Top 5 Books On JFK & Vietnam

[Michael Griffith]

Regarding the unlikelihood of Chinese entrance into the war and ARVN’s effectiveness, lately I have been reading the second edition of Stanley Karnow’s famous book Vietnam: A History (1997), which contains some useful information on these issues. PBS used the first edition of the book as the basis for its 1983 documentary Vietnam: A Television History.

In the second edition of his book, Karnow announced that he had changed his mind on some issues based on new information, so there are some notable differences between the first edition (1984) and the second edition (1997). In the 13 years between the first and second editions, Karnow conducted numerous additional interviews with former North Vietnamese Communists, former Viet Cong members, and American officials and military personnel. Also, in the second edition, he sparingly used some of the newly available North Vietnamese sources.

Lo and behold, we see that Karnow supported the conservative argument that China had no intention of entering the war. China was willing to give military and economic aid, and even to provide some support troops to help with logistics, but Mao Tse Tung (aka Mao Zedong) had no intention of entering the war. In describing the situation as of 1963, Karnow said the following:

          But the Chinese camp was uncomfortable for the Vietnamese Communists. . . . Fresh in their mind as well was China’s betrayal at the Geneva conference in 1954. Now they resented the pressures being put on them by Chairman Mao Zedong to wage war in Vietnam according to his formula. He urged them to conduct a protracted conflict. . . .

          Mao’s advice concealed an ulterior purpose. He had not forgotten the Korean War, in which a million Chinese had died, among them his own son, and he was eager to avert a major conflict in Southeast Asia that might again pit China against overwhelming U.S. technology.

          He was then also contemplating a showdown against adversaries with his own Chinese Communist party, and he intended to use the Chinese army as his instrument for that enterprise rather than in an external venture. . . .

          The Vietnamese Communists were never blind to Mao’s duplicity. Out of necessity, though, their propaganda during the early 1960s proclaimed their bonds with China to be “as close as lips and teeth.” It was not until much later, after the war, that they uncorked their real feelings—with a vengeance. As we chatted in Hanoi in 1981, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Van Dong delivered a tirade against Mao, saying: ‘He was already read to fight to the last Vietnamese.” (pp. 394-395)

And Karnow noted that Mao’s position had not changed as of 1965:

          Mao was then preparing to launch the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, his devastating purge of the Chinese Communist party, and he needed his army to help him carry out the political campaign at home. Also, a big war in Southeast Asia would compound the threat to Chinese national security at a tie when the Soviet Union was building up its forces along China’s northern borders. He wanted to avoid a conflict like the one in Korea, in which China had sustained horrendous casualties. (p. 467)

Yet, American liberals constantly argued that making full use of our air power and attacking the sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos would cause China to enter the war. Military and CIA analysts, noting China’s internal situation, argued that Mao would not intervene, but LBJ believed the liberals. He frequently cited his fear of Chinese intervention as his excuse for rejecting the Joint Chiefs’ and Westmoreland’s repeated requests that we hit the sanctuaries and make full use of our air power in North Vietnam.

As I have noted before, when Nixon finally approved massive bombing of North Vietnam and mining Haiphong Harbor in 1972, China did not enter the war, even though we bombed facilities right next to the Chinese border and even destroyed some Chinese ships.

In short, conservative scholars such as Mark Moyar are right on this key point and liberals are still wrong on it. Walt Rostow and many others were right to propose a large-scale ground movement into North Vietnam from 1964 onward. Mao bluntly stated for the record in 1964 that China would not enter the war unless Chinese territory were attacked. And the Soviets certainly were not going to enter any war in Southeast Asia.

Regarding the effectiveness of South Vietnam’s army (ARVN, pronounced ar-vin), Karnow noted that one reason the Hanoi regime refused to withdraw their troops from South Vietnam in 1969 was that the Viet Cong were “no match for the Saigon government army.” In speaking of North Vietnam’s reaction to a Nixon peace proposal in mid-1969, Karnow said,

          The response from the North Vietnamese was predictably negative, as it would be again and again on the same point. They were not going to redeploy their troops to the north, since the Viet Cong alone were no match for the Saigon government army. (p. 610)

Huh, so as of 1969, the Viet Cong were “no match” for ARVN. That is not what we hear from nearly all liberal scholars to this very day. It is certainly not what we heard from the anti-war movement, from Hanoi Jane, from John Kerry, and the rest of that ilk, who constantly portrayed South Vietnamese soldiers as being cowardly, unwilling to fight, incompetent, etc., etc.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

An excellent documentary on the Vietnam War is Ride the Thunder: A Vietnam War Story of Triumph and Honor, the 2015 film based on Richard Botkin's 688-page book by the same title.

