Posted on 05/05/2018 8:52:15 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Jim Webb, the decorated Vietnam combat veteran, writer, and former US senator, wrote “Heroes of the Vietnam Generation,”which pairs well with an earlier essay, “Peace? Defeat? What Did the Vietnam War Protesters Want?,” published by the American Enterprise Institute, in 1997. Both are very useful, especially for those who didn’t live through the Vietnam era, for understanding some of that generation’s dynamics.
Webb discusses how it was really the first time in US history when a lot of people argued not going into the military was actually a good thing, and this sentiment has guided how a lot of people look at the Vietnam War. In order to justify not serving in the military at that time, many described the war as unjust, unnecessary, and unwinnable. While I can’t read Ken Burns’ mind, if you look at his documentary The Vietnam War, it certainly seems to support this mentality.
We know Burns opposed the war at the time and decided not to go to Vietnam. While producing the documentary, he insisted he would only call balls and strikes to make a neutral, objective production. Anyone familiar with the war should quickly see how Burns overwhelmingly sides with the view that the war was unjust, unnecessary, and unwinnable, and how he omits information that contradicts this interpretation. While there are some factual inaccuracies, the biggest problems with the documentary are with what he doesn’t include.
When Vietnam was divided into two in 1954, the Vietnamese Communists and French agreed the country would unify and hold an election in 1956. When the documentary says the South Vietnamese government did not go along with plan, it repeats the old insinuation that Saigon opposed the Vietnamese people’s will. However, Burns omits that most South Vietnamese—as well as the Americans—were convinced that Ho Chi Minh and his Communists would intimidate the Northern Vietnamese, whom they controlled, into voting unanimously for him. Since the North had a bigger population, such coercion would practically make the country Communist. So, the South did not go along.
Not incidentally, by the way, the Saigon government was not even party to the 1954 agreement. But Burns and his co-producer Lynn Novick heap scorn on the young government that took control of the South in 1954. They, as is the traditional anti-war narrative, insist it was a bankrupt government.
Burns later highlights the Battle of Ap Bac in January 1963, in which the South Vietnamese forces did not perform very well, and then he tries to portray that fight as representative of the South’s abilities under President Ngo Dinh Diem. But, in fact, the South Vietnamese government was victorious in almost every other battle in the year before and after Ap Bac.
The Vietnam War doesn’t talk very much about the strategic rationale for the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, which was the so-called domino theory. There’s little mention of the legitimate concern that if South Vietnam fell then other countries in the region would also fall to Communism. The series mentions it at the beginning, but then the whole issue fades from the scene. However, domino theory does play out during this time. The most critical country in Southeast Asia from the American perspective was not Vietnam. It was Indonesia, a huge, strategically located country with massive natural resources. It also happened to have an anti-Communist coup at the end of 1965, which I think was clearly the result of American intervention in Vietnam. But the Burns production mentions nothing about that.
These types of selective omissions continue as the series progresses. Burns and Novick focus on six battles in the episodes covering 1966-67, and in each they go out of their way to highlight errors that the Americans committed as well as American casualties. They produce the impression that this was simply how the war was in 1966-67. Well, as it happens, when the series aired I was working on chapters covering those years in my book on the war. There were actually hundreds of battles then, and if you wanted to cherry-pick the worst six for the Americans, you would have chosen the same half-dozen selected by Burns. In fact, most of the battles in that period were overwhelming victories for the United States.
The series also leaves out the declining support among the Vietnamese for the Communists. In fact, I think the population never really cared about Marxist-Leninist ideology per se. But the Communists sold them a sort of snake oil and told everybody, for instance, that they would get to keep their land when they wouldn’t. Regardless, as the war turned against the Communists by 1967, Communist recruitment of South Vietnamese declined sharply, and that pace of recruitment continued to fall and never really recovered. Ultimately, about 200,000 supposedly die-hard Communists defected to South Vietnam.
The documentary’s narrator also tells us that 250,000 South Vietnamese troops were killed during the war. But we never hear why so many people were in fact willing to die for a government that was as bad as the documentary suggests. Burns and Novick give lots of information about Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, but we don’t really hear anything about the ideas that compelled these South Vietnamese to fight to the death on behalf of their country. In fact, there was a strong, growing sense of nationalism within South Vietnam.
