Posted on 03/29/2020 10:03:20 AM PDT by otness_e
Vietnam War Topical information:
VHS Video tape: Television's Vietnam, narrated by Charlton Heston, Sony Vietnam Video Collection, produced by Accuracy In Media.
Note: PBS was legally forced to show this, but only once, as a response to their own completely false representation of the war history. Their response to my inquiry was quite negative, deceptive and misleading. I got my copy, years ago, from an 800 number for the AIM organization, but do not see it on their current website. Amazon no longer carries it, and I can't find it anywhere. It shows how the Mainstream Media, with Cronkite in the lead, not only politically Spun the news they reported, but outright lied - big, wide and continuous - throughout the entire Vietnam War, for the apparent purpose of lowering Democracy in the eyes of the public while helping the International Communist cause. It shows them lying, in their own footage. I wonder if I have the last copy in existence. Please let me know if you find a source for one.
Update Sun Sep 03 2017 (See Comments for that date):
Television's Vietnam, Part I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsYwdCoOIEI ).
Television's Vietnam, Part II (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaECqmMYtxM ).
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicamericanthinker.com ...
I thought the only positive thing many felt about Nixon was that he ended it.
Unfortunately, he was president during our lowest point in terms of morale over there; during the early 1970s, drug abuse had increased as many drafted troops saw the futility of the war (in terms of the ongoing peace talks), and much of the professional army of the mid-1960s had left the theater.
Thanks for posting. “Fake news” is nothing new.
HLB (Sgt, USMC, 1970-1974)
After the Buddhist monk Duc set himself on fire in the main road intersection in Saigon and the photo of it was printed in the New York Times, Kennedy made the decision and issued memos to pull our “advisers” out of Vietnam.
Kennedy realized that this was a French Catholic war against Buddhism.
Ho Chi Minh sent a letter to Truman asking for his help against the French, but Truman refused. At that time North Vietnam was not communist. They turned to the communists for help after turned down by the USA.
Kennedy was assassinated November 22nd, only 20 days after our CIA had President Diem and his brother assassinated. Kennedy was furious about this happening.
Johnson reversed Kennedy’s decision to pull out and the CIA destroyed the memos, except for the blue carbons that survived, supporting Kennedy’s decisions to pull out.
Then Johnson used a fake attack on the Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin to get the resolution through congress and then attack North Vietnam.
It was another Deep State war.
If you must know, our victory was made clear in this Prager University video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hqYGHZCJwk
Heck, the North Vietnamese units, according to Giap, even were deeply considering surrendering during Tet after we broke their backs until Walter Cronkite basically lied through his teeth on the air.
And for the record, Nixon had an enforcement provision in the peace agreement where we’d replace any materiel lost during the South Vietnamese’s conflict with the north, relegating us purely to a support role. That got nixed and blatantly ignored after Watergate. That’s all in this video. And even better, it was the North Vietnamese who thought we won Vietnam, according to that video.
And no, he didn’t campaign to withdraw us, he campaigned to WIN the war. And THAT he did. You mixed him up with his opponent, who was the anti-war candidate.
I suggest you should read up on the Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War by Phillip Jennings (which also had commentary from actual Vietnam War veterans). It has some stuff you might not have realized. For example, that Duc guy? He was a radical buddhist monk who was explicitly aligned with the Communists. Also, Ho Chi Minh was ALWAYS a Communist, and in fact was a COMINTERN agent and even a founding member of the French Communist Party back during the 1920s, even attended Stalin’s funeral (and that was BEFORE Stalin got outed in that Secret Speech by Khrushchev). And yes, the North Vietnamese were Communists as well even during that time.
And actually, Kennedy was directly responsible for the assassination of Diem and gave the order, as made clear in the Pentagon Papers. It was a gross error of judgment in JFK’s case, but nevertheless, it’s still what happened.
Thanks for posting the URLs. I watched the videos. They are powerful and informative videos.
4 L8R
Well, the “mainstream” media, anyways. The Democrats if anything were more afraid of their “media lackeys” than they were actually allied (especially when LBJ said regarding Cronkite’s infamous Tet broadcast “that’s it! if I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America!” Not to mention constantly watching the news channels in his office, three TV sets, each dedicated to the primary news channels, fretting over their reporting of the war and how it would impact his poll numbers.). That’s why I often think that LBJ may have predated Nixon as the first victim of the deep state.
Roger Stone equals Oliver Stone?
