Does opposing the war, wound those who are not opposed to it?

These last few posts have centered on the question of a right to question why I am being demanded to perform a certain act.  And in asking, If I disagree with that reason, do I have a right to refuse without being called a "coward" or "bastard", or "horrible?"

To accept unequivocally what someone else views as right, when it is not right, nor just, makes me what?

That question is difficult to answer when the acceptance is fundamentally offering your blood for something.  I am pretty sure that most people would think it reasonable question why they were being asked to do something with that as its ultimate cost.  And as the cost rose the questions of why would become more and more relevant to making a decision.  So why is questioning one's duty in a war off-limits or taboo?

Heck I know the primary answer to that.  War takes bodies.  Lots and lots of bodies.  More bodies than will come from those who see the effort as something they actually want to do.  You can't go to war without troops and you can't have the troops you require if some question the purpose and refuse to participate.  So it has always been framed as; do your duty for your country.

Vietnam, however, exposed an ugly side of America and that duty.  That is, what we were doing there had more to do with other, less noble reasons, than what we had been told we were spending blood and treasure for.

When I asked the question:

Does my duty include shedding my blood so that Richard Nixon would not be the first president to lose a war, a relevant reason to do so?  

It gets even harder to answer when you ask the question:

Does my duty to shed my blood for my country's honor make it a relevant reason to do so?  

Still harder is to ask the question:

Is it my duty to do whatever it takes to provide honor and dignity to those who have fought and died before me in this effort?

That last one is what I have come to now understand may be the reason why some - I call them absolutists - are still bothered by those who dared to question our effort and specifically towards those who worked towards ending the war without a definitive "win."

Here, once again, is what General Brady said in his commentary that started me down this journey and these many blog posts:

The American soldier was never defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam; our defeat came from the elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard.

Now let's look at what the Swift Boat Vets have to say about John Kerry's 1971 speech to congress:

Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid became the catalyst for an unprecedented political movement by Vietnam veterans who had long resented his false 1971 testimony that American troops routinely committed war crimes.

During the Vietnam War, the original television networks and the leading liberal newspapers were near the peak of their formidable persuasive powers, able to dominate public opinion to an extent difficult to imagine today. In an age without cable news networks, conservative talk radio or the Internet, they were the only game in town. What these organizations chose to cover became news, and what they ignored did not. They used that power to instill Kerry's false portrait of American veterans as misfits, drug addicts and baby killers into the popular culture.

When John Kerry made his service in Vietnam the cornerstone of his presidential campaign during the 2004 election, the wounds he had inflicted on millions of Vietnam veterans were re-opened. Many could no longer be silent while a man who had repeated the propaganda of America's enemies rose to the position of Commander-in-Chief.

Now there was another ulterior motive to this, and that was to smear the guy some did not want for president.  But the criticism directed at him is nonetheless the same vitriol spewed out towards others who took the same tone.  And yes, I chose those words purposely because it pisses me off that some believe I have no right to question the cost in blood and treasure.

Here is what I take issue with:

In an age without cable news networks, conservative talk radio or the Internet, they were the only game in town. What these organizations chose to cover became news, and what they ignored did not.

What that statement postulates is this:  Had they controlled the message, public opinion would have been different and the outcome would have been different as well.  Okay...I'll buy that as a possibility.  Now let me ask four questions:

1. Had the news of Tet and General Loan's execution of Nguyen Van Lem been reported by conservative reporters, would there have been a different story reported?
2. Would the way conservative outlets have reported that news changed public opinion?
3. If all the reporting was "liberal" and that reporting had "formidable persuasive powers" would replacing it with a "conservative" methodology generate the same "formidable persuasive powers" "to dominate public opinion?"
4. Had the media and message been controlled and dominated by conservative media, and public opinion come to the same conclusion, would Walter Cronkite, Robert Kennedy, and John Kerry still be seen as pariahs by the right?

Basically, does manipulation of public opinion meet with approval if the end result is to my liking?  To assume that one side manipulated public opinion presenting a "false" impression also requires one to assume that the other side would manipulate public opinion by presenting what it deems as the truth.  That is, once again, had we shown the film of General Loan shooting Nguyen Van Lem and told the viewers, as Rollins contends:

Rollins: Television's Vietnam - The visual language of  Television News

What would have changed if we had been told the statement that was more than likely designed to convey a context more forgiving of the General? (see blog post).

"Many Americans have been killed these last few days and many of my best Vietnamese friends.  Now do you understand?  Buddha will understand."

 After all, we had been told what the General had said the day before in most major newspapers:

"They killed many Americans and many of our people."

How would that have changed the picture and made it "more complex?"  Well I think I may understand why folks like Rollins and Culbert think so.  Look at this statement from Rollins:

"No one noted at the time - and few noted later - that, at that very moment General Loan was shooting a single ununiformed soldier, North Vietnamese soldiers were systematically executing 2800 South Vietnamese civilian government and public school teachers outside the city of Hue."

Now look at Culbert's paper:

Culbert: Television's Visual Impact on Decision Making in the US, 1968

Now look at General Brady's San Antonio Express News article:

"And it was unlikely that the civilians would rise up for a party that massacred 3,000 innocent men, women, children and religious in Hue; some who were buried alive and clubbed to death to save ammunition. Who saw that in our media?"

Here is what I see.  Had the "conservative" side of the story been reported, that is, had we been told about the atrocities of the other side we would have concluded that they paled in comparison to what General Loan did.

If they killed 3000 citizens and we killed 2000, would that context change how we should view what we did?

Look at the context the New York Times did to try and blunt the force of the Eddie Adams photo:

NY Times Feb 2, 1968

Context was there.  It's just that people are a bit smarter than the absolutists, Culbert & Rollins, and the Swift Boat Vets against John Kerry think we are.  Look at how Culbert sees the Loan Execution affecting those that share a different view for our continued involvement in the war:

Culbert: Television's Visual Impact on Decision Making in the US, 1968

Really?  Is that what was shown to us?  Was what we saw manipulated so that it "purported to show the actual practice of justice?"  Was it "misleading" or did it show factually what it was - an actual execution, that in General Loan's view was not just necessary but demanded?