From the very beginning, The Vietnam War has a sense of impending doom. The music is lugubrious, giving the sense that the outcome is foreordained and nothing could be done about it. This again reinforces the idea that the war was always unwinnable, a total lost cause. However, more and more evidence suggests that the war could have been won. American strategic choices, in some respects, account for our inability to take advantage of those opportunities.
One of those choices concerned America deploying ground forces. The US limited troops to South Vietnam, despite a lot of pressure from the military to go into Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. We’ve now heard from the North Vietnamese that General Giáp, one of the People’s Army’s primary leaders, believed that if the Americans had expanded the boundaries of the war, the US could have thwarted him with about 250,000 troops, which is less than half of what we ultimately deployed in the South. We also now know the Chinese were not interested in getting involved. Concern that they would, as they did in Korea, was one of the main arguments for why the US didn’t enter the North. In fact, we know from the Chinese side that the they wanted nothing to do with the war or any other conflict with the United States.
The Kennedy administration’s support for a coup in November 1963 against the Diem government was another catastrophic choice made by the United States. A lot of evidence from the Communist side now suggests this coup sabotaged what in fact had been an effective war effort in the South.
Congress’ decision to slash aid and prohibit American military actions in South Vietnam after the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 was another ill-fated choice. The Easter Offensive of 1972 had shown that the South Vietnamese Army could fend off the North Vietnamese if they had American aid and air support. We took that away.
Burns and Novick make a very conscious effort to say they would not malign Vietnam veterans, as so much of the previous anti-war history had done. To some extent they avoid overt disrespect, but I think they still do a disservice to veterans. The Vietnam War interviews a huge number of anti-war veterans. Also, the Gold Star Mother interviewed happens to be one of the few who opposed the war. Likewise, the prisoner of war whom the documentary focused upon happens to be married to one of the only anti-war POW wives. Clearly, this is a selective effort trying to convince viewers that there was much more anti-war sentiment amongst the military and their families than actually existed. Burns presents very little about American soldiers’ camaraderie and pride. I think this is very much a deliberate attempt to undermine veterans’ experiences. The only times the documentary shows this sort of pride or enthusiasm is when it shows the North Vietnamese, who probably had less to be enthusiastic about since they lost so many times. We don’t hear anything about the 259 Americans who received the Medal of Honor, or the tens of thousands who earned other awards, or the countless others who displayed extraordinary valor but did not receive an award for it. Instead, the series leads viewers to believe that Vietnam veterans were victims of the war, that there was not much redeeming about them, and hence, again, that maybe going to Vietnam wasn’t the right thing to do.
The reason I started studying the Vietnam War 25 years ago was due to my belief that the anti-war left unfairly besmirched America’s Vietnam veterans. Although Burns and Novick don’t besmirch veterans as flagrantly, their misrepresentation of the war and its warriors has reopened old wounds. It’s not just Vietnam veterans’ reputations at stake; how we view this war shapes how we view ourselves as Americans. Burns and his interviewees go out of their way to claim that the Vietnam War debunked the notion of American exceptionalism. They seem to want us to believe that the US, the world’s first modern democracy and principal guardian of the world order since 1945, is on a moral par with North Vietnam, a dictatorship that waged several brutal wars in the name of Marxism-Leninism and slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians before deciding that Marxism-Leninism wasn’t such a good idea.
This aversion to American exceptionalism and patriotism has pervaded too much of our society since the Vietnam War. For those of us who think the US is a force for good in the world, that our country is so good that we’d risk our lives for it, the accurate retelling of the Vietnam War is imperative. That’s why I think it’s important to let the country know just how fallacious the Burns series is.
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Mark Moyar (PhD, Cambridge) is the Director of the Project on Military and Diplomatic History at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. The author of six books and dozens of articles, he has worked in and out of government on national security affairs, international development, foreign aid, and capacity building. His newest book is Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces (2017). His other books include Aid for Elites: Building Partners and Ending Poverty with Human Capital (2016), Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 (2006), and Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam (1997, revised 2007).
Great advice, and I set out to find out about the Pentagon Papers, which I should have done long ago.
Turned off by the prospect of watching long panel discussions by lefty reporters patting themselves on the back, I found this brief explanation of the Pentagon Papers by a young female named Jennani Jayaram. I think you will like it:
The Pentagon Papers: The Shocking Truth of the Lies, by Jennani Jayaram.
The Civil War doc was sorta ok, a bit maudlin with the mournful fiddle every 5 minutes. I give him credit on the baseball one for highlighting the black leagues as much as he did - a bit overdue attention for them, IMHO.