Sorry, my mistake. It’s Oliver Stone (I was thinking Oliver Stone, yet somehow typed out Roger Stone). Wish I could edit that bit.
But once the Media realized their mistake, and put Nixon into office, they went into overdrive to ruin Nixon. It took 5+ years, but ultimately, they succeeded.
And I’m not the biggest fan of Nixon, by any stretch, but it’s a disgrace what they did to him.
Hey, I’m not a fan of all his policies (I only tolerate the EPA mostly because I know where “CRUD” originated from before their creation, and his making that deal with China was a mistake), but I’m dang glad he won Vietnam. Too bad they definitely tarnished him as a bad guy, though. And thanks to that, Americans are now tricked into rooting for Vietcong members in Star Wars due to George Lucas basically modeling the Rebels, those quintessential “American” heroes, after the Vietcong, and then had the audacity to brag about it many times afterwards.
And thanks to their removal of Nixon from office, Vietnam is a Communist state.
And there are two million fewer Cambodians today.
I can understand what veterans of WW2 in the Pacific felt about the Japanese. I have no use for Vietnam to this day.
In 1961 my HS world govenment teacher assigned a term paper to be on a country that would be significant in the next decade. I chose Vietnam. My World Government teacher said Vietnam would not be significant. I should have chosen Cuba or an emerging country in Africa.
Never-the-less, I did significant research on a term paper on which I got a D-.
I was in the Army and Vietnam in 66-67. I came home to Chicago’s inner city Christmas eve 1967, 1 week before the Tet Offensive.
Everyone in my inner city Alinsky organization in a heavily Democrat area was pro-war, except some of the Alinsky organizers.
In 1968 the anti-war types from the lakefront tried to co-opt us because we could produce thousands on a protest line and they could only produce a dozen. I have fond memories of NCO chasing them off Noble Square in one of their attempts.
In 1968 pro-war Humphrey beat anti-war McCarthy. Then even more pro-war Nixon beat Humphrey even though Wallace, who was even more pro-war than Nixon, split the pro-war vote.
In 1972 Nixon over-whelmed ant-war McGovern both nationwide, and in Chicago’s Democrat inner city with a dozen Democrat Ward Committeemen forced by the voters to back a Republican...in inner city Chicago.
Among the college youth, The Catholic Newman Society was the biggest youth organization. Second biggest were Young Republicans, then Hubert Humphreys Young Democrats, Bill Brigth’s Campaign for Christs/Youth-for-Christ, then YAF, then a dozen greek societies and Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Captive Nations Youth Division.
The top 20 youth organizations by membership could all be described as pro-war, anti-communist.
Yet my kids and grandkids history books describe the war as unpopular with the majority against it, all youth against it, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Remember the Kent State riots and blamed on Nixon expanding the war to Laos and Cambodia? Well leftist/commie literature accused LBJ of being in Cambodia and Laos and that was the truth. My Artillery Battalion was in Laos shooting up the Ho Chi Minh trail .... just incase someone was on it. (We had no live fire fights while I was there.)
But both left and right miss the truth of the Vietnam war and why we lost.
From the fall of North Vietnam in the late 1940s Gallup type polls were done of opinion in S Vietnam. All Montargds and all Catholics and Protestants were 100% anti-Communist and very pro-US. (Over a million Christians had fled N Vietnam and were now in S Vietnam... or in the CMA churches in the US).
Vietnam was majority Bhuddist and over 80% were anti-Communist. About 20% were neutral- the Cambodian Sihanouk position. That was true all during the 1950s.
Then, in the early 1960s the CIA had the president of S Vietnam assassinated because he was more anti-communist, more hard-line than the official US position and was a obstacle to peace.
It was at that moment of the assassination of Diem that the poll numbers in S Vietnam started to drop. At first the drop was only slight. JFK had the concept of Special Forces that would be trained to win the hearts and minds of the people, as well as win on the battle field.
Then LBJ sent millions of us over with no training in how to win the hearts and minds of the people. We were bored stiff as there was no fighting. Of 550,000 Americans in the war zone when I was there, under 50,000 ever actually saw a real live enemy. (Remember, this was before Tet.)
Being bored stiff, many went into town, got drunk and raped the local women. Everytime a local woman was raped, her family turned anti-American and thus pro-communist. I was often adjacent to the 7th Cav. They would approach a good looking young woman in a small village in the central highlands.
