"60's Lies About Vietnam War Must Be Exposed Now"

[thedrifter]

VIETNAM VET REFORM GROUP SAYS 60'S LIES ABOUT VIETNAM WAR MUST BE EXPOSED NOW
TO DISCREDIT ACADEMIC VIEWS ON FOREIGN POLICY AND THREAT OF POLARIZATION. -
a V.V.A.R. newsnote from Leonard Magruder- President (Part 2)

The main focus of lying by the anti-war movement was two White Papers
issued by the State Department in December l961 and March l965. The claims of
these two papers, based on a great deal of evidence, were that Hanoi was
directing a campaign of overt and covert subversion and aggression against
an independent South Vietnam. In a sustained attack over the years, the
anti-war movement claimed that the war was a civil war between "U.S. puppets"
and "indigenous resistance" in South Vietnam . This denial of a North
Vietnamese presence in the South was the major contention, and the biggest
lie, of opponents of the war. They portrayed the two White Papers as a
calculated campaign of disinformation by the U.S. Governement. Destroying the
credibility of these two White Papers was the chief objective of the anti-war
movment and the first step in its ultimate victory over U.S. policy. But it
was done by lying, and if they do it again with regards to current U.S.
policy on the war on terrorism, they will destroy the homeland.
The l961 White Paper said outright and, as it turns out, correctly,"The
Viet Cong are not indigenous freedom fighters; Hanoi is behind the guerrilla
war in South Vietnam. The Lao Don party, that is, the Communist Party, is
the vangard of the "liberation" movement." This first White Paper was the one
that presented John F. Kennedy's case for assistance to South Vietnam as
legal, moral, and proper.
The Second White Paper, released in Februrary of l965, after Lydon Johnson
took over, again made the point that the conflict was caused by Hanoi's
policy of conquest. It stated, "South Vietnam is fighting for its life
against a brutal campaign of terror and armed attacks inspired , directed ,
and controlled by the Communist regime in Hanoi. It is established beyond
question that North Vietnam is carrying out a carefully conceived plan of
aggression against the South... a violation of the United Nations Charter and
directly contrary to the Geneva Accords to which North Vietnam is a party."
The entire anti-war movement rested on the lie that North Vietnam was
never involved in aggression. This was done to take the issue out of the
arena of Cold War containment policy. This is what was taught to students in
the notorious teach-ins at major universities. as well as spread by leading
anti-war figures such as I.F.Stone, Stanton Lynd, Tom Hayden, David
Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman, Francis Fitzgerald, and Hans Morganthau. Later
George Kahin and John Lewis in a text that was widely used in the teach-ins
,"The United States in Vietnam", wrote, "There is no evidence to assert, as
does the U.S. White Paper of 1965, that the Liberation Front for South
Vietnam was formed at Hanoi's order." They completely ignored all of the
evidence that went into the two White Papers. Since then, of course, we have
had numerous testimonies from disenchanted leaders of the North confirming
the accuracy of the White Papers, men such as Van Toai Doan, author of "The
Vietnamese Gulag" and Truong Nhu Tang, author of "A Vietcong Memoir." As to
the lie by the anti-war movement that the Viet Cong was an independent South
Vietnamese political movement, Bui Ten, the North Vietnamese colonel who
accepted the surrender of South Vietnam said in "The Wall Street Journal "
recently, "It was set up by our Communist Party to implement a decision of
the Third Party Congress of September 1960."
But the most important confession of involvment by Hanoi is found in the
report "Summary of Fact", issued in l987 by Hanoi's Military History
Institute describing key decisions made by Hanoi regarding South Vietnam from
the Geneva Convention in l954 until the final conquest by the Communists in
l975. Stephen B. Young in an article to which I am indebted for some material
in this article, summarized the impact of this material when he wrote, "The
Summary confirms the two American White Papers and utterly refutes the
position of the anti-war movement. Hanoi's document reveals how, step by
step, the Vietnamese Communist leadership in Hanoi made the decisions to
forment a war in South Vietnam and then, again and again, to escalate that
conflict." From the start of South Vietnam's existence following the Geneva
Conference, Hanoi was resolved to crush its autonomy and bring its people
under Communist rule. Those who supported the war were never confused about
this, but the lies of the anti-war movment came to be embraced by so many
that the U.S. was threatened with serious internal conflict, and the flawed
solution of Vietnamization offered by Nixon was accepted.
The "Summary of Fact" contains this statement, "Following the road set out
by the Party Congress, on December 20, l960, the People's Front for the
Liberation of South Vietnam was established." That is, the NFL, or Viet Cong
is thus revealed by the Summary as having been the creation of Hanoi's
Communist Party. That one sentence destroys the arguments of the anti-war
movement.
The White Papers of 1961 and 1965 had assessed the intentions of Hanoi
with complete accuracy. The credibility gap, or cynicism, of the 60's was
not created by any fabrication on the part of the Kennedy or Johnson
Administrations. It was created by deliberate lying by the leaders of the
anti-war movement.
Said Stephen B. Young in his article commenting on celebrations of the
thirtieth anniversaries of the Vietnam War,"A generation congratulates itself
once again for doing what the North Vietnamese never could have done -defeat
the United States. History, as they say, is written by the victors, and the
victor in this conflict was the American anti -war movement. It is no wonder,
then , that our national recollection of the war matches that of the New
Left. It is no wonder too that certain questions are no longer asked, chief
among them the question, a central one thirty years ago, of whether the U.S.
involvement resulted from a tissue of lies Washington was spinning out even
before the Gulf of Tonkin incident, or whether its factual assessment of
conditions in South Vietnam , Laos, and Cambodia and its consequent policy
response to the plight of the South Vietnamese people was rational and
justifiable."
We now know, with much of the evidence coming from the enemy itself, that
the response was rational and justifiable. Therefore, what is taught on
campus about the Vietnam War can no longer be tolerated as it is largely
based on lies. By far the most widely used textbook on the Vietnam War in our
universities is Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: A History." So biased is the book
that when translated into a PBS series it caused protests and riots by
Vietnamese refugees and Americans in New Orleans, Houston, Los Angeles,
Washington, Paris, and London. A documentary , narrated by Charlton Heston
was produced exposing the errors, and also a book, "Pirates are Losers."
The time has unquestionably come for Vietnam veterans, who were the
primary victims of this massive academic conspiracy against truth to speak
out strongly in demanding that this change, and that this matter of the two
White Papers and the evidence that the anti-war movement was a moral fraud,
be a central part of presenting to students a new and more honest view of the
Vietnam War.
The only way that the American campus is going to be able to present the
absolutely necessary unity with the rest of the nation that is required in
the face of the terrorist crisis is to admit that it was wrong on Vietnam,
admit they fell for and propagated enemy propaganda, as there are already
signs that this may be happening again.
As the Chief of Military History, U.S. Government wrote in his "Final
Report", "If there is to be an inquiry related to the Vietnam War, it should
be into the reasons why enemy propaganda was so widespread in this country,
and why the enemy was able to condition the public to such an extent that the
best educated segments of our population have given credence to the most
incredible allegations."

