(00:00:05) And before starting this hour long program, I'd like to admit that I remember a lot about the closing years of America's involvement in Vietnam, but very little about the intricacies of the early years. So with that in mind and before we get to the caller's welcome to Stanley karnow French have been there the Japanese Chinese and Americans have been there. Certainly there are others. I'm forgetting suppose. The first question to ask is is the Vietnam War over. Well, it certainly isn't over for the Vietnamese because they're now fighting against the Chinese again. Strangely enough history is reverted back track that they fought for the Chinese for over 2,000 years than the Chinese supported them in the war against the United States and now they're fighting the Chinese again. The Vietnamese were also bogged down in Cambodia, which is called Vietnam Vietnam as for ourselves. I think the war is not over for us either in the sense that it is. Become Vietnam has become a metaphor buzzword for all sorts of other situations in the world today. So that whenever you hear a shot fired anywhere, the blinds are drawn people are saying are we going to get involved in another Viet Nam? We have of course the veterans who come home and who have I think have had a raw deal for the most part and they are I think are beginning. However to regain some respect in the eyes of the public the unveiling of the Memorial in Washington last year. I think was a symptom of that so that I think Vietnam is going to be with us for quite a while to go 2276 thousand in the Twin Cities. If you have question for Stanley karnow, or if you live with in Minnesota, but at a long distance location call us toll-free at 1-800-695-1418 the Vietnam War and it's Because he's here for the next hour or so, two two seven six thousand in the Twin Cities or one 865 297 00. That's a toll-free call. Well, we've seen the first three episodes of public televisions Vietnamese series Vietnam series and it appears that the United States was a little more conniving in that war than most of us assumed. How conniving were we is that a leading question well in the third episode you saw the the way the United States encouraged a group of generals to overthrow the president of South Vietnam. No Dean ZM the man who the United States had originally supported in 1954 when he went back to Vietnam to be the head of the South Vietnamese government. That is the anti Communist Regime and the the at the atmosphere in South Vietnam during those years in the starting in In the mid-50s and on into the early 60s became increasingly tense and uncertain because on the one hand you had a growing Vietcong communist Insurgency against the government, but on the other hand you had a government run by this man. No jeans. Yam. Whom I knew quite well, he was a very strange aloof or steer figure. He was not coincidentally. He was a Catholic there are quite a few Catholics in Vietnam about 10% of the population is Catholic which put them somewhat apart from the rest of the society. He was an intense nationalist. Nobody ever accused him of being insincere or honest. He was he was that but he was unable to cope with the Communist Insurgency. He was unable to move. Lies his own population and he in the spring of 1963 alienated the Buddhists who were then organizing and one thing led to another and his generals began to plot against him at that stage in summer of 1963 the United States the Kennedy administration and its Ambassador in Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge began to take the view that ZM was was not competent to pursue the war and in particular the animosity in the criticism of the Kennedy administration was focused on CMS brother a man by the name of new nhu who was a very very weird fellow. I'm again as someone I knew quite well educated in France brilliant eccentric allegedly a Narcotics. Addict a man with all sorts of odd theories with very little regard for winning over support of the population and what initially began as pressure on ZM to remove his brother snowballed into America's feeling that ZM himself had to go if he would not reformed his government and so a coup d'etat took place on November 1st 1963 in the course of which I was Yemen his brother were assassinated by some of the plotters three weeks later. Kennedy himself was assassinated no connection between the two All right. Stanley karnow is our guest today on. Midday. He is author of the book Vietnam a history. The first complete account of Vietnam at War. Our wats line is open at 1 800 600 to 900 7 0 0 and we have a couple lines open in the Twin Cities at 2276 thousand. Let's take our first caller. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:06:09) Good afternoon. Mr. Parnell PBS late-night programme, but we can't call in from here because it isn't carried. It seemed time this broadcast, but I had a couple questions that still would like to ask at this point one is this is pure speculative what might have happened had Kennedy not been assassinated and the other is are the same old boys in our government now trying to rerun the Atman in Central America. And when at this time (00:06:45) well on the first question, there has been a lot of speculation and you're correct. Or speculative question would Kennedy have deep in the involvement and had he lived I found I looked very hard for the evidence that he might have but I couldn't find any the only evidence we have is our couple statements by people like Arthur Schlessinger Junior and Dave Powers who were both very close to Kennedy, but they were there mere conjecture so I can only I can only deal with the facts as I know them. The rest would be guesswork and there seemed to have been no real evidence that that the Kennedy administration would have refrained from getting involved on the second point. My feeling is kind of as a yes or no response to that. There is a tendency on the part of the public as I say that the C2C Vietnam as a metaphor every time a shots-fired anywhere. Everyone says are we getting involved in another Vietnam? And I think that's a mistake. I think if you look at the realities