Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Richard Nixon president ial. My name is jim byron and im the and ceo of the Richard Nixon. I want to start this evening because i know that there are a number of veterans in the audience and maybe even some who are actively serving. So if you are a veteran tonight, i would ask that you stand and be recognized. Thank you. But thank you for your. I also want to thank the members of the Richard NixonFoundation Associates club members and our president s members. Because your membership is what makes Educational Programs like possible. And these are programs that teach American History and american. So thank you. Thanks. Thanks for what you have done. Now on to speaker this evening. Dr. Mark moyar. Is the William P Harris chair of military history at hillsdale college. From 2018 to 2019. He served as of the office of civilian military cooperation at usaid and previously served as director of the project on military and diplomatic history at the center for strategic and International Studies in washington, d. C. Dr. Moyer is a member of the Hoover Institution working group on the role of military history in contemporary conflict, and a senior fellow at the policy research institute, he has taught at the u. S. Marine Corps University at texas a m, the foreign institute, and he was a orellow at the joint special operations university. Hes the author of seven books, including his most recent triumph regained the vietnam war, 1964 to 1968. He holds b. A. , summa cum laude from harvard and a ph. D. From cambridge. Well, these gentlemen, please welcome dr. Mark moyar. Thank you. Great to be here. Thanks, jim and your team for hosting me here. Its a pleasure to be talking, especially Vietnam Veterans and ive been working on the vietnam war now for close to 30 years. And it really all started when i met some Vietnam Veterans who didnt seem to fit the stereotype of veterans that i was seeing on tv as a youth growing up in america and ever since, ive been digging into the history of vietnam and finding that so much of what we thought we knew or what people thought they knew about vietnam is false. And what ill talk about today is the second of what is a trilogy on vietnam. The first volume triumph for second was published in 2006. This i got did a lot of other things in between iraq Afghanistan Trump Administration etc. But now gotten this one out just come out from encounter books and the third and final one will cover the 69 to 75 period, which will, of course, very intimately involve the Nixon Administration. But there is some involvement towards the end of this book with Richard Nixon and a couple places ill point him out along the way just very briefly to give a rundown for those who might have been too young to remember how this all started. But the first volume that i wrote, start in 1954, when vietnam is divided between north and south and this is a period when president is in office. Yeah, Richard Nixon is Vice President and he actually supports stronger military action to support the french. But the u. S. Ends up compromise seizing and putting newtons gm in south as the president and ho chi minh communist is given control of North Vietnam. Theres a lot goes on in between 54 and 65. But this is really a Pivotal Moment in the early part of the war. There is a crisis in which buddhists of South Vietnam are accusing the South Vietnamese government of religious persecution. And and they get the backing those two gentlemen at the bottom you see there, David Halberstam and neil sheehan, who are young reporters at the time. And they sheehan and halberstam support. And over the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government encouraged the u. S. To go in that direction. And i mention that because much of what people know about vietnam from halberstam and sheehan, and as i argue in the first volume, you really need to understand their involvement in the events themselves to understand how they have distorted the history so much and Richard Nixon actually at this time is among those in the us who are saying president gm of South Vietnam has actually been doing a pretty good job and it would be crazy to get rid of him. But ambassador henry cabot lodge, who was ambassador at the time, decides to listen to these journalists and to give a green light to the to some generals who want to get rid of the president , leads to the assassination of gm and his brother on november six or november 2nd of 1963. Now, the proponents, including halberstam, sheehan lodge, have argued that this is going to make things much better in South Vietnam and the war is just going to take off. But in fact, the very opposite happens. And what you see is, a succession of coups, people taking power who are not nearly as capable as him, as people like nixon had predicted. And after each of these coups, theres purges. So you have a rapid decline in the of the South Vietnamese government. This is still a time when theyre not u. S. Troops. Theyre just on the u. S. Military advisors. So this is playing out through 1964. Then also you have the president ial election. A u. S. President been assassinated. So Lyndon Johnsons running against barry goldwater. And as you may remember, johnson describes himself as the candidate of peace. Gore. Goldwater is a warmonger. Nixon says, im not going to send american boys to go fight wars in asia and. He goes on to win the election. This is particularly important for vietnam. It convinces the North Vietnamese leadership that now they have a president in office who said hes not going to fight here in vietnam. So at the same time, theyre seeing the South Vietnamese government in turmoil. So they decide to launch a