I am marc selverstone. Associate professor in president ial studies at the university of virginias Miller Center, and as chair of the centers president ial recordings program, id like to welcome you to a special panel, echoing the echoes of the past, featuring my colleagues on the recordings program. Its quite wonderful to be here with everybody. Something of a reunion. Kent was with us for years and years, now spending time at the university of South Carolina. For the next 75 minutes, well share insights from the secret white house tapes, and well look to explore dynamics therein, but also to relate them to contemporary developments, to see what kinds of questions they prompt us to ask about contemporary dynamics, about the history they contain, about parallels to todays events, about the practice of democracy itself. Just a word about the recordings program. We were established in 1998, and our goal, we are the only institution of this kind doing it, is to analyze and transcribe the
Test. Test. Now, the next slide, a little complicated but its priority one assignments, percentage of the total of College Graduates brought into the army. These are both draftees and enlisted. Priority one was the category the army called wanted to be filled with a College Graduate. So some of the an acronyms on the bottom, men who volunteered for officer candidate school or enlisted for it. C. A. S. Stands for civilian acquired skills. Those are men who came in with skills that immediately translated to an mos, so they were awarded that mos based on their skills, such as delta clerks. A lot of lawyers got drafted and wound up as legal clerks. 91 seiierra, preventive medicin. Department of the army preferred mos utilization, these were moss requiring a high score in the Armed Forces Qualification test, such as 96 bravo intelligence analysts. Men could be assigned that, or they could actually enlist for it as well. Now, enlisted for an mos is men who went down to see their recruiting s
That followed the 1968 tet offensive, the u. S. Media documented a growing crisis. Frequent stories of desertion, of drug use, combat, challenges to legitimate authority, along with reports of scandals and atrocities, most infamous of which was the massacre. And internal military documents tell much the same story. So in thinking about what happened after the tet offensive, we suggested that things were different in the period before 1968. So as we Start Talking about posttet, id start by giving you a quick picture of pretet. And the most common claim thats not going to work. The most common claim that originated in the military and circulated through the press is that in vietnam, the United States fielded the best trained, best equipped, best disciplined force in its history. A force with very high morale. Heres general westmoreland speaking in may 1966. Their performance is exceeding my expectations. I have also the journalist peter arnett in 1966 saying, morale is remarkably high. A
Manpower and morale after tet rather than the us via us war in vietnam, did something change . In the months and years that followed, media documented a growing crisis. Frequent stories of malaise and desertion, drug use, combat refusal, challenges to legitimate authority along with scandals and atrocities most infinite infamous was the massacre. Documents tell much the same story. In thinking about what happened after the tet offensive we suggested things were different in the period before 1968. As we Start Talking about post tet i thought i would give you a quick picture of pretran2. The most common claims the most common claims that are made within the military and circulated is that in vietnam the United States had the best trained, best equipped, best disciplined force in its history, one of high morale. Speaking in may 1966, exceeding my expectations. I have also the journalist peter arnett in 1966 say remount morale is remarkably high. Heres sla marshall former combat historian
Morning and on a 7 am flight. It turned out that the earliest she would be able to get in because of a problem with planes was 2 am yesterday. She is not here with us and we have instead a graduate student here at ku on military history to read her paper. The questions will only be to the other adjustments. Marjorie will not answer questions. Although im sure she would do a lovely job. So the speakers today on our second session, we began with William Donnelly Senior Historian at the u. S. Army center of military history. And followed by eric flynn the director of the lewis army museum. And finally, the paper read by marjorie. First as a set federal Civil Servant i give the usual disclaimer that the opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the secretary of the army of the chief of staff or anyone else in the department of the army. Now president johnson and congress in june 1967 decided to and almost all graduate school draft deferment. Johnson deferred this decision in exe