The documentary is actually about 60% movie and 40% documentary. The movie is the true story of American military legend John Ripley and South Vietnamese war hero Le Ba Binh. In between every scene or two, there are interview segments with military experts and video clips that were televised during the war. One of the clips shows Jane Fonda assuring America that our POWs were not being tortured and that the North Vietnamese were treating our prisoners exceptionally well. Another clip shows John Kerry being confronted by a fellow veteran who served in the same area where Kerry served and challenging Kerry to name officers who committed atrocities and to state when and where the atrocities occurred. Another clip shows a liberal college professor insisting that the South Vietnamese had nothing to fear from a Communist takeover. Here is a link to the documentary:

https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Thunder-Vietnam-Victory-Betrayal/dp/B077K8KGWB

Botkin's book Ride the Thunder was published in 2009 and received great reviews from numerous Vietnam veterans and Vietnam War scholars. Here are a few examples:

General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC (Retired): “Richard Botkin has written a brilliant account of the bravery and skill of a small group of American Marine advisors and the courageous Vietnamese Marines who fought to the end.  For those of us who served as advisors to these Marines, it is a moving, personal story magnificently told.  It is a must-read for all who want to understand the true nature of the Vietnam War.”

General Carl E Mundy, Jr., USMC (Retired), 30th Commandant of the Marine Corps: “Richard Botkin places the reader in the middle of the war through the experiences of several U.S. Marine officers who served as advisors to the Vietnamese Marines—a Corps that, like our own, was one of the elite units of the Vietnamese armed forces.  The resulting story gives the reader a personal view of the men from both Corps who fought so nobly together, and a glimpse of true heroism, sacrifice, and overcoming challenges few are familiar with.”

Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, US Navy (Retired): “Ride the Thunder by Richard Botkin is a great contribution toward correcting the myths that still prevail about the Vietnam War.  This is a powerful book, one that every veteran and patriotic American should read.”

As for Botkin himself, he is a former Marine Corps officer. He made nine trips to Cambodia between 1998 and 2007 and four trips to Vietnam, including one with his main Vietnamese character, Le Ba Binh, to do research for Ride the Thunder.

https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Thunder-Vietnam-Story-Triumph/dp/193507105X

Edited August 7, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Hallin's book is the best I know on this subject.

In fact its one of the best on the media overall.

HIs whole theory about Hallin's Circles, and how it defines and creates the conventional wisdom, is so interesting.

[Michael Griffith]

For those who would rather watch a video than read a book or long article, here is a good video that makes extensive use of North Vietnamese sources and that deals with the last three years of the Vietnam War, Congress's betrayal of South Vietnam, and ARVN's performance. It is a presentation by Dr. George Jay Veith given to the Marines' Memorial Association in 2013:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuxksqqoz8E&t=972s

Dr. Veith discusses some of the information contained in his 2013 book Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-1975, as well as information from Communist sources that became available after the book was published. Veith interviewed nearly 50 former South Vietnamese military members and arranged for Merle Pribbenow to help translate newly available North Vietnamese sources. 

Dr. Veith is a former Army officer who earned his doctorate in history from Monash University in Australia. He is the author of four books on the Vietnam War. He is also the executive director of the National League of POW/MIA Families.

Dr. Veith is the scholar who, just last year, exploded the old liberal myth that during the 1968 presidential campaign Richard Nixon used Claire Chennault to persuade South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu not to attend the Paris peace talks. Veith, using newly available sources and interviews, has proved (1) that Nixon did no such thing, (2) that South Vietnam's Ambassador Bui Diem did not serve as an intermediary for Chennault, (3) that Chennault used the South Vietnamese charge d'affaires in Taiwan as her intermediary, and (4) that Chennault acted at the behest of Taiwan's President Chiang Kai-Shek, not Nixon. It should be added that Thieu hardly needed any convincing that it would not be in South Vietnam's best interests to attend the Paris talks at that time. Here is Dr. Veith's article on the subject:

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/anna-chennault-affair-south-vietnamese-side-wars-greatest-conspiracy-theory

And, for those who might be interested, here is Dr. Veith's review of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's 2017 documentary The Vietnam War:

https://lawliberty.org/burns-and-novick-on-vietnam-a-neutral-film-or-a-rifle-butt-to-the-heart/

Edited August 9, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gene Kelly]

Michael

I found Dr. Veith's article interesting ... as a physicist, I liked his opening statement:

When it comes to the Vietnam War, we face almost the same situation that we do with physics: there’s really no “grand unified theory” among either scholars or the public. The staggering complexity of that conflict resists any conclusive definition of what, precisely, it was about.