decisive in the spring of 1965, moving entire north Vietnamese Army divisions into South Vietnam and this offensive well for the North Vietnamese such that by june of 1965 the american commander, general westmoreland, is telling the white house that if the u. S. Doesnt put its own troops into, the ground war quickly, that South Vietnam is going to fall. So president johnson, then has to look at all the strategic stakes and he is focused on the same issue, really, that had concerned eisenhower and kennedy, which is the socalled domino theory. The idea that if South Vietnam falls, youll see other countries in the region fall in quick succession. Southeast asia is most significant region, but the consequence is also seemed to stretch beyond to japan and elsewhere in the region. And johnson ultimately decides that, in fact, the domino theory is correct, that if we pull out, this will send a signal across the region that the us is no longer a great power in asia. And so he decides to intervene in the first volume. I explain how this theres actually a very compelling rationale, contrary to much of what weve been heard that in fact you see everyone in the region in this domino theory and urging the United States to go in and save South Vietnam if they dont want the whole thing to collapse. So that new volume picks up with the arrival and entrance of u. S. Ground forces into the ground war. The first major battle, not especially known, its called operation starlight, but the marines engage large viet cong units and deal them heavy, heavy losses. And this convinces the North Vietnamese that, in fact now that theyve got the americans here, they are not going to be able to win a decisive victory as they had had thought. Theres another battle which you probably have heard of, battle of i drink valley, which was subject of the book we were soldiers once and young and also the movie with mel gibson. We were soldiers similar outcome where u. S. Firepower and maneuver and the use of the helicopter to enable the americans to deal a decisive defeat to the North Vietnamese. Now one thing that probably that few of any of you have heard about thats going on at the same time cover in the book at considerable length. And this is whats going on in indonesia. Indonesia is considered by most in the u. S. Most important of all, the dominoes in southeast asia. And yet weve heard almost nothing about if you look at histories of the vietnam war, its not even mentioned. But there is a momentous confrontation in indonesia in september of 1965. And the president sukarno. On the left there is a man of the left and hes been moving into open alliance with china. The Indonesian Communist Party is also getting sick at this time and hes worried about whats going to happen next. So he and the indonesian commun get together and they hatch a scheme to assassinate the Senior Leadership of the indonesian military. Very. And they are able to in fact kill most of the key generals on the first day of this operation. But one problem gets in their way. They did not target this man on the right general suharto. The reason didnt target suharto was that he was seen as an opportunist. It turns out, in fact, he was an opportunist. So when when this confrontation is starts, he sits in ways to whats going to happen. And goes around and talks to different commanders about what they want to do. And enough of them come back and say, we want to stand up to the communists, that he will ultimately take action and he will bring the military to bear against sacar and defeat him and then wipe out the Indonesian Communist Party. And as i talk about in the book, there is compelling evidence that the only reason the generals did this was that they decided the u. S. Was here to stay in asia based on what was happening in, South Vietnam, so very early in this period, we see the United States reaping the benefits. This and this has implications through to today where we are still competing with china in this region for, the allegiance of these countries. Now, vietnam also then leads quickly to changes in china as well. Mao, when 1965 starts, mao tsetung thinks things are going great for International Revolution in southeast asia. South vietnam seems to be on verge of defeat. And sukarno seems to be getting ready to solidify his rule well in the fall. Both of dreams are dashed and mao decide to turn away from this International Revolution towards internal revolution. And what becomes known as the great proletarian cultural revolution. Shell kill probably several Million People and it will decimate china economically, militarily, and will also lead to a falling out with his vietnamese allies. Then also at this time, vietnam is exacerbating the split between the chinese and the soviets, which also has great strategic logic, ramifications. And we will see partly because the cultural revolution, partly because the soviets are now relying more on the North Vietnamese, relying more heavily on the soviets for aircraft weapons, that theres this mutual between china and the soviet us that will drive them further apart. Of course, in the nixon period will see this exploited quite effectively. And once its clear that hanoi cannot militarily in the short term, the war turns into one of attrition. So the North Vietnamese decide they are going to wear down the of the United States through the infliction of casualties on the battlefield, which is essentially how they defeated the french in the 1950s, that even they might suffer much greater losses. The americans will lose patience. And here you see that the man on the left there, general when she tan is the senior commander. A lot of people in the west for a long time mistakenly thought that vote in