"I respect the Vietcong in uniform.  They are fighting men like me.  People know when they are wounded I take care of them.  I see they get to to the hospital.  But when they are not in uniform, they are criminals and the rule of war is death." (Harper's April  1972 article "Portrait of an Aging Despot" page 72)

Which begs the question: why were people: "looking for a reason to change their views on a matter of policy?"

Maybe the context was there all the time.  Maybe what was said, what we were told to believe, what we held as sacred and honorable, was not taking place.  Maybe all the "elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard" did was show us what we suspected, but hoped wasn't the case.

Which begs one more question: what would the "cable news networks, conservative talk radio or the Internet" have done differently?

Was the press "misleading" on the General Loan shooting?  Would the conservative press present it differently. or, recognizing its potential impact, suppress it?  Is the public better served seeing flag-draped coffins of soldiers killed in combat or should that be off limits?

Which brings me to the question posed in the title of this blog.  Did John Kerry inflict wounds on millions of vets because of what he said on April 22, 1971?  Culbert believes the General Loan footage and photograph were misleading.  General Brady contends that the media and and "professors from Berkeley to Harvard" were "dishonest."  The swift boat vets claim that what John Kerry said to Congress was a "false portrait of American veterans."

"Misleading", "dishonest", and "false".  Which taken together would seem to indicate that the truth has not been told.  I think I have presented enough information on what was actually said about General Loan and what the CIA and Jonson knew about the situation in Vietnam.  What I have not addressed is Swift Boat Vets for Truth's contention that John Kerry was a big fat liar on April 22, 1971.

Next post: What did John Kerry say on April 22, 1971 that was false?

In case you don't understand the lingo, that's marijuana."

Continuing on with the theme of two sides to a coin.....

A colleague of David Culbert wrote this to him in July 1978, regarding an essay he wrote on the Adam's photo as well as a proposal for a grant he and Peter Rollins were submitting for the film they were working on.

You seem to be deliberately ignoring the ways in which government press releases, especially the releases from the  Saigon  government, but from  Washington as well, were propagandistic in their insistence upon the corner being imminently turned, the tunnel-end being imminently reached, the democracy of southeast Asia being imminently saved  (as though it had ever existed in the first place).

In short, the government was doing what you and Peter [Rollins]  seem to be doing: acting as though the military truth were the determining context, and, Dave, I swear that readers  and  viewers will remember that the context was one in which the traumatic divisions that tore the country apart was not one in which there was a division between those who thought we were winning and could win on the one hand and  those who thought we weren' t winning and couldn't win on the other, but between those who said that we could win and must and those who said that even if we could win we should not and that the military considerations were a complete obfuscation of the basic issues.  

What I like about this paragraph is the author's contention that the division in the country over the Vietnam war was between "those who said that we could win and must and those who said that even if we could win we should not."

What happens, as far as I can see, is that this Highlander - there can be only one - reality pits one against the other.  How do we handle a situation like that?  How about democratically, you know, put it to a vote?  We don't vote on war.  Our elected officials - who we did voted for - decide, and they decided that blood and treasure should be spent trying to meet our objectives in Vietnam. And, as was pointed out:

"[i]f we stick to it long enough - and this is not a short term proposition - [we were] confident that we shall have reasonable success in achieving our objectives."

See that word "reasonable" in that sentence?  Lets look at how that's defined:

"Having modest or moderate expectations; not making unfair demands"

In other words, based on what we set out to do, and what we knew about the enemy (see post), sticking with it should bring about the success of those objectives.

And then came Tet, the Eddie Adam's photo, and a reevaluation of the cost associated with achieving that reasonable success.  You know that saying "freedom isn't free?"  Well that's a tacit way of telling you it is going to cost blood and treasure.

Did "Uncle Walt" and the use of the Eddie Adam's change the hearts and minds of Americans to go against the war, or was it simply more a realization by more and more people that "even if we could win we should not?"

Here is what George Bailey told Rollins in an interview for the film (Lichty also talks about Walter Cronkite's impact) :

Rollins interview with Prof Lawrence Lichty and George Bailey

This assessment on the cost - and to whom it is applied to - had been going on way before Tet.  Case in point was a confrontation between the actress Eartha Kitt and Lady Bird Johnson (from: Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson By Jan Jarboe Russell):

Before Tet we weren't quite ready to hear about what the cost of the war was doing to those who were the "blood" part of the blood and treasure commitment to achieve our objectives, and Eartha Kitt paid the price - a la the Dixie Chicks - for being "ill-mannered negro."

I guess what I am struggling with in all of this is how should I feel about it now, compared with how I felt about it before I started doing my research on this?  It's not as easy as it should be because I am also troubled by my ignorance as a teenager heading into draft age who really was clueless about what it was all about.  That's where this is heading for me now.  I was, back in 1973, while the war was still going on, sixteen.  Had it continued I would have been that "blood" my fellow Americans were willing to spend to meet our objectives.

It hits close to home now, and that makes my objectivity towards the war, Tet, General Loan, and the absolutists tainted.

Should my near-miss play into how I see the war? Should it dictate how I feel about our effort, my government, my military, and General Loan?

It can't help but not affect my view of the war, which is exactly the same situation General Loan was put in on February 1st, 1968 when Nguyen Van Lem was brought to him with hands tied behind his back and wearing civilian clothes.

How one sees a situation is uniquely their own.  How dare we punish Eartha Kitt for voicing how she saw the conflict in Vietnam.  How dare we criticize Walter Cronkite and Robert Kennedy for speaking what they saw as the truth. How dare we degrade the men and woman who willingly and unwillingly offered their blood to give us "reasonable success in achieving our objectives."  And how dare we condemn General Loan for this one particular act - committed during a war, during an invasion - elevating ii up to a classification of "moral turpitude."

Condemnation is deserved for those who ignore the cost and reality that comes in to play when you go to war.

As Charles Heston said in Plant of the Apes: Damn them!  Damn them to hell!

Next Post: There but for the grace of God go I....
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The "Good Guys" Government: Equally important as the military effort in winning the war

Starting at the end of the memo....

Sometime before July 19, 1967, Ambassador Bunker met with Secretary McNamar and Secretary Katzenbach, concluding his meeting with this:

"I believe that we are gradually achieving out aims in Vietnam.  If we stick to it long enough - and this is not a short term proposition - I am confident that we shall have reasonable success in achieving our objectives."

And just what were "our objectives?" (1)

Meeting between Ambassador Bunker and Secretary McNamar and Secretary Katzenbach,

Okay, so that's the objective, all we need to do is "stick to it long enough."  Simple!

Now let's look at the reality....

Remember that "good guy" General Loan?  Well he plays into this reality for us.  Let's look at what we knew to be true in July 1967: (1)

Meeting between Ambassador Bunker and Secretary McNamar and Secretary Katzenbach,

So we are fighting a "limited war" locked in a "bitter and savage struggle with an enemy determined, disciplined. well equipped and resourceful."  And in the midst of all this we are trying to do is carry out a "social revolution" in Vietnam.  Whether we should, or should not, is not going to be discussed here.  I am trying to look at the reality in play to show why the view of our involvement as  "whatever it takes" would not work in Vietnam.  Tet and the Eddie Adam's photo did not change the reality that "whatever it takes" would take and take and take without ever bringing to fruition our objectives.  Time, on the other hand, was on the enemy's side:

The objectives we set out to achieve are not unworkable, however, the priorities we were to focus on in an effort to meet those objectives were a pipe dream to say the least. (1)

Meeting between Ambassador Bunker and Secretary McNamar and Secretary Katzenbach,

But above all that, there was no way to bring about a "social revolution" as long as Ky and Loan were part of the process. (2)

Herewith a first view of Thieu after the [Ky/Thieu ticket] deal

What Ky, Loan, and their allies wanted was different than what Thieu wanted.  But there was no way there would be ANY government in Vietnam unless both sides joined together and each got something.

This was the reality we were faced with and why there would be no way to "win" this war.  This was not a defeat-your-enemy-and-win-battles type of war like we were used to.  Even the fact that it was gorilla tactics and house-to-house fighting, had nothing to do with making this war un-winnable.  Simply put, the amount of effort that would be required to vanquish the enemy would do little if the "good guys" were not really good guys. (1)

Meeting between Ambassador Bunker and Secretary McNamar and Secretary Katzenbach,

What was known in 1967, before Tet, was that this war required not just the military aspect to achieve our goals, but a political one as well.  Further evidence that the proponents of stay the course would never get the "win" they wanted.

What were the political realities of Vietnam in 1967 that would work against our objectives and priorities... those things we needed to see to bring about a "win?" (1)

Meeting between Ambassador Bunker and Secretary McNamar and Secretary Katzenbach,

Why we thought we could overcome the political realities AND fight an enemy that was "determined, disciplined. well equipped and resourceful." has a lot to do with our arrogance as a superpower.  We knew in 1967 that the military aspect could only go so far.

So why to this day do some - including scholars and Generals - insist on looking at Tet in terms of winning the battle but losing the war?  They seem hellbent on getting the "true" story out...if only the American people knew the real story instead of the one presented to them as microcosms of destruction.  Look what David Culbert has to say about this.

TV  Interview  with  David  Culbert

Did the North Vietnamese gain a "stupendous psychological victory" here in the US or was what happened during Tet the inevitable harbinger of exactly what should have been understood and known in 1967 by the American people?  Are we that gullible that we would could not formulate an understanding of what we saw based on what we had been told.  The North's victory on changing our will was the result of a fabricated reality perpetuated by our government.

In other words, had our veil of ignorance been off and we known about the true strength of the enemy, the understanding that they would be in it for the long-haul, the dysfunction of the "good guys" we needed to meet our objectives, and the lack of understanding we had for what the Vietnamese people were thinking (see page 28), would we have concluded anything different after Tet in 1968?

I don't think so.  Now I'm not talking about how we felt about it at the time, or how we feel about it now.  I am talking about how we would conclude it objectively.  Had we been kept in the dark or shown a more positive picture would that have been better for us?  Better for the absolutist point of view, maybe.

All Tet and General Loan did was rip off the facade that had been put in place to bolster our own need for a psychological victory in order to keep Carl von Clausewitz's "strength of will" firm and undaunted so that we could "stick to it long enough" to have a chance at meeting our objectives.

Any other conclusion, in my opinion, is a logical fantasy.

Next post: In case you don't understand the lingo, that's marijuana."

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Why the lies, misstatements, half-truths, and downright disgust....

As I have said a number of times in my posts regarding Eddie Adams and General Loan, there is a lot I did not know about the Vietnam war.  There is a lot I still don't know.

However, through all of this research, through reading the declassified CIA and military documents, visiting websites and reading comments, looking at the reporting done at the time, reading the speeches written, and studying the journal articles written, a clearer pictures as to why the lies, misstatements, half-truths, and downright disgust, emerges.

Basically, it boils down to this:  There are some people who hold a logical fantasy as the truth regarding war.  That is, they believe that victory in a war is achievable if it were not "directed or constrained by political motives or concerns, nor limited by the practical constraints of time or space." (1) 

In other words, had the public been kept completely in the dark, had Nixon dropped bombs for one more week, had we pushed through across the border, had we used nukes, had we done and used everything in our power, we would have achieved victory in Vietnam.

That's a logical fantasy because it ignores all of the realities in play.  War takes money and effort.  That money and effort comes from somewhere does it not?  To allow the military to do whatever it takes to achieve victory assumes, naively, that victory can always be achieved.