Veith was too young to have fought in the Vietnam War and has never been to the Southeast Asian country; his book "Black April" was sponsored/supported by Henry Kissinger and impressively based on interviews with 50 former South Vietnamese military. His work with the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia is commendable ... amazing that there are still 1,579 Americans listed as missing and unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War.  I also agree with his view that "the war was never black and white, but shades of grey reflecting multiple variations of truth.”  His list of myths and falsehoods that exist in the public understanding of the Vietnam War is also revealing, although I'm not sure that I would agree with his reasoning in all cases:

1. Myth 1: The US had no reason to be involved in Viet Nam
2. Myth 2: The Vietnam war was illegal and immoral
3. Myth 3: Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist and a benevolent leader 
4. Myth 4: The South Vietnamese government denied the people a free election on unification 
5. Myth 5: The Viet Cong were an idealistic nationalist group, just like the American Minutemen
6. Myth 6: The rationale for US intervention in Viet Nam was based on a fraud
7. Myth 7: The US military routinely used inhumane tactics on the people, while the VC were benefactors
8. Myth 8: The great majority of villagers were VC sympathizers, so no counterinsurgency programs ever succeeded
9. Myth 9: The Tet Offensive was a devastating blow to the US and SVN forces and a victory for the communists
10. Myth 10: Media coverage of the war was balanced and accurate and contributed to appropriate US policies

Gene

[Gene Kelly]

On 8/7/2023 at 11:27 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Hallin's book is the best I know on this subject.

In fact its one of the best on the media overall.

HIs whole theory about Hallin's Circles, and how it defines and creates the conventional wisdom, is so interesting.

Jim

Hallin's book is indeed a good read.  He writes the following about Elegant's widely accepted accusation:

All wars produce legends, and the war in Vietnam was no exception. Perhaps the most enduring legend about Vietnam is that the way the war was reported cost the United States a victory. Robert Elegant, a long-serving Asia expert and a former Vietnam correspondent himself, puts this view succinctly: “For the first time in modern history, the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield but on the printed page and, above all, on the television screen . . . never before Vietnam had the collective policy --no less stringent a term will serve--sought, by graphic and unremitting distortion, the victory of the enemies of the correspondents’ own side.”

Having lived through this period (I am now 73 years old), I witnessed the press coverage first-hand.  And it wasn't just television coverage (or Walter Cronkite) ... it was newspaper articles and editorials, "specials" about the war, attending public rallies (pro/con), and most importantly, hearing first-hand from friends and acquaintances about their personal experiences.  Speaking for myself (and others), I didn't form opinions simply based on watching television or reading the paper ... frankly, the term "public opinion" is an abstract simplification (measured in part by polls).  The books would come later, but in those days (1964-1974) we were not yet mistrustful of the President or our government (although that would change dramatically with Richard Nixon). And I didn't read Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest" until years after the war had ceased ...  I found the following excerpt from Hallin's book about the media coverage of the war to ring true:  

Far from undermining the Administration, it allowed state secrets of enormous political sensitivity to be contained. It helped the official perspective of the war to dominate the headlines. It propagated official lies. It never questioned American objectives. It kept the American public ignorant of the political tactics, history and programs of the North Vietnamese and the NLF (the Viet Cong). And worse--as in all wars--it helped its government to dehumanize the enemy, banish him from human society, paint him as fanatical, suicidal, half-crazed vermin.

Regarding the controversial Tet Offensive, Hallin's conclusion was that the reporting of Tet actually rallied Americans behind the war effort, writing:

When, for complex social and political reasons, public opinion turned against the war, the media began to reflect it. In short, the media did not lead the swing; they followed it. The classic example is the Tet Offensive in January 1968 when thousands of NLF and PAVN troops attacked U.S. and RVN installations throughout South Vietnam. As news of the Tet Offensive was released, more and more media outlets and journalists began questioning official sources and obtaining information themselves.

