative reviews of Doug Horne's Inside the ARRB volumes to address the historic new information he presents in those volumes. 

The only left-of-center author to make substantive use of the newly disclosed/available North Vietnamese sources has been Dr. Max Hastings in his superb 2018 book Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy. Not surprisingly, many of Hastings' fellow liberal scholars gave the book reviews that ranged from only slightly positive to less-than-glowing to sharply critical. Why? Because even though Hastings repeatedly argues that the war was unwinnable, condemns the bombing of North Vietnam, condemns Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Nhu, praises Daniel Ellsberg, and excoriates the Saigon regime for its many failings, he also tells the truth about North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, acknowledges that numerous military experts have argued that the war was winnable, acknowledges that the news media misrepresented the Tet Offensive and sometimes repeated Communist propaganda, criticizes the anti-war movement for white-washing the Hanoi regime's brutality, admits that the Hanoi regime was worse than the Saigon regime, and frankly discusses the reign of terror that the North Vietnamese imposed on South Vietnam after Saigon fell.

By the way, have you read Triumph Forsaken yet? You obviously had not read it when we discussed the Vietnam War in the thread "Oliver Stone's New JFK Documentaries and the Vietnam War." Have you read it since then? Surely you would not get on a public board and stridently attack a book you had not even read, would you?

Finally, I also think it is revealing that the only source you have been able to cite to support your negative review of Selverstone's ground-breaking book The Kennedy Withdrawal is Mike Swanson. As I have documented in this thread, Swanson's amateurish book on the Vietnam War not only contains embarrassing blunders but also shows that even his command of English is poor. In contrast, I have been able to cite numerous recognized historians and other genuine Vietnam War scholars to support my positive review of Selverstone's book. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Calvin Ye]

The books Why CIA killed JFK and Malcolm X: The Secret Drug Trade in Laos, Doctor Feelgood and Defrauding America implied that Kennedy was killed cuz his withdrawal would harm the drug trade

Edited July 6, 2023 by Calvin Ye

[Jonathan Cohen]

10 minutes ago, Calvin Ye said:

The books Why CIA killed JFK and Malcolm X: The Secret Drug Trade in Laos, Doctor Feelgood and Defrauding America implied that Kennedy was killed cuz his withdrawal would harm the drug trade

Preposterous.