And that assumption ignores the cost.  How many more lives are required to be taken to achieve victory?  As many as it takes?  What weapons should be used?  Anything and everything?  What will happen if victory is obtained?  It doesn't matter, aftermath is not the military's concern, is it not?

Now that may sound like I am being harsh on the military.  I am not.  I am simply pointing out a reality, their reality.  Their job is to move forward or keep the other guy from moving forward.  It is not nation building, or refugees, or bad blood, or destroyed infrastructure, cost in money, dead or wounded troops, or anything else.  It is simply to successfully complete their mission.

And therein lies the problem with Vietnam and any other war that does not involve an invading army.  It is not something that can be won.  At best, as Walter Cronkite said in his newscast that pissed so many off:

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.

To say we could not have won is incorrect.  We could have, and those that served and those who believe in the concept of absolute war, know this as the truth.  And, once again, therein lies the problem with the Vietnam war.

If we could have won, why weren't we allowed to win?  Was it because of the press, the hippies, the defeatists, the weak-minded....  No, it wasn't, but yes it was!

Two academics, Peter Rollins and David Culbert have written an number of journal articles on how the press, especially TV, was responsible for changing the US attitude against the war.  Everyone has bias when they write.  As much as I try to be objective, it is possible, even without my knowledge (which sounds crazy cause' I'm the guy typing!) that what I write may fail to take in consideration those viewpoints and facts I am adamantly opposed to.

That being the case, lets look at from where Peter Rollins, a Vietnam vet, is writing from:

Oklahoma State University  News Service 10/20/80

One can reasonably understand what biases Peter Rollin's may have.  What he puts is, leaves out, positioning, context, all go into the making of his film.  It is a logical fantasy in play here, made that way by a certain reality.  He, as well as his brothers in arms, were denied not only overall victory, but were not given the full respect they felt deserved for the same sacrifice and duty other veterans were offered.  That's a reality.  That's what drives and motivates the need to show not just the truth, but a truth more reflective of a need to overcome these two losses.

Case in point.  Does it really matter if the VC entered into the embassy building itself or blew a hole in the wall and entered into the compound?  Does it matter that the pistol that was tossed up to the ambassador "just in time to shoot the VC coming up the stairs" took place in the stairs of the bungalow and not in the embassy?

In other words, had we been told that the VC entered only into the compound and that the ambassador was able to catch the pistol and shoot the VC in the bungalow, our opinion of what happened during Tet would have been different. Do those facts make their effort more...I don't know, deserving of respect?

It is true -  that had there been no press or cameras - we would have come away with a whole different opinion of Tet, as was pointed out by one of Rollin and Culbert's colleagues regarding their film:

Oklahoma State University  News Service 10/20/80

And what would have our opinion have been?  Would it have been one that ignored the realities we could see?  Would it have been one that resulted because we were kept in the dark?  Should our opinion have been left solely to what our government and the military wanted it to be?

The reason we have lies, misstatements, half-truths, and downright disgust.... is simply because the those who think in absolutes cannot except a reality that does not work in absolutes. So thy build and perpetuate myths as to why it did not work out their way.

Look at what Rollins is quoted as saying:

 Oklahoma State University  News Service 10/20/80

This assumes that we would be easily swayed by the "eye-for-an-eye" defense for the actions performed by General Loan.  That one must "fight fire with fire" so it's all okay.  Had we been told what General Loan said to the reporters (see post) during the broadcast, it would have made it "more complex" and less about "the drama implicit in the images - never mind the fact that the day before in all the newspapers Loan's "they killed many of my men" statement was reported.

Somehow had we been told and shown something different, the results would be different.  But this also brings forth the premise that had we not been told or shown, the results would have been different as well.  The inability to control the message is what these absolutists are reticent about.  But up until Tet, the absolutists did control the message, even Rollins understands that:

Oklahoma State University  News Service 10/20/80

So why the need for lies, misstatements, half-truths, and downright disgust.... if what we had been told up to that point was "pure propaganda?"  Shouldn't what we saw, heard and read, about Tet lead us to a more reasoned understanding about our involvement there?  It should, for how could it not.  The only problem is where it led us was away from where the absolutists wanted us to go.  This is what Robert Kennedy meant when he said:

The third illusion is that the unswerving pursuit of military victory, whatever its cost, is in the interest of either ourselves or the people of Vietnam. 

For the absolutists winning the war, whatever its cost, is a given, an absolute.  For the soldier, to have their effort used for anything other than pursuit of a victory, is unconscionable.  When Rollins says about Tet that "we won the battle, but lost the war" he is looking at it from both an absolutists and a soldier.  And here is the reality that some, like Robert Kennedy, understood after Tet.  There was not war to win:

This has not happened because our men are not brave or effective, because they are. It is because we have misconceived the nature of the war: It is because we have sought to resolve by military might a conflict whose issue depends upon the will and conviction of the South Vietnamese people. It is like sending a lion to halt an epidemic of jungle rot. 

The reasons, therefore, for these lies, misstatements, half-truths, and downright disgust.... are understandable. The reality, as Robert Kennedy was pointing out, does not sit well for those who think in absolutes and those who gave their effort, blood, limbs, minds, and lives fighting in a war that was misconceived.

I understand it.  That doesn't mean I condone it.  The truth may hurt, but it is still the truth.  But there is another ugly truth out there, and that is even with this understanding, there are still absolutist out there who believe we should do whatever it costs to win.

Next post: Kid Rock, Carl von Clausewitz, O'Brien, and General Loan



A: http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?qO5rMU.DiqvlrSWsuB1Mf8EKAM7DS@kPMRUtVAr.IGHX41PNYoZ6yvkegnGQxp@NLQBhL1W6QfH7WggCxsAZkLtdM.ZE9SUbfXESsRsY4HZQeXwrcEYJWA/1770232001.pdf

B: http://www.virtual.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?1A.hvdzxuUydy.v30umxLPKIj@At5tt7P7RX3bWEdjQjOPSNpY8vODjYuH3WbhErDaF8n1avbxUmMbCXw1NRyL@gD6BbEFvSyxIRLQKG@6z9gB1iEh8hJQ/1770205053.pdf

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And it's one, two, three WHO are we fighting for?