Here is a link to a well written 2021 review of Hallin's book by Thomas Richardson in History Here and Now where he points out how journalists and news anchors walk a fine line between reporting events and the interpretation as such:

https://historyhereandnowhhn.com/2021/12/17/reporting-from-vietnam-a-review-of-the-uncensored-war-the-media-and-vietnam-by-daniel-hallin/

Gene

[Michael Griffith]

20 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Michael

I found Dr. Veith's article interesting ... as a physicist, I liked his opening statement:

When it comes to the Vietnam War, we face almost the same situation that we do with physics: there’s really no “grand unified theory” among either scholars or the public. The staggering complexity of that conflict resists any conclusive definition of what, precisely, it was about.

Veith was too young to have fought in the Vietnam War and has never been to the Southeast Asian country; his book "Black April" was sponsored/supported by Henry Kissinger and impressively based on interviews with 50 former South Vietnamese military. His work with the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia is commendable ... amazing that there are still 1,579 Americans listed as missing and unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War.  I also agree with his view that "the war was never black and white, but shades of grey reflecting multiple variations of truth.”  His list of myths and falsehoods that exist in the public understanding of the Vietnam War is also revealing, although I'm not sure that I would agree with his reasoning in all cases:

1. Myth 1: The US had no reason to be involved in Viet Nam
2. Myth 2: The Vietnam war was illegal and immoral
3. Myth 3: Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist and a benevolent leader 
4. Myth 4: The South Vietnamese government denied the people a free election on unification 
5. Myth 5: The Viet Cong were an idealistic nationalist group, just like the American Minutemen
6. Myth 6: The rationale for US intervention in Viet Nam was based on a fraud
7. Myth 7: The US military routinely used inhumane tactics on the people, while the VC were benefactors
8. Myth 8: The great majority of villagers were VC sympathizers, so no counterinsurgency programs ever succeeded
9. Myth 9: The Tet Offensive was a devastating blow to the US and SVN forces and a victory for the communists
10. Myth 10: Media coverage of the war was balanced and accurate and contributed to appropriate US policies

Gene

I did not say that Veith served in Vietnam or that he has spent time in Southeast Asia. He is, however, one of the most thorough Vietnam War scholars around. BTW, Dr. Christopher Goscha, a noted Canadian scholar on Southeast Asia and author of the recent widely acclaimed book The Road to Dien Bien Phu, praised Veith's research in Vietnamese sources in a recent Wilson Center roundtable discussion involving Veith, Goscha, and McHale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u5XnGSjqFk (1:17:30)

As for Kissinger's role, Veith sent Kissinger a copy of the final manuscript of Black April. Kissinger was so impressed with it that he arranged to meet Veith in person and then arranged for Encounter Books to publish the book. 

Veith's list of Vietnam War myths is similar to the list I have on my Vietnam War website. Regarding his myth #9, even most liberal scholars, including Edwin Moise, have long admitted that Tet was a military disaster for the Communists, although you still find some liberal amateurs repeating the myth in online discussions. 

Finally, anyone who denies that news media coverage of the war was misleading needs to deal with the examples that Braestrup cites in his book on the subject, as well as with the examples cited by other scholars, such as those cited by Charles Wiley and Dolf Drodge in their presentation "The Culpability of the Media" (LINK).

Edited August 10, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

Two recent sources that I have not yet mentioned on the Vietnam War are a documentary and a book about South Vietnam's first president, Ngo Dinh Diem, and the first three years of the war. 

Last year, Ignatius Press released an excellent documentary on Diem titled Liberator of Asia: The True Story of Ngo Dinh Diem. This is the first English-language documentary that defends Diem. The documentary also provides important information about the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1963. Links:

https://watch.formed.org/videos/liberator-of-asia-the-true-story-of-ngo-dinh-diem (streaming)

https://www.amazon.com/LIBERATOR-ASIA-STORY-SOUTH-VIETNAM/dp/1621645975 (DVD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGfMiLC6hRU (trailer)

The Catholic streaming website Formed, which carries the documentary, says the following about it:

          There is arguably no political assassination in history as consequential as the ill-fated November 1, 1963, CIA-backed coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam. His tragic murder led to a series of failures that ushered in the Vietnam War, and contributed to the major societal upheavals of the 1960s. Cast as a despot and autocrat in order to justify the actions of misguided policymakers, Diem receives a stunning new appraisal in this provocative and expertly crafted new film.

          Liberator of Asia: The True Story of Ngo Dinh Diem masterfully weaves together interviews with leading contemporaries and relatives of Diem, military historians, Vietnamese leaders, rare archival footage, and groundbreaking new evidence to present an altogether different portrait of Diem. He possessed the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven," a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by all Vietnamese. Diem was a figure of rare political courage and integrity, and unwavering Catholic faith, a patriot who strove to defend his country from Communism while fighting off Western attempts to undermine his governing authority.