The woman would hold up her Bible and say: I Christian. My huband fight with you against Godless Communism.
The Americans would rape her anyway.
It was the action of Americans off the babblefield that lost the war in Vietnam. This was at the same time as the sexual revolution and free love stateside. Many in Nam felt like they were missing out on the action back home and that the war protestors were doing their girlfriend. Boredom was mixed with anger.
But rarely does anyone on the left or right or center ever mention that the above scenario is the most likely Vietnam War Scenario. The Right points out that we won every battle on the battlefield and blames politicians for caving.
The left does not want to admit that free love and the sexual revolution played an important and ugly part in the war. Remember, in 1966-67 the left was still very male dominated. The scene in Forrest Gump of leftist protestors raping women was actually the norm. Free love meant the guys could demand free love of the gals. None of that Christian nicety of marriage could get in the way.
There is one mention of the truth of the Vietnam War in Susan Brownmiller’s book Against Our Will. Other than that there is no widely published truth of the War... not from the Right. Not from the Left.
Yet another reason why “free love” was horrible (and for the record, the guys responsible for that ethos, the Frankfurt School, were communists themselves, and were even responsible for the infamous conflation of conservativism with fascism).
Of course, by the time of Tet, there were still plenty of South Vietnamese who, even with that unfortunate aspect about us, nevertheless hated the Communists just enough to send the VC packing in addition to us doing the same to the VC. Really wish LBJ would just let them be taught the basics on winning hearts and minds, though.
Yes, that too. At least the left is willing to acknowledge Cambodia was a disaster. Too bad they aren’t so willing to admit to Vietnam being a disaster (I’m still surprised places like the New York Times even BOTHERED to report on the boat people when it was happening, given their leftist views would have likely resulted in them treating that like Duranty treated Holodomor).
Thanks for your review.
(I am American, now in Vietnam)
White House impressions were shattered beginning on May 8, when South Vietnamese security forces acting under the orders of one of Ngo Dinh Diem’s brothers, fired into a crowd of Buddhist religious marchers celebrating the Buddha’s 2,527th birthday. The rationale for the breakup of this march was no more serious than that the Buddhists had ignored a government edict against flying flags other than the South Vietnamese state flag. Another of Diem’s brothers, the Roman Catholic archbishop for this same area of South Vietnam had flown flags with impunity just weeks before when celebrating his own promotion within the Church; the Buddhists may have been encouraged by that act to think their own actions would be permitted as well.
Suppression of this Buddhist march in the ancient Vietnamese imperial capital of Hue led to a political crisis, the “Buddhist crisis,” that ignited Saigon throughout the summer and fall of 1963. (Note 4)
The two brothers of Diem implicated in the Hue suppression were not even the Saigon leader’s main problem. Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu sat in the presidential palace as private counselor, manipulator, emissary, and puppetmaster of the Saigon government. Even more than Diem himself Nhu was regarded widely in South Vietnam as a menace, directing Diem’s political party, some of his intelligence services, and Special Forces created under one of the American-sponsored aid programs. Nhu took a very negative view of the Buddhist troubles. President Diem’s response to the Buddhist crisis, once he passed beyond denying that anything was happening, was to promise political and religious reforms, and negotiations for a modus vivendi with the Buddhists were carried out in Saigon. Nhu, however, encouraged the South Vietnamese leader to renege on the agreement and, once again, Diem failed to enact any of the political concessions that had been agreed.
