War. Good morning. Fork you all for joining todays session. Its going to be really informative. So glad youre all here with this very distinguished panel. Leadership, ethics and Practice Initiative here at the elliott school. The goal of this initiative sponsored by our dean is to give ofater profile to the topics leadership, ethics and their Practical Application in the education of our students graduate and undergraduate. This initiative brings practitioners to the school to learn about ethical and leadership challenges those practitioners face and how they address them. The same bringing scholars to the school to address these very same topics. I would also like to mention this morning that we are being filmed by cspan history. So we are fortunate to have these proceedings recorded. Young people both in and out of faced huge questions during the vietnam war. Would they take a stand. How would they put their values into practice. How would they come together to make a difference . An important one for all young people at the school and of course an important story indeed for all of us today. The leadership, ethics and Practice Initiative is delighted to be a cosponsor for this weeks events, waging peace in vietnam. Withs been a fabulous week many really moving events throughout. Please join me in acknowledging the leadership and hard work of the l. A. School. [applause] now i would like to introduce ron carver who im quite sure that many of you in the audience know quite well. Waging peacee exhibit now on display on the second floor as well as the companion book launched earlier this week. Briefly to his history and person he became a civil rights activist in atlanta and rural mississippi the day after he graduated high school. Which is extraordinary. Foras been an activist peace and social justice all his life. Ladies and gentlemen, mr. Ron carpenter. [applause] thank you. Its great to be here with you. A lot of longtime peace youngsts and a bunch of peace human rights social justice activist students, thank you for coming and joining us. Ago i was ins vietnam for my first time, documenting photographically what you will hear more about in this afternoons chuck, andated by vietnam veteran and his vietnamese colleagues. That was back in 2001. It continues through today explode ordinance of 30 of the bombs dropped in never exploded and they are a legacy that is continuing to do harm today. At that point the war remnants whenm in Ho Chi Minh City, they heard that i had been a activist assisting the u. S. Soldiers who opposed the war in vietnam, helping to set up coffee houses, helping them get their underground newspapers ,ritten by and for gis published so they could then subversively sneak them back under the military bases and tell their fellow soldiers whats really going on in vietnam and what they can do to help stop the war. Museum askedof the to curate be willing for her this exhibit which is now in the second floor of the George WashingtonUniversity Elliott school. Thatw from 50 years before , howard leavy, the doctor who was sentenced to three years in jail for refusing to train green berets. Susan will be speaking about agent orange and what veterans are doing to deal with that terrible legacy, so i said yes. Not having any idea that it would occupy my life for the next three years. But im pleased that exhibit opened in Ho Chi Minh City at the museum march 2018. And this exhibit here today is a duplicate which is now touring universities in north america. Why are we doing this . , modestly, only because we want to change the way the history of the war in vietnam is being taught. Know about the Peace Movement in america. Ande was great opposition while there was great opposition to the war in vietnam, its great people learn and reject boys like the vietnam war. Very few people know about the u. S. Soldiers and veterans who opposed the war often at great sacrifice. Often years in jail. And we have stories of soldiers in vietnam who opposed the war and was shot and killed. Today a soldier who opposed the war, was not shot and killed obviously but spent time in the stockade, william short, who helped us immensely in the creation of the exhibit. A lot of the portraits there are his from a book that he and his wife put together. Called a matter of conscience and thats why we recognize him on the cover of our book. And im very pleased today because though this is the sixth location for the tour of this exhibit, this is the first time all threeoeditors coeditors are here at the same time and you will be hearing shortly from david. I want to leave it at that with just one other quick mention. Andibit in the book the book also get many contributions. Entirel see inside an addition of 16 pages of these underground papers written by and for soldiers while they are still active duty. I see these as the social media computers will before let alone youtube and face time and all of that sort of thing. These are the ways that the u. S. Soldiers communicated with the others on their basis. They would often print up and distribute at night at great peril thousands of copies of each individual paper. How many papers . There were close to 300 different papers put out by soldiers, sailors and folks in the air force bases throughout the United States in germany and in asia. Ships, then the aircraft characters going to be at mom. This is the way in almost realtime that communicate with each other. They told the stories of what time was actually like in vietnam. Betrayed and so enraged by what they found which is very different from what they thought they went over there. These they helped plan and plot and carry out the robustg of a movement so that they helped to end the war in vietnam. This is what this is about. Very pleased. I want now to say a few things about this week. Weve had a great week here. A piece, poetry open mic. We have had three great movies. Documentary movies. And we have built princes the boys who said no. That film because isnt quite completed yet. Have aay of course we great forum. This morning we have two academic panels. Efforts tohistory of and an end to the war and then next panel is on teaching for 8. And we have great scholars in both of these. Have twoternoon we panels on the legacy of the war. What veterans and others are doing to respond to them. Ordinance and the the continuing problems of agent orange. Evening at 