Top 5 Books On JFK & Vietnam

[Calvin Ye]

13 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Preposterous.

It is not preposterous. Did you read the book The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia or Kennedy anti-drug speech (1962)

Edited July 6, 2023 by Calvin Ye

[James DiEugenio]

On 5/11/2023 at 3:15 PM, Tom Gram said:

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. 

Thank Tom.  

I don't see how what I posted, and the above, do not show that the whole Decent Interval concept was a Kissinger/Nixon operative doctrine.

[Michael Griffith]

On 5/10/2023 at 9:40 PM, Tom Gram said:

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. 

One, you ignored the positive comments that were made in those negative reviews. 

Two, I am guessing you did not bother to read any of the favorable reviews that I linked. If you did, you chose not to comment on the arguments they make in support of Moyar's book.

Three, did you notice that not one of the negative reviews even tried to deal with the historic evidence that Moyar cites from newly released/available North Vietnamese sources? Why do you suppose not one of those liberal historians tackled the most crucial, historic part of Moyar's book? (And Moyar is not the only scholar who has cited this evidence, either, but he was the first to make major use of it.)

Four, did you read Moyar's detailed response to the negative reviews? I notice you said nothing about his rebuttal arguments. 

Five, you obviously have not read Moyar's book. 

Six, I have not personally attacked Jim DiEugenio. It is not a personal attack to point out to him that his research on the Vietnam War has been woefully inadequate and one sided. That is not a personal attack.

Just look at the fringe, substandard sources he has cited, such as Nick Turse's book Kill Anything That Moves (which even famous anti-war journalist Neil Sheehan condemned in strong terms) and Michael Swanson's embarrassingly amateurish book Why the Vietnam War? (which contains junior-high grammar errors and twice identifies McNamara as the Secretary of State, among other problems that I pointed out to Jim when he first cited the book). In one post, Jim said that the awful far-left propaganda documentary Hearts and Minds was "the best" documentary on the war. Are you kidding me? Go watch that video. Among other things, it includes Daneil Ellsberg denying that North Vietnam received substantial aid from the Soviet Union and Red China. 

Also, Jim has heaped great praise on Fletcher Prouty's writings on the Vietnam War. Fletcher Prouty?  Again, are you kidding me?

Go back and read my exchanges with him on the Vietnam War. Before I mentioned the North Vietnamese sources, he had no clue about them and what they reveal. When I mentioned the mass executions and the concentration camps that North Vietnam imposed on the South Vietnamese after the war, he said I must have been referring to what happened in Cambodia because, he claimed, the North Vietnamese only executed a few thousand people; next, he argued that I was merely relying on Nixon's statement about the mass executions in No More Vietnams. When I provided several scholarly studies that document that probably closer to 60,000-65,000 South Vietnamese were executed, not counting the tens of thousands who died in the concentration camps, he fell silent on the issue. And on and on I could go. 

And I repeat, yet again, the fact that even the vast majority of liberal historians reject Jim's claim that JFK was going to abandon South Vietnam after the election. That view is on the very far left fringe of the spectrum and is nearly universally rejected by historians--again, even by most liberal historians, not to mention moderate and conservative ones.

All this being said, I have always praised Jim's work on the JFK assassination itself. I continue to strongly recommend JFK Revisited and feature it on the front page of my JFK site. I am just saying that Jim is simply unqualified to posture as a credible scholar on the Vietnam War because his reading has clearly been very limited and extremely one sided.

Finally, regarding the decent interval: I see that in another reply, you again posted a handful of cherry-picked, out-of-context statements to support the liberal spin on the decent interval. You did not address a single point that I made in my two long replies on the decent interval. Here are the links to them, if you ever decide to address the points I made therein: LINK. LINK.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Calvin Ye]

1 hour ago, Michael Griffith said:

One, you ignored the positive comments that were made in those negative reviews. 

Two, I am guessing you did not bother to read any of the favorable reviews that I linked. If you did, you chose not to comment on the arguments they make in support of Moyar's book.

Three, did you notice that not one of the negative reviews even tried to deal with the historic evidence that Moyar cites from newly released/available North Vietnamese sources? Why do you suppose not one of those liberal historians tackled the most crucial, historic part of Moyar's book? (And Moyar is not the only scholar who has cited this evidence, either, but he was the first to make major use of it.)

Four, did you read Moyar's detailed response to the negative reviews? I notice you said nothing about his rebuttal arguments. 

Five, you obviously have not read Moyar's book. 

Six, I have not personally attacked Jim DiEugenio. It is not a personal attack to point out to him that his research on the Vietnam War has been woefully inadequate and one sided. That is not a personal attack.