The recent book that I recommend is Vietnamese scholar Dr. Duy Lap Nguyen's The Unimagined Community: Imperialism and Culture in South Vietnam, published in 2020. Dr. Nguyen is an associate professor of world cultures and literature at the University of Houston and specializes in Vietnamese studies. 

Dr. Keith Taylor, a renowned Asia scholar and a professor of history at Cornell University, praises the book in his lengthy review of it. Here is a small portion of his review:

          The military officers who murdered South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm in 1963 and the Americans who urged them on subsequently propagated a view of this man that has become a cliché in virtually every book written about the Vietnam War: he was a tyrant with obscure and self-absorbed ideas whose autocratic and repressive policies provoked an insurgency against his own government—he was the architect of his own demise. This idea served the purposes of nearly everyone: the rulers of North Vietnam, the Americans, and the South Vietnamese who justified their rule by having overthrown him. 

          During the past twenty years, scholars have published studies that portray Ngô Đình Diệm in a somewhat less dismal light. But the thoughts and aims of both the man and his domestic critics have remained elusive—until now. In The Unimagined Community: Imperialism and Culture in South Vietnam, Duy Lap Nguyen has dissolved the entrenched stereotype of Ngô Đình Diệm and developed an analysis of his thought, aims, policies, and opponents that is fresh and convincing, meanwhile subverting prevailing interpretations of modern Vietnamese history. He also develops a fresh analysis of American and South Vietnamese relations in the post-Diệm era.

          This book will be disdained by those committed to the caricature of Ngô Đình Diệm that was retailed by the military officers who overthrew him and that remains in fashion among people who write about the Vietnam War. This book’s arguments, while grounded in historical evidence, are informed by philosophy and cultural criticism, which may deter some historians. Nevertheless, the importance of the book is bound to be increasingly understood as the encrusted stereotypes of the war gradually fade. (https://networks.h-net.org/node/22055/reviews/6291358/taylor-nguyen-unimagined-community-imperialism-and-culture-south)

A bit more info on Dr. Taylor: He is the author of the Cambridge University textbook A History of the Vietnamese (Cambridge University Press, 2013). He is also the author of the classic study The Birth of Vietnam (University of California Press, 1991). And, yes, Dr. Taylor is the same Keith Taylor who wrote a favorable review of Dr. Mark Moyar's book Triumph Forsaken in the collection of reviews titled Triumph Revisited: Historians Battle for the Vietnam War.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

If you are not familiar with Hallin's theory, its called Hallin's Spheres.

It goes something like this.

The conventional wisdom is created by government sources communicating with the major news outlets, e.g. Ny Times, NBC etc.

There is some debate allowed, e.g. over the invasion of Cambodia.

Then this creates the paradigm of the CW, which is pretty much iron clad.

Matters of key importance, no matter how crucial, no matter how truthful, are not allowed in the tent.  For instance, should America had ever been in Vietnam in the first place?  Or  why was DIem chosen and how was he kept in power?

These types of basic questions are kept off the board. Since they would undermine the whole CW.

Edited August 10, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

And BTW, I forgot something Hallin included:

In the sphere of exclusion it does not matter if what is excluded is true or not.

If the CW does not allow it, its out.

For example, many people knew Diem's elections were rigged and he had little grass roots support.  But yet the story was the USA was supporting democracy in South Vietnam.

This is why Donald Duncan was such a big story for Ramparts.

[James DiEugenio]

One of the greatest covers in post WW 2 American magazine history and only Warren Hinckle and Ramparts could have done it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_W._Duncan#/media/File:RampartsIQuit.jpg

Edited August 11, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Griffith]

13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

If you are not familiar with Hallin's theory, its called Hallin's Spheres.

It goes something like this.

The conventional wisdom is created by government sources communicating with the major news outlets, e.g. Ny Times, NBC etc.

There is some debate allowed, e.g. over the invasion of Cambodia.

Then this creates the paradigm of the CW, which is pretty much iron clad.

Matters of key importance, no matter how crucial, no matter how truthful, are not allowed in the tent.  For instance, should America had ever been in Vietnam in the first place?  Or  why was DIem chosen and how was he kept in power?

These types of basic questions are kept off the board. Since they would undermine the whole CW.

