Fifty years ago today: Nixon brings the troops home

January 23, 1973: President Richard Nixon comes on the air and announces he's withdrawing all remaining troops from Vietnam, bringing an end to one of the biggest clusterfucks in American history.

 

And we thought HE was a crook............

But I suppose if Trump didn't have those debilitating bone spurs, he would have whipped the VC single handedly, well, with the help of then General Santos...

 

I was 12, I remember that. Remember what happened after we pulled out too. We did not learn anything from it.

 

I was in college, sitting around with some buddies getting high and watching TV when the show was interrupted and he made the announcement. Our little get-together then turned into a party!

 

I breathed a sigh of relief...

 

i believe nixon is being given way too much credit here. there were many many many other factors involved. including hippy populist pacifism.

 

Nixon did jack shit....but keep the boys there longer accomplishing nothing.

I was a kid, my oldest sister and her to be husband were going to have a party one night - they got a keg of beer, which was big times then....but they called it off at the last second, his close cousin was just killed in Viet Nam....stepped on a mine. Came home in most pieces in a box. My older brother had a low number in the draft, like 12 or so...he wasn't the college type, but a gear head. They told him if he volunteered, they'd assign him as an Army mechanic so luckily he got to work on trucks for two years and got out unscathed getting shelled only once. Meanwhile, in the same timeframe, my other sister just graduated nursing school, signed up to be an army nurse to get the hell out of Dodge. Boom, day after graduation the ship her ass off to Guam - first stop off the medivac from Nam - in the burn unit....she still has nightmares about trying to straighten one kid's burned fingers out and them breaking off....between that and the abuse from her superiors, that scrambled her brains forever. She stuck with it, retired a full colonel with advanced degrees...and with a lot of issues. Now she's a semi functional opioid addict and I'm surprised she hasn't OD'd or killed someone else in the last 20 years.

 

In 1968, Nixon secretly conspired with South Vietnam to delay peace talks in an effort to gain political advantage over Hubert Humphrey. About 30,000 Americans had been killed by '68. 28,200 more would die to make Richard Fucking Nixon president.
All of my life, the Republican Party has been the party of traitors.

When a Candidate Conspired With a Foreign Power to Win An Election

 

US troops should never have been sent to a culture totally different than ours in the first place. Even the Vietnamese people that were terrorized by the Viet Cong didn't 'want' the US to stay - just end the fighting, death, and destruction.

 

The Vietnam War left over 58,000 Americans dead, over 150,000 wounded and around 1,600 MIA. Further, it polarized the country, creating divisions which are still around today. The only silver lining I see is that it fired up the counterculture, leading to massive social changes.

 

Yeah, he was a big fucking hero...him and LBJ. What a waste of lives for nothing. Watch the Ken Burns documentary on Viet Nam, it was very eye opening. I never realized they dropped more ordinance there than all of WW2.

 

To be fair, LBJ was between a rock and a hard place. If South Vietnam had fallen without our help he would have been crucified by the conservatives. At the time he couldn't see that the war would have turned into such a quagmire, surely our superior weapons technology would force them to surrender in a matter of months! In retrospect he should have not gotten involved and stated that we can't be the world's police force. But of course hindsight is 20/20.

 

Plenty of money made by the arms industries, so I suppose that was important. More ways to make the big bucks than selling plastic shit that people don't need. Afghanistan? Another good one.

 

I have no horse in this race, nor conspiratorial obsessions.. but I was an analyst and investigator and auditor for decades..

I've never heard anyone suggest this.. it's pure speculation on my part; but makes more sense than SOME other theories:

Warren Report issued its findings that Oswald acted alone killing JFK.

then sealed findings for 50 years (why?).. because it would likely implicate or embarrass somebody or somebodies?

after 50 years, there was a release of heavily-redacted versions of Warren Report, but then they ordered them sealed ANOTHER 50 years.. why?

because - by then - anything embarrassing won't implicate a living person? do they figure we'll all be worm shit or pieces of ash by then?

my theory - without too much detail (because the facts have been hidden from us ) is thus:

1. Eisenhower flat out told France that America would not send troops/war materiel into Indochina.. He did get Congress to offer $$$$ aid.. there were advisors sent as well after France was sent packing.. America did send OSS personnel to Indochina as well (soon to be known as CIA)..

2. JFK was Roman Catholic, as was South Vietnam President Diem & his family. JFK had sent teams if Green Beret 'advisors' to fortify South Vietnam's military skills. Catholicism was quite intolerant of Buddhism and oppressive. JFK was 'pressured' by American Catholic sentiment to defend Christianity and hold back communist infiltration if South Vietnam. It appeared that the instability in South Vietnam would likely require an expanded military effort/presence. was disgusted by actions of Diem regime and signed-off on a coup to replace Diem, thinking it was to be a bloodless transition of power. It was not bloodless at all. In mid 1963, Kennedy spoke of pulling out all American assets/personnel involved in Indochina. Advisors told him not to say anything publicly; at least until after his re-election the following year.

3. JFK was assassinated just a few months after hinting he would pull out USA forces.

4. LBJ was sworn in aboard Air Force One. LBJ was well known to be against American involvement overseas. He used to pound home the promise that 'he would never send America's kids to fight for a country when they wouldn't risk their own kids'.

5. Just a few months after JFK is killed, the US "misinterprets" North Vietnam naval PT boats' maneuvers and classifies them as aggressive attacks on US Naval ship in Gulf of Tonkin. LBJ asks Congress for authority to invade South Vietnam (to protect America's ass ets and conduct advisory activities. Congress abdicates its responsibility and authority to declare 'war' and gives LBJ broad latitude to engage in hostile - punitive actions against North Vietnam.

6. Just like Julius Caesar's crossing if the Rubicon River, "the die had then been cast". LBJ had the - essentially unchecked - power to wage war, but it would never be an 'official war'.. it was referred to only as a 'conflict' or 'police action', to avoid a Constitutional challenge to a president self-declaring and conducting a war.


so... my theory.. FOLLOW THE MONEY!

who stood to profit the most from America's continued - and expanded - war mongering in Indochina?

just as Eisenhower warned America at the end of his Presidency: "beware of the military- industrial complex"

I posit that the Kennedy Clan's "OLD MONEY" social circles had invested heavily in industries positioned to profit heavily from another war (ie: Boeing, GM, Lockheed, Grauman and the like). JFK's non-public assertions that he'd "had it" and would pull out somehow found their way to the moneyed class and - to avoid financial ruin - THEY HAD JFK 'removed'. LBJ was put 'on notice' that he should consider escalating the conflict.

LBJ was interested only in making his domestic agenda a reality.. but he went along with the Gulf of Tonkin charade and eventually escalated US involvement to over 600,000 troops in harm's way.

and thus is why we're not allowed to see the full Warren Report.. I doubt it will ever be released in full.. too many powerful families involved.. The US Government has been bought by special interests. FOLLOW THE MONEY.. no one gets elected to the Presidency unless they're beholding to the wealthiest and most powerful corporations/families..

anyway.. it's just a theory..

RFK, Russia, Castro, Mafia? those are just red herrings to throw off the dogs sniffing out the facts..

it was America's wealthy elite who had the threat to their power eliminated/covered up..

 

Well come on Wall Street don't be slow,
Why man this is war a go go,
There's plenty good money to be made,
By supplying the army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb
They drop it on the Vietcong.
- Country Joe and the Fish, I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag