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Johnson would have been aided in this had he asked for help from Sen. Russell, a Georgia hawk known as "Mr. Defense" who was head of the Armed Services Committee. In private, Russell told LBJ repeatedly that Vietnam was not our war. In the summer of 1965, he confided to Johnson his horror that Vietnam's leader, Gen. Nguyen Cao Ky, was saying he would let Americans do the fighting in Vietnam while his own troops hung back, engaging in pacification. Russell told LBJ, "If they're going to try to fight that kind of war, I'm in favor of getting out of there."

There's a flip side to this too. Ho Chi Minh got to know America as a crewmember of French cruise ships that docked periodically at New Orleans. He kept a collection of lynching memoriabilia he picked up on shore leave. He also wrote articles for a French publication about them. It was not a good introduction, and as much as he admired America, it's a good chance his firmness in resisting us had something to do with his awareness that we had in us some of those sterling qualitities so reminiscent of the gracious French colonialism. The real horrors of Nam had their roots in that Colonialism, and it made the Japanese occupation seem relatively benign.

For some reason, Georgians have always had a profound sense of when it is that war crosses the ideals of the founders; a sense that is largely missing in a lot of other states. They gave Jefferson Davis a really hard time in that way.

TFTF, TGYC.

Good one re Ho. He didn't reach US shores, I think more than twice,
yet always seemed to concetrate on the negative therefrom.

He sure seemed to get along with Archimedes Patti, though.

Sorry, it was you, too, I meant to ping above.