The Truth About the Vietnam War

The Betrayal of South Vietnam



Michael T. Griffith



In January 1973, America forced Communist North Vietnam to sign a ceasefire agreement, after bringing the Hanoi regime to the verge of collapse with Operations Linebacker I and Linebacker II. South Vietnam was independent and stable. But soon Congress, firmly controlled by the Democrats, began to drastically reduce American aid to South Vietnam, cutting our aid to South Vietnam by well over 60% in the space of two years. The Democrats also passed a bill that virtually guaranteed that America would not intervene to save South Vietnam, giving the Communists a green light to invade. 

When North Vietnam broke the ceasefire agreement and launched large-scale attacks on South Vietnam, the Democrats refused to honor our promise to provide adequate supplies to South Vietnam; the Democrats also refused to honor our private pledge to provide air support if it were needed. In April 1975, North Vietnam, with the help of massive military aid from the Soviet Union and Communist China, conquered South Vietnam. Tens of thousands of South Vietnamese were executed, and hundreds of thousands were sent to brutal "reeducation" camps, where thousands more died from abuse and inhumane conditions. Hundreds of thousands of others fled by sea and became the famous "Boat People." South Vietnam's 18 million citizens lost their freedom and fell under Communist tyranny.

South Vietnam would be like South Korea is today, a thriving democratic nation in Asia, if Congress had not refused to honor our promise to provide adequate aid and to provide air support if North Vietnam launched another invasion.

10 MYTHS ABOUT THE VIETNAM WAR

The famous picture of a South Vietnamese general, General Loan, executing a captured Viet Cong fighter in Saigon during the 1968 Tet Offensive. American liberals cited this picture as proof that South Vietnamese soldiers were brutal, lawless, and purposely killed innocent people. They failed to mention that the man was the liaison between a local Communist committee and the Viet Cong's 6th Local Force Battalion and was trying to warn the Viet Cong, which was an act of treason in and of itself. 

South Vietnamese refugees fleeing from the Communists

Images from John Wayne's 1968 movie The Green Berets, the only Hollywood movie that portrayed the Vietnam War as a noble cause during the war.

Anti-war liberals mocked and condemned Wayne's accurate movie as war propaganda, while they themselves were busy repeating North Vietnamese and Soviet propaganda against the war. It is no exaggeration to say that two of North Vietnam's most important allies during the war were anti-war Democrats in Congress and liberal journalists in our news media.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

Dr. Mark Moyar's new book Triumph Regained is magnificent. 

General William Westmoreland, commanding general in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968. President Lyndon Johnson appointed Westmoreland to lead U.S. forces in Vietnam. 

Westmoreland was forced to operate under senseless, damaging restrictions imposed by President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Westmoreland did not merely adopt an attrition strategy but also emphasized the need for pacification and for training and equipping South Vietnam's army. Westmoreland certainly made some mistakes, but he did a better job than many scholars give him credit for doing.

The charge that Westmoreland deliberately gave Washington authorities false information on enemy forces and on the status of the war effort is, at best, exaggerated. The CBS documentary The Uncounted Enemy, which claims that Westmoreland purposely underestimated enemy troop strength, contains many distortions, omissions, and errors.

Westmoreland was correct when he said in late 1967 that we were making progress in the war. North Vietnam's leaders launched the Tet Offensive in early 1968 because they decided they could no longer afford to continue their protracted-war strategy; they decided they needed to win the war quickly with one bold stroke. If our news media had reported the Tet Offensive accurately and fairly, they would have reported that the offensive was a crushing military defeat for North Vietnam, and that Hanoi's leaders had launched the offensive because they had concluded their previous strategy would not succeed.

If anyone "squandered four years of public support for the war," it was Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara, not General Westmoreland. Johnson and McNamara imposed senseless restrictions on our ground and air operations, refusing to strike crucial North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia and refusing to hit key targets in North Vietnam.

The incredible true story of American military legend John Ripley and South Vietnamese war hero Le Ba Binh and their fight against the Communists during the Vietnam War.  This movie includes interviews with a number of Vietnam veterans and takes a searching look at the false claims made by anti-war activists such as John Kerry and Jane Fonda.