Sempers,

Roger

[SuperScout]

... for the time and effort to post this Truth about the commie pinko bastards, both external and internal, that caused us all so much pain and grief.

[exlrrp]

the writer of this article has simplified many complex issues for his own finger pointing convenience. you can see the bias of an article easily by who starts calling other people liars first and it invariably ruminates from such hidebound conservatives as this, anxios to throw a little retro mud--its been over for decades--Gana la vida!!.
the White Papers of 1961 and 1965 were mostly irrelevant anyway. the NLF was created as an umbrella group to take in all the other groups who'd been oppressed by Diem--more than a few. They were not the focus of the antiwar movements ?lies? at all, and this writer demonstrates an extremely narrow mind and an IQ equivalent to mayonnaise in thinking the antiwar movement was that unified in thought or had so little else to focus on--there was PLENTY!! There was no focus on this as I remember?the focus was on the truth that the South Vietnam government was an entirely illegitimate government, was no way a democracy or supported by its people, was in fact one of the most corrupt and oppressive regimes of the 20th century. It was created and supported by foreigners and the war went on as long as we Americans wanted to fight it?then it was over. We created South Vietnam on a legal fiction, financed, assassinated its leaders, directed its armies, equipped it with the technological edge and gave it complete sea and air superiority. But we lost because the people would not support the government we wanted them to. The wholeVietnam War comes down to this:
We wanted an independent non-communist South Vietnam
The Vietnamese didn?t give a f~(% what we wanted.
End of story, more or less. History has proven this very well.
there's too much bullcrap too step in here in one telling but lets start with this one:

".From the start of South Vietnam's existence following the Geneva Conference, Hanoi was resolved to crush its autonomy and bring its people under Communist rule."

