Bao Dai Quotes

In the Vietnam War, America and her allies were defending the South Vietnamese from the Communist and Nationalist incursions of the North Vietnamese. However, the South Vietnamese government was itself a very fragile democracy which provided rights little better than the Ho Chi Min lead government of the North. Further, the South Vietnamese rulers and governments while claiming to be democracies, were little more than in name only and were very corrupt. As with many unstable and weak governments, South Vietnam had experienced a succession of coups, with some of his advisors favoring the coups and a few actualy supporting them. Johnson was continually frustrated by this and this expression was his own inimitable style.

This was one of the most accurate foreign policy assessments ever made. The next year the first Arab-Israeli war began when the state of Israel came into being. See {624566} for another accurate prediction.

England had gone through a bloody Civil War with the Parliament on one side and the King on the other. The King lost and was beheaded later that year. See {597353}.

The first has already occurred; the second is still an open question.

The ambassador's hyperbole caused or was the excuse for President Lyndon Johnson to send the marines into the Dominican Republic. There were only two American civilian casualties—both were reporters accidently shot by U.S. Marines.

President Johnson was trying to organize peace talks in Paris. Nixon didn’t want a public announcement to occur before election day when he was running against Hubert Humphrey. Knowing the South Vietnamese President was reluctant to go to Paris but was under pressure from America to do so, he sent a message through Chennault that he should not accept and “hang on” as Nixon would shortly win. The South Vietnam president refused to go to Paris, Nixon won the election, and then had to cope with the continuation of the war that might well have ended before he took office. Nixon believed that he could get Russia and China to pressure Ho Chi Min to make peace. Nixon's private overtures to the South Vietnam president, violated the Logan Act which prohiited private citizens negoatioating with foreign governments. President Johnson was aware of Nixon's commission of this felony want wanted to prosecute him, but the evicence had been obtained from secret intelligene agency bugging and wiretapping both the South Vietnam Embassay in Wishington and the Presidential Palace in Vietnam the public knowledge of which would have caused a scandal. Instead, he called Nixon and warned him to stop, but the damage had already been done, and the South Vitenamese government would not go to Pariis where they would have to agree to a coalition government with the Communists. THey waited for Nixon to deliver a peace treaty which would leave them in charge of South Vietnam. In the final analysis, the South Vietnamese ended up with nothing and no participation in anything when the U. S. Withdrew and the Communists took over.

Duke of Northumberland. When King James VI of poorer Scotland assumed the English throne (as James I) most of the Scots, and especially the Highlanders, were anti-English and concerned about the integrity and independence of Scotland. Together with dissident Englishmen, Dudley foresaw the schism that was to engulf England and Scotland in bloody civil war.

The General’s warning was not taken seriously at the time and the George W. Bush administration made him a persona non grata. But his warning turned out to be very prescient and the United States got so badly bogged down in the Iraq War.

Committee of the Congress. This was the prevailing Congressional and public view except for the South which had coalesced around an intellectual rationalization. See {618013}.

There was some political pressure in the North, to offer terms to the South where they could cease the rebellion and return to the Union and return to the status quo ante—before the rebellion.

The U. S. was evacuating all its forces and agents as the Viet Cong overran Saigon. This ended the Vietnam War. The CIA, had been telling the President and the National Security Staff that the Army reports were exaggerated and we were not faring well in the Vietnam War. Events proved them right. Their earlier track record, especially with President Nixon was very poor in intelligence analysis and prediction. See {634511}, {634509}, and {634503} for Nixon’s view of the CIA.

He had just assumed his post 6 days earlier. At this point he did not have enough knowledge to favor or oppose the regime change, but he did realize that the decision was a serious one and there would be no turning back. Diem was a creature of the Central Intelligence Agency. An anti-Communist Christian in a Buddhist county, the CIA engineered his rise to power, created his political party, provided him with cash to bribe other Vietnamese politicians, and paid for all the propaganda so he would “win” the Presidential elections. However, he abused the Buddhists, was thoroughly corrupt and ran a corrupt administration, but worst of all from the American point of view, he was unable to motivate the South Vietnamese population to fight the Communists. He reached the point where he was more of a liability, and the Central Intelligence Agency engineered a coup d’etat to remove him from power and replace him with a President more to our liking. (See {634540}.)

Ford was then a member of Congress. This was known as the “Domino Theory” and was the strategic reason that sending troops to Vietnam was in America’s vital Interest. However, the Domino Theory was incorrect. Vietnam did fall to the Communists, and yet NONE of the countries became communist. Actually, they became even more democratic.

This was written more than a year before the “blows” began. It took time to ship the men and supplies to America and the British did not handle that task with much efficiency.