Just look at the fringe, substandard sources he has cited, such as Nick Turse's book Kill Anything That Moves (which even famous anti-war journalist Neil Sheehan condemned in strong terms) and Michael Swanson's embarrassingly amateurish book Why the Vietnam War? (which contains junior-high grammar errors and twice identifies McNamara as the Secretary of State, among other problems that I pointed out to Jim when he first cited the book). In one post, Jim said that the awful far-left propaganda documentary Hearts and Minds was "the best" documentary on the war. Are you kidding me? Go watch that video. Among other things, it includes Daneil Ellsberg denying that North Vietnam received substantial aid from the Soviet Union and Red China. 

Also, Jim has heaped great praise on Fletcher Prouty's writings on the Vietnam War. Fletcher Prouty?  Again, are you kidding me?

Go back and read my exchanges with him on the Vietnam War. Before I mentioned the North Vietnamese sources, he had no clue about them and what they reveal. When I mentioned the mass executions and the concentration camps that North Vietnam imposed on the South Vietnamese after the war, he said I must have been referring to what happened in Cambodia because, he claimed, the North Vietnamese only executed a few thousand people; next, he argued that I was merely relying on Nixon's statement about the mass executions in No More Vietnams. When I provided several scholarly studies that document that probably closer to 60,000-65,000 South Vietnamese were executed, not counting the tens of thousands who died in the concentration camps, he fell silent on the issue. And on and on I could go. 

And I repeat, yet again, the fact that even the vast majority of liberal historians reject Jim's claim that JFK was going to abandon South Vietnam after the election. That view is on the very far left fringe of the spectrum and is nearly universally rejected by historians--again, even by most liberal historians, not to mention moderate and conservative ones.

All this being said, I have always praised Jim's work on the JFK assassination itself. I continue to strongly recommend JFK Revisited and feature it on the front page of my JFK site. I am just saying that Jim is simply unqualified to posture as a credible scholar on the Vietnam War because his reading has clearly been very limited and extremely one sided.

Finally, regarding the decent interval: I see that in another reply, you again posted a handful of cherry-picked, out-of-context statements to support the liberal spin on the decent interval. You did not address a single point that I made in my two long replies on the decent interval. Here are the links to them, if you ever decide to address the points I made therein: LINK. LINK.

Mike, I disagree. Here is the link that proves you wrong: https://whowhatwhy.org/files/Musgrove2.pdf

[James DiEugenio]

Mike:

There is no argument about the Decent Interval concept. It was the operative doctrine for Kissinger and Nixon.  And I do not use Turse to make it and neither does Tom.

How can there be any argument when people like Kimball actually found the term in Kissinger's notebooks.

You using someone like Neil Sheehan, of all people, as to be  anti war is, I mean whew.  Sheehan never got over Jean Paul Vann.  And Vann was one of the earliest critics of Kennedy not committing combat troops since he thought the ARVN was so hapless that they were no match for Hanoi.  Sheehan was still praising Vann for his actions during the Tet Offensive!

Please read this in full:

https://www.kennedysandking.com/obituaries/neil-sheehan-in-retrospect

Halberstam and Sheehan were two of the worst writers about Vietnam. Because they were out and out hawks, while Kennedy never was.  They were so bad, and proved to be so wrong, that Halberstam went back and revised his first book on the war, The Making of a Quagmire, to edit out the most hawkish parts.  Why? So he would not betray himself  to later generations who he wanted to buy into his godawful book The Best and the Brightest.  Which Warren HInckle called one of the greatest BS books ever written.  In their later works  both tried to blame how badly Vietnam had turned out on, of all people, Kennedy!  This was part of their cover up of their own advocacy for escalation.  Which, when they got their wish, turned out to be a disaster.  

One of the most disgusting things about Sheehan was his betrayal of Mark Lane, which you can read about above.  The second most was his portrayal of Vann's funeral as trying to forget the war.  When, in fact, there would have been no war had Kennedy not been killed. But this is something Halberstam and Sheehan could never admit.  A perfect example would be, when Stone's JFK came out, Halberstam said there was no Pentagon machination to drive the war forward.  When, in fact, his hero, Jean Paul Vann, wanted to do just that.  And in his first book Halberstam regretted not doing it earlier. 

Now, about civilian casualties, are you going to say that everyone involved in the Winter Soldier protest was a  l--r?  Are you going to say that the estimates of civilian deaths by epidemiologists for Cambodia and Vietnam are false?  Are you going to say that the study showing the steady increase by American soldiers fragging their commanding officers, thus causing the collapse of the US Army in Vietnam, all that was really inconsequential because some rightwing hack writer like Moyar says that, well see, we blew it.  Both McNamara and Clifford were wrong, and so were Nixon and Kissinger.  Only I am correct.

