Vietnam

Chapter 1: The War Nobody Won

• Vietnam had influence on later administrations' foreign policy decisions
  • Carter administration decisions not to block revolutionary movements (Angola, Ethiopia, Iran)
  • After bombing in Beirut, Reagan withdrew forces - lesson learned from Vietnam
  • Grenada - "comic" operation allowing appearance of showing force without risk of getting bogged down in large conflict
  • American public rebuffed Central America communists - avoid another Vietnam in Central America

• Lyndon Johnson - reluctant to go into Vietnam, tiptoed in
• Contrast to Bush in Iraq:

Thus Bush assembled a force that, combined with that of its allies, numbered more than six hundred thousand - larger than the U.S. military machine in Vietnam at its peak.

"There's so much at stake," he said. "Are we willing to die for oil? Are we willing to sacrifice our kids for the sake of stimulating our economy? We're still paying dearly for Vietnam."

- Bill Fournier, former policeman in Auburn, Maine, imploring Congress

• Differences between Vietnam and Gulf War... but parallels, too
  • No clear purpose
  • Failure to define concept behind attack
  • Unclear whether victory vital to US interests, or of illusory importance

• Vietnam reconstruction - daunting task; broken economy, broken social structure, exhausted population
• Civil war tore families apart, over 1 million fled abroad

"We should have heeded the old Chinese adage: 'You can conquer a country from horseback, but you cannot govern it from horseback.'"

- Tran Bach Dang, top Communist party adviser

"This is still very much a feudal society, whatever its ideological labels."

- Dr. Duong Quynh Hoa, physician

• Following Vietnam war, Russian technicians sent to improve railroads, build power plants, etc.
• "Vietnamese lamented the Russians as 'Americans without dollars.'"

Rejecting an urgent appeal for help, Moscow cables Vietnam: "Tighten your belts." To which Vietnam replies: "Send belts."

• The US commitment to the region dated back to 1950, when President Truman decided to help the French retain their hold over Indochina to block Chinese Communist expansion.

Chapter 2: Piety and Power

• Vietnam also known in Europe as Cauchinchina
• Portugese explorer, Prince Henry the Navigator, endorsed to explore by Pope Nicholas V (1454)
• Portugese explorers landed in east India, then Malacca (gateway to China Sea), then Cambodia and Vietnam
• "Giao Chi" - Chinese characters for Vietnam; became "Cauchi," then "Cauchichina"

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• August 1883 - Tu Duc dies, French fleet appeared at mouth of Perfume river near Hué
• French installed officials and garrisons, and exercised jurisdiction over Vietnamese authorities
• French collected customs, managed defense and foreign relations
• Vietnam was French posession

Clemenceau, more eloquent than ever, accused Ferry of "high treason" for bogging France down in Vietnam; his address foreshadowed speeches that French politicans were to hear, under similar circumstances, sixty years later. his words strangely resembled a private warning that deputy Secretary of State George Ball would send to Lyndon Johnson in 1965: "When our soldiers are again threatened, as they are today, we will be asked for more money and more men. We will not be able to refuse. And millions upon millions, fresh troops on top of fresh troops will lead to our exhaustion. Gentlemen, we must block this route.

But the French colonial experience would also open Vietnam to Western ideas that, along with the violence and repression and humiliation, rekindled Vietnamese nationalism.