Dear Barbara:
A big hug for you and my thoughts exactly!!!! Vietnam was madness and one dear friend with great research capabilities thinks that Nixon was the villian. He organized massive material and economic support to keep the French in Vietnam. Then he played games at the end of the 1968 election to derail Johnson's peace negotiations. He kept us there another 7 years at the cost of 21,000 additional Americans killed and 55,000 (including me) wounded,
The only person who understood Vietnam was Kennedy. He saw it as a local civil war and an indication of rising nationalism in the Third World. I got from the Kennedy Presidential Library an incredible book-Vietnam Had Kennedy Lived. It is a most-scholarly book with the conclusion that Kennedy would have had us out of South Vietnam by the end of 1966.
If the Americans in power had listened to the South Vietnamese, they would have found out that their grievances were land reform (redistribution of land from a very few wealthy landowners to the poor farmers) and the rampant corruption in the South Vietnamese government.
Did North Vietnam defeat the US and win the war? They only prevailed at the cost of 3.25 million people killed with another 50,000 dying from landmine explosions after 1975. The wounded must be close to 7 million. To this day 20% of Vietnam's land mass is a no-go zone due to mines and deadly chemicals. More tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were dropped in all World War II. Their whole infrastructure was destroyed.
With kindest regards,
-JackW
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