6 00, wheres my prompt. We have a candlelight march. Burned a hole in my jacket. Marche a candlelight three blocks to the white house. Move theked them to white house close enough so that even those of us who are a little creaky can make it. Couple of folks who have some major disabilities and they have committed to joining us so we ask that you do, too. When we arrive at the white house we are going to read off as they did 50 years ago the names of american war dead but we are going to alternate those names with the names of vietnamese innocent civilians who were killed during the war. And we will start out with the names of not one, but nine massacres. Upch all nine of them ended with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of innocent people being killed. Introducei want to the moderator of the next panel. Here we are. Professor here. Let me try and see if i can handle this name. He holds the japan u. S. Relations chair in memory of gaston seeker at gw and received his phd in Political Science from harvard. But theres Something Else that isnt listed in this set of biographies that you should know about mike. Something that happened 601 months ago. Quick mathematics, thats 50 years and one month ago. Of 1969. R when he was a student at brown university. Moratoriumorganize a , teaching there at brown. Mention that he was the Conscientious Objector to the war. So we are very pleased that mike has agreed to be the moderator for this part of the program. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much for that kind introduction. Welcome everyone and i want to congratulate your organizers of this weeks events for putting on just a superb program. Meaningfulecially for me personally. If it wasnt for the experience 50 years ago i probably never would have become a scholar of asian studies. I want to thank linda for asking me to moderate this panel. Have an absolutely stellar panel. The full biographic statements are available in the program so let me just for the interest of time quickly identify the members of the panel. Immediate left is professor David Courtwright who is the director of international at the institute at the university of notre dame. Dr. John provosts who is a fellow and directs the vietnam project at the National Security archive housed at George Washington university. Quinn who is at Temple University and is a fellow at the center on vietnamese philosophy and culture. Professor jim herzberg is a professor of history and International Errors at George Washington university and the author of the book miracle. Before i turn things over i professor to ask little men to speak. Each speaker has 10 minutes. In the interest of moving along and promoting discussion. Thank you. Good morning. Good to see. I will try to be disciplined. The army didnt do such a good job. Ares so wonderful that you here and so important and necessary that we gather this week to commemorate the Antiwar Movement. Peak in this a city a couple blocks away. My mission is to shed some light on the critical elements of that that movement. The dissent and resistance that spread among activeduty soldiers in recent veterans. Dispellingegin by core myths about the war that are still pervasive in our culture. We are told that veterans who returned from vietnam were spat upon. Isrespected but a sociologist found in his important book there was no contemporary evidence to confirm this. He meticulously researched the newspapers. The news of those days found no evidence and you would think we knewike that that the peace activists welcomed us. And supported us. Invited us to march and all of their reveries rallies. You can see the pictures of the beautiful exhibit that ron curated and created. Unmistakable in our short hair that at least we had some here then. Peaceose silly gis for hats we war. We were part of the movement because the movement as part of america. Another pernicious myth is that. He vietnam war have been won that victory was supposedly within reach. The infamous light at the end of the tunnel. If only we had just continued the fight. But we must ask, who exactly would have done the fighting . Where were the troops who were willing to fight on to some illusory victory . By 1968 when the u. S. Valley occurred, the armed forces were in an advanced state of institutional decay. And this was before nixon began his troop withdrawals. My thesis is that the troops are withdrawn because the army needed to save itself and in order to prevent the total collapse of the armed forces. Thee are two quotes in literature that make this point. One is pretty well known. The other is not. In the june 1971 issue of the armed forces journal, not exactly a pacifist rag. There was an article by retired colonel handle called the collapse of the armed forces and he said the morale, discipline and battle weightiness of the u. S. Armed forces are with a few exceptions lower and worse than at any time in the century and possibly the history of the United States. A year later there was an article in the preeminent Foreign Policy magazine, foreign affairs, by the military sociologist maurice jenna woods. Very distinguished. I studied him in graduate school. And he wrote, the military establishment and especially its Ground Forces are experiencing a profound crisis in legitimacy. Anding to a loss of command operational effectiveness. In every part of the military in those days, fighting an unpopular unwinnable war led to broad opposition and social disruption. The g. I. Movement is something we are talking about this week and it is beautifully depicted in the exhibit. There were rallies, petitions and various forms of public opposition. Many of us were at the rally 50 years ago. There are at least a couple hundred activeduty soldiers there. And the week before i was proud to be part of a petition of 1300 65 activeduty Service Members from all over the world. It was a fullpage ad in the New York Times. My article last week in the New York Times displayed an image of that petition. Ofthis is just one example the widespread opposition. Those who refused orders, who engaged in various forms of noncooperation in the military to undermine the war. In 1970, the army was well aware of how widespread the dissent was. Asked, have you participated in a dissent kind of activity. Write an underground newspaper, gone to a protest or demonstration. One quarter of the soldiers