georgia, whos on the right there was in charge. But giap has actually been marginalized and giap is arguing that they should a guerrilla war to conserve manpower. But he is overruled by when she tan and others who say that they need to use more conventional to inflict more casualties on the United States. Now, general westmoreland, is devising a strategy for the United States. He also settles on attrition in, large part because theres not many other alternatives. But in this case, hes less concerned with North Vietnamese will than with eroding their capabilities. And he hopes that if they inflict enough losses on the North Vietnamese that this will buy time for the South Vietnamese government to recover from the political turmoil that its been under since 1963 and help rebuild South Vietnamese armed forces. In 66 and 67. With both sides intent on attrition, the casualty casualty counts will go up quite sharply. The americans, as in late 65, when every major battle usually very lopsided fashion and with neither sides able, really get a decisive advantage. Now, one of the things we often hear one of the myths thats been propagated was that the United States had these exaggerated thoughts of how many casualties these were being killed or being inflicted on the enemy and the talk of the body count, which is how it was, was a big part of problem. And that the North Vietnamese were actually fighting very well. And westmoreland was misleading us when he was saying that were inflicting all these casualties. This is important. Well, it turns out one of the things in this book, in the previous book i was able to do is get hold of quite a large number of North Vietnamese sources, many of which havent really been used before. But the North Vietnamese sources show us that in these early years of the war, the american reports of casualties are actually pretty. In fact, the North Vietnamese are suffering terribly from the damage the americans are inflicting. And its actually the North Vietnamese who are overestimating the damage their causing. And its largely the commanders. The south are under pressure to show results. They cant hide their own casualties. So what they do is they report to higher headquarters that theyre killing many more americans and vietnamese than they actually are. And it will take a while before the North Vietnamese really intend or really start to figure this out. Now, for all the successes in the south, the us military is growing frustrated with their inability to stop the problem. At its root is in North Vietnam, where the supplies and men are coming from. And so you have from early on people that include former president eisenhower, the joint chiefs of staff, thats general Erwin Wheeler on the left, the chairman of the joint chiefs. Theyre telling johnson, if you dont want this to just go on forever, we need to take sterner measures beyond South Vietnam. And that means sending Ground Troops into laos and cambodia, which would allow you to cut the ho chi minh trail where where North Vietnam is getting most of its supplies also involves possibly ground actions and definitely intensifying bombing of North Vietnam. But johnson chooses to listen instead to secretary of defense Robert Mcnamara and mcnamara doesnt know nearly as much about the military as most of the hawks. But he had been an automobile executive and he studied economics, and he tries to apply economic game theory, vietnam and tries to use that as sort of a conflict management tool. And he argues that limits that we should actually limit ourselves initially so we dont provoke the enemy. And then he will say that these escalatory measures arent going to really help the situation in the south and that we are going to provoke the chinese and the soviet. Its if we do this. And so he convinces johnson to keep turning down these requests we now know from the benefit of 50 plus years of history that in fact, mcnamara was wrong on both of these counts. These measures would have done Great Service to the United States and the chinese and the soviets had no intention of getting involved in the left. Anatoly dobrynin, who was the soviet ambassador here, and he wrote in his memoirs about how the soviets the last thing they wanted to do was to get into a direct fight with the u. S. In vietnam on the right to zhou enlai, chinese premier. We have records of conversations with him talking about this and also mao, about how they had taken horrific casualties in the korean war and they wanted part of another conflict with the United States. In fact, the North Vietnamese get extremely upset when they realize that is basically telling the americans to send a number of occasions, feel like theyre being let down by their chinese ally. Congress does, not start to get more involved in. The stennis hearings really fascinating event. Also not much covered in the history of the vietnam war, but she quite important in telling stennis asks, mcnamara and the generals to come testify about the bombing of north which by this time theres a lot of grumbling about it. Mcnamara has this policy which he calls gradual based on his conflict theories that you start off at a low level intensity and you gradually increase it as a means of signal lling your intentions to the enemy and most of the generals dont really care for this. And so the generals tell stennis and congress very bluntly that theyve been arguing against gradual escalation from the beginning that much stronger action should be taken because. This is not a symbolic instrument so much as something we can actually do damage to the enemy. So mcnamara defends his policy there. This is the most part of his response where he explains why more is not going to help. He says