American Enterprise Institute
News Articles
May/June 1997
It is difficult to explain to my children that in my teens
and early twenties the most frequently heard voices of my peers were
trying to destroy the foundations of American society, so that it
might be rebuilt according to their own narcissistic notions. In
retrospect it’s hard even for some of us who went through those
times to understand how highly educated people—most of them spawned
from the comforts of the upper-middle class—could have seriously
advanced the destructive ideas that were in the air during the late
’60s and early ’70s. Even Congress was influenced by the virus.
After President Nixon resigned in August of 1974, that fall’s congressional elections brought 76 new Democrats to the House, and eight to the Senate. A preponderance of these freshmen had run on McGovernesque platforms. Many had been viewed as weak candidates before Nixon’s resignation, and some were glaringly unqualified, such as then-26-year-old Tom Downey of New York, who had never really held a job in his life and was still living at home with his mother.
This so-called Watergate Congress rode into town with an
overriding mission that had become the rallying point of the
American Left: to end all American assistance in any form to the
besieged government of South Vietnam. Make no mistake—this was not
the cry of a few years earlier to stop young Americans from dying.
It had been two years since the last American soldiers left Vietnam,
and fully four years since the last serious American casualty calls
there.
For reasons that escape historical justification, even
after America’s military withdrawal the Left continued to try to
bring down the incipient South Vietnamese democracy. Future White
House aide Harold Ickes and others at "Project Pursestrings"—assisted
at one point by an ambitious young Bill Clinton—worked to cut off
all congressional funding intended to help the South Vietnamese
defend themselves. The Indochina Peace Coalition, run by David
Dellinger and headlined by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, coordinated
closely with Hanoi throughout 1973 and 1974, and barnstormed across
America’s campuses, rallying students to the supposed evils of the
South Vietnamese government. Congressional allies repeatedly added
amendments to spending bills to end U.S. support of Vietnamese
anti-Communists, precluding even air strikes to help South
Vietnamese soldiers under attack by North Vietnamese units that were
assisted by Soviet-bloc forces.
Then in early 1975 the Watergate Congress dealt
non-Communist Indochina the final blow. The new Congress icily
resisted President Gerald Ford’s January request for additional
military aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia. This appropriation would
have provided the beleaguered Cambodian and South Vietnamese
militaries with ammunition, spare parts, and tactical weapons needed
to continue their own defense. Despite the fact that the 1973 Paris
Peace Accords called specifically for "unlimited military
replacement aid" for South Vietnam, by March the House Democratic
Caucus voted overwhelmingly, 189-49, against any additional military
assistance to Vietnam or Cambodia.
The rhetoric of the antiwar Left during these debates was
filled with condemnation of America’s war-torn allies, and promises
of a better life for them under the Communism that was sure to
follow. Then-Congressman Christopher Dodd typified the hopeless
naiveté of his peers when he intoned that "calling the Lon Nol
regime an ally is to debase the word.... The greatest gift our
country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns. And the
best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now." Tom
Downey, having become a foreign policy expert in the two months
since being freed from his mother’s apron strings, pooh-poohed the
coming Cambodian holocaust that would kill more than one-third of
the country’s population, saying, "The administration has warned
that if we leave there will be a bloodbath. But to warn of a new
bloodbath is no justification for extending the current bloodbath."
On the battlefields of Vietnam the elimination of all U.S.
logistical support was stunning and unanticipated news. South
Vietnamese commanders had been assured of material support as the
American military withdrew—the same sort of aid the U.S. routinely
provided allies from South Korea to West Germany—and of renewed U.S.
air strikes if the North attacked the South in violation of the 1973
Paris Peace Accords. Now they were staring at a terrifyingly
uncertain future, even as the Soviets continued to assist the
Communist North.
As the shocked and demoralized South Vietnamese military
sought to readjust its forces to cope with serious shortages, the
newly refurbished North Vietnamese immediately launched a major
offensive. Catching many units out of position, the North rolled
down the countryside over a 55-day period. In the ensuing years I
have interviewed South Vietnamese survivors of these battles, many
of whom spent ten years and more in Communist concentration camps
after the war. The litany is continuous: "I had no ammunition." "I
was down to three artillery rounds per tube per day." "I had nothing
to give my soldiers." "I had to turn off my radio because I could no
longer bear to hear their calls for help."