Mike, that is Newsmax stuff.  It won't fly here. We know too much. Vietnam was a disaster that should have never happened.  And if Kennedy had lived, it would not have.

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Here is the famous Robert Heinl article about the collapse of the US Army in VIetnam.

 

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/heinl.html

It had a powerful impact since Heinl was a military guy who was actually hawkish.

BTW, a guy who was there in Vietnam told me that the fraggings really picked up when Nixon announced Vietnamization.  Because every American there knew that the ARVN was no match for the Viet Cong and the Hanoi regular army.  In other words, Nixon had conceded defeat and it was just a matter of who was going to be the last guy to die for a mistake.

Edited July 9, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Griffith]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mike:

There is no argument about the Decent Interval concept. It was the operative doctrine for Kissinger and Nixon.

You have not read enough on the subject to be making such statements, not to mention that your statement is a misleading oversimplification.

I would direct interested readers to my previous replies on the decent interval in this thread.

And I do not use Turse to make it and neither does Tom.

I did not say that you cited Turse on the decent interval. I did not even imply this. 

How can there be when people like Kimball actually found the term in Kissinger's notebooks.

Wow. You see, these are the kinds of silly, sophomoric arguments that get made when your research has been badly deficient. You keep acting like any reference to the decent interval somehow automatically proves your spin on the subject. Did you even read my replies on the subject in this thread?

You using someone like Neil Sheehan, of all people, as to be  anti war is, I mean whew.  Sheehan never got over Jean Paul Vann.  And Vann was one of the earliest critics of Kennedy not committing combat troops since he thought the ARVN was so hapless that they were no match for Hanoi.  Sheehan was still praising Vann for his actions during the Tet Offensive! 

Please read this in full:

https://www.kennedysandking.com/obituaries/neil-sheehan-in-retrospect

Halberstam and Sheehan were two of the worst writers about Vietnam. Because they were out and out hawks, while Kennedy never was.  They were so bad, and proved to be so wrong, that Halberstam went back and revised his first book on the war, The Making of a Quagmire, to edit out the most hawkish parts.  Why? So he would not betray himself  to later generations who he wanted to buy into his godawful book The Best and the Brightest.  Which Warren HInckle called one of the greatest BS books ever written.  Both men in their later works tried to blame how badly Vietnam had turned out on, of all people, Kennedy!  This was part of their cover up of their own advocacy for escalation.  Which, when they got their wish, turned out to be a disaster.  

One of the most disgusting things about Sheehan was his betrayal of Mark Lane, which you can read about above.  The second most was his portrayal of Vann's funeral as trying to forget the war.  When, in fact, there would have been no war had Kennedy not been killed. But this is something Halberstam and Sheehan could never admit.  A perfect example would be, when Stone's JFK came out, Halberstam said there was no Pentagon machination to drive the war forward.  When, in fact, his hero, Jean Paul Vann, wanted to do just that.  And in his first book Halberstam regretted not doing it earlier. 

Sweet Mother of Pearl! This is a dazzling mix of far-left mythology, distortion, and falsehood sprinkled with a few isolated facts. Only fringe-left idealogues view Sheehan and Halberstam the way you portray them here. If you ever do break down and decide to do some balanced research on the Vietnam War, you will be embarrassed over these claims.

Halberstam and Sheehan would not "admit" that "there would have been no war had Kennedy not been killed" because they knew this was abject nonsense.

As for your remark about John Paul Vann's view of ARVN (who was "Jean Paul Vann"?), you once again show just how deficient your reading has been. FYI, Vann soon came to respect ARVN's fighting ability. His initial negative comments about ARVN were part of his effort to hide his own blunders in the Battle of Ap Bac. 

Now, about civilian casualties, are you going to say that everyone involved in the Winter Soldier protest was a  l--r?  Are you going to say that the estimates of civilian deaths by epidemiologists for Cambodia and Vietnam are false?  Are you going to say that the study showing the steady increase by American soldiers fragging their commanding officers thus causing the collapse of the US Army in Vietnam, all that was really inconsequential because some rightwing hack writer like Moyar says that, well see, we blew it.  Both McNamara and Clifford were wrong, and so were Nixon and Kissinger.  Only I am correct.

Another diatribe loaded with far-left myths. You are in no position to be making these kinds of pronouncements. Your research has been so minimal and one sided as to be unserious and disqualifying. You call a reputable, highly credentialed historian like Dr. Moyar a "rightwing hack writer" and then turn around and cite bungling amateurs like Mike Swanson and genuine hacks like Nick Turse (who, again, was forced to issue a formal retraction to settle a libel lawsuit over bogus claims made in his book). 

