INTRODUCTION
"You know you never defeated us on the
battlefield," said the American colonel.
The North Vietnamese colonel pondered
this remark a moment. "That may be so,"
he replied, "but it is also irrelavent."
Conversation in Hanoi, April 19751
This project began with the question, "How could a
country win all the battles, and yet still lose the war?"
How could a country which is as rich and powerful as our
own, superior in every measurable category of military
strength, emerge as the loser with one of the world's
smallest and poorest countries? Why are our greatest
victories remembered as defeats? Why would a Congress that
approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 with only two
dissenting votes turn its back on its South Vietnamese ally
when the North Vietnamese launched a full-scale conventional
invasion only eight years later?
In seeking answers to these questions it became readily
apparent that the American defense of South Vietnam was
brought to its unhappy conclusion not by a failure of
American arms, but rather by a failure of American will.
Former President Nixon said it this way:
The War in Vietnam was not lost on the
battlefields of Vietnam. It was lost
in the halls of Congress ... in the
editorial rooms of great newspapers ...
and in the classrooms of great
universities.2
2007-07-15
10:16:02
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8 answers
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asked by
Anonymous
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Politics & Government
➔ Military