This has got be a well duh except for its distortion. There was no ?South Vietnamese government? set up in the geneva Conventions and you have my encouragement to look yourself
You?ll find the geneva Accords at: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/genevacc.htm
You?ll find the Geneva Agreements at: http://vietnam.vassar.edu/doc2.html
But you won?t find anything about setting up a permanent ?South Vietnamese Government? because there isn?t anything about such a preposterous claim?the VietMinh wouldn?t have signed it?they were coming to the table the WINNERS and only took the TEMPORARY seperation because the Chinese busted their balls, stirred up by American sabre rattling. China was looking to its interests more than Commie fraternal brotherhood and they didn?t want another war on their frontiers, fearing the US would go postal with nukes (we ?casually mentioned? it often)..
What you WILL find there in Article 6,( geneva Agreements) is:
?6.The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the Agreement relating to Viet-nam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary. The Conference expresses its conviction that the execution of the provisions set out in the present Declaration and in the Agreement on the cessation of hostilities creates the necessary basis for the achievement in the near future of a political settlement in Viet-Nam?
Look that line about ?the miltary demarcation line? being >provisonal only< AND SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETD AS CONSTITUTING A POLITICAL OR TERRITORIAL BOUNDARY over very, VERY carefully. A lot of people died because of misinterpretations of that.
Seems pretty plain to me and so it was to the French and Vietnamese who signed it?they NEVER agreed with the US version and I can?t fault there reasoning?there?s NOTHING in the geneva Accords or Agreements about creating a ?South Vietnam? government
What was in there was a commitment to hold unifying NATIONWIDE elections in 1956, supervised by india, Canada and Poland which everybody knew Ho Chi minh would win in a walk?there was no one else in the picture (Diem was in a monastery in the US) and Ho?d forces had clearly defeated the french. The French were whipped and giving up and the US took over the battle, setting up Diem, the abdicated Bao Dai?s prime minister.When the elections were supposed to happen in 1956, Diem cancelled them, not because he thought he?d win. He and us both knew who?d win and so did Ho.
Its interesting that the US is holding the geneva Conventions rules over the Vietnamese here?the US refused to sign it although much of it had been negotiated by Walter bedell Smith, JF Dulles?s deputy. The US promised ?not to overturn by force? the GC Agreements, then immediately started violating them by financing Diem, entering into miltary agreements with him and maintaining our foreign troops there
I call your attention to these pertinent quotes from the Agreements:

?The Conference takes note of the clauses in the Agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Viet-nam to the effect that no military base under the control of a foreign State may be established in the regrouping zones of the two parties, the latter having the obligation to see that the zones allotted to them shall not constitute part of any military alliance and shall not be utilized for the resumption of hostilities or in the service of an aggressive policy. The Conference also takes note of the declarations of the Governments of Cambodia and Laos to the effect that they will not join in any agreement with other States if this agreement includes the obligation to participate in a military alliance not in conformity with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations or, in the case of Laos, with the principles of the Agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Laos or, so long as their security is not threatened


?7. The Conference declares that, so far as Viet-nam is concerned, the settlement of political problems, effected on the basis of respect for principles of independence, unity and territorial integrity, shall permit the Vietnamese people to enjoy the fundamental freedoms, guaranteed by democratic institutions established as a result of free general elections by secret ballot. In order to ensure that sufficient progress in the restoration of peace has been made and that all the necessary conditions obtain for free expression of the national will, general elections shall be held in July 1956, under the supervision of an international commission composed of representatives of the Member States of the International Supervisory Commission, referred to in the Agreement on the cessation of hostilities. Consultations will be held on this subject between the competent representative authorities of the two zones from 20 July, 1955 onwards. ?



For the US to establish bases, maintain troops and enter into military agreements with a ?South Vietnamese? government clearly is a violation of these agreements but we started doing it literally as the ink was drying.This is the truth from the beginning.

But even before that, we never saw the complete disconnect from our own professed values. Our own country started with revolution--We say we supported democracy and self determination but we supported france, the colonial power (which got whipped, even though financed and supplied by us) and then we took up their war against the forces that were trying to unify the country, the side that WANTED elections?fighting for SVN was fighting to DIVIDE the country. This after they?d just won against the french.
Therefore all this bullcrap about these White Papers is really irrelevant?they didn?t loom big in antiwar circles that I knew of.