You know, if you just cannot bring yourself to read centrist and conservative American scholarship on the Vietnam War, why not read center-left British historian Max Hastings' book on the war or Vietnamese scholar Lien-Hang Nguyen's book on the war (she is a professor of history at Columbia University) or University of Montreal history professor Dr. Christopher Goscha's new book on the French phase of the Vietnam War (which has received effusive praise from historians from all across the spectrum)? 

Mike, that is Newsmax stuff.  It won't fly here. We know too much. Vietnam was a disaster that should have never happened. 

"Newsmax stuff"? Your far-left ideology is showing again. And, pray tell, what is wrong with Newsmax? Newsmax has a readership in the millions, and Newsmax TV is one of the fastest growing cable TV news channels in the country. In fact, in the first quarter of this year, Newsmax TV's viewership growth outpaced that of every other cable TV news channel. FYI, Newsmax TV frequently includes liberals in their discussion panels (whereas MSNBC rarely includes conservatives in their discussion panels).

And if Kennedy had lived, it would not have.

This is delusional wishful thinking that ignores Kennedy's own statements, private statements that were recorded on the White House tapes, and statements that he made in public up to the very day he died. You brush aside all these statements as election posturing, even the ones on the White House tapes, which were never meant to see the light of day. You also dismiss RFK's statements in his April '64 oral history, claiming he was suffering from PTSD. I should mention again that even most liberal historians reject your theory that JFK was going to disengage from South Vietnam after the election. 

For all the good work you have done on the JFK assassination itself (and you have done a great deal), you have done severe damage to the case for conspiracy by peddling the Stone-Prouty myth that JFK was determined to abandon South Vietnam after the election. 

[Calvin Ye]

30 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

There is no argument about the Decent Interval concept. It was the operative doctrine for Kissinger and Nixon.

You have not read enough on the subject to be making such statements, not to mention that your statement is a misleading oversimplification.

I would direct interested readers to my previous replies on the decent interval in this thread.

And I do not use Turse to make it and neither does Tom.

I did not say that you cited Turse on the decent interval. I did not even imply this. 

How can there be when people like Kimball actually found the term in Kissinger's notebooks.

Wow. You see, these are the kinds of silly, sophomoric arguments that get made when your research has been badly deficient. You keep acting like any reference to the decent interval somehow automatically proves your spin on the subject. Did you even read my replies on the subject in this thread?

You using someone like Neil Sheehan, of all people, as to be  anti war is, I mean whew.  Sheehan never got over Jean Paul Vann.  And Vann was one of the earliest critics of Kennedy not committing combat troops since he thought the ARVN was so hapless that they were no match for Hanoi.  Sheehan was still praising Vann for his actions during the Tet Offensive! 

Please read this in full:

https://www.kennedysandking.com/obituaries/neil-sheehan-in-retrospect

Halberstam and Sheehan were two of the worst writers about Vietnam. Because they were out and out hawks, while Kennedy never was.  They were so bad, and proved to be so wrong, that Halberstam went back and revised his first book on the war, The Making of a Quagmire, to edit out the most hawkish parts.  Why? So he would not betray himself  to later generations who he wanted to buy into his godawful book The Best and the Brightest.  Which Warren HInckle called one of the greatest BS books ever written.  Both men in their later works tried to blame how badly Vietnam had turned out on, of all people, Kennedy!  This was part of their cover up of their own advocacy for escalation.  Which, when they got their wish, turned out to be a disaster.  

One of the most disgusting things about Sheehan was his betrayal of Mark Lane, which you can read about above.  The second most was his portrayal of Vann's funeral as trying to forget the war.  When, in fact, there would have been no war had Kennedy not been killed. But this is something Halberstam and Sheehan could never admit.  A perfect example would be, when Stone's JFK came out, Halberstam said there was no Pentagon machination to drive the war forward.  When, in fact, his hero, Jean Paul Vann, wanted to do just that.  And in his first book Halberstam regretted not doing it earlier. 

Sweet Mother of Pearl! This is a dazzling mix of far-left mythology, distortion, and falsehood sprinkled with a few isolated facts. Only fringe-left idealogues view Sheehan and Halberstam the way you portray them here. If you ever do break down and decide to do some balanced research on the Vietnam War, you will be embarrassed over these claims.

Halberstam and Sheehan would not "admit" that "there would have been no war had Kennedy not been killed" because they knew this was abject nonsense.

As for your remark about John Paul Vann's view of ARVN (who was "Jean Paul Vann"?), you once again show just how deficient your reading has been. FYI, Vann soon came to respect ARVN's fighting ability. His initial negative comments about ARVN were part of his effort to hide his own blunders in the Battle of Ap Bac. 