that the enemy only 75 tons of supplies, a day to keep the war going and they have a capacity of more 200 tons per day. So even if we were to bomb them much more heavily, theyve still got this capacity. And so this is wrong and that this was based on a lot a whole lot of speculation and really couldnt verify this until we learned more from the other side which again in this book reveal what we now know from the North Vietnamese side, which is that mcnamara was completely wrong. So this here is one of the prime examples that shows he was wrong. This battle of deck tow in in 19 the fall of 1967, right around the time of the hearings and what the North Vietnamese histories us is that the North Vietnamese actually wanted to fight this battle. A earlier. Why they fight a year earlier because they didnt the supplies because they didnt have excess capacity took them a whole year to build up what they need for this. So there is no excess capacity and hence further bombing, as the journalists were arguing, would have caused further problems. And we see this many instances during, this period, the North Vietnamese constrained, by lack of supplies especially food and the u. S. Doesnt understand it and doesnt take it of it. Another very interesting thing happening. During the stennis hearings right before the senate happen, mcnamara and johnson get together and, decide theyre going to authorize some additional targets that the military has been wanting to hit because will take some of the wind out of the sails of the general. They complain things arent getting hit when they do that. It turns out that in fact there is much more significant damage done. And we now know hanoi is brought to the brink of starvation in september of 1967. Americans dont really understand this, certainly not johnson and had the u. S. Persisted here, i think you certainly could have the North Vietnamese suing peace. But what happens instead is the North Vietnamese go to the americans, as theyve done before, and said, well, if youll stop the bombing, we will negotiate with you and this is a ploy. We now know this. And also from the North Vietnamese, this was was simply a ruse. They would try to do because they knew johnson was under pressure from the liberal wing of his party to negotiate. So johnson ends up discontinuing a lot of this bombing and letting north off the hook. Another thing youve probably heard ad nauseum is that the failed because it was lacking in strategic patience, whereas the northeast enemies were infinitely patient. Well, another thing weve now learned from the North Vietnamese side is, in fact, the North Vietnamese are very impatient. By 1967, theyve started realize that theyre just getting clobbered in South Vietnam. And they can see that because americans in South Vietnamese are actually getting stronger despite all these supposed theyre taking. The latest one here is now the principal strategic Decision Maker in the north, ho chi minh is aging and kind of on his way out, at least one says, well, weve got to try something different, so why dont we instead of fighting in the jungles and mountains, swamps, why dont we go to the cities north . The cities of South Vietnam attack them and surely the people in the cities are all full hatred for the capitalists and the american neo colonialists. So once we go there, they will rise up and this will be a victory, sort of like the Russian Revolution in 1917, or that when North Vietnamese seizure of power in hanoi in 1945. So this then leads to the tet offensive. Of 1968. Tet offensive does not go at all as hanoi had been hoping. The people do not rise up really anywhere. And so the North Vietnamese are stuck and having in the guerrilla conflicts, theyve been able to sneak away if they came under pressure. But now been told to hold cities and this exposes them to american and vietnamese power firepower and they take horrific losses so they do gain some propaganda victories. The image in the lower left there is, the photo of national South Vietnamese National Police chief shooting a viet cong suspect who we know had just murdered a bunch of civilians. But that context is included. The photographer who took that, eddie will later bemoan the the distorted coverage that came out of it. Also at the same time as tet, you have the battle of kaesong in and is another case of bad history. Weve been led to believe that sanh was a diversionary attack by the North Vietnamese, that attacked it in early 1968 because they wanted to lure american troops away from the cities for the tet offensive. And it was only stupid. General westmoreland, who understand this, and he fell for the trap again, what did the north famous history tell us . Now, this was not a faint. It was a diversionary tactic. They actually wanted to take sign. They sent 40,000 troops there, which is not what you with a diversionary attack. They thought this was going to be another jim byron phu, another great victory, as in. 1954. And the only reason they dont take it is that they get decimated by american firepower. And the americans have just introduced ground Sensing Technology that allows them to detect North Vietnamese troop presence from afar. And Lyndon Johnson on march 31st, 1968, gives a speech to the nation, which he announces hes not going to run for the president see again in 1968. And he talks pausing the bombing and negotiating with the North Vietnamese. And this is often seen sort of setting beginning of the end of american involvement. Johnson has basically lost confidence in the war, and hes looking the way out. The this is also not the case. What happens in the ensuing period is a convoy picked within the administration over what to do next. Johnson does not see this as