of each situation you find that they're different Central America is a different situation from Southeast Asia different people different Dynamics different history and whatnot. And Lebanon is of course much different from from Vietnam, but I do think that while it's not the same people once he's in power today is the were in power during the Vietnam years. There does seem to me to be a tendency to repeat the mistake of Vietnam By ignoring the realities of the situations and by steaming ahead with the notion that all these situations are result of some Global confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, which was the way our leaders looked at Vietnam from Very beginning ignoring in the case of Vietnam going back to the late 1940s and early 1950s when we began to get involved by helping the French who were there. We began to see it in terms of our conflict with the Soviet Union and that ignored the fact that Vietnam had its peculiarities that they were that the Communists in Vietnam and they were Communists is no question about it. But that the Nationalist component was the most important element now if you take Lebanon, for example, here's a Lebanon is not an area. I know very well though. I've been there several times but it's extremely complicated all sorts of religious factions internally pressures from Syria on one hand Israel on the other but I do notice that when the president soon after the president got his authorization from Congress after considerable debate. To extend the Marine presence there for 18 months. He went on the air. I think it was the last weekend and began to talk about the need for the Marines to be there to stop the growing Soviet influence in Syria. And I wondered whether here are these marines who are part of a multinational peacekeeping Force who are now at least in the eyes of the present president there in Lebanon as an anti-soviet force, and I wonder if he is beginning to make the same mistake that leaders made in Vietnam to ignore all the internal Dynamics and problems of Lebanon and begin to try to fit it into a global context and perhaps distorted in the process. All right more callers waiting. Let's take the next one. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:10:43) I would like to ask if you know think that people are aware of Nixon's and Your duplicity and what their way they prolonged and extended the Vietnam war that where it could have been ended be silly. Did that happen? (00:11:01) Well, that's that's a position. I'm glad to take I do spell it out in my book. I do think there were opportunities to come to terms with the Communist earlier Nixon and Kissinger did make a major concession to the North Vietnamese to the Communists in 1972 when they agreed to allow the North Vietnamese forces that were in the South to remain there. But until then they had been almost until then been demanding that those forces be removed before there was any possibility of an agreement now had they made that a concession three years earlier. I think that might have been possible to have an agreement earlier and a lot of lives would have been spared in the process two to seven six thousand. If you're listening in the Twin Cities, we have some lines open for Stanley karnow. Let's go to our wats line. Good afternoon. Where you calling from? And what's your question? (00:12:03) Hello. I'm calling from Walker, Minnesota. I have an acquaintance was a colonel in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. He described Vietnam as a walk and son. For example more people Americans were killed in Battle of Bulge than were killed entire time. We were in Vietnam is that the kind of general statement people in the military are making about Vietnam or do they see it as as what I understand just a possible military position to be in (00:12:39) Well, if you look at the casualties, I suppose you could say that that the American combat presence in Vietnam, which lasted from 19 to bring of 1965 to the beginning of 1973 did not produce the kinds of casualties that we had in the second world war nearly about 58,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam in contrast to nearly 300,000 second world war. But I think that that if you what's important is that you were fighting in a very limited area of a limited Terrain in Vietnam. Also, there's a lot of differences by the time we were fighting in Vietnam all kinds of medical evacuation facilities had been greatly perfected. So that many soldiers who died in wars like the Second World War. Were rescued in when they were wounded in Vietnam, but the the story of Vietnam is just doesn't compare to the story of the second world war. It sits. There are two different situations almost totally different situations. In fact in Vietnam. We never lost a battle the American forces won every battle he fought but we lost the war and one of the reasons why we lost the war was that the strategy consisted of killing the enemy so that the enemy leadership would agree to a settlement on our terms but what we discovered over a period of time is that no matter how many of the enemy forces we killed. They were always others to come back and take their place and compared to American deaths South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese deaths were much much higher when Love the best estimate we have and it's just it's just an estimate but it's conservative one. Is that the Communists lost both the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in the South lost something like 600,000 men. Now if you put that in in American terms and proportion to our population, it's as if we had lost 10 million men and there was no sign at all that they were prepared to stop fighting. They were moments, of course when they took terrible beatings and and regrouped and and but they were very resilient and they and they came back again. Now what happened was that the policy the strategy of grinding them down just didn't work because the fresh fresh forces came up every time and what did happen was American patients ground down so that the American public unable to perceive any progress finally said, let's get out. Let's cut our losses and get out. All right. Let's go to our next listener. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:15:43) Thank you. I thought the first three were very excellent and very historically accurate and I was in England last spring and I saw when I was first being run. I saw some of the later ones and those I saw a very good question has to do with the GI opposition and which is really to understand doesn't go into it both critics in this country and over in England. They said they had to tone down GI opposition in Vietnam because of the American production company not wanting to rile up too many feathers (00:16:20) here. That's that let me just say that that's a total Canard. There's absolutely nothing to that story. I know about that story that appeared in the in a British newspaper. It's based on nothing at all. I think it's a it was a reporter trying to get a story and there was we and I can I have the editorial responsibility. For that series and at no time did we try to tone anything down or in any way distort the facts as we knew it. So I think if you look at I don't want to get into the Great Lengths, I think it's a minor issue the totality of the British rule reaction to the series was extremely positive. And there was that one story. I think it was in the London Sunday Times based on nothing at all. In fact our English producer put out a statement denying that story 2276 thousand in the Twin Cities Stanley karnow is our guest today on midday for the next 45 minutes or so and our wats line is open one 865 29700. Let's go to our next caller good afternoon. (00:17:25) There was some coverage in the program Tuesday night about the Bay of Pigs and did I understand from that that that was planned during Eisenhower's Administration and then You decide (00:17:40) Kennedy? Yes, it was planned during the Eisenhower Administration and Kennedy inherited the plans and then of course face the choice of whether to go through it or not and decided to do it with disastrous results. And of course the point we make which is I hope came through clearly on a television program that having failed he was very very cautious over that is very concerned about failing in another kind of venture and that for that reason he had to hang in there in Vietnam spoke a couple minutes ago about the frustration of fighting such a war in Vietnam and there was a wonderful quote from Lyndon Johnson who said that he told one of his aides that he felt like he was a hitchhiker caught in a hail storm on a Texas Highway I can run. I can't hide and I can't make it stop. Why were the leaders so frustrated it was it simply because they knew they couldn't win the war. Well, what happened was it was it was as if let me look for an analogy. It's as if you make it. Investment in a bad situation and it it's it's not paying off. You have a choice of choices. You can either cut your losses and get out or you can put more money in hopes that it'll work and strangely enough what happened in this one for a whole variety of other reasons because of other pressures on them and because of their own metabolism in the assumptions that under which they were operating they kept pouring making a greater investment. There was a art book World wrote a column during the war and those early days of the war when Robert McNamara was the defense secretary McNamara had been previously president of the Ford Motor Company. And Book World wrote it's as if when McNamara was president of the Ford Motor Company, every time the sales reports came in and told him that the Edsel was not selling he said well, let's produce more. Well, that was the way it went. It went in Vietnam. Every time the reports came back to the situation was gloomy that that the Communist insurgents were gaining ground or that the South Vietnamese government was not able to cope with the situation the response became. Well, let's send more advisors. Let's send more helicopters. Let's send more equipment. Let's give them more money. Maybe it'll turn around and it didn't turn around until we got to 1965 and at the beginning in 1965, the situation in Vietnam was was very precarious in two respects one the Communists had built up their forces men were coming down from the north. The Viet Cong in the South had been strengthened and the South Vietnamese Army was being devastated and same time. The South Vietnamese government was a in a state of almost total Anarchy. And so the decision was made in Washington a to start bombing the north a decision. It was had been planned earlier, but the began the bombing began in February of 1965, and then the decision was made to put combat troop American combat troops in in March 1965 and by the end of that year, we had nearly 200,000 combat troops in Vietnam. Again, because the South Vietnamese were unable to deal with the situation the feeling was when we had to go in and retrieve it. Okay, let's take our next listener. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:21:27) Yes. I've been watching the series on PBS and it seems like in the late 40s we could have with the Marshall Plan and action put in a little more money and Incorporated Ho Chi Minh into a United States strategy in Southeast Asian. I wonder if your speaker like comment on (00:21:44) that. Yes. It's a good point. And it's I'm glad you underline that point. There's a strange Paradox about that period in 1948 Marshal TW go slav leader broke with Moscow and the Truman Administration welcomed that move and we very quickly moved to begin helping and supporting Via in its challenge to Moscow now. We had a lot of evidence at the time that Ho Chi Minh. I hate to say another Tito because that's I don't like those kind of analogies but Ho Chi Minh was probably more nationalistic than he was Communist. He was a communist is no question about that. But as Dean Acheson, who was then Secretary of State and others Dean Rusk incidentally was then assistant secretary for Far East Affairs a man who spent a long time in the Vietnam involvement. Why didn't they do? Why don't they move towards Ho Chi Minh the same way we move towards Tito well, I