573 Comments

And all of that came to a crashing halt at 0100 Hours (Golf) on August 4, 1964, when the American destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy reported themselves under attack from "North Vietnamese torpedo boats" in the Gulf of Tonkin. That night when he was notified of the event, Lyndon Johnson was literally the only guy on the planet who - unknowingly - got it right about what had actually happened when he exclaimed "Those poor dumb sailors were probably shooting at flying fish." Indeed, in 2006, it was determined that "the lights in the water" the ships reported were the reflection of the moon and the lightning flashes from the storms, on the enormous school of flying fish that annually transit the Gulf of Tonkin in the first week of August.

Had it not been for my best friend from boot camp, by then a Fire Controlman 2nd Class, in the Maddox's gun tower, three times refusing the order to open fire, telling the captain "there's nothing out there except the other ship" the destroyers might have opened fire on each other. He got a general court martial for "failure to obey a direct order" and busted to E-3, and we didn't get World War III. (I was on the staff of the operational command for the destroyers, and learned that truth a month after the event when I walked into a bar in Olongapo and found my friend sitting at the bar, where he told me the story. I have divided my life ever since Before Tonkin Gulf and After Tonkin Gulf. Finding that out was what turned my life around 180 degrees and created the person you know now.)

Yes, we went to war in Vietnam because of flying fish.

Expand full comment

TC Fascinating personal insight into the phony Tonkin Gulf Resolution. In the fog of water, the initial reports from Tonkin Gulf were swiftly revised. (Indeed, we had been providing naval support for covert South Vietnamese incursions into North Vietnam.) LBJ didn’t give a damn about the facts. He wanted legislative authorization for whatever he chose to do in Vietnam.

You told a personal story related to LBJ. Let me share another. In 1964, as a Foreign Service Officer, I was deeply involved in efforts to rescue over 3,300 hostages (including our five captured consulate personnel) who were under death threat by the Congolese rebels.

The military roll back, with CIA-funded mercenaries and a CIA-organized Congolese Air Force with left over Bay of Pigs flight personnel, was commencing in October, 1964. Then, to my amazement, ‘some one in the White House’ ordered the Congolese Air Force to stand down. Our ambassador was instructed to inform Prime Minister Mobutu of this.

Why has remained a puzzle. My most credible explanation is that it relates to our captured consul, Michael Hoyt. LBJ sought to crush Goldwater in the 1964 presidential elections.

Mike’s father in law was the publisher of the largest newspaper in Arizona (Goldwater’s home state).I believe that LBJ feared that a botched rescue operation could hurt his full-court-press to trounce Goldwater and obtain a massive legislative victory.

I saw these planes flying again just after LBJ’s smashing victory. Coincidence or truth?

Expand full comment

I'm sure you know there are no "coincidences" in stories like this. :-)

Expand full comment

The thing that troubles me about these old “war stories” (not to make light of them) is that from both the left and the right, it seems to be that meddling is preferred policy over problem solving — then and now.

Expand full comment

I'm not certain what exactly you are referring to. "Meddling" has indeed been US policy - since before there was a United States, with the settlers at Jamestown and the "good Pilgrim Fathers" at Plymouth Rock "meddling" in the affairs of the Original Inhabitants they found on arrival - and as has been the policy ever since, doing it from a position of complete ignorance about who was who and what was what in what they decided to "meddle" in. We have yet to have ever "solved" a problem. What we do is create the problems.

Expand full comment

TC We also ‘meddled’ our way in seizing one third of Mexico. We created the Mexican-American War in 1846 that resulted in our taking much of what is now the American Southwest. In the early 1850s we then ‘negotiated’ the taking of Baja California. Much earlier we ‘diddled’ Spain out of Florida. As for the Brits in the Northwest, they reluctantly gave us ‘disputed’ territory.

Regarding Mexico and the Northwest, one might say that we Polked ourselves into these territories. Oh yes, Hawaii simply fell into our laps after the American-heritage Five Families vigorously shook the tree. And Puerto Rico—an apple that fell from the Spanish-American War.

Do we deserve a medallion for our ‘meddling?’

Expand full comment

Unfortunately, i am aware of a lot of “meddling”!

Expand full comment

A good description of things.

Expand full comment

Patricia One of the most overrated things in life, whether dealing with foreign political problems or within families, is the compulsion to ‘do something.’ While folks often are clamoring for this, just sitting back in the saddle for a while may be the best reaction.

In the Middle East, for example, over the years there has been a ‘do something’ mentality. The Middle East has been in turmoil for over 4,000 years. Perhaps standing back and letting the Arabs stew in their own juices might be the best policy. Ditto with over involved parents.

