I was only a kid during the Vietnam war but I really dont remember or recall later reading that the Soviets or Chinese were
afraid of us escalating to nuclear over that. Why didn’t we threaten and mean it?
And why are we afraid now?
Genuinely curious.
In 1965, the world was only 20 years removed from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our leaders were also relatively normal. Now, 50 years later, our history has been erased and political leadership is gender confused and poorly educated.
Here’s how we got into Vietnam.
https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1119/19182.html
Reston on Who’s to Blame for Vietnam
November 19, 1991
By Godfrey Sperling
NO one has provided more persuasive evidence that it was President John F. Kennedy who got the United States into the Vietnam war than James Reston in his recently published memoir, “Deadline.”
Describing his interview with Mr. Kennedy following the young president’s summit with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, Mr. Reston has this to say: “I remember that Saturday morning very well. He (Kennedy) arrived at the US embassy (in Vienna) over an hour late, shaken and angry at having been delayed by an unexpected extra meeting with the Soviet leader.
He was wearing a hat - unusual for him - and he pushed it down over his forehead, sat down on a couch beside me, and sighed. I said it must have been a rough session. Much rougher than he had expected, he said.”
Kennedy then told Reston that Mr. Khrushchev had threatened him, warning that if the US did not agree to communist control over access to Berlin, the Soviet Union would proceed unilaterally to dominate the routes from Western Europe to Berlin. Kennedy said that he replied that the US would fight to maintain access to its garrison in Berlin if necessary.
Kennedy then went on to tell Reston that he felt sure that Khrushchev thought that anybody who had made such a mess of the Cuban invasion had no judgment. “Khrushchev,” writes Reston, “had treated Kennedy with contempt, even challenging his courage, and whatever else Kennedy may have lacked, he didn’t lack courage. He felt he had to act.”
Soon thereafter Kennedy sent more advisers to the battlefront in Vietnam. “This, I thought,” Reston continues, “was a critical mistake. Once Kennedy had over 15,000 ‘advisers’ engaged not only in giving advice but also in giving support on the battlefield. US power and prestige were thought by many officials in Washington and in Asian capitals to be committed.” And here is Reston’s assessment of the “who done it” argument that still is being waged - of who it was that got the US into what became a winless war that killed many Americans and finally sapped morale on the homefront.
“No doubt, as President, Johnson was more responsible for commiting the US to that struggle (he eventually had 500,000 Americans in the war), but in my view Kennedy started the slide.” Defenders of Kennedy on this issue usually point to Robert Kennedy’s denial that his brother had any intention of going to war in Vietnam. Reston writes: “Robert Kennedy, eager to protect his brother from blame, always denied that the President intended to increase the nation’s commitment to Vietnam, and also denied that the Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in Vienna had anything to do with it.
But he didn’t hear what his brother said to me in the Vienna embassy, and I did.” This is not just another reporter telling us of how something important happened. This is James Reston, one of the most respected men in American journalism.
If we kill Russian soldiers over something like that then we are Ukraine. If Russian artillery, tanks, aircraft, booby traps kill American soldiers of any sort, they are our active enemy in a state of war. Everyone at a pay grade higher than me in DC or Virginia would absolutely love either condition. Someone would make billions off of it. These people do not love this country, but believe their own myths.
We were using proxies and when, on rare occasion, an American met a Soviet in dogfight or something it would be tolerated due to the threat of WWIII. What is so terribly dangerous here is all of DC apparently wants to put American planes with American pilots in Ukraine killing Russians. No more proxies. Go to YouTube and watch what American A-10s will do to Russian tanks, what C-130 gunships would do to Russian infantry. I am terrified because not since Checkpoint Charley have we been eyeball to eyeball with the Russians. Never have we been on their border, 300 miles from Moscow. Never has DC spoken with a more unified voice, we want war with Putin! Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis have we been this close to Armageddon. Since you’re curious, that’s the difference.
During the Vietnam War, President Nixon floated the idea to Henry Kissinger that he (Nixon) make remarks about nukes plus act mentally unbalanced as a way of putting the fear of God into our heathen foes. IIRC, HK nixed the idea. Of course, he’s probably the source of the story.
During the Korean War, McArthur most definitely rattled the nuclear saber, and it was part of why he was fired.
Because the leader of Russia is a nut. Fortunately, we can’t say the sam—oh, wait.