the time to cut and run. The troop numbers will stay more, less constant during his remaining time in office. The bombing, theres a couple of bombing pauses, but those are undertaken only because the u. S. Cannot bomb in certain areas because of weather at that time. And that intensity the bombing program as a whole will actually increase. You have, now that mcnamara is gone, you have secretary of defense clark clifford, along with april harriman, cyrus vance on one side, who are on the liberal side of the Democratic Party. And theyre pushing for withdrawal and getting out. But on the other side, you have ellsworth bunker, whos the American Ambassador to South Vietnam, secretary state dean rusk, and National Security advisor, while rostow, who want to stay in it and make sure that the u. S. Reaches a successful conclusion. And johnson, to his credit, in his last months, stays on the spot on the same side as these hawks who want to continue it. And he gets quite fed up with clifford fact he had gotten a bit sick of mcnamara towards the end so johnson eventually realizes that hes been getting some Bad Information and he want to be seen as setting the conditions for ultimate failure. There is a change in command also militarily on the u. S. Side in the middle of 68. General Creighton Abrams replaces westmoreland. And this is oftentimes interpreted as dissatisfied faction with westmoreland led johnson to fire but really westmoreland was actually on his way out. Abrams is seen as bringing in new way of war and that he thought westmoreland was headed all wrong. But this also turns out not to be the case. Abrams very explicitly in his first months, talks about how theyre doing exactly the right and they should keep them up. And he will institute some changes, but not until later when the situation changes. And ill get to that in a moment. The military failure of the tet offensive is relatively well known, but the second and third wave offensives are not well known. Theyre sometimes called mini tet. Theyre in may and august, but these are actually as large, if not larger, as the tet offensive. Whats especially noteworthy is that they use essentially the playbook as before, and this time they do have the element of surprise because the first time they attack during a holiday period, now the enemy knows theyre coming and they get clobbered and may and then lays one says were going to do the same thing in. And by this point a lot of his commanders are saying this is crazy we cant do this. Were just going to get crushed again and one doesnt Pay Attention to them is a little bit reminiscent of hitler in his latter days when he sort of stopped listening to people. And so they get crushed again in august and at this point, they are basically incapable of further large offensive operation ins for quite some time. So this debilitation then makes it possible for general abrams to launch this accelerated pacification program, which focuses more on securing the population and supporting reconstruction and development. And this is done in conjunction with the South Vietnamese. So this is whats often seen as abrams changes. But again, this isnt possible until hanoi has exhausted itself with these disaster chris offensives. Public opinion 1968 another critical topic where most the history has gotten it wrong so a lot of what you hear about 1968 is that Public Opinion turns against the war and people will point this chart where people are asked, do you think it was a mistake sending troops to fight in vietnam . And you see in 1968, the percent yes will surpass that saying no. But this is misleading. For one thing, it doesnt tell us why people are saying that. A lot of people are not just fed up the war and see as hopeless. A lot of them are upset that the administration seem to be doing enough to win it. But this next poll i found is really one of the most staggering things i discovered in vietnam. If you look at this is near the end of 68. What percent of want to get out of vietnam if you read the sort of conventional history, you think, you know, 60, 70 , 80 want to get out vietnam. Well, its. Just 13 . Everybody else knows that there is more to be lost and more than to be gained. Getting out of vietnam vietnam. This is also then raises the question, why are so Many Americans still supporting war . And one of the biggest failings of Lyndon Johnson, vietnam, is that he doesnt an attempt to sell American People on the war to explain why this is in our national interest. And he even says this in 1967. If history indicts us for vietnam, it will be for fighting a war without to stir up patriotism. Reason he doesnt try to stir up patriotism primarily is that he wanted to be a great domestic policy president. He wanted to like fdr. He his great society, which was going to eliminate poverty and civil and war, distract peoples attention from that. So its all the more remarkable than the american are still largely supportive of the war. And i attribute that to american culture. Because a lot of people by now are disenchanted with Lyndon Johnson, but they recognize that the nation is not a monarchy. Were dependent on a king that even if were dissatisfied with the president , we have this larger and we have International Alliances to maintain and we are fighting a war against International Communism communism. Now, these sentiments are very are central to whats going on in the president ial campaign, which is unfolding here in 1968. There, of course, is somebody who it will be familiar to most of you in the primary, Richard Nixon defeat Ronald Reagan and George Romney and others and he nixon benefits from his strong anticommunist credentials. So he doesnt have to take too hard a line on vietnam