The WWII one was where he lost me - kept showing Allied failures, vets crying over having to kill people, etc. A little of that would have been ok, but it seemed relentless.
My view on the Pentagon Papers is that, since their chronicle stopped before Nixon’s election, he should’ve just blown them off as a black mark on the Democrats.
I believe that was Nixon’s original take on it. But he got whipped up into a snit about their release (by Kissinger I think), and that started the whole Plumbers vs. Daniel Ellsburg business.
Ted Kennedy was the man responsible for seeing that no further aid was sent to South Vietnam, after US withdrawal. He actually stated a Senate committee hearing that nothing bad would happen after the North re United the county!!!! I guess Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge weren’t on the radar.
Then Col. Singlaub was Chief MACVSOG in 68 when I volunteered.
He was the best I recall in that position. Ellsberg never saw
combat in Vietnam during his USMC time in a platoon and company. These writers are mostly idiots. I recall one of ours became a journalist. He told the Congress about the secret bombings in Cambodia. Yes, he spoke in detail that bombing COSVN was like poking a hole in a hornet’s nest. TS INFO is TS until DECLASSIFIED.
Ellsberg was in Vietnam for a couple of years as a civilian adviser working for Ed Lansdale around 1965-66 and did go out into the countryside, and I believe had some close calls.
In his mind.
Exactly. We let them down. And that Domino thing wasn’t just a theory. Look at Laos and Cambodia after we left, and what a horror THAT was. Thanks to angry hippies and a spineless democrat congress and a nation wanting to bury its head in the sand from the war, Watergate and Nixon.
“From the very beginning, The Vietnam War has a sense of impending doom.”
I watched a documentary filmed right after the battle of Ia Drang Valley - in which we lost a lot of men, but were victorious. Our first main battle in the war.
At the end, some famous young broadcaster (Rather? Brokaw? Cronkite was the guy back in the studio that introduced it.) Anyway - the reporter is speaking as the flag draped caskets are loaded onto the plane.
“So while this may have been a victory, it remains to be seen how long the mothers and fathers and the American public will hold out support as this is only the beginning of the number of their sons returning home in a casket.” (Or something to that effect). The leftist media knew right from the beginning how they were going to report on the war. I bet even then they had figured “Hey - as soon as the number of dead reach 1,000 - we’ll start putting the total deaths up in the corner of each news broadcast!”
I was just 13 when we left Vietnam - but I remember those numbers. I think it might have been left on for the entire news cast - but maybe not.
“I believe that was Nixon’s original take on it [to blame it on the democrats]. But he got whipped up into a snit about their release (by Kissinger I think), and that started the whole Plumbers vs. Daniel Ellsburg business.”
I would be interested if you have anything more about that by Kissinger. I could see that. I always thought that Nixon was thinking about the greater good of the country. Of course I may be naive too! But I don’t think so.
He did not want the Pentagon Papers released as it showed poorly on our leadership, military and our country.
In the Watergate tapes he talks about not being worried about the third-rate break-in. But then says something like “it could bring up the whole Cuban thing.” Then a few minutes later is the 7.5 minute gap.
I always thought that Cuban thing was in reference to Kennedy’s failed Bay of Pigs operation. Two(?) of the plumbers were Cubans involved in that. [I think later on it was Halderman that wrote that was his impression as well]. (So the Pentagon Papers protected Johnson, Watergate protected Kennedy - but they both were an effort to protect America.
And Nixon also wanted to fight his impeachment, but then realized it would be best for America to resign instead.
Maybe I need to put away my rose-colored glasses! But in the few books that I’ve read by Nixon after he was president, they all seem to talk about America as a whole - and not a bunch of political party type angles to things.
Of course the tapes show that Nixon was very much a political animal as well.
Don’t forget the Buddhist they were very fired up over the war
Not at all! Nixon was dealt a hard hand upon entering office in 1969, and he handled it well IMO.
Re Kissinger inciting Nixon on the Pentagon Papers -- A.J. Langguth, former Saigon bureau chief for the NY Times, discusses it in his book "Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975." pp 587 onward:
"Kissinger knew that Nixon considered his young aides avid leakers of questionable loyalty. ... [Kissinger] must prove his fealty by becoming even more implacable than his president. At the 7:30 a.m. staff meeting on Monday [following Sunday NY Times first publication of excerpts from the Pentagon Papers], Haldeman, Ehrlichmann and the others watched a volcanic performance as Kissinger shouted, waved his arms, pounded his fist and cried for vengeance.