What this writer also doesn?t address is the lies told by the US Government which were loud and long throughout.
When enough Americans learned the truth about the Vietnam War--that it could never be won despite all the military brag and that the government we created there was no more a democracy than a convent and its people didn?t support it, that we'd been lied to repeatedly by our military and political leaders--then it was over.
the antiwar movement was right--the best thing to do was get the hell out, soonest--it was unwinnable (Nixon and Ford thought that too, so did LBJ midway). other than that, we'd still be fighting it and there'd be a million more names on that long black wall.
That?s history

James

Happy just to be alive

[39mto39g]

I thought we went there to shoot gooks

[exlrrp]

dragging my eyes down this tedious article again and this line jumps out:
"But it was done by lying, and if they do it again with regards to current U.S. policy on the war on terrorism, they will destroy the homeland. "

What in Gods name does this mean? who the fck is this writer to lay such judgements on people?
"...they will destroy the homeland." freedom of speech will NEVER destroy the homeland, it is a NECESSARY factor of American life. What really "destroys the homeland" is the narrowminded thinking and bigotry as exhibited in this article. this writer doesn't have a CLUE what the antiwar crowd was thinking, I gave them a lot of study and lived among them.
these White Papers were extremely irrelevant to the arguments about the war and certainly nothing new. this person lists no shred of evidence to support the credibility of the White Pa[ers--my, that shows a lot of faith in a government that was well known for lying about the war. Please ask me to list examples!!!!!!
no I see this as nothing more than just another gratuitous slam on liberals we've all come to expect from these obnoxious people on a daily basis. whats the matter, dittoheads? Clinton didn't frt lately? or did you just wake up and discover that all of Worldcom's execs were all Conservative republicans who gave big$$ to GWB, just like the Enron execs, and you can't figure out how to spin it to make the Democrats look bad? but you'll try anyway, I'm sure.
Obnoxious? is that a little heavy?? Don't want to get deleted again--well, you can always tell obnoxious people because they come in and start calling people nasty names right off the bat, Army style, without even trying to reason or have a dialoguie--again, Army style. you wonder if they write this stuff on the way to church. PULLLEEEEZEI'm not being personal to ANYONE HERE, oh, no, not ANYBODY here in particular like, oh. say,a couple posts above
you can always tell who's telling the truth by the way they sign their real name on the bottom.

James g Worth

happy just to be alive

PS--I got a CIB too

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by 39mto39g
I thought we went there to shoot gooks

Well, I did, anyway. if I knew then what I know now I wouldn't, especially for the upper Army leadership i see exhibited frequently here--take that to th bank.

james

[SuperScout]

So all of the Worldom's executives were conservative Republicans, like all of the Enron's executives? Your paranoia and bigotry are showing again.

Freedom of speech will not destroy the homeland, but lying will certainly endanger it, like the lying of LBJ, McNamara, and the coterie of thugs that caused so much harm to America.

Read some of the memoirs of former NVA officers, and use these to hopefully balance the whitewash jobs of the liberals who want to paint the communist bandits as peace-loving liberationists. Revisit the history of how these peacelovers slaughtered thousands in Hue during Tet.

Brice H. Barnes
PS: and by your reasoning and logic, I too am telling the truth, since I used my real name. Happy now??

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by SuperScout
. Happy now??

hi Brice
Oh, absolutely--now we're more even.
i know all about the massacre at Hue and if youve read more of my posts, you know i think we (the US forces, not the SVN) fought a cleaner war than they did. but we made some NOTABLE HORRIBLE errors also-- that they were worse does not excuse this.
but the crux of the whole issue here to me is self determination--that every country should determine its own future through elections--is this our national belief or not?.And we were on the wrong side here, the ones who canceled the hard won elections because we knew our side would lose--is this unAmerican or what?. This was set up in the geneva agreements as I quoted but the US was the ones who started violating and subverting it immediately--Lansdale was sending vietnamese commando saboteur teams up the red river starting in Jan 1954 to subvert the agreements. read the agreements over carefully and you'll see we violated them as they were being signed and the ink was drying--yet this writer castigates the DRV for not following the "rules" Diem repudiated the Agreements entirely and the US never signed them, Diem neither.
the White Papers are irrelevant anyway because they started scouting out and creating the HCM trail in 1959 which was a much more signiificant event than creation of the NLF--the NLF was just bringing varied groups under one tent--the struggle had been going on since Diem started getting draconian shortly after he took power (which we financed) he developed an EXTREMELY corrupt regime, setting his family in all th positions of power. he brooked no opposition, many of the people he executed (12,000, est, 100s of Ks imprisoned) were not commies--he just had no distinctions. I have plenty of sources for ALL this if you want.
So we wound up supporting a really corrupt dictatorship, which the US kept lying about and calling a democracy--absurd!! at one stage they were going through 2 or 3 coups a month--how was this btter than Communism? and who the hell wanted to die for the Thieu-ky govt, anyway?
Our war effort ruined vietnam's economy, turned it into one big whorehouse--was that good for it? At the end of the 50s, VN was the 3d largest exporter of rice in Asia--thats why the French wanted it so bad--it was a huge producer and they needed the $$to rebuild--within a few years it only imported, most of its needs. VN was almost entirely financed by the US throughout.