Expand full comment

Wasn’t (isn’t) there a tremendous incentive for the Middle East involvement having to do with crude oil?

Expand full comment

Not so much anymore with fracking here. We're almost not importing anything. If we took the opportunity to "go green" in a big way we could tell them to go kick cans.

Expand full comment

Good advice, Mr. Wheelock.

Expand full comment
May 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022

Is there coincidence in political wars? I think not.

Salud, Keith.

Expand full comment
May 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022

Dear Christine,

I feel little if any justification to borrow your “sizzlin,” yet our own LFAA colleagues, Not-Doc Wheelock and TC, truly are!! So appreciative of their personal shares that weave richly into our history.

Expand full comment

The griddle has been sizzlin’ lately. For sure.

Salud, fab Ashley.

Expand full comment

Ditto, Ashley.

Expand full comment

☺️Hi, Lynell! Hope this Sunday finds you well.

Expand full comment

Hey, Ashley! Doing well, thank you. Wishing you the same. 🎇

Expand full comment

When I read through the Ellsworth snippet linked here, I was left with the impression that much of what LBJ did regarding the war came from his military lying to him. Did I read that wrong?

Expand full comment

No, Deborah, you did not read that wrong. Westmoreland (and the rest of military leadership) lied, to LBJ and to the American people, about everything. Viet Cong strength, casualties, actions, the progress of the war (these lies were revealed in the Pentagon papers). McNamara and others in LBJ’s cabinet were arrogant, naive and bumbling. LBJ took responsibility, and took the extraordinary step of stepping down from the presidency (refusing to run for re-election) because of our (his) failed war in Viet Nam.

Expand full comment

LBJ became a statesman when he stepped down. I admired him for that. Wish more politicians would see statesmanship as their goal.

Expand full comment

The one thing I'd say about Johnson is that his main interest was in righting domestic wrongs unlike John Kennedy's almost exclusive focus on the international scene. All the push for civil rights laws, for example, was from Johnson. He not only stepped down over the mess in Vietnam but he stepped down and shouldered the burden of blame. I don't recall a word of self-justification from him at any point. He was a crude man and an easy target in the closed, urbane world of DC.

Expand full comment

Thank you, JR. I hope others here read that, too, and see that Richardson is not propagandizing to avoid pinning war blame on LBJ. I really like what you wrote here. And keep in mind, I was still a naive Republican believer back in those days. But 1964, when this all happened, I was 14 to 15 years old and pining after Paul McCartney!

Expand full comment

I was 13-14 years old when I was asked how I felt about our being in Vietnam. "To stop the spread of communism," I parroted not knowing what the H I was talking about, but was gratified by the reaction by the grownups in the room.

George Harrison.

Expand full comment
May 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022

Deborah, yes, sometimes in our families and community but also we have all grown up on war. Somewhere on our planet there is war. And our kids, too. Now. Then. Endless war. It’s endless tragedy.

Expand full comment

Lol Deb ! ... And I was a young man signing up to be cannon fodder. Oh the changes all that made deep within me.

Expand full comment

I am sorry you went through that, D4N.

Expand full comment

The Generals also lied to JFK. JFK wanted OUT of Vietnam. In his graduation speech at the U.S. Military Academy in 1961, JFK spoke about the new form of warfare: guerilla warfare. JFK was my Commander-in-Chief. He seemed to sense what the future foretold. LBJ felt shamed. Generals and arms industries LOVE war. Too often, the people who one trusts and listens to are the very people who lie to set a better advantage.

Expand full comment

Vince, thank you for the clarity. Leaders have a playbook, political or military. Perhaps it’s ancient. People believe their leaders, so gaining Trust, the One True Thing, is essential. It divides us and often blinds us to reality and to Truth. It’s hard to argue when “each side” sees the same thing in a different light.

Expand full comment

I was a young Airman when JFK was president (and, when assassinated). One of my "idols" was U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay. He was legendary. Years later I read how he all but bullied us into the Vietnam War, going aggressively against Kennedy. I was disappointed to learn that. War is ugly, messy and dirty. A nation loves to send its young expendables into the line of fire. Most of us are too gung-ho starry-eyed idealists to realize we are in some abstract way simply providing fodder for the fight. I believe in the good fight, the right fight. Yet often the good and the right serve unseen, underlying and unspoken objectives and agendas. We see that today in the Supreme Court, where certain justices lied to secure their appointments, knowing or believing that in due course their personal ideologies would be put into action. My byline in some of my writings: "Truth is hard won, but easily forfeited."