Buddhist religious demonstrations came to Saigon in late May and soon became almost daily events. On June 11 the protests attained a new level of intensity after a bonze publicly immolated himself at a busy Saigon street intersection as the climax of a demonstration. Photographs of the scene startled the world, and made the Buddhist troubles a political issue in the United States for President Kennedy, who faced a tough problem in continuing economic and military aid to a government so clearly violating the human rights of its people. The CIA put out an addendum to its previous national intelligence estimate revising its assessment of Diem’s political prospects, and State Department intelligence circulated a report predicting major trouble in Saigon. (Note 5)
President Diem’s worsening situation led him to declare martial law in August 1963, and on August 21 Ngo Dinh Nhu used the martial law authority to carry out major raids on the largest pagodas of the Buddhist group behind the protests. Nhu conducted the raids in such a way as to suggest that South Vietnamese military commanders were behind them, and used troops funded by the United States through the CIA to carry out the raids. Within days of the raids, South Vietnamese military officers were approaching Americans to inquire as to what the U.S. response might be to a military coup in Saigon. (Note 6)
This situation forms the background to the selection of documents included in this briefing book. The documents frame those meetings and major instructions in which President Kennedy was directly involved in considerations of a coup in Saigon. There were two main periods during which these deliberations took place, August and October 1963. The first sequence followed quickly on the pagoda raids, the second occurred once the South Vietnamese generals initiated a new round of coup preparations. The documents here consist primarily of records of meetings or key cabled instructions or reports pertinent to the coup, which would eventually take place on November 1, 1963. (Note 7)
There were two major episodes where the American involvement in these Vietnamese political events would be the most intense, although the U.S. remained heavily engaged in Vietnam throughout. We have for the most part selected documents that reflect high level action by the United States government-meetings with President Kennedy and his chief lieutenants. Our document selections reflect these intense sequences, but they are drawn from a much larger set of materials in the National Security Archive’s U.S. Policy in the Vietnam War, Part I: 1954-1968. The first period of intense activity occurred in August 1963, when South Vietnamese military officers initially planned to secure American support for their coup against Ngo Dinh Diem. This period included an incident that became very well-known in U.S. government circles, in which State Department official Roger Hilsman originated a cable giving the South Vietnamese generals the green light for a coup against Diem (Document 2). Much of the succeeding U.S. activity revolved upon making it seem that policy had been rescinded without in fact changing it. The second high point came in October 1963, when final preparations were made for the coup that was carried out.
In the wake of the coup against Diem and the assassination of the Saigon leader and his brother, many observers have wrestled with the question of President Kennedy’s involvement in the murders. In 1975 the Church Committee investigating CIA assassination programs investigated the Diem coup as one of its cases. (Note 8) Kennedy loyalists and administration participants have argued that the President had nothing to do with the murders, while some have charged Kennedy with, in effect, conspiring to kill Diem. When the coup did begin the security precautions taken by the South Vietnamese generals included giving the U.S. embassy only four minutes warning, and then cutting off telephone service to the American military advisory group. Washington’s information was partial as a result, and continued so through November 2, the day Diem died. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara recounts that Kennedy was meeting with his senior advisers about Vietnam on the morning of November 2 (see Document 25) when NSC staff aide Michael V. Forrestal entered the Cabinet Room holding a cable (Document 24 provides the same information) reporting the death. (Note 9) Both McNamara and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a participant as White House historian, record that President Kennedy blanched at the news and was shocked at the murder of Diem. (Note 10) Historian Howard Jones notes that CIA director John McCone and his subordinates were amazed that Kennedy should be shocked at the deaths, given how unpredictable were coups d’etat. (Note 11)
Records of the Kennedy national security meetings, both here and in our larger collection, show that none of JFK’s conversations about a coup in Saigon featured consideration of what might physically happen to Ngo Dinh Diem or Ngo Dinh Nhu. The audio record of the October 29th meeting which we cite below also reveals no discussion of this issue. That meeting, the last held at the White House to consider a coup before this actually took place, would have been the key moment for such a conversation. The conclusion of the Church Committee agrees that Washington gave no consideration to killing Diem. (Note 12) The weight of evidence therefore supports the view that President Kennedy did not conspire in the death of Diem. However, there is also the exceedingly strange transcript of Diem’s final phone conversation with Ambassador Lodge on the afternoon of the coup (Document 23), which carries the distinct impression that Diem is being abandoned by the U.S. Whether this represents Lodge’s contribution, or JFK’s wishes, is not apparent from the evidence available today.
A second charge has to do with Kennedy administration denials that it had had anything to do with the coup itself. The documentary record is replete with evidence that President Kennedy and his advisers, both individually and collectively, had a considerable role in the coup overall, by giving initial support to Saigon military officers uncertain what the U.S. response might be, by withdrawing U.S. aid from Diem himself, and by publicly pressuring the Saigon government in a way that made clear to South Vietnamese that Diem was isolated from his American ally. In addition, at several of his meetings (Documents 7, 19, 22) Kennedy had CIA briefings and led discussions based on the estimated balance between pro- and anti-coup forces in Saigon that leave no doubt the United States had a detailed interest in the outcome of a coup against Ngo Dinh Diem. The CIA also provided $42,000 in immediate support money to the plotters the morning of the coup, carried by Lucien Conein, an act prefigured in administration planning Document 17).
Original article and Notes at the link:
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/index.htm
I agree with you on the other comments.
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