they surveyed said yes. Then they asked a different question. Have you engaged in acts of disobedience, of sabotage or insubordination. One quarter of them said yes. So its quite clear that corner of the military was participating in antiwar activity. Mosher historian richard makes the observation that this level of opposition to the war in the military was equivalent to the proportion of activists in society among young people and in the rural and very conservative communities where most of our bases were located the proportion of antiwar activism was greater on the military base than in the community. That was certainly the case for me when i was working with gis in rural and conservative el paso. So this was a very widespread movement. The armed forces experience the highest rate of unauthorized absence in the army. Awol at one point or another and 7 deserters. Ander analyze these figures he makes another really interesting observation that this massive level of absence deprive the military of about one million personyears of work. Of service. This clearly had a way of forcibly core tailing altera capabilities. Throughout the military africanamerican groups where the most antiwar and often the most rebellious. There were major racial uprisings throughout the military. Which is depicted in the exhibit. Travis air force base, the major location for sending troops over and coming back, experienced what was called the largest masked rebellion in the history of the air force. A brawl disrupted operations for several days. Most importantly what happened within vietnam itself or what i call a quasimutiny occurred. Throughout the military there was widespread orders. I found some really interesting evidence years after i wrote soldiers in revolt. He casually mentioned that in the first cap division in 1970, there were 35 recorded incidents of combat refusal. T means its syrian off serious enough that it come to the books and was reported up the chain of command. Did a little math. Comment combat went on for several years. So its certainly safe to say there were hundreds of acts of combat refusal which is really just a polite word for mutiny. So its obvious the armed forces were not able to sustain combat at that level. The war makers tried to continue the bombing. The accelerated trooper thralls they intensified bombing thinking they could compensate for the lack of willing firepower on the ground with an inferno of fire and destruction from the air. Calculate andd to the g. I. Rebellion spread. Dozens of antiwar newspapers and resistance groups emerged and there was a major racial uprising on the uss kitty hawk and very importantly sabotage began to spread especially in the navy. Those entering your officers who were called upon to upright the air were literally threw a wrench into the works. In this reached its peak july 1972 when two aircraft carriers were put out of commission by sabotage. In the air force officers began to speak out and they joined the lawsuit that congressman Elizabeth Holtzman filed challenging the very constitutionality of the war. Saying howonclude by important this meeting is again but also just making an interesting observation about one of the placards that was very widely carried back in the days of the Antiwar Movement and that many carried in the rally 50 years ago. What if they gave a war and nobody came . But i kind of like to change it a bit. What if they waged an unjust war and soldiers said no and joined the Peace Movement . Thats what happened. And in combination with a massive Antiwar Movement we helped to bring an end to this horrible savage war in vietnam. Enqueue. [applause] thank you. [applause] good morning. Thank you all for coming. This table think at have stories that we could tell you about the Antiwar Movement and dated david has done a great job starting us off. I was asked specifically to talk about why was the war not winnable. Im going to do that i want to put in a footnote to what david was just telling you. Some years ago i had the occasion to speak to an audience actually bigger than this one which contained a lot of former military officers and because of their age and seniority and whatnot, a lot of them were former battalion commanders in vietnam. I asked for a show of hands from group, asking them did you trust your troops to operations when you were on command in vietnam . The results were very interesting and broke down exactly along the lines that he was talking about. Troops in who had led vietnam during the early uses of very confident, good troops, and those who were commanders in the field in the period starting in 1969 and going on to the end, half of the people who had commanded battalions in vietnam did not trust their gis to go out in the field with them. Ok. Let me talk about what im here for. The war in vietnam was not winnable. It wasnt winnable for a number of reason. Witht of them starting president of the United States. President of the United States conditioned the circumstances under which u. S. Armies went into the field. Decisionsa series of that set the boundaries and the framework for what we could do in vietnam. Lyndon johnsons basic decision to not have a National Debate over whether there should be a declaration of war and to conduct a war essentially off order tot in supposedly avoid controversy actually created controversy in my opinion and fueled a situation where the war was continuing under circumstances that sharpened u. S. Economic and political divisions to the point that later on in the 1960s and going into the 1970s you had major constraints on the actions of president s. By 1968 in the election in which Richard Nixon was elected, it was no longer possible for an american seeking political openly that they favored seeking victory in vietnam. Be elected say that you were in favor of negotiations and getting out of the war. Government lying and surveillance of the society as the Antiwar Movement grew set the government on a collision course with the american polity. The growing Antiwar Movement ontomized by the march november 15, 1969 where i was ,resent as a matter of fact tied the hands of american leaders. That when Richard Nixon took office his secret plan to end the war was actually to win it did he was no longer able to pursue that without simultaneously beginning to with draw American Forces from vietnam thus reducing the combat power