Expand full comment

Thanks, Keith. I spoke from the "heart" with my horseracing story. You sort of confirmed my point about loud megaphones.

Expand full comment

Thank you for that insight an information, Keith.

It seems there's always "more to the story".

Expand full comment

Thank you Keith for this story of the twisted fabric of history. As TC says, there are no "coincidences". It seems there is always a "secret history".

Expand full comment

My husband was a marine who fought in Tet offensive. He struggles daily with Parkinson’s, dementia, PTSD, and traumatic brain injury. Agent Orange and the horrors of eighteen year old men who were ordered to kill are the gifts that keep on giving. The fact that the war was started because of flying fish confirms that we never had a legitimate reason to be there in the first place.

Expand full comment

I am so upset, disillusioned and worn out by what I have read and learned today. So much deceit, so much lying and misleading. From so many corners. I have turned a corner by reading through the Daniel Ellsworth link provided earlier. OMG. I didn’t know, and we can’t know everything about everything. We should be able to trust those in charge. Ethics. What is lost when we let duplicity slide? Thanks once again fellow readers and writers. You’ve given me, once again, so much more to think about.

Expand full comment

Deborah I trusted Truman and Ike. I trusted Obama for seeking to do what was right for our country. I trust President Biden. That leaves me with lots of modern-day mistrust. I believed that Carter was a good man who wouldn’t lie—that didn’t mean that I trusted that he would do what was best for our country.

Expand full comment

Keith, Good point. I’m thinking I should get comfortable with my “worker bee” status and just do the best I can as I move along. Interestingly enough, my 98 year old WWII marine veteran dad trusted me back in the 1990s with statements I then made that I have now concluded were wrong. At the time, I was in my PhD dissertation writing years and - at the time - believed there are “real” intellectual differences between and among the races. I thought that statistics and test scores and outcomes were the proof of that. However, - through the years of study, writing, and observation, I have concluded quite differently that systemic racism and contrived poverty around the globe have made it currently next to impossible to know what’s true in that domain. Generational poverty and suppression also suppress the fullest development and expression of intelligence.

My father still has negative and racist views and likes to remind what I told him back in the 90s. I tell him I was wrong. I tell him why I think I was wrong. But the damage to his views, the reinforcement of his views, hasn’t disappeared. The best we can do now is agree not to talk about race at all when we are together. It’s still a tough sell for him. So, even good people sometimes act on erroneous views rather than amoral or immoral intent or purposes.

Perhaps this is why so many deathbed confessions show how people can change their thinking over time and feel guilt and dismay over earlier actions. So, yes, while continuing to trust, I will also ask questions and probe a little more deeply.

Expand full comment

Deborah As John Maynard Keynes expressed it ‘When the facts change, I reconsider my previous opinion. What do you do?’

I have discovered, over many years, that there are distinct levels of ‘learning.’ There is the one-dimensional fact learning. When I was very young, I was a pain-in-the-ass ‘fact expert.

Over time, with constant study and experience, one can enter the two-dimensional learning stage. Life and the world seem more complicated. Also, facts, like religion, become less simple.

Eventually, if one lives long enough, there is the possibility of three-dimensional learning. Facts may seemingly be arranged as on a Ouija board. Interrelationships may be difficult to ascertain, but simply knowing that they exist (in the Middle East, for example), tends to restrict one’s impulse to be definitive. This sense of relative humility may tremendously aggitate those one-and-two-dimensional folks, but it brings one closer to wisdom.

And, of course, there are those who never emerge from the crude, initial one-dimensional stage. Often they become Republicans in Congress.

Expand full comment

Keith, I like your three dimensional model, but it assumes a good faith attitude towards facts. I suspect that there are plenty of stage two people in congress who think they are smarter than their stage one constituents. Thus all the theater and lying. Just pushing the Ouija pointer around to sell a false message. Maybe LBJ was a stage two guy who stepped into stage three when he realized it was time to go. I have learned a lot today. Thanks for your posts, and to all who have contributed to this thread.

Expand full comment

Brilliant, Keith your last line. What is so tragic, is that the epiphanies come too late. The death and destruction, domestic and foreign last a lifetime. And while all are victims, too many are puppets. And it’s true, “War is Not the Answer.” We know that from history. In our world we don’t really know the answer. What I struggle with is what is the answer when the Hitlers and Putins and all who make wars, including Americans, cause death and destruction and call that collateral damage. How to be a Pacifist. How to prevent and stop the War Machine.

Expand full comment

Keith, I want to quote you in my nearly finished book. Please contact me via my name @gmail.com.

