No More Vietnams

Conventional wisdom dictates that the Vietnam war was a mistake, a colossal blunder from day one. It was not only a war America lost, but a war that was "unwinnable." America was brutally opposing a peaceful peasant revolution that wanted nothing more than freedom and independence after years of foreign rule. This message has been constantly re-enforced by the mass media, through award-winning motion pictures, songs, plays, novels, and poems. The Vietnam war, or more specifically the war's underlying "injustice," has become an American cultural icon of epic proportions. And yet, as Richard Nixon so eloquently points out in this book, almost every single piece of "conventional wisdom" on the war is in fact blatantly wrong. It's often argued by members of the left that conservative politicians are sheltered, ignorant, uneducated men, who could not five minutes in an intellectual foreign policy debate with some highbrow university professor. What really impressed me about this book was the degree to which Nixon knew all the allegations that had been launched against him, and against the war. Nixon goes through the lists of myths about the war one-by- one, categorically dismissing the lies that have been spread by all the left-wing revisionists over the years. He dismisses the myth of Ho Chi Minh as a benevolent "Vietnamese George Washington," and exposes him as the Stalinist thug he really was. Similarly, he defends President Diem of South Vietnam, acknowledging his faults, but at the same time giving him credit for being a true leader of an independent Vietnam, instead of trying to mold the country into a foreign totalitarian model, like Ho. He explains how the Vietnam war was never a mere "civil war" led by South Vietnamese uprisings against Diem, but instead a carefully calculated campaign of brutal terrorism, led by Ho Chi Minh's proxy agents stationed in the south. Most importantly of all, Nixon also puts to rest the long-held leftist myth that the US and South Vietnam refused to hold scheduled elections to unite the country, as mandated by the Geneva convention. He explains that not only were these "scheduled elections" never even agreed upon by either of the Vietnams in the first place, it was the North, and not the South that actually provided the biggest resistance for this impractical pipe-dream to ever be implemented. Nixon was a politician as partisan as they come, yet for the most part in this book he puts his political beliefs aside to defend a war that was tackled by presidents of both parties. Nixon defends Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, and their actions, dismissing the critics claims that these men were "war criminals" or worse. He is a bit harsh on Kennedy at times, and regards the Kennedy-backed coup against Diem as a colossal blunder. But even then he is quick to paint Kennedy and other Democrats as gullible victims of the loud and intimidating anti- war movement.

I'm a student and this book was a required reading. Easily the best required reading I've ever had to do. I had never fully understood Vietnam. Why we were there, what we did while there and why we left. This book was an excellent asset in understanding Vietnam and I recommend it especially to students since it can be easily read in 2 to 3 days. :)

President Nixon's political problems notwithstanding, his was a serious intellect which was capable of getting to the heart of a subject. Starting with an enumeration of 22 conceptions about the war in Viet Nam, all of which,in print, seemed,not only plausible but were accepted by all too many people as true. As you read them you find yourself saying "no that's not right...sounds familiar but it's not right." Your vindication is at hand when the trap is sprung and the author declares all of the above is false. The book is a review of how events in the war played out politically and strategically, and how it was reported to the American people. Instead of being a self-serving recount of why I did the things I did, it is a well developed cronicle of events which elicits for those who lived through the period, tried to understand the period and most poignantly participated in the period, a feeling that... hey that's the way I remember it happening. It is a debunking of the self-serving myths propagated by the media. Contrary to the popular opinion forced upon us by the media, we had the war won in 1973, and with peace at hand Congress withdrew virtually all support, most importantly the threat of resumed air support for the Vietnamese ground troups should North Viet Nam not honor the peace treaty they signed. Regardless of your feelings about US participation in the Viet Nam War, Mr. Nixon's elucidation of the events will give many food for thought and revisit the question of where the responsibility for the tragedy belongs. Coincidentally, very shortly before writing this I watched an interview of General Schwartzkoff wherein he propounded the same view of our "loss" in Viet Nam as I remembered and as is described in NO MORE VIETNAMS. This should be on the mandatory reading list at our colleges.

The book confirms Churchill's dictum that Americans can be coun ted on to do the right thing after they have exhausted all other alternatives. It reveals that virtually all conventional wisdom about America's major episode in the last 50 years is wrong. Having been involved there off and on through the war, I can corroborate Nixon's veracity. Yes we did win in Vietnam hands down by 1973. After a lot of preliminary mistakes we did win Hearts & Minds and we did bring Hanoi to sign on our terms. The media rubbed America's face in the dirt on Vietnam, but we should all be very proud of what Americans did in Southeast Asia despite media treachery.EARLKULP

President Nixon reminds us that the United States was trying to save the South Vietnamese from a military attack by Communist North Vietnam, which was supplied by China and the Soviet Union. After the peace treaty negotiated by Kissinger was signed, Congress cut U.S. support to the bone. As a result, North Vietnam saw the opportunity to break the peace, invade South Vietnam again, and win. The Communists proceeded to torture and slaughter. It is estimated that 500,000 Vietnamese and 1,000,000 Cambodians were killed by the Communists after Congress cut off support. The cause was just, but the press, the public and Congress did not support it