Before I can continue on with why I feel General Loan should not be viewed as a "good guy," I need to delve into a bit of background on the Vietnam situation in 1967. All of this is, in my opinion, necessary to understand General Loan the man.

I am going to start this post off with a picture:

Wearing matching flight suits and scarves, South Vietnam’s Premier Nguyen Cao Ky strolls hand-in-hand with his wife as they make aninspection tour of the battlefield near Bong Son, South Vietnam on February 4, 1966. Ky visited the area where American and SouthVietnamese troops killed a reported 700 Communist guerillas in recent battles.  (Photo: © Bettmann/CORBIS

The question I want to pose is this: can one looking at the picture tell the difference between drama and information?  Can one read meaning into what is shown?  Is this photo a half-truth?

There is a reason for showing that particular photo.  In my opinion it supports what was known to the US and to the Vietnam people about the men who were leading them.  This should become evident as you read on.

Historian David Culbert writes:

Robert Kennedy, who entered the presidential race on 10 March 1968, made his first major speech following Tet on 8  February, at the Chicago Book and Author luncheon.  He insisted that Tet was a military disaster for the Americans, and that the South Vietnamese government was "a government without supporters."

I'll let you read the full speech by Robert Kennedy to see if you come to the same conclusion.  Anyway, more to my point in trying to support why General Loan is not a "good guy," lets look at what Robert Kennedy said in this speech and how his comments on  February 8th 1968 compares to what the CIA knew at the time.  All of that, and the above photo too.

Here is what Robert Kennedy said in his speech:

You cannot expect [the South Vietnamese] people to risk their lives and endure hardship unless they have a stake in their own society. They must have a clear sense of identification with their own government, a belief they are participating in a cause worth fighting for. 

People will not fight to line the pockets of generals or swell the bank accounts of the wealthy. They are far more likely to close their eyes and shut their doors in the face of their government—even as they did last week [Tet offensive]. 

More than any election, more than any proud boast, that single fact reveals the truth. We have an ally in name only. We support a government without supporters. Without the efforts of American arms that government would not last a day.

General Loan was one of those Generals.  He was not flashy like his best friend Ky, but he was just as powerful.  In addition to Adams calling Loan a "good guy" he also called him a "goddamn hero."  I have my doubts about that.

So what do we know about Loan and these Generals Robert Kennedy speaks about.  Was it really a government without supporters?  Without the efforts of American arms would that government have lasted?

Here is what the CIA states in their declassified document.

October 1998

Only relevant sections referencing General Loan are included.  Interesting tidbits of information and enlightenment are in blue.

In mid--1966, with US combat forces carrying the burden of offensive operations against the Communists, government, stability was still the dominant political issue. Station disengagement from Palace liaison had now endured a full year, while CIA expanded its programs in the countryside. Ky was planning elections to a' constitutional constituent assembly that summer, and the problem of campaign financing drew the Agency back into involvement with the military leadership."

One of Prime Minister Ky's closest confidants was Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, who as chief of both the National Police and the Military Security Service also conducted liaison with the Station on intelligence and security matters, He importuned the Station for money to replenish police funds he had used to subsidize the campaigns of Ky allies, Ambassador Lodge asked the Station to oblige him, and Headquarters approved a subsidy of 10 million piasters (about $85,000) which the Station passed to Loan on 25 August.

This return to active involvement with the leadership coincided with the departure of Gordon Jorgensen. His replacement, John Hart, had run other large Stations [redact] He seems not to have shared Jorgensen's reservations about direct dealings at the top, and in midOctober asked Headquarters to consider giving Loan another 14 million piasters to replace police and MSS funds diverted to the election campaign. According to Loan, Ky needed this support to avoid having to declare to his peers in the Military Directorate that he had used money from the Prime Minister's secret fund for political purposes. Hart noted that Ky was trying at the moment to resolve another cabinet crisis, and thought Lodge would approve CIA support designed to strengthen Ky's position

No reply has been found, and the proposal may have been overtaken by the controversy over Loan himself that came to a head when Headquarters suggested his removal. As for the original 10-million-piaster subsidy, while it may have spared Ky some embarrassment, its influence on the electoral outcome was apparently slight, as the only available reference to its use concerns support to two unsuccessful candidates in Da Nang,

The discussion over Loan's future - it did not address the means by which he might be unseated - brought into focus once more the perennial problem facing the Agency and the rest of the US Mission as they looked for Vietnamese officials meriting US support. Loan was energetic and highly intelligent, manipulative, and entirely loyal to Ky. But he did not look to the US for guidance, and in personal style sometimes appeared to be playing the clown. COS Hart later recalled having liked him; even if Loan "never agreed with anything I ever said," he was "absolutely honest," and perhaps the only Vietnamese official of Hart's acquaintance who would openly disagree with an American

To Russ Miller, who saw them together after he returned to Saigon in early 1967, the fastidious Hart looked repelled by Loan's "scruffy fatigues and open-toed sandals," and put off as well by Loan's chronic unavailability for an appointment. But there were more substantial reasons for reservations about Loan. Among them were his contempt for individual legal rights and for programs aimed at ingratiating the government with the peasantry, an attitude that put him at odds with American convictions on these issues.

Whatever his retrospective opinion of Loan, Hart described himself  as "not an admirer" when the Ambassador pressed him, in October 1966, to object to the Headquarters call for Loan's removal. Swallowing his reservations. Hart agreed that the police chief was indispensable to Ky at a moment when the US was counting on Ky to produce a constitution and a stable civilian government. Loan soon became important to CIA as well, as events unfolded that led to the Station's two most important political initiatives of 1967.

We seem to be mightily involved with forming the government that is to be out ally.