that might theoretically have won the war. All probably heard a lot about americans not understanding vietnam. Its also true vietnamese did not understand the United States. LeaderSouth Vietnamese all made promises to americans that they never had any intention of keeping. And did not understand that when they did that they were lessening their political currency in washington. Ok . Then there was a vietnam data problem. They say they dont understand us and we dont understand them. Will all this occurs in a to ation in which actually large degree vietnam was the most analyzed war in american history. There were so many analyses, so many people picking up so much data, but the data was flawed. That wasnt understood. The number of soldiers did not equal the amount of military power. The order of battle with Something Different than the actual distribution of force in the country. The body count was a ridiculous notion. The number or tonnage of bombs dropped really didnt matter. Awayata problem never went and it underlay all of the analyses and the analyses fueled the decisions. So you have to ask, where the decisions any good . Thenother problem was misfit of objectives and goals. Vietnamese and vietnamese, they had a dream. They were going to reunify vietnam. Was complete dedication. It was for them a total war. The United States, vietnam was a limited war on the periphery of the cold war. War in notion to the way matched the vietnamese determination to win. The idea that americans could surge into vietnam and when the war by socalled decisive intervention never was possible because the South Vietnamese railroad and port and railroad situations would not sustain an american buildup that was that quick. Amount of American Forces surging into vietnam was probably as decisive as possible and those problems were not solved until 1968 when you had the tet offensive and these other factors that i was talking about begin to apply. The american idea of winning the war also presumed that there was a winning strategy. No name strategy for the vietnam conflict was ever proposed. That just bombing or having lots of troops were just doing pacification, all those a milieu ofed amid cultural, Political Economic and that constrained the possibilities and potential for those strategies. Never matched the situation where they needed to be applied. Another point is the United States intervention in vietnam globalace within political context. Not just the vietnamese revolution but in fact there was a Global Anticolonial Movement starting in 1945 that swept the dozens ofconverted former colonies into new countries. Was intnamese revolution that flow. The United States intervention was like king to newt standing in front of the sea and demanding that the waves stop. Vietnam histories have also failed to appreciate the full impact of the Antiwar Movement. 1967 march onthe the pentagon where it became clear that the americans opposed a the vietnam war really were Major Political force in the country and on that i will stop and give it over to sophie. [applause] you. Ank hello. Im really happy to be here and happy to see so many familiar faces. Time but still familiar. Im here to not just plug my the on the third force in vietnam war. Here it is. It is subtitled the elusive search for peace 1954 to 1975. My angle is to talk about this book and the voices of the South Vietnamese people in particular who were often ignored in our rush to wage a hightech intervention in vietnam. So im going to try to summarize aboutk in five points vietnamese efforts at peacemaking, why they failed and why they never stopped. My first point is that the long american war was not inevitable. The line that we often hear that there was no other route to take may be defensible for the vietnamese side, for the coming aside as it was after all their country and their revolution. But for the United States many exit points existed and they have been gone over by other fred who madeding the point very clearly that the u. S. War was a war of choice. You of the exit points if could just tick off on one hand, people tend to say it now, the North Vietnamese werent ready at that point. But theres plenty of evidence that their southern partners, the National Liberation front were always ready to talk. Statement of the geneva conference in 1954 outlined a process that an apple discussions between the two parts of vietnam and this continued to be the basic formula that proponents of peace within South Vietnam promoted. They wanted to rid themselves of a military government and establish some sort of coalition between the communists, the center, the left and anyone who was interested in avoiding a major war. Discussions often focused on neutral ism in 19 63. The u. S. Was so afraid of the administrations tendency towards political conflict as opposed to military conflict that they overthrew them in a coop. There were other discussions of neutral is him, even a United States senator submitted a memo to the Johnson Administration outlining how volute neutral solution might work but of course the u. S. Refusal to accept a Coalition Government in the south and the refusal to accept the idea of neutralism as basically being procommunist meant that these opportunities were always closed off. A second point is that the indochina wars lasted altogether roughly 45 years if you take the point from the end of the Second World War to the end of the war over cambodia which was coming to a close in 1990. Thats a very long time and over that time the point i want to make is that the political configurations on all sides evolved. The people we started out fighting changed their complexion over time. And in particular some of the sides changed dramatically. There were different ideologies in the soviet union that changed 1965. N 1964, the Chinese Communist party was all over the map in these years and of course once mao zedong and the cultural revolution it effective life wasnt the only influence. The communist parties involved were far from monolithic. The u. S. Hardline towards the nationalist communist in vietnam in fact in my opinion pushed their party towards a much more rigid stance and undercut those who had worked for compromise, solutions or coalitions in the past. Some of the leaders including who became the leader of the 1960nist party in hanoi in said there was a chance of forming a Coalition Government