but what will REALLY kill you as you read the history is how all the politicians and military knew we couldn't win but lied about it.
Do you know that the whole JCS recommended MANY times in the early 50s that we NOT go to war there???? it looked to them like a quagmire THEN and they were wise--THEN.
this is where the politicians REALLY screwed America, not all the "they wouldn't let us bomb where we wanted"BS--thgere's plenty of blame to go around, nobody looks good throughout

This is the truth that has come out later about the setup of the war--I gotta go with the JCS at the time-going in was a stupid idea.
And this was what the antiwar crowd was saying too--get the hell out soonest, its a bad idea-- and We were certainly proven right by history--so this crapola about th White papers is superfluous, fatuous-the arguments were all in much more relevant areas than that. it always amazes me how th right claims to know what the antiwar crowd was thinking and they are SO wrong, their minds aren't like ours (reference: segregation, anti labor, etc)--we're wrong about you sometimes, also
but what really bothers me about this exchange and I have to point out is the name calling hereabove. i will respond civilly to anyone who writes civil but someone who starts off by calling names brings out my worst. i have been on other sites where conservative people START off by calling me a spineless coward and a traitor(military.com) and I will cut no slack here ever--you will get my full opinion immediately and you will not like it--I'm going to be more careful on phraseology than in the past to keep from getting deleted
"nothing succeds like restraint of tongue and pen" B Wilson. i don't follow that well myself but at least i keep it in mind. Working a program is a 24/7 thing for me but sometimes its an effort--the Army taught me aggresssion and incivility too well--ive had a lot to unlearn, some go for the neck instincts. its not that important anymore
And civilty ALWAYS pays

James

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by SuperScout
So all of the Worldom's executives were conservative Republicans, like all of the Enron's executives? Your paranoia and bigotry are showing again.

Are you saying NOT?????????????The jaw fairly drops, the mind fairly boggles, absolutely astounding if you do.
I'll get the sources, its been in all the papers--You GOTTA know that Ken lay was GWBs biggest fundraiser, since his congressional race and that Enron gave 4 times as much to reps as dems--youre a texan. the thing about Worldcom was in the paper, i'll find it--
you don't REALLY believe Corporate execs are liberal dems, do you, our policies are so antibidness, acording to you--that would be quite a contradiction, with all the crying you do about how the Dems want regulation -you'd think Corporate execs would be smarter than that but maybe not. Well we can see that there's not ENOUGH regulation on business, don't we, these repubs get to use stockholders money as their own-just like the S&L scandal of the 80s after reagan's "Get the govt off the backs of business" crapola. That only cost the taxpayers $200 BILLION! (paid off in the Clinton Prosperity Era)
bigotry? well you may be right, how nice of you to point it out--honesty, openmindedness and willingness are still goals for me, I'm working on it--i'm also an enormous hypocrite, before you say it, that's why i know it when i see it
And i'm not afraid to call it as I see it either--Thanks Army, for all that cool paratrooper/lrrp training and experience, you made me a better, more confirmed liberal.

james

PS==i wouldn't be so paranoid if the Republicans would quit plotting against me--read the Reagan:liar post and the articles for a take on conservative republican ethics--you''re in a different reality--reagan was a One Man Macarthy Era all by himself, he'd call in people he'd briefly meet--a definite menace to American values.

[SuperScout]

Self-determination when all parties involved are willing to abide by a certain set of rules. The fact of the matter is that there has not been one election in a communist controlled country, where free and open elections were held, and this was especially true in 1954. After the partition, the hundreds of thousands that fled to the south were not going there for the scenic wonderlands of the Delta, for primarily to find religious freedom, as it could not be practiced in the communist North. Had elections been held, ol' Uncle Ho probably would have won, but all that would have been settled is that one corrupt and brutal regime was replaced by an even more corrupt and more brutal regime. Some improvement. Kindly inhale the coffee, and refresh your memory with the reality that the Iron Curtain, the Bamboo Curtain, and every other barbaric restraint was created by the communists, not to keep people OUT of the Workers' Paradise, but to keep the slaves in.

Go back and read Douglas Pike's classic, and get a more accurate timetable about when the war really started. And if that doesn't convince you, read Donald Lancasters' The Emancipation of French Indo-China; he being a Brit has a much differnet take on the events and no political axe to grind.