think there's some differences one is we very much wanted the French to cooperate with us in the rearmament of West Germany. Remember the French had been defeated by the Germans their traditional enemies and they were very reluctant to agree to rebuilding the defenses of Europe around or including the Germans. So part of the price we had to pay for getting the French to cooperate with us in Europe was to support their war in Indochina against the nationalists another element. Of course, was that the Communists were taking over China and then in June of 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea and somehow or other the leadership in Washington policymakers lumped all communist together and assume that the Ho Chi Minh was part of some big International conspiracy or monolith. And somebody was sitting at some control panel. Let's say in Moscow pushing buttons and they were all acting under Soviet orders. Now just one point I want to make is that is that there were many experts in in the state department who understood Asia and warned against our involvement with the fruit on the side of the French who proposed that we explore the possibility of coming to terms with Ho Chi Minh, but they're they're evidence their suggestions were ignored. I quote many of their memos in my book and show how there was a total disregard for that kind of advice. All right 25 minutes now past noon Central Time. This is midday on Minnesota Public Radio Our Guest today is author and researcher Stanley karnow who has written the book Vietnam a Very first complete account of Vietnam at War by the way, that's now on the bestseller list. I understand and we will go back to the telephone now. Good afternoon. Where are you calling from? And what's your (00:25:10) question? I'm calling from Rochester. I have two questions. The first one is I read a book several years ago by Colonel Chi and a lot of what he talks about in his book complements what I've seen so far on the television Vietnam television programs, and I'm wondering whether either Colonel Chi or his book was consulted as a (00:25:36) resource. Yes. I used I used to his book and we interviewed him as well. (00:25:40) Will he be on the show? (00:25:41) Yes, you'll be on when he when he his time (00:25:44) comes. Okay, and the second question I have is about Ambassador lat From watching the shows. I got the feeling that his being appointed ambassador of Vietnam was really sort of a setback and I wondered if you could count out (00:26:03) comment just to could you explain what you mean by (00:26:06) setback? Well, it sounds like his he didn't really pay as much attention to the people the u.s. People who had been there working and had some idea of what was going on and he didn't seem to have a very good relationship with him. (00:26:28) Well, I remember vividly the day that Lodge arrived and of course, I've interviewed large since then and and and read many of his secret memos and cables that have become Declassified. Let me just go back. I'll be very brief about it. I think that Kennedy appointed Lodge to that job because Lodge was a republican. You may remember that he ran as vice presidential candidate with Nixon in 1960. He had indeed been beaten by by Kennedy in the race for Senator in Massachusetts. And the decision to appoint him I think was made because Kennedy felt that he was in a tricky situation in Vietnam. And if Vietnam was going to be lost he would like to share the responsibility with a republican to diffuse the possibility of a backlash at home from the right wing Lodge was a rather impulsive man, and he had made up his mind pretty quickly when he got there when he got to Saigon in August of the late August of 1963 that That the GM government wasn't working and but you can't pin all the responsibility on him. There was back in Washington a group of high State Department. Officials. Roger hillsman was one of them he appeared on the program last night. He was assistant secretary for Far East Affairs averell Harriman George ball and others who supported this this notion that the GM had to pressure had to be put on ZM even to the extent of having a removing him if he didn't cooperate and so they they they steam forward encouraging the conspirators against the the ZM regime I think looking back and I lived through that whole period of Vietnam itself and then went back and did a lot of research and interviewed a lot of these people again. I think one of the big feelings there was there was no real consideration given to what would happen after the coup took place. It was like a great shot in the dark. All right. All right to know if you had any more to say well I could go on and I go on I'm sure your book goes off right hundred pages. Okay, I'm slowly working our way through the telephones. Let's take our next call or good afternoon. (00:29:04) Hi, I'd like to say I'm enjoying this program very much and also that applies for the series itself. The question that I have is a please. Excuse me. I have a cold here the 1-series I believe or the one installment. I believe it was the second where Ho Chi Minh was giving a speech that began with the preamble to our Constitution, which I found so moving just in terms of the spirit of those people attempting to get the French off their back as it were what disturbs me the most about how we as a government responded to Ho Chi Minh and basically to their situation is that we seem to have more energy Common with the politics of our situation vis-à-vis trying to deal with the politics of Europe and Germany, then we did with the just the moral and ethical considerations that here were people who had been Savage by the colonialism of the French and really they were attempting to do for themselves what we had done for ourselves and this country and yet we opted to pick up where the French had left off and I guess the point quite simply is I wonder how much race has to do with all of that the fact that they were a people of color as opposed to being you're being I'll hang up and listen to your (00:30:35) answer. Well, I don't really think that was a major factor, but but I think that the one point