Expand full comment

TC and Keith got a good dialogue going. They are each experienced and insightful. Your experience reminded me that epiphanies come at different decades in our lives, so, perhaps the deathbed revelation gets remembered because it is their last and someone interested enough writes it down. One of mine came and stuck with me in the 1960s and I realized the evendence in support of psychotherapy was "fragile at best." So, began my career in evaluation research with a reminder written on a 3x5 card stuck above my desk for the next 55 years: Write what you know, but do not believe what you once wrote." I am still revising what I know levened by experience and a few truths verifiable.

Expand full comment

Fred, yes, “write what you know…” and write it in pencil.

Expand full comment

Deborah, thank you for this. I often think the questions are more important than the answers

Expand full comment

Dean I am reminded of the three maxims on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi:

1)”Know thyself”

2)”Nothing in excess” (except, perhaps, love?)

3)”certainty brings insanity”

Expand full comment

Don't forget the wonderful Jimmy Carter!

Expand full comment

"Should". Famous last words.

Expand full comment

I have a friend who underwent open heart surgery on Thursday. He was Army, on the ground in Viet Nam in 1968-1969 whose bevy of medical problems trace back to Agent Orange exposure. My father-in-law (USAF) who flew helicopters in Laos/Cambodia (detached USAF to a joint operation by the 5th SFG) in 1971-1972 and had Agent Orange exposure has dodged lymphoma in his 40's, heart disease in his 70's and is now firmly in the grip of dementia which has onset fairly quickly.

The gifts that keep on giving, indeed.

Expand full comment

Proud of your dad. Send him blessings for healing and that he finds some relief in his current reality. I hope he sees the Light there for him.

Expand full comment

I do too. He's trapped in the angry, bitter person he's always been, sadly.

Expand full comment

Ally, you describe the lasting effects of war. To be trapped in the mental and physical pain and trauma, fighting a war with tangled roots and based on lies. Still there are apologists and naysayers ready to start the next war and send our children to kill and die.

Expand full comment

Many of the diseases and maladies that beset veterans of the war in Vietnam and other countries of SE Asia can be related to exposure to agent orange. If the vet was a “ground trooper” and is dealing with some type of cancer the Veterans Administration considers it’s presumptive cause as exposure to agent orange and is compensable.

The history of agent orange begins in 1961. It was one of many defoliants know as the rainbow agents introduced by the CIA and authorized by JFK. As a possible deterrent to the insurgent VC.

There are provinces in Vietnam where 80%+ are uninhabitable because of unexploded ordinance… mostly unexploded cluster bombs that were no bigger than a baseball and are still active.

Note: I am a Vietnam vet and was there in 1968. I was wounded and had my last surgery 6 years ago. I am also dealing with a metastatic cancer caused by agent orange requiring testing every 90 days and injections every 180 days. The Portland VA has provided excellent care.

Expand full comment

CTA, it’s good to know that treatment for Agent Orange exposure is recognized as cause for many diseases. The number of years since exposure to Agent Orange or injuries is decades. I remember learning that many Vietnam veterans had diseases and ailments not diagnosed and also the services weren’t available to serve the numbers of veterans. I know that Veterans can be treated by private physicians now, as well as GI facilities. The other illness from all wars is the psychological and mental disability that often lasts a lifetime. For those in the military, from all conflicts, suicide is also a huge concern. We owe our Veterans more gratitude and help than we can ever provide. Veteran suicide is one of the greatest crises of our time. “More Veterans Die By Suicide Than In Combat. But It's Preventable” “Since Sept. 11, 2001, just over 30,000 veterans have died by suicide — four times more than the number of U.S. military personnel who died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.” https://amp.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/09/28/veterans-suicide-prevention-afghanistan-anna-richardson-sarah-roxburgh

Expand full comment

My f-I-l has wanted nothing to do with the VA since his retirement. His wife is now bearing the brunt of everything.

Expand full comment

It is always best to use one of the many service agencies that are approved by congress to represent the vet on any claim or appeal before the VA, such as American Legion, VFW, etc.,. I use Disabled American Veterans. They are familiar with the administrative process and can expedite processes. There are some great benefits provided by the VA.

Expand full comment

My husband was also there in 68-69. He missed Tet by one month but not one Nam vet escaped those sprays. Nonetheless, the effects of Dow’s Agent Orange should have deemed that company bankrupt. I am glad you are getting excellent care from Portland VA. My very very best to you, CTA.

Expand full comment

Sandy My heart aches for your husband, you, and the countless millions who have been so painfully affected by Vietnam. Last Thursday I was with a Vietnamese who experienced the other side of this war. It was a Greek tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

Once our military involvement in Vietnam started as an anti-communist riposte to support French colonial rule and to prevent the ‘domino effect’ [a patently false analogy] of countries falling to the communists after Mao took China, the tragedy commenced apace.