In the first of these initiatives, the Station tried to establish clandestine contact with the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (NLFSVN. usually abbreviated NLF), which although directed from Hanoi was composed mainly of southern Vietnamese. The Station proposed to identify presumed moderate elements in the NLF and to set up a commununications channel to any of these who might be interested in a dialog that excluded Hanoi. The second initiative involved a renewed effort tn deal with perpetually unstable government in Saigon. Here, the May 1967 arrival of Ellsworth Bunker as US Ambassador and the approach of presidential elections in South Vietnam ushered in a new CIA effort to influence Vietnamese politics,

Say what?  Yeah, that needed to be underlined, italicized, and made bold!  A few paragraphs later....

Ky's man, General Loan, visited Washington in May [1967] and made it plain that he saw no reason not to exploit the government apparatus to get Ky elected to the presidency. CIA Headquarters seemingly paid little attention to this, perhaps because DDP Richard Helms and FE Division Chief Colby were more interested in the approach to the NLF. Helms forcefully urged more initiatives like the one to Tan Buu Kiem of the NLF Foreign Affairs Committee, and Loan tepidly agreed that the Central Intelligence Organization might be the best instrument for this. Meanwhile, in Saigon, the rumor mill impeded American efforts to be perceived as having no preference between Thieu and Ky. The chief of the police Special Branch told a Station agent that the rumored imminent removal of John Hart and Ed Lansdale would serve local politicians as proof of US bias against Ky, if it took place, and of favoritism toward him if it didn't.

Ellsworth Bunker had been in Saigon less than two weeks when on 12 May [1968] Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky announced his presidential candidacy. Unlike Lodge, Bunker had no reservations about using CIA's political contacts in Saigon. He promptly enlisted the Station to help fulfill a Washington mandate to ensure fair elections, and to prevent a split in the Vietnamese military while the US preserved its neutrality between Thieu and Ky. As it turned out, Bunker needed all the help he could get, as this objective was threatened from the outset by General Loan, who upon his return from Washington had put into conspicuous action his belief in using government resources to promote Ky's bid. Washington and the US Mission now switched their earlier positions on Loan, as State rejected Bunker's 19 June proposal to force Loan's removal, and suggested using Miller to approach .Ky directly to curb campaign excesses. George Carver, the DCT's Special Assistant for Vietnam Affairs (SAVA), thought Loan's activities a symptom of Saigon's political malaise, not a cause, and suspected that Bunker's proposal reflected little more than the influence of John Hart's "personal distaste for and dislike of Loan."

Miller saw Ky on 21 June, probably before the Station learned of Washington's response to the Bunker recommendation. Ky acknowledged the possibly damaging effects of Loan's activism, and said he intended to remove Loan from command of the Military Security Service, and reduce his engagement in the electoral campaign. Ky also proposed to convene all province and district chiefs to enjoin them against any campaign excesses on his behalf. Ky did not know, presumably, that the two aides who had spent five hours with him that day, advocating precisely these measures, were [redacted] Station guidance. Ky said nothing of this 'session to Miller, who had the satisfaction of hearing his message presented as if it were Ky's own idea. The Station reported that the Ambassador was delighted, and that he proposed to use the Station's "advisory services" as a regular supplement to the direct consultation with Ky being urged on him by State.

Bunker and the Station thought they would enjoy more leverage if the Station funded a front organization of religious sects and political groups favoring Thieu and Ky and supported those of its contacts running for the National Assembly. But Washington was smarting under the exposure of CIA funding to the US National Student Association and other domestic organizations and refused even to consider it. Secretary of State Rusk cabled Bunker in Agency channels, urging him to establish a closer relationship with Thieu even while pursuing the CIA advisory effort with Ky, and to ensure that Thieu and Ky arrived at a clear mutual understanding of their respective roles during and after the election.

Who's yer daddy!

Miller succeeded in getting Phong to press the funding question with Ky, who released 5,000,000 piasters in mid-July to support the religious political front. Ky had instructed Phong both to keep Miller fully informed or campaign planning and to give full consideration to American suggestions. Phong began to do both, and his 20 July account of Thieu's having "swallowed a bitter pill" in accepting a circumscribed presidential role lent credibility to the claim of Ky's ascendancy. Miller noted that Phong seemed to think he could run a subtle campaign, keeping government employees from any egregious abuses while encouraging them to advertise Saigon's accomplishments. But the Station apparently feared that an election completely honest could be an election lost: it accepted without comment Phong's stated intention to exploit General Loan's police apparatus "in critical areas which require more effort to swing the vote to Thieu and Ky."

....and I'm proud to be an American.....

On 26 July, Miller gave Phong a list of platform suggestions approved by Bunker, and the next day Ky said they agreed with his own thinking, especially those dealing with civil service pay, corruption, and increased emphasis on the rural population. Ky did not, apparently, vet the ideas with Thieu, whose participation in the campaign he at one point derided as "completely silly." Meanwhile, the campaign was faltering, at least partly for lack of money, and Ky threatened that, lacking US funding support, he would be forced to rely on General Loan to extract "loan-type levies on various citizens with resultant, unfavorable repercussions." Phong wanted to avoid this kind of coercive fundraising, and the need to make deals with unsavory people, but Miller stood on his instructions. The Station rationalized that an impecunious Thieu-Ky campaign might look more like an honest campaign, but also anticipated the same effects from an unresolved money crunch that Phong did. A few days later, Phong mentioned the distribution of 8,000,000 piasters in the Mekong Delta. Ky had not revealed the source of the money, and Phong could only surmise that it came from General Loan.

What did Robert Kennedy say..."We support a government without supporters."  That 8 million had to come from supporters.  Isn't that what" loan-type levies" refers to?

In the week before the validation vote on 2 October, the Station mobilized its political contacts, making fifty separate approaches aimed at preventing an embarrassing repudiation of the election results. One opponent of Thien and Ky, in an access of "naivete or crudeness," acknowledged that he and his allies were concerned less with rectifying electoral fraud than with "the possibility of extracting a certain profit through political blackmai1." Whatever the effect of the Station's pressure tactics, the members of the Provisional Legislative Assembly were left in no doubt about the US preference for a validated result. The Constituent Assembly approved the result, 58 to 43, and Thieu and Ky were sworn into office on 31 October 1967.

