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Walter Cronkite did the lead in on a report on the Battle of Ia Drang Valley - 1965, first major battle in Vietnam. While a win for us - we lost a lot of men - war is like that.

At the end of the report the reporter (the field reporter, or maybe it was Cronkite in “summary”) says something like,

“So while the battle is considered by some to be a victory, it remains to be seen how long the American public will stand as the number of these boys coming home in body bags only increases.” (Footage of the body bags laid out on the ground behind).

The first major battle of the war!!

In that era, Nixon was considered a conservative. The reason Ike made Nixon his VP was because Nixon would attract support from the conservative wing of the party.

Rockefeller himself ran for the 1968 nomination. The conventional wisdom of the punditry at the time was that the Republicans should nominate Rockefeller because tricky Dick was to conservative to win.

Of course, we now know that the country and the Republican Party were changing. The nomination of Barry Goldwater was not a disaster, but a sign of changing times in the party. The Gipper himself entered the 1968 primaries. The conservative movement left Nixon behind or perhaps more accurate, he didn't keep up.

Blast from the past. Thanks. I served in the Navy stateside in the Navy and would get calls from friends who came back shot up. The stuff that was going on would shock anybody. One of them was a tank commander and had to get permission to return fire on the nva who were hiding in rubber plant groves. They were told not to do it because we had an agreement with the French that would pay them 1 million dollars for each rubber tree that we destroyed. Occasionally, they would squeeze off a few shells just to vent and piss off the brass. Almost everyone that served during that time (including me) were disgusted with the war because the politicians never let the military finish the job.

But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people, who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

Ah, Walter. Did YOU do the best you could to defend
democracy? I think not. It just wasn’t worth the effort
in your view.

On Walter Cronkites 1968 “revelation” that we had to “get out of Vietnam,” from a speech given in October 2000 by General Fredrick Weyand;

“After Tet, General Westmoreland sent Walter Cronkite out to interview me. I was in Command of the Forces in the South around Saigon and below and I was proud of what we’d done. We had done a good job there. So, Walter came down and he spent about an hour and a half interviewing me. And when we got done, he said, ‘well you’ve got a fine story. But I’m not going to use any of it because I’ve been up to Hue. I’ve seen the thousands of bodies up there in mass graves and I’m determined to do all in my power to bring this war to an end as soon as possible’.”

“It didn’t seem to matter that those thousands of bodies were of South Vietnamese citizens who had been killed by the Hanoi soldiers and Walter wasn’t alone in this because I think many in the media mirrored his view…”

“When I was in Paris at the Peace Talks, it was the most frustrating assignment I think I ever had. Sitting in that conference, week after week listening to the Hanoi negotiators, Le Duc Tho and his friends lecture us. Reading from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Herald Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, NBC, CBS, you name it. Their message was always the same. ‘Hey, read your newspapers, listen to your TV. The American people want you out of Vietnam. Now, why don’t you just go ahead and get out’?”

Full speech transcript: http://www.i-served.com/weyandspeech.htm

Returning from Nam on emergency leave I was spit on by Hippie Bastards in S.F airport and damn near arrested for attempting retaliation. All inspired by America’s most trusted journalist, “Uncle Walter”. I’d piss on his grave, given the opportunity.Our hands were tied to comply with political opportunist,—victory was impossible.