that I think your question is a very perceptive one and I think that one point again is is that What we were observing in the world in those days was this great sweep of decolonization that we came out of the second world war. The Empire is the great empires of Europe had crumbled Britt the British Empire was crumbling. The French Empire was crumbling the Dutch Empire was crumbling and almost everywhere. We did we welcomed Independence for former colonies. We the British very wisely gave Independence to India the Dutch under a lot of pressure from us gave Independence to Indonesia, and we ourselves had a timetable for Independence for the Philippines, which had been delayed by the second world war but went into effect after the war strangely. Here's a place where we want to gainst everything that we were not only stood for but we were actually doing in other places or encouraging in other places. And it goes back. I think to the point I made earlier that the when the priorities were examined and the the pro-european elements in Washington prevailed the decision was made getting the French to cooperate with us in Europe was more important than helping an independence movement a nationalist movement in Vietnam. And when people say where did we go wrong in Vietnam? I say we went wrong from the very beginning we were supporting in supporting the French we were supporting losers. I mean those guys were bound to lose whether you whether you look at it from a question of morality. I don't tend to look at it from a moral point of view. I just look at it from a practical point of view. We were supporting in supporting the French a narrow-minded colonial power that was Into trying to revive an old dream the French the French went back into Indochina War Vietnam to regain their position because remember they had been humiliated and defeated in the second world war in 1940 and the French have a great sense of national pride and they thought that they could regain their national pride in Vietnam. And we underwrote it more callers waiting. Let's take the next one. Good afternoon. (00:33:23) Yes. I have a question concerning our the support of the French and is it not true that the French army was the only Army in the European continent after World War II facing the Russian army and add because we were more or less forced to rebuild the French army that there that the support of their colonialism and Vietnam as moral as a consequence of this because I know at the end of the World War II we were very adamant. Ensign Churchill very much wanted a British presence in the Pacific with the British Fleet because he had every intention of holding on to India after the war and the Roosevelt and I think Truman also very much muted the British presence in the Pacific and I don't know I was wondering if you thought that our support of the French colonialism was more or less the fact that we were forced to rebuild their army because of the Soviet presence in (00:34:17) Europe. Well, you have you have a lot of questions in one there and they're all good questions. Let me just go back to one point Winston Churchill was voted out of office as prime minister in 1945 and it was in fact a Labour government under Clement attlee that gave Independence to India, but it was in a sense. It was a bipartisan effort mountbatten was as the Viceroy in India. I hardly could be called to labor right or socialist Lord mountbatten who really implemented the policy of Independence for India. Now as far as the need for the French in Europe, what our policy was in Europe at that stage when NATO the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in the late 1940s was to rearm West Germany as part of this Allied Defense Force in Western Europe. Now, even again, I'm going to look at it from a practical point of view the the helping the French from a practical point of view with senseless because the French were losing in their war in Vietnam the equivalent of a whole class of the military academy every year. Remember the French were not for the most part fighting with French troops. That was French officers fighting a with foreign legionnaires most of whom were not French Germans yugoslavs and others Spaniards and troops from their colonial areas North Africa and black Africa and they would taking terrible losses and many of the people in Washington who were urging the president to cease helping the French or at least get the French to make some kind of compromise. We're making their proposals on Purely practical grounds of saying if we expect the French to to work with us in Western Europe, we've got to save their army and and save their resources which are being squandered in the war in Indochina. So it was a it was in fact a no-win policy even in European terms. 23 and a half minutes now before noon Central time. Let's take our next question or good afternoon. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:36:44) Yes. Mr. Carlos. That we're seeing so much historical film footage for the first time so many years after we needed it and it could have saved ourselves is terrible tragedy and debacle, we will gradually that into now I disagree with you that there are there are similarities to Vietnam and I'm sure you admit that but you say there are a lot of differences to and I'll hang up would you respond to this? Because I feel I'm going through the same nightmare. I did 20 years ago. Mr. Reagan has presented this in them or us black or white term just as we saw on the television screen. He has accused Congressman in the Catholic Church of being pro Marxist of Congressman of being anti-American who don't back his policy of threatening that they will lose Central America. They don't get in line. I read about Aid programs pacification program the bombing of the oil refinery that May 23 People homeless and Nicaragua yesterday. I see troops and Honduras that could lead to another Gulf of Tonkin type incident. I see all kinds of hidden money. The American people do not know it's costing them. I think it's actually three billion dollars the international monetary fund gives money and we pay 45% of that. Thanks Mom. We