because people know hes respectable in that regard. And but he also, you know, sometimes hell talk tough, but he will also talk about how hes going use diplomacy to reach a successful conclusion. And he will talk privately about how hes going to threaten the North Vietnamese. And they will be scared of him and will give in. I know he does. Questioned at one point about whether he has a secret plan to end the war, which he does not say of it becomes another myth that somehow somebody reports that he does he has a secret plan, but there isnt really a secret plan. But he does still have some ideas what hes going to do using diplomatic pressure, pressing the soviets and the chinese and building up the South Vietnamese. But hes able to to fare pretty well. And he you know by the time of the primary hes a shoo in. Its very different on the democratic side, which has its convention in chicago a few weeks later. Its best known for these images of rioting on the left. There is split between the liberals moderates and conservatives, the liberals adopt a plank that calls basically disengaging from vietnam, forming a Coalition Government with the communists, and that the moderates and conservatives, the Democratic Party, dont want that. They are among largely those who think the u. S. Has to persist in what its doing that a Coalition Government would lead to disaster. And Hubert Humphrey tries to navigate this. Ultimately, he gets the nomination by assuring president johnson that hes going to reject this liberal plank and and continue johnsons policies of preserving South Vietnam. So humphrey is for the next month, is trailing pretty far behind nixon. And he decides he needs to do something to gain traction in the polls. And a lot of the liberals are upset at him for adopting johnsons policies. So in the Salt Lake City speech, he tries to suggest more open to the liberal policies on vietnam and to negotiate peace. But there is also a part in there at the end where he says explicit were not going to pull out of South Vietnam again because he still has to cater the moderates and conservatives which at that time a very large part of the Democratic Party. Humphrey still doesnt do well in september. So then things really get at the end of october, Lyndon Johnson gives a speech. The of october after, some discussions with the North Vietnamese and North Vietnamese have approached the americans and said, if you will stop the bombing soon, we will agree to negotiate. Now, the North Vietnamese, along with the soviets are much theyre very wary of richard. They know hes a hard line anticommunist. Humphrey seems a bit softer, so they are trying to help. Humphreys chances at the polls. Why . Johnson actually goes along with this is still a bit of a mystery. He does recognize this is going to look rather fishy right before the election, but ultimately he goes ahead. This gives this speech and suddenly theres this massive surge in the polls for humphrey. Hes almost even nixon after being around ten points down because a lot of people think well how peace is at hand and look at this is going to be great. Well the one thing they didnt fully account for was how South Vietnam was present. Hue would respond and thieu comes out very quickly and says, im going along with this. I dont want to be party to these negotiations. And this raises all sorts questions and conspiracy theories about why this happened. Youve probably about an arm shenault who was talking with the South Vietnamese embassy at this time in the nixon campaign. And so theres been a lot of theories that she connived with the Nixon Administration to convince president to refuse to go along with these negotiated actions. That evidence on her communications is rather sketchy, and i dont think well probably ever know the exact truth. She was kind of a bit player who was trying to have a lot of influence in washington and probably never got quite what she wanted. But whatever, whatever thinks about what she up to or who she was talking to or what other people were thinking that. Most important thing that needs to be remembered in all of this is that South Vietnamese president chiu never needed her or nixon to tell that this was in his interests to help nixon in the election. Hed known that humphrey was to the left of nixon. Hed met humphrey before. So had there had met him, never existed. Choo. She would have done the same thing because he knew if he had gone with johnson, this would help humphrey. And the last thing she wanted was humphrey to win the election. So heres what happens at the election. And. But you choose more move at the end kind of deflates a of this peace enthusiasm. Its still pretty close. But again, in terms of support for the war, you know. Wallace is even more considered, more of a hardliner than nixon. So you a substantial majority of the country, votes for the hawkish candidate. Humphrey gets 42 , 42 points, point. A lot of his supporters are moderates, democrats who he had promised he would not abandon vietnam again, very different mood in the country at this time than weve been led to believe. So Richard Nixon is elected reaction in vietnam is elation people know him from his time in the alger hiss trial in the the kitchen debate, among others, hes known as this hard, anti tough anticommunist. North vietnam very upset and worried, as are the soviets. They for the same reasons, see him as a stubborn opponent. And things really are looking pretty well for vietnam at this time. And i think if you try to estimate at this time what would happen. Very few people would have foreseen what ends up happening in 19 oh 75, said, im going to get into that last period in the next books, hopefully get back here again to talk about