What did Robert Kennedy say..."People will not fight to line the pockets of generals or swell the bank accounts of the wealthy."

In the last week of November, with the authenticity of the Dang channel still at issue, General Loan provoked a crisis that threatened to end the affair amid mutual embarrassment and recrimination. Miller confronted him with evidence of Saigon leaks about the operation, and at the same time expressed US concern about rumors that Loan was resigning as national police chief. Loan confirmed having submitted his resignalion, adding that Ky had rejected it. But Loan anticipated trouble with Thien's new civilian government, saying that its apparent indifference to pro-Communists among its appointees would inevitably collide with his aggressive approach to countersubversion.

On the even more contentious question of the Dang channel, Miller wanted to know why the government, after ten months of cooperation on approaches to the NLF, now appeared to be sabotaging the venture. US objectives had not changed, he noted, from the original goals of prisoner exchange and communication on "any broader political matters the NLF might wish to discuss." Loan insisted that he still favored the program, but acknowledged some disagreement on tactics. At the policy level, he noted, there was President Thicu's fear that the Americans were acquiring too much leverage on Saigon in pressing for release of VC prisoners. And there might indeed have been leaks, Loan added, but as a result of poor security in the Interior Ministry and not as a matter of deliberate sabotage.

The depth of the disagreement over tactics became evident when Miller and Loan met again the next day. Miller, speaking for the Ambassador, wanted the release of all the prisoners requested by Tran Bach Dang, while Loan insisted that the NLF would regard such a concession as a sign of weakness on the anti-Communist side. He thought only two should go back, Tong and the bearer of Dang's original letter, pending the release of prisoners in NLF hands. Miller insisted that such an insignificant gesture would provoke Dang into closing the channel. Loan then took refuge in a jurisdictional argument, asserting that Thieu's delegation of authority to him did not apply to the question at hand, which involved not just operational planning but strategic national policy. He would not, he said, decide whom to release, and Miller asked if he could at least quote him to the Interior Minister as having no objection to the US proposal. After a painful silence, Loan agreed.

Miller tried to restore a collegial atmosphere, emphasizing the need for a joint approach to the venture, and wondered aloud whether Loan would really prefer to see bilateral US-NLF contacts that excluded the South. Loan pessimistically but presciently replied that it would surely come to that, if not now then later. When this happened, he said, Saigon's forces would face the combined NLF, VC, and North Vietnamese Army alone.

On 1 December [1967], seeing President Thieu on Ambassador Bunker's instructions, Miller got an even stonier reception to the US proposal to release up to ten VC. Thieu accused thc Americans of naivete and Loan of playing anti-Thieu politics by opposing the release in order to make the President look like an American puppet if he granted it. Professing anxiety that this could undermine his support in both the military and the population at large, Thieu said that, against the background of his internal political problems, prisoner exchange was a "drop of water in the ocean

                                                                   -------------------

Here is how Robert Kennedy ended his speech:

No war has ever demanded more bravery from our people and our Government—not just bravery under fire or the bravery to make sacrifices—but the bravery to discard the comfort of illusion—to do away with false hopes and alluring promises. 

Reality is grim and painful. But it is only a remote echo of the anguish toward which a policy founded on illusion is surely taking us. 

This is a great nation and a strong people. Any who seek to comfort rather than speak plainly, reassure rather than instruct, promise satisfaction rather than reveal frustration—they deny that greatness and drain that strength. For today as it was in the beginning, it is the truth that makes us free. 

Was Culbert correct about how Robert Kennedy viewed Tet and our involvement in Vietnam?  Did Robert Kennedy "insist that Tet was a military disaster for the Americans, and that the South Vietnamese government was "a government without supporters."  Or did he say and mean something different, something closer to maybe the truth?

And what about General Loan in all of this?  Can he really be characterized as a "good guy?"

Well that's only one CIA author's opinion of what went down and Loan's involvement,  I got more....

Next Post: General Loan: "Probably the most feared man in the country"

The problems of the how's and why's

Note: I have done a lot more research on this topic since I started the particular post.  So I am going to continue with the theme I originally started with.

I have been doing a bunch of research on General Nguyen Ngoc Loan's assassination of Nguyen Van Lem (aka: Bay Lop) which was caught on film by NBC and still by Eddie Adams.  I am trying to answer a couple of questions that have made themselves apparent during this quest.

1. What did General Loan say to the reporters?  Which version is closest to the actual statement?
2. What did General Loan know about the man he was going to execute?  Was Lem guilty of everything you read about him?

I am also trying to put into context Eddie Adams' statements regarding the photo he took and the path it lead both him and General Loan down.  Although I had seen the photo before, I knew nothing about what took place February 1st,  1968.  It's not like I'm some teenager bored in history class.  I missed the Vietnam war by three years.  I should know more, but I don't.  So this has been a history lesson that I have enjoyed, although it deals with a pretty gruesome topic and a very costly war in terms of humanity.

What I have found in this short time is that I like Eddie Adams.  What I have also found is that we, as a society that has used his photo to add to our own individual and collective narrative, have misused it to suit our own needs.  In addition, by not fully understanding - accepting really - the context, we have made it into something that sounds good but has no legs to stand on to support that description of what it really shows.  Then, when we hear Adams talk about this very problem, we take his words out of context as well, all to satisfy some primal need to have our view of what it shows be the one everybody should accept.

But what should we see when we look at the photo or watch the NBC film?  What if - as historian David Culbert contends - all the photo and film showed us was the result and not the cause...the reason?  Without background or context, readers saw a merciless Loan and a defenseless Lop.(5)  What reason is needed to fully understand the photo?

