Tag: Vietnam duplicity

I was in college in the spring of 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he was sending combat troops—two Marine battalions—to South Vietnam. Thus, my professional life began in the decade of public debate, turmoil, and tragedy surrounding Vietnam.

What I didn’t know (among many other things, of course) was that the announcement of combat troops was disingenuous, one in a long line of disingenuous public statements from the president and his close associates. U.S. “advisers” had been quietly taking part in combat missions since 1961.[1]

Nor did I know that the seemingly sudden “Americanization” of a previously foreign war had been years in the making. Arch T. Allen, a retired attorney, brought this to my attention recently in a paper he wrote about the war. [2]

The Vietnam War, Allen points out, was managed behind a veil of duplicity. I suspected that in 1965, and the fact was confirmed in 1971, when the Pentagon Papers were leaked to major newspapers.

But I never knew how deep that duplicity ran. Continue reading “Relearning the Lessons of Vietnam”