Warning: Graphic: It's been 50 years since AP photographer Nick Ut captured image of 9-year-old girl running naked from a napalm attack during Vietnam

[Open Bolt]

Never should have moved in after France surrendered.

I think South Vietnam was worth saving from the Communists.

 

[whitehall]

Nixon mused, "I'm wondering if that was fixed", after seeing the photograph

Amazing story though.

Blame Nixon for the LBJ created atrocity. No surprise here.

 

[BlindBoo]

Blame Nixon for the LBJ created atrocity. No surprise here.

In 1968 Nixon secretly contacted the South Vietnamese government and uncut Johnson's peace negotiations. He owned the war after that.

In late October 1968, the two men connected on what came to be known as “the Chennault Affair.” Nixon gave Haldeman his orders: Find ways to sabotage Johnson’s plans to stage productive peace talks, so that a frustrated American electorate would turn to the Republicans as their only hope to end the war.

The gambit worked, and the Chennault Affair, named for Anna Chennault, the Republican doyenne and fundraiser who became Nixon’s back channel to the South Vietnamese government, lingered as a diplomatic and political whodunit for decades afterward.

Johnson and his aides suspected this treachery at the time, for the Americans were eavesdropping on their South Vietnamese allies—(“Hold on,” Anna was heard telling the South Vietnamese ambassador to Washington. “We are gonna win”)—but hesitated to expose it because they had no proof Nixon had personally directed, or countenanced, her actions. Historians scoured archives for evidence that Chennault was following the future president’s instructions, without much luck. Nixon steadfastly denied involvement up until his death, while his lawyers fended off efforts to obtain records from the 1968 campaign.

It wasn’t until after 2007, when the Nixon Presidential Library finally opened Haldeman’s notes to the public, that I stumbled upon a smoking gun in the course of conducting research for my biography of Nixon: four pages of notes his brush-cut aide had scrawled late on an October evening in 1968. “!Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN,” Haldeman wrote, as Nixon barked orders into the phone. They were out to “monkey wrench” Johnson’s election eve initiative, Nixon said. And it worked.

When a Candidate Conspired With a Foreign Power to Win An Election

It took decades to unravel Nixon’s sabotage of Vietnam peace talks. Now, the full story can be told.

www.politico.com

 

[BlindBoo]

I think South Vietnam was worth saving from the Communists.

The Vietnamese people wanted those who supported the brutal French Colonial Government out. You know the, us.

 

[Open Bolt]

The Vietnamese people wanted those who supported the brutal French Colonial Government out. You know the, us.

That isn't true. There were plenty of Vietnamese who hoped for freedom and democracy.

 

[BlindBoo]

That isn't true. There were plenty of Vietnamese who hoped for freedom and democracy.

That's true. There were plenty of westernized Vietnamese in the cities. But most of the population didn't live in the big cities and wanted the occupation to end.

 

[whitehall]

In 1968 Nixon secretly contacted the South Vietnamese government and uncut Johnson's peace negotiations. He owned the war after that.

In late October 1968, the two men connected on what came to be known as “the Chennault Affair.” Nixon gave Haldeman his orders: Find ways to sabotage Johnson’s plans to stage productive peace talks, so that a frustrated American electorate would turn to the Republicans as their only hope to end the war.

The gambit worked, and the Chennault Affair, named for Anna Chennault, the Republican doyenne and fundraiser who became Nixon’s back channel to the South Vietnamese government, lingered as a diplomatic and political whodunit for decades afterward.

Johnson and his aides suspected this treachery at the time, for the Americans were eavesdropping on their South Vietnamese allies—(“Hold on,” Anna was heard telling the South Vietnamese ambassador to Washington. “We are gonna win”)—but hesitated to expose it because they had no proof Nixon had personally directed, or countenanced, her actions. Historians scoured archives for evidence that Chennault was following the future president’s instructions, without much luck. Nixon steadfastly denied involvement up until his death, while his lawyers fended off efforts to obtain records from the 1968 campaign.

It wasn’t until after 2007, when the Nixon Presidential Library finally opened Haldeman’s notes to the public, that I stumbled upon a smoking gun in the course of conducting research for my biography of Nixon: four pages of notes his brush-cut aide had scrawled late on an October evening in 1968. “!Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN,” Haldeman wrote, as Nixon barked orders into the phone. They were out to “monkey wrench” Johnson’s election eve initiative, Nixon said. And it worked.

When a Candidate Conspired With a Foreign Power to Win An Election

It took decades to unravel Nixon’s sabotage of Vietnam peace talks. Now, the full story can be told.

www.politico.com

LBJ's "secret" peace negotiations? Was that after the U.S. victory of Tet? WTF were LBJ's "peace negotiations"?

 

[AZrailwhale]

LBJ's "secret" peace negotiations? Was that after the U.S. victory of Tet? WTF were LBJ's "peace negotiations"?

