Posted on 02/13/2008 3:47:36 PM PST by Richard Poe
| by Richard Lawrence Poe Wednesday, February 13, 2008 |
Archives Permanent Link |
AMERICANS FACE a grim anniversary this month. Forty years ago, on February 27, 1968, CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite pronounced the Vietnam War a hopeless cause. His forecast was premature. Saigon did not fall for another eight years. What possessed Cronkite to raise the white flag so far in advance?
We now know that Cronkite was simply parroting the CIA line. Agency analysts had been churning out gloomy reports about Vietnam by the ream since 1963.
Sadly, they were not content to issue classified reports through proper channels. They went further. They sought to turn public opinion against the war, using press leaks and disinformation campaigns.
Ironically, it was the CIA that got us into Vietnam in the first place. The military wanted nothing to do with it. In a May 26, 1954 memo, the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared Indochina "devoid of decisive military objectives." The only way to stop communism in Southeast Asia would be to destroy its supply sources "in China proper", the Joint Chiefs concluded.
The CIA ignored this advice. In June 1954, it sent Col. Edward G. Lansdale to Vietnam to begin paramilitary operations.
CIA strategists believed they could fight wars more effectively than the Pentagon. Their technique was to dispatch CIA advisors to hot spots, whereupon they would raise armies of local mercenaries. Such operations had borne fruit in Iran (1953-54), Guatemala (1954), the Congo (1960-61) and Laos (1960-62).
Vietnam provided the ultimate testing ground. The CIA was given a free hand there from 1954 through 1964. The experiment failed catastrophically.
In a memorandum of October 19, 1964, CIA officer William Bundy informed President Johnson that the situation was hopeless. America should flee Vietnam and "shore up the next line of defense in Thailand."
Appalled by such talk, President Johnson turned to the military. In early 1965, he ordered bombing raids on North Vietnam and sent the Marines into Da Nang.
The CIA made a fateful choice. Rather than accept President Johnson's decision, it resolved to stop him.
For this it was well-equipped with a powerful propaganda network. While heading the CIA’s covert operations division from 1948 to 1956, Frank Wisner recruited hundreds of U.S. journalists at virtually every major newspaper and broadcast network in America. He boasted that he could play the media like a Wurlitzer pipe organ.
Long after Wisner left, his "Mighty Wurlitzer" played on. President Johnson felt the full effects of its wrath.
CIA-friendly journalists Walter Lippmann and James Reston began savaging Johnson's war policy. The New York Times ran a major feature on March 15, 1965 praising the New Left and glorifying Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
A group called the League for Industrial Democracy (LID) had launched SDS in 1959. Socialist Party bigwig and LID co-founder Norman Thomas helped shield SDS from critics. Thomas' Institute of International Labor Research was later exposed as a conduit for CIA funds.
Prior to 1965, SDS focused on poverty and civil rights. In April 1965, it emerged as America's leading anti-war group, sponsoring a "National March Against the Vietnam War" which brought 20,000 protestors to Washington.
CIA contract consultant Allard Lowenstein established the “Dump Johnson” movement on April 2, 1967. He persuaded anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy to challenge Johnson in the Democratic primaries.
Meanwhile, the Viet Cong were on the ropes. Communist forces in Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive in January 1968. It was a desperate, suicidal assault on hundreds of cities and towns in South Vietnam. The attack failed. Communist forces met ruin and slaughter on every front.
Nonetheless our media portrayed Tet as a U.S. defeat. Walter Cronkite declared on February 27, 1968:
"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. ... we are mired in stalemate... 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."To this, President Johnson responded, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.” On March 31, 1968, Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection as president.
The CIA had made its point. Communist victory was still eight years away. But its seeds were sown.
Americans must learn from this dark episode. Even now the "Mighty Wurlitzer" plays. We must never again dance to its tune.
|
Richard Lawrence Poe is a contributing editor to Newsmax, an award-winning journalist and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Siezed Control of the Democratic Party, co-written with David Horowitz. |
Richard has done an excellent job of publishing what many of us have known for decades.
The same hate America liberals, who cost us the war in Nam are in control of the Rat Party (Clintoons) and the media.
The destruction of the Clintoons and the MSM may be what is best for this country. Hopefully, Obama will destroy the Clintoons and their hate America rat packs.
FYI and ping lists.
Thanks
I think this author’s analysis is somewhat overblown.
Allard Lowenstein was a CIA tool? I don’t think so. This author’s analysis is overblown.
The fifth column is hard at work in decapitating US. MSM constant brainwashing of sheeple, infested RAT party, RINOrized GOP, enviromentablists, EPA, unions, commiezied colleges, jokers running for presidential office, can anyone see the common denominator behind this all frontal assault???
What is clearly etched in my memory about Viet Nam was how we would stop fighting for two weeks, to hold Peace Talks, every time the the Viet Cong or NVA ran short on ammunition.
Were you aware that our pilots weren’t allowed to attack anything within 20 miles of the coastline in North Viet Nam?
Or that all targets had to be approved by the Soviet officer who was in charge of Security at the UN? He would place a 48 hour freeze on the target, after it was approved, against it being attacked which gave the NVA time to set up their SAMs knowing an attack was coming.
Go ahead and place the blame on the CIA if that’s what will sell your books. Myself, I think the blame is with politicians who get us involved in wars that they have no intention of allowing us to win.
The longer we fight in a war the more money there is to be made from that conflict. That is a fact politicians don’t like to admit especially when you remind them that Americans are dying because of their sorry assed policies.
Did you get the proxy error message...I’ve been getting it and have several double posts....so I think it is a system problem....perhaps just overly busy....
I will search youtube.
****************************************
Proxy Error
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request POST /perl/post.
Reason: Error reading from remote server
**********************************************
So naturally we assume that the message didn't get posted,,,but in fact it did....
I think they deleted it...
Yes indeed, and the young man who wrote this great book needs and deserves our support as the heads of the departments of history at our countries universities are holding him down (won't hire him) simply because he had the courage to write the TRUTH in his book!
You won't find a much more authoritative one than this:
“What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!”
General Vo Nguyen Giap in his memoirs
Is he the history professor who was not hired by the University of Iowa?
You won't find a much more authoritative one than this:
“What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!”
General Vo Nguyen Giap in his memoirs
“So where do America’s REAL enemies really reside???”
Read:
“Sabotage” by Rowan Scarborough
(America’s Enemies within the CIA)
and
“Shadow Warriors” by Ken Timmerman
(The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.