The reaction in the United States to this debacle defines
two distinct camps that continue to be identifiable in many of the
issues we face today. For most of those who fought in Vietnam, and
for their families, friends, and political compatriots, this was a
dark and deeply depressing month. The faces we saw running in terror
from the North Vietnamese assault were real and familiar, not simply
video images. The bodies that fell like spinning snowflakes toward
cruel deaths after having clung hopelessly to the outer parts of
departing helicopters and aircraft may have been people we knew or
tried to help. Even for those who had lost their faith in America’s
ability to defeat the Communists, this was not the way it was
supposed to end.
For those who had evaded the war and come of age believing
our country was somehow evil, even as they romanticized the
intentions of the Communists, these few weeks brought denials of
their own responsibility in the debacle, armchair criticisms of the
South Vietnamese military, or open celebrations. At the Georgetown
University Law Center where I was a student, the North’s blatant
discarding of the promises of peace and elections contained in the
1973 Paris Accords, followed by the rumbling of North Vietnamese
tanks through the streets of Saigon, was treated by many as a cause
for actual rejoicing.
Denial is rampant in 1997, but the truth is this end result
was the very goal of the antiwar movement’s continuing efforts in
the years after American withdrawal. George McGovern, more
forthcoming than most, bluntly stated as much to this writer during
a break in taping a 1995 edition of cnn’s "Crossfire." After I had
argued that the war was clearly winnable even toward the end if we
had changed our strategy, the 1972 presidential candidate who had
offered to go to Hanoi on his knees commented, "What you don’t
understand is that I didn’t want us to win that war." Mr. McGovern
was not alone. He was part of a small but extremely influential
minority who eventually had their way.
There is perhaps no greater testimony to the celebratory
atmosphere that surrounded the Communist victory in Vietnam than the
1975 Academy Awards, which took place on April 8, just three weeks
before the South’s final surrender. The award for Best Feature
Documentary went to the film Hearts and Minds, a vicious piece of
propaganda that assailed American cultural values as well as our
effort to assist South Vietnam’s struggle for democracy. The
producers, Peter Davis and Bert Schneider [who plays a role in David
Horowitz’s story—see page 31], jointly accepted the Oscar. Schneider
was frank in his support of the Communists. As he stepped to the
mike he commented that "It is ironic that we are here at a time just
before Vietnam is about to be liberated." Then came one of the most
stunning—if intentionally forgotten—moments in Hollywood history. As
a struggling country many Americans had paid blood and tears to try
to preserve was disappearing beneath a tank onslaught, Schneider
pulled out a telegram from our enemy, the Vietnamese Communist
delegation in Paris, and read aloud its congratulations to his film.
Without hesitating, Hollywood’s most powerful people rewarded
Schneider’s reading of the telegram with a standing ovation.
Those of us who either fought in Vietnam or supported our
efforts there look at this 1975 "movie moment" with unforgetting and
unmitigated amazement. Who were these people who so energetically
poisoned the rest of the world’s view of us? How had they turned so
virulently against their own countrymen? How could they stand and
applaud the victory of a Communist enemy who had taken 58,000
American lives and crushed a struggling, pro-democratic ally? Could
they and the rest of us be said to be living in the same country
anymore?
Not a peep was heard then, or since, from Hollywood
regarding the people who disappeared behind Vietnam’s bamboo
curtain. No one has ever mentioned the concentration camps into
which a million South Vietnamese soldiers were sent; 56,000 to die,
250,000 to stay for more than six years, and some for as long as 18.
No one criticized the forced relocations, the corruption, or the
continuing police state. More to the point, with the exception of
the well-intentioned but artistically weak Hamburger Hill, one
searches in vain for a single major film since that time that has
portrayed American soldiers in Vietnam with dignity and in a true
context.