in the south which could rate andsouthern part of vietnam eventually open negotiations with hanoi. View in hanoit of was expressed in the parties theoretical journal in july 1964 and this is the one that u. S. Policymakers often heard because at times it was expressed quite decisively. Was that the revolution can and should be settled only by the use of revolutionary acts and the force of the masses. It cannot be settled by treatises and accords. It is impossible to count on talks and negotiations with the imperialists as advocated by the modern revisionists. Thee were members of vietnam thatty at the struggle between the west and the communist could my third Point Centers on the people of South Vietnam. It republic of vietnam as was known should have been trusted to decide their own clinical future. The United States, unfortunately, had a tendency to line andwe know best to treat south whitneys politicians as children. But as it happens data treat south get mes politicians as children. Vietnamese in both sides of the country had had a wide expanse of the world, had traveled abroad, had earned phds. Many were skilled lawyers and medical people. If we had paid more attention to the voices of these resistors within South Vietnam, we would have become aware that these people had at best a lukewarm attitude toward that u. S. Takeover of their war effort. This was night a widely popular this was not a why the popular event in South Vietnam. They did not choose to become a ground zero in the cold war in southeast asia. Ware now know, this cold was waged, the hot war in vietnam, rather, was waged with hightech weapons and heavy element of air war. The people of South Vietnam found themselves subject to tactical airstrikes, free fire zones. The bombing of the south is something that isnt always widely acknowledged and yet it went on actually longer than the bombing of hanoi. Ok. I could give you many examples of selfie it means resistance to u. S. Policy and the sorts of movements that developed. But i think well have to leave that for questions, if we have time. The fourth point i want to make and this is also related to the point some of the other panelist made, is that the United States made a unilateral decision to make a stand in vietnam against asian communism. They chose South Vietnam as the point where they thought they could stop what they saw as the spreading tide of red over the map of asia. Mcnaughtons famous analysis of u. S. Motivation for entering the warhe was the deputy secretary of state at the was printed inis the pentagon papers and has since become wellknown. I think it is worth remembering what he had to say in march of 19 65. His plan of action described 70 toms as, to avoid avoid a u. S. He militating 70 to avoid a human leading defeat to our reputation as a guarantor, 20 to keep vietnam and adjacent territory from chinese hands meeting probably laos and thailand and kemo you and 10 to permit people of South Vietnam to enjoy a better, freer way of life. Cambodia nd and thailand and cambodia. So the idea that we were fighting a war on behalf of a beleaguered people in South Vietnam is not completely true. It excused the facts on the ground. My final point has been made by david very well, which is that in the end the war was a great tragedy for all involved. In the u. S. , in vietnam, north, south, communist, noncommunist, and even for our allies such as the south koreans. And yet, we in this country continue to argue about the lessons of the vietnam war, which i find incredible. Revisionist historians have long attempted to establish that we gave up too soon and that the war was being won by 1972. Of triumph paradigm forsaken, which is the title of the famous book by one of these revisionists. As we know from the facts presented here about the dei that we, this idea the g. I. E about movement, this idea that we might have won the war, our forces in vietnam was no longer a force that was willing to win the war or to fight. They had seen that it was not popular with the be enemies people and with the vietnamese people and they wanted it to end. That is my five points for you. [applause] thank you, sophia. Now i turned to jim. Turn to jim. Thanks, mike. And thank you to the organizers for inviting me to such a great event. And also for awakening. 50yearold memories. Was a fall of 1969 i nineyearold growing up in the suburb of new york city in northern new jersey. I was also a news junkie. I regarded every days New York Times as a personal letter to me. I was already strongly against the war. [laughter] and i cannot take time out from thirdgrade to journey down to washington for the march 50 years ago today. However, the highlight of the 1960s for me occurred at the time of the first moratorium day, month earlier on october 15, i marched against the war in ridgewood, new jersey, republican suburb. And then on a tovar 16 and then on october 16, i was at shea stadium when the mets won the world series. [laughter] and these two events were not entirely unrelated. October 15 was a game of day for that the mets 1, 21. And the pitcher was tom seaver. And he had told the media he believed the war in vietnam was wrong. He believed it was a guerrilla war and it was time to get out. He endorsed the idea of an advertisement that would say if the mets can win the pennant, we can get out vietnam, more or less. And i did not discover until a couple of days ago something that i am not sure i caught at the time that reflects the atmosphere of that era. Eight and it was still chicago eight, bcl was not bound, gagged and convicted make in Chicago Seven into the fall. Bobby seale they sent a telegram to tom siebert and they said we want you to know of our continued support to the new york mets to the battle against the aggressors from the american league. k. That is american with a we also find ourselves locked in a struggle with a team of outside agitators known as the washington kangaroos. Our trial now taking place on the center court of the chicago federal building, has been termed the world series of injustice. In this series we, like you are the underdog so from us eight underdogs which included abbie hoffman, jerry rubin, tom hayden and others. From us eight underdogs to you underdogs and to all the underdogs of the world struggling against oppression, we offer our support. Up against the centerfield wall, baltimore. Power to the new york mets sievert. One example of antiwear heroism is my uncle kenny. Downtober 15, he turned tickets to the press pass to shea stadium for game four to march against the war or attend the event you mentioned. On game five he was at shea stadium with me when the mets won the world series. He was also with me when we saw the nationals when the world series 50 years later it so it is funny how history can turn around. In my remaining 22 seconds, let me tell you about three issues connected to the Antiwar Movement and the war. They relate to something mike did mention, since 1991i have been closely associated with the group at the Woodrow Wilson center called the Cold War International history project, whose aim is to get beyond the washington centric version of history that most americans have known. 