have Investments there that we're protecting just like mr. Eisenhower said 10 and tungsten. (00:38:15) I think you've made your point. Maybe we could get (00:38:17) a note (00:38:19) maybe we could get mr. Connor car now to respond to that. Well, I don't I think maybe I didn't make myself clear originally. I what I trying to say is that the situations in Central America and in Lebanon and maybe other places are by no means a den achill to the situation in Southeast Asia or to Vietnam different people different problems, and I maybe don't know don't share your Europe passions in terms of language turns but I did say that what was disturbing to me was the similarity between the way the United States was getting involved in those areas, even though the situations in those places are different than what the situation was in Vietnam. All right more callers waiting. Let's go to the watch line. Good afternoon. Where are you calling from? And what's your (00:39:14) question? Yes, I'm calling from Crosby, Minnesota. And personally I served in Vietnam and I'm getting kind of tired last few years of hearing this rhetoric about the ideologies. And the political Arena and their decisions in the lake and personally, I believe the big question is why we were in Vietnam. I think I believe myself that obviously Wars fairly profitable and can understand why they haven't made a study of the industries in the businesses that were involved in that profit-making in Vietnam and hand that to the public to let them know exactly. (00:40:01) So I guess the question would be are we in Vietnam for the business? Well, you know, I just don't I don't buy that thesis. That's the question that the there were individual companies that were profiting from the war but the American Business Community as a whole was not as Vietnam the expenditures in Vietnam starting in the mid 60s were where the beginning of of inflation there were tremendous warnings from the business Community against the attempt to to deepen the involvement and the cost because military spending is inflationary. It's not productive and I just point to one little Factor we could get into this a great life. But you know of all the newspapers that were critical of the Vietnam War The Wall Street Journal strangely enough was was not so strangely enough. Actually. It's the reinforces what I'm trying to say was an Early critic of the Vietnam War and I suggest if you want to do a little research on this go back and and retrace the editorials in the Wall Street Journal from the mid-60s on Wall Street Journal was way ahead of the New York Times And The Washington Post and other newspapers in criticizing the involvement that was because of the business aspect. Well, I think is in areas. I think it is. I think the Wall Street Journal I'm not saying that it is the absolute spokesman from the visit for the business Community, but it certainly reflected the thinking not only on Wall Street, but in the in the corporate world and I think starting with in the mid-60s you begin to get began to get a lot of discomfort in the in the business Community about this involvement in the costs of it. It's always true in every situation that there are some people who make money out of it, but the economy as a whole was not benefiting from Vietnam and There were people like Henry Fowler the Secretary of Treasury under Johnson whom we interviewed who was very unhappy. They were businessmen who were organizing and warning apart from the whole question of winning or morality. They were very very concerned about the costs of the war. Okay more callers waiting. Let's take the next one. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:42:24) Yes. I wish to add my plaudits for mr. Cornell for his program and for being here today. I was in Vietnam from 1970 and 71 and I personally was impressed by the culture of the country and especially the resiliency of the culture considering a long long history of warfare in the country. For instance in the province city of Province Capital Kong. I saw people living in an old French train to steam locomotive in the cars. I saw one of them. Of news Cathedrals the work on which it stopped after the Tet Offensive was able to tour the Citadel and way one of my favorite places in the whole country was a Buddhist temple in Saigon, which was established by refugees from North Vietnam. And in 1954 the French cuisine in the restaurants. Kyodai Temple and such. I was wondering if you folks had had from your filming in the country enough material that possibly you might put together a follow-up program to the series which would focus more on the people of Vietnam and the culture and how it how it has been affected by this history of warfare and how it is resisted the influence in the history of warfare. Thank you. (00:43:51) Well it in the first program which you may have seen we try to do that with as we introduced yet Nam the place that's going to be the battlefield. The for the war and for the in the scene of the later programs, we try to convey some of the sense of what this place was and I think and I'm very glad to hear your remarks because as a colleague of mine once said there are three million Americans pass through Vietnam and not one of them learn how to say thank you and Vietnamese. So these your ability to go out and appreciate some of this I think is praiseworthy and I think one of the when we talk about all the mistakes and blunders and misperceptions, I think one of them that certainly prevailed not only with us, but also with the French was this notion that we were getting into a primitive Society of of ignorant people who could be a whore a pushover for our kind of power and what we really were getting To and that's one of the things that we try to show the television series and I do at greater length in the book because books are you can do more longer things in books is that we were in fact getting involved into in a in a highly cultivated sophisticated Society a culture that had roots that went back a couple of thousand years much of it borrowed from the Chinese but but adapted the Vietnamese conditions a sense of nationhood that had developed over the years a sense of organization and this resilience that you mentioned people who'd resisted foreign Invaders and were in many respects a warrior nation and we tended to ignore all that and then saw them as a bunch of peasants running around in Black pajamas, Barefoot and and almost Unworthy of our of Our Own. Sure, so I think that's a point worth stressing we have liner to open in the Twin Cities. If you have a question for Stanley Carnell who has written the book Vietnam, I history and you can call up a to 276 thousand in the Twin Cities are wats line is open at one eight hundred six, five two nine seven zero zero, let's take our next listener. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:46:22) Thank you for that. Very fine program that you're producing on television. I'm calling from st. Paul. Now my question has to do with the findings of Lieutenant General William peers in that very historic document the report of the Department of the army review of the preliminary investigations into the meal. I incident this is you know was an investigation of an investigation. (00:46:49) Yes. I'm familiar with it. (00:46:51) It was such an embarrassment to the army that of course, they kept it secret for four years and then it was blown open. But now my question to you is Who's managed to Sidetrack that so that it isn't even discussed among people who are trying to understand the tragedy of Vietnam because certainly some of what came out of that report much of what came out of that report must must certainly reflect that tragedy but we've kept it a big dark secret. I'd like your reactions to that and I'm going to hang up now. Thank you. (00:47:27) Yeah. Well, I just I just can't help you with in investigating that because I didn't go into what eventually happened to the piers report or who shelved it but I do think that generally speaking the Army was very sensitive to atrocities of the meal. I incident of course was a ghastly incident and as you know, Lieutenant Calley was was prosecuted there were lots of incidents. I won't say that there were lots of Lies, but there were lots and lots of incidents during the Vietnam war. We we depict one in one of our programs an incident occurred in a village called to weibo. We're Marines what in having drawn fire from the village and it's inconclusive what happened? We do know that the number of peasants were killed but it's uncertain and I think that goes back to one of the elements and I think looking back on Vietnam. I think one of the things at least one of the things that I feel is important is is it attempt to understand it without going back and trying to revive a lot of the passions and refight the war and one of the things that existed in Vietnam one of the major problems that V naught D major problem for anybody serving in Vietnam, and he GI serving in Vietnam was the problem of who was the anime and who was the who was the friend and all of your enemies looked alike. They all spoke the same language. Which the gis did not speak in many cases Villages could be pro-government in the daytime and pro-communist at nighttime because the peasants the name of the game for the peasants was survival and in so many cases the the innocent people were killed because no one could tell who was innocent or who was on on our side who was on the other side who was in the middle and who was bending back and forth and that of course is one of the tragedies and one of the lessons of getting involved in a war of this sort, you could take that and transpose it to Central America or to some other part of the world where you have a different kind of situation than you did during the second world war where you had white hats and black hats. And will you have front lines? Okay. Let's get back to the telephone. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:49:57) Yeah. I have a question. It's Rid of a general question on America in war and that is that world powers of all ages have found that a necessary part of being a world power is projecting military power outside of their borders often times for less than purely defensive purposes. A lot of these wars lasted decades and most of these Powers had less relative wealth and we resources than we and what I was wondering is what is different about the United States that makes it politically unacceptable to endure long periods of War long periods of conscription and casualties, even though we share many of the historical interests of these powers of the past and then one more thing looking at this strictly as a historian is this a positive or negative National Quality? (00:50:58) All right. Thank you for calling in. Well in answer to the first question, I'm not so sure that it's so unique to us back in the early 1950s the while I was a correspondent in in France. I had and then later in North Africa. I cover the Algerian War which the French were fighting against the Nationalist movement and incidentally Algeria was the was much more important to the French than Vietnam was to us Vietnam Algeria was in fact a part of a part of France just as if we were fighting for Hawaii or or Mississippi and when I look at that war and from my own experience in that war what happened was that that the French public just as American public got tired of Waging War in Vietnam the French public Tired of waging an inconclusive war in Algeria and it took a man of great stature encourage General de Gaulle to cut the losses and say what's given their independence and go back another step which is the French war in Vietnam itself French by the time the French were defeated in 1954 at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu the French public it turned off on that war. It's conceivable that the French could have gone on fighting after that battle after all was only one battle and but it came as it dramatized to the French public the futility of that war in a sense a little bit the way the Tet Offensive of 1968 dramatized to the American public the futility of the war in Vietnam. So, I don't think it's Unique to the United States that that we don't have the stomach for a long