Now, about civilian casualties, are you going to say that everyone involved in the Winter Soldier protest was a  l--r?  Are you going to say that the estimates of civilian deaths by epidemiologists for Cambodia and Vietnam are false?  Are you going to say that the study showing the steady increase by American soldiers fragging their commanding officers thus causing the collapse of the US Army in Vietnam, all that was really inconsequential because some rightwing hack writer like Moyar says that, well see, we blew it.  Both McNamara and Clifford were wrong, and so were Nixon and Kissinger.  Only I am correct.

Another diatribe loaded with far-left myths. You are in no position to be making these kinds of pronouncements. Your research has been so minimal and one sided as to be unserious and disqualifying. You call a reputable, highly credentialed historian like Dr. Moyar a "rightwing hack writer" and then turn around and cite bungling amateurs like Mike Swanson and genuine hacks like Nick Turse (who, again, was forced to issue a formal retraction to settle a libel lawsuit over bogus claims made in his book). 

You know, if you just cannot bring yourself to read centrist and conservative American scholarship on the Vietnam War, why not read center-left British historian Max Hastings' book on the war or Vietnamese scholar Lien-Hang Nguyen's book on the war (she is a professor of history at Columbia University) or University of Montreal history professor Dr. Christopher Goscha's new book on the French phase of the Vietnam War (which has received effusive praise from historians from all across the spectrum)? 

Mike, that is Newsmax stuff.  It won't fly here. We know too much. Vietnam was a disaster that should have never happened. 

"Newsmax stuff"? Your far-left ideology is showing again. And, pray tell, what is wrong with Newsmax? Newsmax has a readership in the millions, and Newsmax TV is one of the fastest growing cable TV news channels in the country. In fact, in the first quarter of this year, Newsmax TV's viewership growth outpaced that of every other cable TV news channel. FYI, Newsmax TV frequently includes liberals in their discussion panels (whereas MSNBC rarely includes conservatives in their discussion panels).

And if Kennedy had lived, it would not have.

This is delusional wishful thinking that ignores Kennedy's own statements, private statements that were recorded on the White House tapes, and statements that he made in public up to the very day he died. You brush aside all these statements as election posturing, even the ones on the White House tapes, which were never meant to see the light of day. You also dismiss RFK's statements in his April '64 oral history, claiming he was suffering from PTSD. I should mention again that even most liberal historians reject your theory that JFK was going to disengage from South Vietnam after the election. 

For all the good work you have done on the JFK assassination itself (and you have done a great deal), you have done severe damage to the case for conspiracy by peddling the Stone-Prouty myth that JFK was determined to abandon South Vietnam after the election. 

Mike, please understand that Kennedy was giving an version of events that the public and hawkish colleagues wanted to hear. In fact, his secretary of defense wrote in his own memoir confirming the fact that Kennedy planned to withdraw from Vietnam. Declassified documents also confirmed the Kennedy withdrawal plan to be real

Edited July 7, 2023 by Calvin Ye

[Michael Griffith]

On 7/7/2023 at 11:36 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Now, about civilian casualties, are you going to say that everyone involved in the Winter Soldier protest was a  l--r? 

When you raised the Winter Soldier issue in the thread on Stone's documentary and the Vietnam War, I pointed out some of the problems with the Winter Soldier claims and cited sources that address them. Let me guess: You still have not read any of the sources I cited, right? 

On 7/7/2023 at 1:34 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Here is the famous Robert Heinl articles about the collapse of the US Army in VIetnam.

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/heinl.html

It had a powerful impact since Heinl was a military guy who was actually hawkish.

BTW, a guy who was there in Vietnam told me that the fraggings really picked up when Nixon announced Vietnamization.  Because every American there knew that the ARVN was no match for the Viet Cong and the Hanoi regular army.  In other words, Nixon had conceded defeat and it was just a matter of who was going to be the last guy to die for a mistake.

Have you read a single article or book that answers the liberal spin on fraggings in the Vietnam War? Did it ever occur to you that you should read both sides of the issue before discussing it in a public forum? Would it surprise to learn that most of the fraggings in Vietnam occurred in rear areas, far removed from danger, not in combat zones? Are you aware that fraggings also occurred in WW II and in the Korean War? Do you have any idea how the numbers compare? 

You again expose the inadequate, one-sided nature of your research when you repeat the myth that "every American there knew that the ARVN was no match for the Viet Cong and the Hanoi regular army." What utter nonsense. Such drivel shows you have no business talking about the war in a public forum, much less reviewing books by authors, such as Dr. Marc Selverstone and Dr. Mark Moyar, who have read 20 times the number of books and studies that you have read on the subject.