LBJ spent his entire presidency "sending messages" to the VC and PRVN leadership. He wanted them to negotiate an end to the war. He was never interested in actually defeating them. Naturally they refused to negotiate from a position of strength when they were winning the war.

 

[Open Bolt]

LBJ spent his entire presidency "sending messages" to the VC and PRVN leadership. He wanted them to negotiate an end to the war. He was never interested in actually defeating them. Naturally they refused to negotiate from a position of strength when they were winning the war.

I don't agree that they were winning. I think we pulled out for no reason just like we did in Afghanistan.

What we should have done is left just enough forces to ensure that the South Vietnamese government did not fall, and trained the South Vietnamese army to do all the fighting against the North.

That strategy was working for us in Afghanistan, and it would have worked for us in Vietnam as well.

 

[whitehall]

LBJ spent his entire presidency "sending messages" to the VC and PRVN leadership. He wanted them to negotiate an end to the war. He was never interested in actually defeating them. Naturally they refused to negotiate from a position of strength when they were winning the war.

Just when LBJ actually had the war won he sent a message to the VC that he was quitting the fight.

 

[AZrailwhale]

I don't agree that they were winning. I think we pulled out for no reason just like we did in Afghanistan.

What we should have done is left just enough forces to ensure that the South Vietnamese government did not fall, and trained the South Vietnamese army to do all the fighting against the North.

That strategy was working for us in Afghanistan, and it would have worked for us in Vietnam as well.

The ARVNs were too corrupt. They were never going to stand on their own. Plus the Russians and Chinese were going to keep supplying and financing the PRVN until it won. There are a lot of similarities between Vietnam Nam and our revolution. Neither the PRVN or the Colonies were willing to be defeated and both had backers that couldn’t be touched.

 

[Open Bolt]

The ARVNs were too corrupt. They were never going to stand on their own.

That was a temporary problem. Democracy would have taken root there over time. Look at South Korea.

Plus the Russians and Chinese were going to keep supplying and financing the PRVN until it won.

If we had not cut and run, the Communists never would have won.

There are a lot of similarities between Vietnam Nam and our revolution. Neither the PRVN or the Colonies were willing to be defeated and both had backers that couldn’t be touched.

We could have done the same for South Vietnam and the Communists never would have been able to defeat them.

 

[AZrailwhale]

I doubt that. Post war interviews with PRVN leaders show they were prepared to fight as long as necessary the conquer the RVN.

 

[Open Bolt]

I doubt that. Post war interviews with PRVN leaders show they were prepared to fight as long as necessary the conquer the RVN.

All we needed to do was also stay in the war for as long as necessary.

Supporting South Vietnam forever was easily achievable. All we need to do in order to support a government is have just enough of our troops there to prop up the government and train the locals to do all the fighting.

Look at western fatality rates in Afghanistan after Barack Obama came up with such a system:

2015: 26 NATO fatalities
2016: 15 NATO fatalities
2017: 17 NATO fatalities
2018: 19 NATO fatalities
2019: 26 NATO fatalities
2020: 11 NATO fatalities
2021: 13 NATO fatalities

There is no reason why we couldn't keep that up forever, in both South Vietnam and Afghanistan.

 

[AZrailwhale]

All we needed to do was also stay in the war for as long as necessary.

Supporting South Vietnam forever was easily achievable. All we need to do in order to support a government is have just enough of our troops there to prop up the government and train the locals to do all the fighting.

Look at western fatality rates in Afghanistan after Barack Obama came up with such a system:

2015: 26 NATO fatalities
2016: 15 NATO fatalities
2017: 17 NATO fatalities
2018: 19 NATO fatalities
2019: 26 NATO fatalities
2020: 11 NATO fatalities
2021: 13 NATO fatalities

There is no reason why we couldn't keep that up forever, in both South Vietnam and Afghanistan.

The problem with that was that by 1972 there was little popular support for the war in the USA. The GRU had spent tens of millions of dollars funding the anti-war movement with great success. That wasn't an issue in the PRVN. Like any totalitarian state, as long as the rulers had the support of the military, they could disregard public opinion or change it one bullet to the back of the head at a time.
We could have stayed in Afghanistan longer, but why? We were never going to turn it in to a secular democracy, no matter how many lives and how much treasure we spent. We should never have sent regular troops there in the first place. The "winning" strategy would have been to find local leaders that weren't totally repugnant and support them with weapons and intelligence to either tie the Taliban up or overthrow it with a dictatorship not hostile to American interests. No outside force has ever conquered Afghanistan, and short of killing everybody and calling it peace, no one ever will.

 

[Open Bolt]

The problem with that was that by 1972 there was little popular support for the war in the USA. The GRU had spent tens of millions of dollars funding the anti-war movement with great success.

Progressives are the source of everything that is bad in America. They are traitors.

We could have stayed in Afghanistan longer, but why?

To turn them into a stable Democracy.

