Hide Article Text (OCR)
NEW YORK (NEA) — It has been 10 years now since this country withdrew its soldiers from Vietnam under the impression that the Paris Peace Accords enabled us to do so “with honor,” and that South Vietnam could survive with our aid but without our troops. Instead, Hanoi seized the moment of Nixon's weakness after Watergate to violate the accords, and two years later a partisan Democratic Con refused further arms to Saigon at the very moment Moscow was stepping up its aid to Hanoi. South Vietnam went down the tubes. Ever since then, the people who had been most vocal against the war in this country have proclaimed loudly that America must learn and remember the “lesson” of Vietnam. Precisely what that “lesson” is has seldom been clearly spelled out, but it generally boils down to some variant of the proposition that this country must never aid nations that are trying to resist a takeover by communist forces, espe cially if they are indigenous guerrilla forces. Those who claim the right to “teach” us this “lesson” are supposedly credentialed to do so because they opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War and must have been “right” since that involvement turned out so badly. This hokum could hardly be expected to last forever, and the real wonder is that it has lasted as long as it has. Now, however, comes word from Fox Butterfield in the New York Times Magazine that a new group of “scholars, journalists and military specialists” has begun to “look afresh at the war,” drawing on “new disclosures from Hanoi, the opening of documents in the presidential libraries, the Pentagon papers... and memoirs of some of the participants.” Their conclusions may surprise you. One of the most striking of the newly-established facts has actually been an open secret for several years: namely, that the communists’ Tet offensive of February 1968, which was played by the media in this country as easily the worst defeat for American arms since the Battle of Bull Run, was, in fact, a staggering beating for the North Vietnamese and above all for their locally-recruited Vietcong. Precisely how our trusty reporters and commentators managed to pull off this deception, which played an important role in President Johnson's decision, less than two months later, not to run for re-election, is a question that will presumably provide grist for doctoral dissertations well into the 21st century But it is refreshing to hear what sensible people knew all along, though it was never admitted, and may not even have been realized, by the high civilian and military officers who conducted the war, that the United States was never really “unable” to win it (on the contrary, as I have said before, we could have won it any afternoon between 3 and 5), save for the crippling limitation we imposed on ourselves. By declin ing to counterattack on land across the DMZ into North Viet nam, and above all by refusing to intercept Hanoi’s use of Laos and Cambodia, “the critical strategic initiative remained in Hanoi's hands. Many officers,” Butterfield asserts, “now believe the Joint Chiefs of Staff should have in protest.” anti-war protestors proudly think it was their squawks that ultimately brought American participation in the war to an end, but even this is dubious. According to Butterfield: “The anti-war movement did not have as much impact on American policy as is popularly thought.... The protestors’ main , in fact, may have been to help elect“Richard Nixon twice” — arguably a deadlier blow at this country anyway. Nor was American ton in the war unsuccessful, even on its own pitifully self-limited terms: “After Tet,” says Butterfield “... the cumulative might of American firepower and spending in Vietnam dramatically undercut support for the communists. As a result, the United States was probably in a stronger position in Vietnam in 1972, just before the Paris Peace Accords, than at any previous t in the war.” Naturally — why do you suppose signed the accords? y it becomes apparent that the problem of Vietnam was relatively well in hand — protestors and all — when President Nixon lost all effective authority with the outbreak of the Wate crisis. The loss of South Vietnam thereafter was a wholly unnecessary byproduct of that vul gar domestic drama.
Newspaper Details
Key West Citizen
Key West, Florida, US
Tue, Mar 01, 1983
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Roger M.
USA 01 Jul 2026
Other Publications Near Key West, Florida
Key West OutPost
Key West Citizen