that just a couple last points id like to make on vietnam war. We you know, and i do i am of the opinion that humans and leaders, individuals do make a great difference in in history. But we also need to remember some of the broader things that are taking place and number one is what International Communism is. And for a lot of you, this may seem somewhat obvious, but if youve seen recent polling, young people a lot them dont think theres anything wrong with socialism and some of them even think theres nothing wrong with communism. And i think most of them be oblivious to this. This is from the victims of communism memorial fund, which has an excellent museum in washington. But 100 Million People killed in the 20th century, a lot of them from china, which is one of the biggest players in vietnam and its sometimes easy to forget what exactly this International Communism was. And as i mentioned, near the beginning, vietnam is an integral of the International Communist movement. Its not a terrorist yugoslav idea that is somehow on the fringes but it is central to this. And so from a purely moral perspective, you cant really argue that the u. S. Is on the wrong side here. The last thing i like to point out is that. We have three instances in the cold war in asia where you have anticommunists, communists squaring off in the United States, taking sides. First case, china, where we support the nationalists, they end up losing, but they hold on to taiwan. Second case, korea, where north and south and divided at the end. And then third case, vietnam, which falls in 1975. And if you look at how theyve turned out, sometimes people will say, oh, well, you know, vietnam didnt turn out bad. But if you look at first one is the Freedom House index. See taiwan and south korea heads and tails above china, north korea and vietnam. And then if you go down to look at gdp per capita, europe up here, tokyo china and vietnam doing great economically. But per capita, taiwan and south korea are far ahead of them in the south korean also at that at the time, derided for being reaction theory, right wing despotism. But they learn from the United States, our model of government and. Look what theyve done and i point this out, because the same thing could have happened in South Vietnam. And this is another reason why i think its safe to say the u. S. Was on the right side in vietnam. So im going to end there and id be happy to take your questions. Excellent. Thank you so much. Lets get a round of applause for mr. Mark moyar. So what were going to do now is were going to open up the floor for questions. If you have a question, just raise your hand and ill come get you my first questions right over here. Thank you very much for your talk. You educate us quite a bit. I was wondering if you can do a compare and contrast between and vietnam in korea. The war never ended. Its still going on today. Its a stalemate in vietnam. We lost and were putting vietnam, our alliance in the quad. Plus. So how did how did that happen . That korea is is still going on is a stalemate and we lost in vietnam and now were in alliance with the communists. Know in the case of korea, we do see an end to the overt hostilities. I think the American People as long as people getting killed have a great deal. Patience and we could have held on to vietnam, i think we were close to the point where american casualties are going to be low if you look at the 72 easter offensive, theres only u. S. Air power now. Vietnam. Yeah, the question of of vietnam siding with us, china, i think we have to be very careful. There are vietnamese are good at deception mean ho chi minh in 1945 talks about you know he reads the declaration of independence and pretense hes proamerica and when hes really not at all and we have seen, you know, china in North Vietnam for most of their history. As i point out in the first book, they are usually friends from most of the time now they do have these falling out periods 1969 it starts they eventually fight the small war. In 1979 but again, vietnam is still a police state. So theres much we dont know about what. Theyre doing. They do have tensions with china, but theyre also very to china like in a little bit to the u. S. And mexico and mexico oftentimes isnt a big fan of what the u. S. Is doing. But that doesnt mean theyre going to side openly with adversaries against us. I think vietnam is kind of carefully playing sides at the present time. And so i wouldnt count on them too much, but said most of the other countries of southeast asia, we end up saving through vietnam, indonesia, thailand and malaysia, philippines. Of think about taiwan, japan those are now critical allies against china. If we were trying to compete with china today and all those countries look like vietnam, we would be i think in deep trouble because were now to these countries to help us compete with china, provide military power and also have alternative trading powers the region. Next we had over here. I really enjoyed that, sir. Thank very much. Im an air force veteran, but not vietnam. The you had the quote there from president johnson about not stirring up patriotism. Walter cronkite goes to vietnam during. The tet offensive comes back and, has as a very well known commentary. He basically says its a bloody stalemate. We cannot win. What impact did this the living room war of vietnam the way the journal is portrayed it what effect did that have on the political decisions decisions being made on how we executed that war . Thats an excellent question. I think a lot of people look back and theres a great voluminous history called story by peter bruce based up where he looks at all of the inaccuracies in the press coverage of the war of