"'No foreign country will ever trust us again,' he declaimed. 'We might just as well turn it all over to the Soviets and get it over with.'
"Kissinger took his fury to the Oval Office and prodded Nixon by pushing a reliable button. If he did nothing, Kissinger warned him, 'it shows that you're weak, Mr. President.' ... By the time the rant had ended, Nixon was boiling."
I like Langguth's book.
Walter Cronkite even reported the Tet offensive as a great North Vietnamese victory.
Bunch of poopyheads.
The anti-war movement was really an anti-draft movement. Most potential draftees didn’t think Vietnam was worth dying over. Once the draft disappeared so did the anti-war movement. That’s why some on the left occasionally suggest reinstating the draft. It was a great recruiting tool for them.
“’No foreign country will ever trust us again,’ he declaimed.
And Kissinger was right to an extent. When the south was finally overrun due to our lack of support - a lasting image on how the world viewed America was a helicopter on a roof with a long line of people waiting to get on and flee.
Terrific article by Mark Moyar.
There is a great big flaw in your thinking. You can't whistle past the graveyard and expect nothing can happen. Communism had to be stopped in any way possible including force of arms. Christianity is stronger than Islam, yet 1.57 billion people are Muslims, all prosthelytized by the sword.
In the Sixties and Seventies Global Communism was taking over country-after-country and Nikita Khrushchev told the West that "we will bury you! It was happening as they claimed until President Reagan gained his office with the understanding that he could bankrupt its benefactor, the Soviet Union.
With the fall of South Viet Nam, the Pathet Lao took over Laos, The the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. Myanmar (Burma) became the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma with Soviet-style nationalisation and central planning. A Communist insurrection was ongoing in Thailand and the Philippines.
Several sub-Saharan African states formally embraced communism, including Burkina Faso (Upper Volta), the People's Republic of Benin (French West Africa), the People's Republic of Mozambique, the People's Republic of the Congo, the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the People's Republic of Angola.
In Central America , the Sandinista's (FSLN) overthrew the government in Nicaragua. El Salvador was fighting the "Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front" (FMLN). The Marxist URNG was fighting the Guatemalan government.
In South America The Shining Path was active in Peru. There was a Marxist–Leninist coup in Grenada.
In 1979 the Soviets Invaded Afghanistan.
Nations were actually falling like dominoes and it wasn't a stretch to understand Communism would reach critical mass within only a few years. It mattered not that their communist system is weak if the USA had become the last bastion of freedom struggling against the communist slave labor of the whole world.
| History of communist states |
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Dinesh D'Souza in [D'Souza, 1999] sums up the 1980s revolution.Now, with Islam we are facing the same sort of domino threat if we don't stand up and stop it dead!In Chapter One: Why Reagan Gets No Respect he summarises how Reagan reversed the downward trend of the 1970s for human freedom:
"During the Reagan administration, all this changed. No more nations fell into the clutches of the Soviet bear. Capitalism and democracy began to advance around the world. On Reagan's watch, dictatorships collapsed in Chile, Haiti, and Panama, and nine more countries moved toward democracy: Bolivia (1982), Honduras (1982), Argentina (1983), Grenada (1983), El Salvador (1984), Uruguay (1984), Brazil (1985), Guatemala (1985), and the Philippines (1986). Fewer than one-third of the countries in Latin America were democratic in 1981; more than 90 percent of the region was democratic by 1989. In Nicaragua, shortly after Reagan's second term ended, free elections were held, and the Sandinista government was ousted from power. Apartheid ended in South Africa, and a black-majority government was elected. All these changes occurred relatively peacefully."
Kissinger and Ellsberg went way back, and I think Kissinger was so aggressive about the Pentagon Papers because he wanted to remove any suspicion that he might sympathize or be involved with Ellsberg. Kissinger was an office politics expert as well as a foreign policy expert!
Seems to me that Nixon left S. Vietnam in as good a shape as he possibly could’ve while still getting the US troops out. The defeat in 1975 was due to the cut off of aid by Congress. But what would’ve happened long-term if Congress had not cut off the aid, I don’t know.
Loved his book, what a great American; and thanks for your service!
Thanks for the ping. Mark Moyer is right on.
I remember Walter Cronkite starting each evening news broadcast by saying, “Today, (insert number here) Americans were killed in Vietnam.”
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