We were never going to turn it in to a secular democracy, no matter how many lives and how much treasure we spent.

Perhaps not secular, but we could have made them a successful democracy.

Look at the example of South Korea.

We should never have sent regular troops there in the first place. The "winning" strategy would have been to find local leaders that weren't totally repugnant and support them with weapons and intelligence to either tie the Taliban up or overthrow it with a dictatorship not hostile to American interests.

Better to transform them into a stable democracy.

No outside force has ever conquered Afghanistan, and short of killing everybody and calling it peace, no one ever will.

We did it. Biden pulled us out for no reason.

 

[whitehall]

LBJ created the scenario with a faked crisis and he set the rules so that the U.S. could win every battle and still lose the effort and just when it seemed that the U.S. would prevail after the Tet offensive LBJ went on TV and gave a tearful resignation. Today LBJ is almost forgotten except for a few die hard loyalists and they managed to blame the whole thing on Nixon.

 

[Open Bolt]

LBJ created the scenario with a faked crisis and he set the rules so that the U.S. could win every battle and still lose the effort and just when it seemed that the U.S. would prevail after the Tet offensive LBJ went on TV and gave a tearful resignation. Today LBJ is almost forgotten except for a few die hard loyalists and they managed to blame the whole thing on Nixon.

I don't think the threat of Communist domination was fake. But the US government was certainly wrong to withdraw our support for South Vietnam. Those antiwar protesters were traitors, and should have been treated accordingly.

 

[Hector12]

The Soviets tried to conquer and enslave us.

The Soviets also tried to conquer and enslave our ally South Vietnam.

They succeeded at the latter when the Democratic Party stabbed our ally in the back and abandoned them.

Unfortunately France didn't give us much of a choice.

Final declaration, dated July 21, 1954, of the Geneva Conference on the problem of restoring peace in Indochina, in which the representatives of Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, France, Laos, the People's Republic of China, the State of Viet-Nam, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the United States of America took part...

4. The Conference takes note of the clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Viet-Nam prohibiting the introduction into Viet Nam of foreign troops and military personnel as well as of all kinds of arms and munitions...

5. The Conference takes note of the clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Viet-Nam to the effect that no military base at the disposition of a foreign state may be established in the regrouping zones of the two parties, the latter having the obligation to see that the zones allotted to them shall not constitute part of any military alliance and shall not be utilized for the resumption of hostilities or in the service of an aggressive policy...

6. The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the agreement relating to Viet-Nam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary...

7. In order to insure that sufficient progress in the restoration of peace has been made, and that all the necessary conditions obtain for free expression of the national will, general elections shall be held in July 1956, under the supervision of an international commission composed of representatives of the member states of the International Supervisory Commission referred to in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities. Consultations will be held on this subject between the competent representative authorities of the two zones from April 20, 1955, onwards...

Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History

-----------

When President Eisenhower made the decision not to sign and not to honor the Geneva Agreement of 1954 he guaranteed that there would be a war in Vietnam during the 1960's. This is the reason Eisenhower did not want the election scheduled for July 1956 to be held:

I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the populations would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader...

- President Eisenhower's Memoires, Mandate for Change, page 372

-----------

The War in Vietnam happened because the United States violated the Geneva Agreement of 1954 and prevented a democratic election from taking place.

 

[Soupnazi630]

Final declaration, dated July 21, 1954, of the Geneva Conference on the problem of restoring peace in Indochina, in which the representatives of Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, France, Laos, the People's Republic of China, the State of Viet-Nam, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the United States of America took part...

4. The Conference takes note of the clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Viet-Nam prohibiting the introduction into Viet Nam of foreign troops and military personnel as well as of all kinds of arms and munitions...

5. The Conference takes note of the clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Viet-Nam to the effect that no military base at the disposition of a foreign state may be established in the regrouping zones of the two parties, the latter having the obligation to see that the zones allotted to them shall not constitute part of any military alliance and shall not be utilized for the resumption of hostilities or in the service of an aggressive policy...

6. The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the agreement relating to Viet-Nam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary...

7. In order to insure that sufficient progress in the restoration of peace has been made, and that all the necessary conditions obtain for free expression of the national will, general elections shall be held in July 1956, under the supervision of an international commission composed of representatives of the member states of the International Supervisory Commission referred to in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities. Consultations will be held on this subject between the competent representative authorities of the two zones from April 20, 1955, onwards...

Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History

-----------

When President Eisenhower made the decision not to sign and not to honor the Geneva Agreement of 1954 he guaranteed that there would be a war in Vietnam during the 1960's. This is the reason Eisenhower did not want the election scheduled for July 1956 to be held:

I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the populations would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader...

- President Eisenhower's Memoires, Mandate for Change, page 372

-----------

The War in Vietnam happened because the United States violated the Geneva Agreement of 1954 and prevented a democratic election from taking place.

If it was not signed it was not violated.

No one prevented it. They were capable of holding it without us