And BTW, I forgot something Hallin included:

In the sphere of exclusion it does not matter if what is excluded is true or not.

If the CW does not allow it, its out.

For example, many people knew Diem's elections were rigged and he had little grass roots support.  But yet the story was the USA was supporting democracy in South Vietnam.

This is why Donald Duncan was such a big story for Ramparts.

So are you just going to keep repeating liberal talking points, while ignoring facts that refute them and refusing to read the other side of the story? A few facts:

We were in fact supporting democracy in South Vietnam. It was a fledgling and imperfect democracy, but it was far more democratic than North Vietnam. As I have personally documented for you in previous replies, the South Vietnamese enjoyed far more freedom than the North Vietnamese. The Saigon government allowed far more freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of education, local control, and private property rights than did the Stalinist Hanoi regime.

It is very odd that you will never, ever, ever talk about the brutal, repressive nature of the Hanoi regime--the total lack of freedom of the press and lack of freedom of speech, the use of the military to crush civilian uprisings, the regime's killing of tens of thousands of North Vietnamese who made the mistake of expressing opposition to Communist rule, and especially the horrific reign of terror that the regime imposed on the South Vietnamese after the war, etc., etc.

Diem did in fact enjoy widespread grass roots support. He did not need to rig his election. Even if he had done nothing, he would have won by at least 15 percentage points. He was running against the French-selected puppet leader Bao Dai, who did not even live in South Vietnam. Yes, that's right: Bao Dai did not even live in the country--he lived in France. Bao Dai was not even interested in the job of governing; he preferred to let Diem do all the work while he, Bao Dai, indulged in his indolent lifestyle in France, which is one reason that Diem decided to challenge Bao Dai. 

The "invasion" of Cambodia??? The only invasion of Cambodia was done by the North Vietnamese. They invaded Cambodia in 1965 and took control of a large strip of eastern Cambodia in order to create sanctuaries where they kept huge supply depots and from which they launched literally hundreds of attacks on South Vietnam. The limited and temporary American incursion into eastern Cambodia in 1970 was an attempt to neutralize those sanctuaries. 

As for whether we should have been in Vietnam "in the first place," the answer is an obvious Yes. If we had not helped South Vietnam, the country would have fallen under Communist tyranny in just a few years, since North Vietnam was receiving massive economic and military aid from the Soviet Union and Red China. One of the points hammered home so convincingly in Dr. Christopher Goscha's recent book The Road to Dien Bien Phu is that the Viet Minh would have lost their war against the French without the massive aid they received from Red China.

Donald Duncan again? He was part of the Winter Soldier fraud. Every war has its Donald Duncans. Duncan represented a very small minority of Vietnam veterans, but you never mention this fact. Nor do you ever mention that repeated surveys, both government and private, showed that the overwhelming majority of Vietnam veterans were proud of their service and believed the war was honorable.

Check out the websites that are run by Vietnam vets--you will find that the vast majority of them defend the war. Read the books written by Vietnam vets--here, too, you will find that the vast majority of them defend the war.

Why don't you ever talk about the numerous genuine heroes of the Vietnam War, especially exceptional heroes such as John Ripley, Mike Novosel, John Levitow, Tim Lowry, Jamie Pacheco, William Pitsenbarger, and Rocky Versace?

Edited August 11, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Donald Duncan was a liberal?

Does not sound like one to me.  

Howard Jones was a liberal?

John Newman is a liberal?

The Vietnam Veterans Against the War was a very small minority?

The Winter Soldier event was a fraud?

I mean please Mike.  Blaming the messenger does not work especially when the facts are against you.

Who is next for you, Jane Fonda?

[Ron Bulman]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Donald Duncan was a liberal?

Does not sound like one to me.  

Howard Jones was a liberal?

John Newman is a liberal?

The Vietnam Veterans Against the War was a very small minority?

The Winter Soldier event was a fraud?

I mean please Mike.  Blaming the messenger does not work especially when the facts are against you.

Who is next for you, Jane Fonda?

Not to distract from the top 5 books on Vietnam. But your last bit about Jane Fonda made me laugh.  She turned out to be a real commie didn't she?  From Barbarella to Electric Horseman.  Thinking of the latter is what made me laugh.  Towards the end, Robert Redford leading the horse to his release trying to remember the lyrics to America The Beautiful and get Jane to sing along.  In a really beautiful spot, in America.  A little distanced from Hanoi Jane.

Edited August 12, 2023 by Ron Bulman

[James DiEugenio]

LOL, Nice one Ron.