As I have told you several times before, we know from North Vietnamese sources alone that ARVN was a formidable fighting force that fought well in the substantial majority of cases. When we discussed this subject many months ago, I pointed out the facts about ARVN's performance and cited several scholarly sources on the subject, but you obviously have not bothered to read a single one of them. Yet, here you are repeating the liberal myth about ARVN. 

If you ever want to educate yourself on ARVN's performance, you could start with what is considered one of the best books, if not the best book, on the subject: Dr. Andrew Wiest's book Vietnam's Forgotten Army (NYU Press, 2009). 

If you cannot bring yourself to read the book, perhaps you could bring yourself to watch Dr. Wiest's lecture on the subject (it's just over an hour long): LINK.

 

Edited July 9, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Calvin Ye]

3 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

When you raised the Winter Soldier issue in the thread on Stone's documentary and the Vietnam War, I pointed out some of the problems with the Winter Soldier claims and cited sources that address them. Let me guess: You still have not read any of the sources I cited, right? 

Have you read a single article or book that answers the liberal spin on fraggings in the Vietnam War? Did it ever occur to you that you should read both sides of the issue before discussing it in a public forum? Would it surprise to learn that most of the fraggings in Vietnam occurred in rear areas, far removed from danger, not in combat zones? Are you aware that fraggings also occurred in WW II and in the Korean War? Do you have any idea how the numbers compare? 

You again expose the inadequate, one-sided nature of your research when you repeat the myth that "every American there knew that the ARVN was no match for the Viet Cong and the Hanoi regular army." What utter nonsense. Such drivel shows you have no business talking about the war in a public forum, much less reviewing books by authors, such as Dr. Marc Selverstone and Dr. Mark Moyar, who have read 20 times the number of books and studies that you have read on the subject.

As I have told you several times before, we know from North Vietnamese sources alone that ARVN was a formidable fighting force that fought well in the substantial majority of cases. When we discussed this subject many months ago, I pointed out the facts about ARVN's performance and cited several scholarly sources on the subject, but you obviously have not bothered to read a single one of them. Yet, here you are repeating the liberal myth about ARVN. 

If you ever want to educate yourself on ARVN's performance, you could start with what is considered one of the best books, if not the best book, on the subject: Dr. Andrew Wiest's book Vietnam's Forgotten Army (NYU Press, 2009). 

If you cannot bring yourself to read the book, perhaps you could bring yourself to watch Dr. Wiest's lecture on the subject (it's just over an hour long): LINK.

 

Leaves James alone. It is obvious you rely too much on the official narrative

Edited July 9, 2023 by Calvin Ye

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks Calvin.

Repeat:  Robert Heinl was a military  guy who was kind of hawkish on the war.

Therefore when his devastating findings came out, there had to be a reaction to them.  And there was.  Just like there had to be a reaction to the powerful PBS documentary Vietnam: A Television History by Stanley Karnow.  The reaction was by hardline conservative Reed Irvine and AIM.  In that one, the excuse was the fraggings came later.  Although Heinl  traces them from 1969 as being pretty significant.

It is ridiculous to argue for the efficacy of the ARVN.  I mean, wow.

Le Duc Tho understood this and pointed it out derisively to Kissinger.  He said, you could not win with 500,000 American regulars, and 500,000 puppet troops.  Now Nixon announces this Vietnamization, and you think the puppet troops can win on their own?

How long did it take for Saigon to fall in 1975?  Like three months?  The only thing holding South Vietnam together was the US military:  all 3 branches.  And this was what Kennedy said should have never happened.  Because once American combat troops were entered, it would become a white man's war, one that we could not win. Because it would unite the populace against America. 

We would end up like France.

[Michael Griffith]

On 7/7/2023 at 1:49 PM, Calvin Ye said:

Mike, please understand that Kennedy was giving an version of events that the public and hawkish colleagues wanted to hear. In fact, his secretary of defense wrote in his own memoir confirming the fact that Kennedy planned to withdraw from Vietnam. Declassified documents also confirmed the Kennedy withdrawal plan to be real

I take it you are new to the subject of JFK and Vietnam. The White House tapes prove that JFK's hawkish public comments were not posturing. McNamara's memoir is a joke and was shredded by both liberal and conservative historians. 

Kennedy did have a withdrawal plan, but it was a phased and conditional plan, and under that plan we would have continued to provide military and financial aid to South Vietnam.

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Repeat:  Robert Heinl was a military  guy who was kind of hawkish on the war.

Therefore when his devastating findings came out, there had to be a reaction to them.  And there was.  Just like there had to be a reaction to the powerful PBS documentary Vietnam: A Television History by Stanley Karnow.  The reaction was by hardline conservative Reed Irvine and AIM.  In that one, the excuse was the fraggings came later.  Although Heinl  traces them from 1969 as being pretty significant.