99 he cold war, which is based on american english language sources. And to try to move toward incorporating communist and other side sources. In the case of the vietnam war, that include the enemies sources, but also other actors in the International History of war, soviet, chinese and others. And let me briefly mention three issues that night be interesting , and suggestions for further i will bed, of course happy to deal at greater length in the queue at a. Q a. One is, since the panel is about diplomatic initiatives, is did any of these diplomatic initiatives have any chance of success . There were hundreds of attempts after the war as blighted in 19 city five 1965, until the begin of the paris talks in 196 81969 to broker peace talks between washington and hanoi. I want to hold up because i do not have time to really whole nine or pages, my book is called marigold, the last chance for peace. This deals with what i regard as perhaps the most serious of these opportunities. This was an effort by the government of communist poland in 19 66 in collaboration with natos italy, to broker the opening of peace talks and rage a formula for a settlement to end the war and to reach a formula for a settlement to end the war. It was not this is really a good chance for peace but it should have led to the opening of direct talks between washington and hanoi at the end of 19 626. Those talks may well have broken down it is not mean the war would have ended. But if Lyndon Johnson would have entered peace talks, this wouldve complete change the lyrical dynamic that led to the rise of an antiwar candidate, of Eugene Mccarthy entering the race and the New Hampshire primary and Robert Kennedy entering their waste the race. That would have led to a different trajectory even if it did not and the war. This is based prime early on commonest archives from poland, former soviet union, hungarian archives, the enemies sources. Vietnamese sources. It does suggest there would have been missed opportunities to end the war sooner or open peace talks years sooner. And of course hundreds of thousands of lives sooner, than actually happened. My research does suggest that peace talks should have started earlier. , and thisuestion relates to a colleagues book that i would recommend him a has to do with what was the impact of the Moratorium Movement . Of the Antiwar Movement in late 1969 . Research has very strongly demonstrated, and this is also since donunlike soviet meet was too shy to hold up his own book john has written many books on the war and he also writes about the story. In the fall of 1969 Richard Nixon with Henry Kissinger strongly desired to try and escalatory program in vietnam connected to the socalled madman theory. Eisenhowerved dwight ended the korean war in 1953 into clear threat to the communists by conveying a Nuclear Threat to the communists. Shown,s, historians have probably a misconception. Death not anys threat that really led to the end of fighting in korea. But nixon believed that madman theory and hints of s collation could signal to the soviets that they would copper mys and and compromise and end the war. By william barr of the National Security archive called nickens Nuclear Sector showed the Moratorium Movement in the fall of 19 629 was crucial 1969 was crucial in causing codenamedbandon massive escalations that might have entered nuclear escalations to interject the ho chi minh trail. The marches did have us get impact on policy. Third, i want to raise a question that john and i discussed at a has struck a meeting years back, and this is john and i discussed at a historical meeting years back. Could the war have been ended in1969 on the same terms . Four years earlier than the peace accords of paris, 3 . Called, in january, 197 there, the jury is still out. Clearly, North Vietnam eight concessions in terms of allowing the saigon government which it had not accepted earlier. Theres an ongoing controversy on whether the efficacy of nixons strangler diplomacy of getting moscow and beijing to pressure hanoi to moderate its terms might have had impact. Nixons triangular diplomacy. Chinese of russian and and less soviet means evidence that has emerged is that while there might have been pressure to moderate terms, it was with the understanding that this was just to get the americans out, and allow the process of leading to hanois eventual unification of vietnam under its eventual control, would civilly play with simply take place later. The history of the war still being written, and from a u. S. Perspective, very much rewritten. I urge you all to consult some of that literature. You andd to talk with thank you ray much. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. We have had a very rich set of presentations. David has told us about the Critical Role that soldiers have played in the movement for peace , even engaging in sabotage lay off close to the u. S. Military effort to lay obstacles to the u. S. Military effort. John explained why the war was not inevitable and focused on the play cult constraints on the leadership the political constraints on the leaderships. Also he showed how flawed data led to flawed analysis and flawed decisionmaking. John talked about the war was unwinnable. And sophia explained why the war was not inevitable and identified exit points and missed opportunities. Jim focused on one of those missed opportunities, operations marigold and brought us full to tell us how that Moratorium Movement actually mattered in constraining the nixon administration. So we have 15 minutes for questions and answers. I would like to take groups of three questions and have the panelists answer those questions. Be brief in your question. , then tontify yourself whom you would like to direct the question. Microphone . [indiscernible] i do not have scholarly qualifications on this topic except that i am vietnamese, and lived through the war before i came here in 19 629 and got andf immersed in 1969 got immersed in the Peace Movement. First to professor sophie quinn judge. What to make of the statement, in South Vietnam at a time, the official line was always, the communists are and implacable foe. Theyre not to be trusted. And the only good communist is a dead communist. Peace,their overtures to neutrality, negotiations are , to their eventual victory . To givetement seems iedence to that view and also am puzzled that this one would make such a statement and what is the audience that he intended . Because the North Vietnamese were quite skillful at working with the Peace Movements worldwide, and especially in the u. S. They were always putting themselves forward as, we do not want this war, which is true. We do not necessarily want complete victory, we want peace. So i would like you to explore that further. My second question is two Professor John preggers. I wish you would elaborate on your point that the leaders of South Vietnam had made many promises that they did not keep, and loss credence with the u. S. Government . Thank you. Ok, so the gentlement there. Thank you. Am Doug Hofstetter and wanted to respond to jim hershbergers questions about whether or not the war could have ended earlier. I was a part of the National Student association delegation that traveled to saigon and hanoi, to negotiate the peoples ife treaty in late 1970. You go back and look at the terms we negotiated with the saigon Student Union, the vienna me Student Union in the north and the vietnamese Student Union and the north and the National Student unit in liberated areas in the south, is not that different from what is it your came up with two years later. So actually, the peoples peace treaty, basically laid out that the war should end. The american troops could come home. Prisoner should be released. And the vietnamese should solve problems between themselves. And we brought it back and took it to American Colleges and universities in the spring of 1971. There were hundreds of American Colleges and universities that passed it and two years later because of your came up with the same thing. Men gen the gel tleman on the side. Thanks. My name is james williamson. I want to urge everyone in the room to consider visiting kent state in this coming spring and especially for the 50th anniversary of the protest and the shootings there next may 4. When we talk about was this were winnable, we should not lose sight of the fact that we should not have wanted to win this war. It was a wrong war from the very beginning. I do not think that john believes differently. And i want to invoke george , for policy walks in the room, who said the biggest single failure of american Foreign Policy was the failure to understand third world revolutionary movements. Three pieces. What about the role of george ball . Could we have a little more of an assessment of the role of esther Henry Kissinger, who has been wined and dined by people probably at this institution, by the clintons, bite drew faust at Harvard University by drew faust at Harvard University. Does he really deserve to be wined and dined . And finally, john because you have done such great work on the cia, i do not know why william bill colby appeared in a dream of mine last night, i am not sure what to make of that. But can you talk about the role of the cia both on the ground in operation phoenix and in the information aspect of things or disinformation or misinformation . Ok so i would like to turn to the panelists to appeal to any , startinguestions with sophie and then john and jim. All right. I do not think i was clear when i read out that statement from the hanoi theoretical journal about why the revolution must and whyolent victory peace talks and negotiations with the imperialists are not worth the time. Le ywas not a statement by un. That was an anonymous author writing in the journal in 1964, which expressed one point of view coming from hanoi. We have records of statements by le yuen that say seven quite different. He was that Say Something quite different. He was known as an advocate of the southern evolution but was also consistent in lobbying for , and may governments at one time have been fairly hard line on his feelings about the saigon government which he felt was a puppet government that should be destroyed but the same time he also spoke about the need for peace governance in the south. He was some but he said even in his 1968 statement before the hanoi central committee, before the tet offensive, that his goal, or he saw the goal of the tet offensive as to create a new front that would spring to life out of the uprising. The new front will gather together all the people who have not joined the lack National Liberation front because they see it as commonest. The imperialists would see that this is not a communist government. Theill bring all personalities close to the french into this government, even those who have worked with the americans for a long time. If they are not dangerous. We can also include them. We are strong we will confused the other side peered we will divide them. There will be a new front with a new name and a different flag. In the north there will be one government and in the south there be to governments, the liberation front and the new front. They will be for three but one like the earth with the sky. Take that as you will. It could be entirely hypocritical, time serving, or a search for stopgap solution that would have put an end to the bombing and the destruction of all parts of vietnam. It is one of the viewpoints expressed coming from hanoi over the years. I am just trying to make the point that hanoi was not one monolithic block. Does this answer your question . Ok. Ok. I think theres a lot to talk about here. Let me say quickly bout the cia, actually, my next book which is being line editing now is about the cias vietnam war. So you will find a lot of stuff. , i would say, a figure who early on got the idea of pacification and wanted to make it about pacification. Here is just one of these