We humans like to categorize things, put them into nice little cubbies like our shoes and lunch boxes.  But this photo presents a different that makes categorizing very difficult.  If you are to be intellectually honest, you realize that it is extremely difficult to give General Loan's actions an unqualified "it was okay" or "it was wrong."  Those two cubbies don't work for this without a bit of morality wrestling.

Is there never a case where executing a man on the spot would be warranted?  And, if it's okay to execute a bound man without a trial because he's a terrorist, then its okay for our enemy to make the same designation.  And if war changes everything making this act acceptable in those conditions, then the Bataan death march and the massacre at Goliad would be acceptable as well.

You see, it gets complicated.  So somewhere between never and always there is point where we shift from one side to the other.  But does that shift make it acceptable or does that shift make it only understandable?  Does knowing the reason why the man on the right side of the photo was shot change our perception of the man on the left?  What reason to you have to be told to make this acceptable?

What if the reason the man in the photo was shot was because:

Minutes before he was captured, Bay Lop had killed a RVN policeman's wife and all of his family members including his children. Around 4:30 A.M., Nguyen Van Lem led a sabotage unit along with Viet Cong tanks to attack the Armor Camp in Go Vap. After communist troops took control of the base, Bay Lop arrested Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan with his family and forced him to show them how to drive tanks. When Lieutenant Colonel Tuan refused to cooperate, Bay Lop killed all members of his family including his 80-year-old mother. There was only one survivor, a seriously injured 10-year-old boy. (1)

Or would it matter if the reason was:

Nguyen Van Lem was captured near a mass grave with 34 innocent civilian bodies. Lem admitted that he was proud to carry out his unit leader's order to kill these people. Lem was in his shorts and shirt. His arms were tied from the back. The pistol was still in his possession. General Loan executed Nguyen Van Lem on the spot. (1)

Or what if the reason hit close to home for General Loan?

Lem commanded a Viet Cong assassination and revenge platoon, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families; Lem was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of whom were the families of General Loan's deputy and close friend. (2)

 [He] had killed some Saigon civilians, many of them relatives of police in the capital." (5)

[I]t was at this point that Loan summarily executed, in the presence of a wire service photographer, a VC captured after killing the entire family of one of Loan' s senior officers. (9)

The prisoner was identified, accuraetly probably, as the commander of a Vietcong sapper unit.  He was said to have had a revolver in his possession when he was captured and to have killed a policeman. (From Harper's April 1972 Tom Buckley "Portrait of an Aging Despot")

 Or what if Eddie Adams, the photographer, gave the reason as:

Well, we found out later, it wasn't 'til about a couple days later, that we found out that the guy was a  Viet Cong lieutenant, and he had killed the policemen  from  the second story  of the building [i]n the area where we were, and they had grabbed  him  immediately.  And he supposedly had  papers saying that he was a lieutenant in the Viet Cong. (6)

[T]he victim had just murdered one of Loan's best friends and knifed to death his entire family.(7)

[T]he man he shot had just murdered a friend of his, a South Vietnamese army colonel, as well as the colonel's wife and six children. (8)

 Or what if he wasn't Viet Cong, but someone else of importance in your enemy?

The prisoner had not been in the Viet Cong military but was ''a very high ranking'' political official. (4)

Or what if you had to shoot him there on the spot to retain leadership in a time of war?

[I]t had not been the rash act it might have appeared to be but had been carried out because a deputy commander he had ordered to shoot had hesitated. ''I think, 'Then I must do it,' '' he recounted. ''If you hesitate, if you didn't do your duty, the men won't follow you.'' (4)

Or what if the reason was mistaken identity?

"They tell me he had a revolver, that he wonded one of my policemen, that he spit in the face of the men who captured him.  They say that they know this man.  He is not a namelss civilian, as the press says. He is Nguyen Tan Dat, alias Han Son." (3)

Or what if the reason - as Vice President Ky eluded - so what?

The foreign press made a lot of news about this death, but none of you wrote about the Viet Cong.  Why worry about one damned V.C. terrorist when they are killing thousands of Vietnamese officers, men, women, and children?" (6)

Or what if the reason was a difference in how a foreign culture looks at life?

[A] typically corrupt oriental official who obviously has neither concern  for human life nor respect for public opinion.(7)

Or what if the reason was simply that it was an act of war?

So, the fact that if you captured a man in that tense, urban civil  war  context and shot him, in that  highly  irregular, and  tense circumstances did not strike me as an act of wickedness--it's  an act, a very sad  act, but  it's an act of  war, in that context.  Now without knowing who the one was or what the police were up against at that particular time in the Battle of Saigon I can understand that it could be interpreted  by others, but  that was my judgement. (8)

Or what if it was the heat of the moment?

"I am not a politician." Loan said.  "I am not a cheif of police.  I am just a soldier.  When you see a man in civilian clothes with a revolver killing your people...when many of your people have already been killed, then what are you supposed to do? (From Harper's April 1972 Tom Buckley "Portrait of an Aging Despot")

Does the context matter here?  Does the reason change how we should perceive what the man on the left did to the man on the right?  Does it matter that Loan was a General?  The guy in charge that day? The man that had the power and ability to have sent him to jail for the courts to decide his fate?  The Saigon was being attacked since 2:00 am on Wednesday?  That there were snipers, and death all around?  All of these dynamics were in play that morning of February 1st, 1968.

And if you are intellectually honest, you will conclude that the reasons given for General Loan's actions that day have moved from fact to distortion, and in some cases, to tall tale.  We need a reason so we can put General Loan in a cubby and move on.  Hero or villain, good or evil, rightness or wrongness.

So what reason do you need to be told?

And although this action took place on a Thursday, what if General Loan had simply turned to Eddie Adams and the other reporters and said simply; "I don't like Mondays?"

And the lesson today is how to die

And then the bullhorn crackles

And the captain tackles

With the problems of the how's and why's

And he can see no reasons

'Cos there are no reasons

What reason do you need to die?

Next post: The man on the left had to shoot the man on the right