War. I think I think most countries are reluctant to wage long Wars and Is a point I made earlier Wars in which you cannot see any progress where you can wear. Your leaders can't say to you. Okay, we can we're marching towards Berlin as we could see in the second world war and you could put pins in the map and see progress in Vietnam. You couldn't see progress either for us or for the French in Algeria. You couldn't see progress for the French and people around the world. I think are are unwilling to go on forever supporting Wars briefly before we get back to the telephone. Is it that lack of progress than that more or less forced Richard Nixon Henry Kissinger to turn the switch off in Vietnam then well, I think that they realized Kissinger of even before he came into office wrote an article in which he made a very perceptive remark. He said when you're involved when you're involved in a guerrilla War of the of this kind he said if If you don't win, you're losing whereas for the gorilla of the gorillas not losing he's winning and that that summed it up. We couldn't say that the other side was winning, but it wasn't losing whereas we weren't winning and Nixon realized and and Kissinger realized when they came into office even before stood before they came into office that Vietnam had become a political liability and to stay there endlessly particular to keep American combat troops there was going to run against the current to public opinion and Mark one thing what the president is thinking about. Most of all is how he can get reelected and next time. All right. Let's try to squeeze in a couple more callers here. Good afternoon. You're on the air. (00:54:49) I'm calling from Caledonia and my question relates to the role of John Foster Dulles, and I would like a sort of a two-part question. I would like to know how Can his influence was on Eisenhower's perception of the Domino Theory and whether this domino theory was really thinking kind of operation and far as the other administration's went. Did they subscribe to this or had it become some other kind of a theory of National Honor or Pride or something else other than (00:55:21) nominal? Okay in response to your first question. There's a whole new body of literature now coming out about Eisenhower all kinds of his memos his letters that had not been made public before now being published in books. I'm reading one now by a man called Ambrose and what were beginning to discover is that the public Eisenhower of the time seemed to be a fumbling unsophisticated unmanned uncertain of himself, and now it's turning out that He really was much more sophisticated in private. Then he seemed to be in public and I think we're going to discover more and more that a lot of what we thought to be Dulles is influence was really Eisenhower's influence. What was his influence? What was Dallas is influence? Well, of course Dulles was you know, you know the great moralist to wanted the whole world to go on a great anti-communist Crusade almost kind of as a holy war. Aw shit Eisenhower was very cautious. I mean Eisenhower did certain things. I don't not sure I give Eisenhower a plus and everything but don't remember don't forget. It was Eisenhower who invited Khrushchev to the United States in I think was 1959 and Eisenhower was much more flexible than he's usually given credit for so that I wouldn't write off Eisenhower's importance on the question of the Domino Theory everybody subscribe to that theory incidentally it started off. Not of the Domino Theory a Dean Acheson originally had a had a metaphor quality rotten apple theory that if you had one rotten apple in a barrel, the rest of them would go rotten and just my point about that is that and I'm repeating a point I made earlier they all talked about that. We had a Hold the Line in Vietnam or else we'd be fighting on the bike beaches of Waikiki or fighting for the San Diego Zoo or or whatnot, but I think one has to bear in mind that in the minds of the president of successive presidents, but a real Domino was the presidency itself that if you lost the war then you were in trouble at home. You were the next Domino you are going to be the final Domino. The next episode is what LBJ goes to war. Yes. It's an account of how Linda Johnson got us in more and more deeply involved in the war and that is coming up when Tuesday okay for people who are unfamiliar with the PBS series on Vietnam, which is currently in its fourth episode of 13. I believe Stanley karnow. Thanks for coming in today. He is author of the book Vietnam. I history the first complete account of Vietnam at War also one of the principal researchers for the Vietnam series currently on public TV. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good luck in Chicago where you going next and congratulations on making the best seller list forecast for Minnesota calls for Cloudy Skies today a chance of light snow highs in the 40s today tonight. It'll be mostly cloudy in the west and cloudy in the East with a Chance of light snow in the Northeast flurries are possible around the state tonight lows tonight will be in the upper 20s to low 30s and on Friday partly cloudy and warmer a few flurries can be expected mainly in the north east highs in the upper 40s in the Northeast to around 60 degrees in Southwest around the region Thunder Bay checking in with a drizzle 43 degrees. Oh Claire is not checking in at this hour Sioux Falls cloudy and 41 Fargo-Moorhead cloudy and 40° Worthington a cloudy Sky 39 degrees Mankato cloudy and 36 Bemidji. Drizzle 36 degrees. You're lucky. It's not snow st. Cloud cloudy and 40 Rochester. Mostly sunny 38 degrees International Falls snow and 37 Duluth is not checking in at this hour and currently in the Twin Cities. The wind is from the north at eight miles an hour relative humidity stands at 65% sky is partly sunny and the temperature is 43 degrees. That's midday for today. I broadcast was made possible by Dorn Communications Incorporated with funds provided by Twin Cities magazine Bill Wareham was engineer Dorothy Hanford took care of the telephones and Reporting from st. Paul and Minneapolis. I'm Lee Axtell.