strategies that did not quite fit on the higher level of cias information to american president s. Of agency did well in terms morning president s that there was a chinese angle and there was a russian angle and there was a danger of intervention by high noise allies hanois allies. They did less well on interpreting South Vietnamese politics. , someey did moderately well, some not so well, on interpreting the military balance and the actual situation of the war. Hero to my was a mind, in terms of opposing american intervention. Knave. Kissinger was a kissingers policy get yours participation american policymaking was one of the most Dangerous Things that occurred during the nixon years. I believe nixon and kissinger helped extend the war more than it. Did stop this goes to the point of whether we should abandon the war at all. Historyately, american is problematic. Going forntroversy several years among american historians, was vietnam part of a revolution . Theres a tendency among american historians to view vietnam as another battle of the cold war. And it was not just another battle of the cold war. It was a revolution. And the United States, as i tried to indicate with my mention of knute, the United States was completely misplaced trying to get in the way of the vietnamese revolution. To the point about South Vietnamese not understanding the United States, i mentioned the promises made. But theres more than that. Saigon governments , theot appreciate america sense ability of america, american politics. Of americanility politics. Just to take an example of kissinger and nixon finally negotiate something that will seal the american withdrawal and get the americans out. They take the Draft Agreement to saigon. En van chu, president of South Vietnam at this point thinks that with american politics as they are and with the disposition of the United States as it is, they have the capability to stand back and reject an agreement that does not force North Vietnam to withdraw its armies from South Vietnam. Naughtily that, reject a Coalition Government with the National Liberation front and essentially create a victory out of the situation that they were 1972. Those things were simply not possible in the situation that and for thesaigon president of saigon at that time. If you look at south enemies efforts in the United States, they never really engaged the american polity. They do not try and convince americans. They were not sending representatives out to American College campuses, for example, to give cox about to get talks about how our cause is just are whatever they would have wanted to talk about. They do not make an effort to understand the United States. That, i think, undercut their goals. Jim . Quickly, picking up on something john was just talking about in terms of whether or not the war was doomed and on the wrong side from the beginning, it is interesting to go back to the immediate aftermath of World War Two when for several years, much of this u. S. Government and much of the state department, agreed with the impulse of franklin roosevelt, that the situation and what was then still technically French Indochina should be mostly viewed through the lens of an anticolonial struggle. But with the victory of mao zedong and the communist and china in 1949, that completely swung to the i did that this is just another front in the cold war. What is fascinating is that for several years, essentially, u. S. Documents talked about independence efforts against the french and indochina. And independence efforts against the judge in what was then the Netherlands East Indies against the dutch in what was then that Netherlands East Indies against sukarno. As if the europeans on the wrong side of history and we have to ease the passage out. 19491950, we still weted easing sukarno started viewing the french as part of the cold war. We dont like colonialism but it is better than communism. What is missed in most histories of the world is the fear of the domino theory in the early 1960s. The biggest domino everyone was afraid of in washington was indonesia, because sukarno was seen as playing footsie with the communists, the chinese. 625 there is a19 coup and counter code and military takeover in indonesia. The domino falls in the proamerican direction. But by then we are so committed in vietnam, nobody reassesses the stakes. Like hey, they do we do not have to worry about indonesia anymore and we can treated as the civil war that it was. On the question of the peace treaty negotiated in december, 1970, im not familiar with every detail but my sense is that neither in washington nor in hanoi was there a willingness to make the kind of concessions in terms of North Vietnam, i think they still officially recognized the provisional evolution or government led by madame din as the sole legitimate government for saigon. And in the u. S. There was still an insistent that all the people of the peoples army had to leave South Vietnam. Of course in North Vietnam, they were not foreign forces. This was a civil war. This was part of the american cognitive dissidents dissonance. This was the u. S. Intervening in the civil war. What was the real policies of the two sides, i would defer to john and urge you to look at the secret dialogue, the records of which are very much available from about the americans and now the North Vietnamese between duc thuyh. Nd li robert came bring him has a book about kissinger and the vietnam war. Bob reagan is one of the few scholars fluent in vietnamese. Nguyen and hanois work looks at it from a balanced perspective. I would encourage you to dig into the weeds about what the two sides were really telling each other, as opposed to what they might agree in flowery language for purposes of international propaganda. At 10 30. To have time for a couple more questions do we have time for more questions . No. Ok. We have to move along and there will be other opportunities for questions and answers. People want to take a break and we have to be back here to begin thank you very much. [applause] next, historian Christian Abby and peace activist carl weiss alert keynote talks on u. S. Soldier and civilian peace initiatives during the vietnam war. The remarks were part of a conference in washington, d. C. Hosted in conjunction with the waging peace in vietnam traveling exhibit. It is my pleasure to introduce our two keynote speakers