It is ridiculous to argue for the efficacy of the ARVN.  I mean, wow.

Le Duc Tho understood this and pointed it out derisively to Kissinger.  He said, you could not win with 500,000 American regulars, and 500,000 puppet troops.  Now Nixon announces this Vietnamization, and you think the puppet troops can win on their own?

Repeat: Do some balanced research instead of only reading one side of the story before you talk about issues such as fraggings in South Vietnam. I notice you ignored my questions on the issue. Are you ever going to read research that challenges what you want to believe this subject?

You think it is "ridiculous" to argue that ARVN was usually an effective fighting force because your reading on the subject has been pitiful. You do not know what you are talking about. Do you recall in our previous exchanges in another thread that I provided quotes from North Vietnamese sources that proved that ARVN often fought well, even "ferociously," even after the U.S. withdrawal?

I take it you did not bother to watch the lecture by Dr. Wiest on ARVN that I linked in my previous reply. Instead, you doubled down on the liberal myth about ARVN's performance. The lie that ARVN was an incompetent, cowardly fighting force remains a key part of liberal mythology about the war, even though this falsehood has been demonstrably refuted by the North Vietnamese sources alone, not to mention by the research of numerous historians and Vietnam War scholars.

In an earlier reply, you claimed that ARVN was "no match" for the Viet Cong. Obviously, you are unaware of the fact that during Tet I, which was led mostly by Viet Cong forces, ARVN either defeated the Viet Cong or fought them to a standstill in most cases, much to the shock of the Hanoi regime.

How long did it take for Saigon to fall in 1975?  Like three months? 

This sentence deserves special attention, and severe ridicule. It took the NVA two years of bitter, costly fighting before they were able to get in position to take Saigon, and for half of that time ARVN was fighting with a fraction of the American aid that had been promised to them. 

Your argument is as ridiculous as saying, "Gee, the German army must have been pathetic and weak, because, shucks, how long did it take Berlin to fall to the Soviets? Like three weeks?" No credible person would make this ludicrous argument because they would know that it took the Soviets four years of horrific fighting to put themselves in position to take Berlin.

The only thing holding South Vietnam together was the US military:  all 3 branches.  And this was what Kennedy said should have never happened.  Because once American combat troops were entered, it would become a white man's war, one that we could not win. Because it would unite the populace against America. 

More far-left drivel. All you ever do is repeat far-left myths about the war because most of the little reading you have done has been among far-left sources. 

If you can ever muster up the objectivity to read studies on the North Vietnamese sources, or the North Vietnamese sources themselves, you will learn that after the Tet Offensive, the vast majority of South Vietnamese strongly supported the American presence and the effort to keep South Vietnam independent, because Tet gave them a bitter and revealing preview of what Communist rule would be like.

And I notice that you never talk about the fact that the only thing that kept North Vietnam afloat was massive Soviet-Chinese military and financial aid. When you harp on South Vietnam's reliance on American aid, you never say a word about North Vietnam's even heavier reliance on Soviet and Chinese aid. 

From 1950-1953, South Korea depended far more heavily on American aid than South Vietnam ever did. Yet, only a few far-left wingnuts lament that America kept South Korea afloat and helped her defeat the North Korean-Chinese invasion. 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Calvin Ye]

50 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

I take it you are new to the subject of JFK and Vietnam. The White House tapes prove that JFK's hawkish public comments were not posturing. McNamara's memoir is a joke and was shredded by both liberal and conservative historians. 

Kennedy did have a withdrawal plan, but it was a phased and conditional plan, and under that plan we would have continued to provide military and financial aid to South Vietnam.

Repeat: Do some balanced research instead of only reading one side of the story before you talk about issues such as fraggings in South Vietnam. I notice you ignored my questions on the issue. Are you ever going to read research that challenges what you want to believe this subject?

You think it is "ridiculous" to argue that ARVN was usually an effective fighting force because your reading on the subject has been pitiful. You do not know what you are talking about. Do you recall in our previous exchanges in another thread that I provided quotes from North Vietnamese sources that proved that ARVN often fought well, even "ferociously," even after the U.S. withdrawal?

I take it you did not bother to watch the lecture by Dr. Wiest on ARVN that I linked in my previous reply. Instead, you doubled down on the liberal myth about ARVN's performance. The lie that ARVN was an incompetent, cowardly fighting force remains a key part of liberal mythology about the war, even though this falsehood has been demonstrably refuted by the North Vietnamese sources alone, not to mention by the research of numerous historians and Vietnam War scholars.