the tet offensive and cronkite, the most influential journalist. And he does, as you say, talk about how this is the stalemate. One thing to note about that is if you look at what he says, he says, well, you know, its time to negotiate. But he doesnt ever say, well, so whats our negotiating position going to be . Because if its anything short of surrender. The North Vietnamese probably not going to go along with it. And i said, americans dont want to surrender at this point. So i think it was kind of irresponsible him to to say that. I mean, thats a, you know, a common problem. I think we see in this country oftentimes is negotiate as negotiate is it is an automatic solution because. You sometimes will have to give a away more than you actually want to do or want to give away. I think in terms of the impact it had, it did an impact reporting on ted had a substantial impact on the wing of the Democratic Party because you more and more of them turn against the war. But the rest of country, you know, interestingly, doesnt buy this. So you i think you have to give the American People also some credit for not being as gullible as sometimes we think they are in terms of, you know, accepting what the media telling them and one last question over here. Actually, do a couple more. All right. Thank you very much. I see the glowing endorsement from general mcmaster on the back cover. And i wondered if you could kind of touch a little bit on, i think, his ph. D. Thesis and his via his analysis of all was wrong with the conduct of the war. Yes. General mcmaster, you have be a friend of mine and for whom i have great respect. And his book, dereliction duty, came out before mine. But i think he he did highlight a lot of the problems. He focuses on the 64, 65 period, but raised a lot of questions about the role of the military. And he is, you know, critical, i think, you know, of the military for not standing up enough to the political leadership. But as i said in in this period, the military and some of this has come out only fairly recently, an excellent perhaps most article is a report of a meeting from november 65, which i cite in the book which was in Naval Institute proceedings, but it talks about a meeting where the joint chiefs are telling johnson he needs to take these tougher measures and johnson just flips out at them and screams at them and says, you know, youre going to cause a war with and and then we continue to see this adverse adversarial relationship. The stennis hearings in 67. Theres talk among the generals that theyre going to all resign because of how theyve been treated. Ultimate lee they come around to the decision which, you know, this is a sort of perpetual problem, that if they were to resign, that what happens, theyll probably soon be forgotten. And then what happens . Johnson fills their place with yes men. And so they they think to themselves, well, its better if we stay here to try to keep sensibility to this and to stay in our position rather than to leave. Now, you can criticize them for. I tend to think they do have some justification for saying. Now, we have one last question over here. Good evening. I just had three quick questions. Yes and no. This about, you know, we keep hearing about we lost the war and sometimes you get it up here. So can you name one battle that the american in vietnam lost in all the time . Were there one major battle and now theres not. And thats is not. Yeah. And by the way, i point out that i brought this up with ken burns documentary, came out, tried to show some battles where things didnt go so great. Those were the exception. But yes in the americans consistent we won and they won every major battle. Yes. Second point, you know, korea was a u. N. Fight from what i remember. But for vietnam, we had some goals and in 1972, there was another tet offensive and the South Vietnamese defended themselves. The South Vietnamese army, with our help, they threw back another offensive, like in 68 by themselves and with our airpower and with some of our ships. Is that correct . Yes. The easter offensive, they do that. And that is, i think, the best examples so far. Were not losing the war. So we have the peace conference. We leave and the our government not to support them. And so they were left hanging out there, not like career. Well, we stayed there and fought. We actually left. And they decide to put their money somewhere else. So i dont know if the vietnamese could hold off the North Vietnamese, but know that we didnt lose it and. Theres a lot of people that have this fallacy about it and a lot of these people just dont know because they dont want to go back and read about it. So if you got a comment about that. Yes, just one last comment and im still getting up to speed on and theres so much to read on nixon period. Ive learned it takes years to sort this all out. But you know, president nixon did promise in january 68, 60 or 73 that u. S. Would come back and help South Vietnam if there was another North Vietnamese attack and i do think he was sincere in that. And had not been for watergate and other actions taken by congress. I think had nixon still been in office, he would have done that. And had that been the case, i think actually North Vietnam would have launched a big invasion because as soon as they saw, you know, they in 75, they launched this preliminary attack to see what the u. S. Is going to do. Had we them at that point. I think there never is a big North Vietnamese offensive in 1975. Lisa gentlemen, dr. Mark moyar, thank you for being doctor. Thank you. Dr. Moyers agreed. Sign copies for all of you of his book and the book is for sale. Our gift shop. Thank you for. Coming and have a good good evening everyone