Why? Because the film community, as with other elites,
never liked, respected, or even understood those who answered the
call and served. And at a time when a quiet but relentless battle is
taking place over how history will remember our country’s
involvement in Vietnam, those who ridiculed government policy,
avoided military service, and actively supported an enemy who turned
out to be vicious and corrupt do not want to be remembered as having
been so naive and so wrong.
Among everyday Americans, attitudes during this troubled
time were much healthier. Behind the media filtering and distortion
on Vietnam, the fact is that our citizenry agreed far more
consistently with those of us who fought than with those who
undermined our fight. This was especially true, interestingly, among
the young Americans now portrayed as having rebelled against the
war.
As reported in Public Opinion, Gallup surveys from 1966 to
the end of U.S. involvement show that younger Americans actually
supported the Vietnam war longer than any other age group. Even by
January of 1973, when 68 percent of Americans over the age of 50
believed it had been a mistake to send troops to Vietnam, only 49
percent of those between 25 and 29 agreed. These findings that the
youth cohort as a whole was distinctly unradical were buttressed by
1972 election results—where 18- to 29-year-olds preferred Richard
Nixon to George McGovern by 52 to 46 percent.
Similarly, despite persistent allegations to the contrary
by former protesters who now dominate media and academia, the 1970
invasion of Cambodia—which caused widespread campus demonstrations,
including a riot that led to four deaths at Kent State
University—was strongly supported by the public. According to Harris
surveys, nearly 6 in 10 Americans believed the Cambodian invasion
was justified. A majority in that same May 1970 survey supported an
immediate resumption of bombings in North Vietnam, a complete
repudiation of the antiwar movement.
Vietnam veterans, though persistently maligned in film,
news reports, and classrooms as unwilling, unsuccessful soldiers,
have been well thought of by average Americans. In the most
comprehensive study ever done on Vietnam vets (Harris Survey, 1980,
commissioned by the Veterans Administration), 73 percent of the
general public and 89 percent of Vietnam veterans agreed with the
statement that "The trouble in Vietnam was that our troops were
asked to fight in a war which our political leaders in Washington
would not let them win." Seventy percent of those who fought in
Vietnam disagreed with the statement "It is shameful what my country
did to the Vietnamese people." Fully 91 percent of those who served
in Vietnam combat stated that they were glad they had served their
country, and 74 percent said they had enjoyed their time in the
military. Moreover, 71 percent of those who expressed an opinion
indicated that they would go to Vietnam again, even knowing the end
result and the ridicule that would be heaped on them when they
returned.
This same survey contained what was called a "feelings
thermometer," measuring the public’s attitudes toward various groups
on a scale of 1 to 10. Veterans who served in Vietnam rated a 9.8 on
this scale. Doctors scored a 7.9, TV reporters a 6.1, politicians a
5.2, antiwar demonstrators a 5.0, and draft evaders who went to
Canada came in at 3.3.
Contrary to persistent mythology, two-thirds of those who
served during Vietnam were volunteers rather than draftees, and 77
percent of those who died were volunteers. Of those who died, 86
percent were Caucasian, 12.5 percent were African-American, and 1.2
percent were from other races. The common claim that it was
minorities and the poor who were left to do the dirty work of
military service in Vietnam is false. The main imbalance in the war
was simply that the privileged avoided their obligations, and have
persisted since that time in demeaning the experience in order to
protect themselves from the judgment of history.
And what of these elites who misread not only a war but
also their own countrymen? Where are they now, other than in the
White House? On this vital historical issue that defined our
generation, they now keep a low profile, and well they should.
What an eerie feeling it must have been for those who
staked the journey of their youth on the idea that their own country
was an evil force, to have watched their naiveté unravel in the
years following 1975. How sobering it must have been for those who
allowed themselves to move beyond their natural denial, to observe
the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese fleeing
the "pure flame of the revolution" on rickety boats that gave them a
50 percent chance of death at sea, or to see television pictures of
thousands of Cambodian skulls lying in open fields, part of the
millions killed by Communist "liberators." How hollow the memories
of drug-drenched and sex-enshrined antiwar rallies must be; how
false the music that beatified their supposedly noble dissent.
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