In an earlier reply, you claimed that ARVN was "no match" for the Viet Cong. Obviously, you are unaware of the fact that during Tet I, which was led mostly by Viet Cong forces, ARVN either defeated the Viet Cong or fought them to a standstill in most cases, much to the shock of the Hanoi regime.

How long did it take for Saigon to fall in 1975?  Like three months? 

This sentence deserves special attention, and severe ridicule. It took the NVA two years of bitter, costly fighting before they were able to get in position to take Saigon, and for half of that time ARVN was fighting with a fraction of the American aid that had been promised to them. 

Your argument is as ridiculous as saying, "Gee, the German army must have been pathetic and weak, because, shucks, how long did it take Berlin to fall to the Soviets? Like three weeks?" No credible person would make this ludicrous argument because they would know that it took the Soviets four years of horrific fighting to put themselves in position to take Berlin.

The only thing holding South Vietnam together was the US military:  all 3 branches.  And this was what Kennedy said should have never happened.  Because once American combat troops were entered, it would become a white man's war, one that we could not win. Because it would unite the populace against America. 

More far-left drivel. All you ever do is repeat far-left myths about the war because most of the little reading you have done has been among far-left sources. 

If you can ever muster up the objectivity to read studies on the North Vietnamese sources, or the North Vietnamese sources themselves, you will learn that after the Tet Offensive, the vast majority of South Vietnamese strongly supported the American presence and the effort to keep South Vietnam independent, because Tet gave them a bitter and revealing preview of what Communist rule would be like.

And I notice that you never talk about the fact that the only thing that kept North Vietnam afloat was massive Soviet-Chinese military and financial aid. When you harp on South Vietnam's reliance on American aid, you never say a word about North Vietnam's even heavier reliance on Soviet and Chinese aid. 

From 1950-1953, South Korea depended far more heavily on American aid than South Vietnam ever did. Yet, only a few far-left wingnuts lament that America kept South Korea afloat and helped her defeat the North Korean-Chinese invasion. 

I am not new to the subject JFK and Vietnam. It is obviously that you didn't read my older posts on this subject

[Michael Griffith]

1 hour ago, Calvin Ye said:

I am not new to the subject JFK and Vietnam. It is obviously that you didn't read my older posts on this subject

I read several of your replies. You cited the record of the 5/6/63 SECDEF conference as evidence that I was wrong in my reply regarding Dr. Moyar's books on the Vietnam War, but that conference has nothing to do with the material presented in Moyar's books. You apparently have not read any of Moyar's books on the war, especially his two most recent ones. 

In another one of your replies, you told me that the withdrawal plan was real, as if I had denied the withdrawal plan. But I have never disputed the fact that JFK had a withdrawal plan. What I have disputed is the inaccurate liberal claim that the withdrawal was going to be an unconditional and complete disengagement from South Vietnam. The JFK White House tapes and a wealth of other evidence soundly refute this claim. 

In another reply, you said I rely too much on the "official narrative." The "official narrative"? What is that? There is no "official narrative" about the Vietnam War. One can find a wide range of views on the war in government publications on the subject. The closest thing to an "official narrative" is the false narrative that the news media, Hollywood, most liberal politicians, and the majority of historians have been pushing since the 1960s. My view, although shared by most Vietnam veterans, and although supported by numerous scholars and historians, official military reports, and newly released/available North Vietnamese sources, is still the minority view in the academic community.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Calvin Ye]

17 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

I read several of your replies. You cited the record of the 5/6/63 SECDEF conference as evidence that I was wrong in my reply regarding Dr. Moyar's books on the Vietnam War, but that conference has nothing to do with the material presented in Moyar's books. You apparently have not read any of Moyar's books on the war, especially his two most recent ones. 

In another one of your replies, you told me that the withdrawal plan was real, as if I had denied the withdrawal plan. But I have never disputed the fact that JFK had a withdrawal plan. What I have disputed is the inaccurate liberal claim that the withdrawal was going to be an unconditional and complete disengagement from South Vietnam. The JFK White House tapes and a wealth of other evidence soundly refute this claim. 

In another reply, you said I rely too much on the "official narrative." The "official narrative"? What is that? There is no "official narrative" about the Vietnam War. One can find a wide range of views on the war in government publications on the subject. The closest thing to an "official narrative" is the false narrative that the news media, Hollywood, most liberal politicians, and the majority of historians have been pushing since the 1960s. My view, although shared by most Vietnam veterans, and although supported by numerous scholars and historians, official military reports, and newly released/available North Vietnamese sources, is still the minority view in the academic community.

You read only books on Kennedy's stance on Vietnam but didn't read enough on that other aspect of Vietnam

Edited July 10, 2023 by Calvin Ye