Expand full comment

Cancer by exposure to Agent Orange killed my brother in law. He worked recovery with cadaver dogs

Expand full comment

My brother David Slone also suffers from what you mention as a result of what you mention. His book "A Man Left Behind", along with others, is available from amazon.

Expand full comment

Oh my goodness! I knew this was a talented group, but now I realized I need to stay healthy long enough to do a TON more reading! Thank you for this, Kathy.

Expand full comment

Just ordered “A Man Left Behind”. Thank you.

Expand full comment

I’m so very sorry about your husband. You are also a victim of that horrific war—you and your husband are heroes to me. Peace and love ☮️💟

Expand full comment

Linda, your truth, you express the tragedy: who are the victims in war. And the Heroes. What’s amazing is that we can watch War in modern times, from our homes on screens, in real time. What does this all say about Humanity?

Expand full comment

The irony was not lost on me and my fellow Dow Chemical Company offspring, as we marched as college students against the Vietnam War and the use of Agent Orange and Napalm - our tuition was paid with the profits. My heart goes out to you Sandy.

Expand full comment

Sandy, I’m so very sorry that your husband (and your family) has suffered physically and mentally during his lifetime. For lies. He was just a kid! And countless men and women, mostly drafted or joined and the war was a sham. Absolutely kids fighting a man’s folly. But it’s not just a slogan. War after war. And Vietnam and its devastation changed our country, divided families, caused endless domestic strife and violence. And illness, homelessness, broken families and people. When you read about the duplicity and the politics, it’s sickening. But the truth years later make it even more heartbreaking. And evil.

Expand full comment

I'm sure I'm not the only one with this thought - but think about how few (if any) wars there would be - if the men (politicians) who started had to fight in them! Sure does make sense to me.

Expand full comment

Hi Maggie, I’m positive you’re not alone in your thoughts about men (politicians and other high testosterone beings) as the “reason” for wars. I’m paraphrasing your comment! But I have also posted and considered how diplomatic women are/were in ancient times. Has War been with us forever? “Lysistrata (/laɪˈsɪstrətə/ or /ˌlɪsəˈstrɑːtə/; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη, Lysistrátē, "Army Disbander") is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata

Expand full comment

Yes, I remember reading or seeing something about that "comedy" quite a long time ago. I believe there were or are several variations of the story over time. It needed to be a group (all or nothing) effort , though. It would appear that much of the blame (war) does fall on the shoulders of older, mostly white males who we foolishly continue to re-elect to public office. Seems to me electing more women would be a really good thing - for everyone!

Expand full comment

Right, Maggie, it’s an ancient story, and that’s what I love about history and literature, the lessons and interpretations that are handed down through the ages. But your point of electing more women is more likely to make a difference in our time. Fun to think about this possibility, though.

Expand full comment

My husband also, but he was in the Army. The after effects of war are on the soldiers who fight on the front lines suffer terribly. Not to mention what we have done to other countries inhabitants! Power hungry men create wars; women do not.

Expand full comment

Your comment breaks the heart of us all. So awfully sorry for what you and your husband have had to endure. When I look at my grandsons who are approaching military age, I wonder about patriotism. Our leadership in the Vietnam era was so disgraceful. I like Biden, but I'm still not sure. It may not be so easy the next time our country calls.

Expand full comment

There’s also the rumor that we were there for the benefit of Shell Oil.

Expand full comment

Rumor based in fact.

Expand full comment
May 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022

TC, thank you for the reminder: Wars are costly, the human and property toll and losses, but also how government resources are diverted, spent on the killing machine and not on the needs of the people. Vietnam, a War based on errors and lies. Daniel Ellsberg writes about those details many, maybe most, Americans didn’t and still don’t know. The tragedy, loss of life and land. And War never ends. “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.” (2003)https://www.ellsberg.net/secrets-a-memoir-of-vietnam-and-the-pentagon-papers/

Expand full comment

TC Vietnam—‘errors and lies’! I can provide a personal insight from the 1960s. I had been deeply involved in the roll back of the Congolese rebels and the rebel threat to kill 3,300 foreign hostages in 1964.

At one time several Pentagon colonels sought to get my support for ‘strategic villages’ in the Congo. As they described it, Congolese would be brought in from their homes and farms into a ‘strategic village,’ and what was outside would be considered ‘enemy territory,’ that could be bombed (or napalmed?)

What a stupid approach to ‘winning the hearts and souls of the locals.’

Because of my vigorous, armed involvement in the Congo, in March, 1965 our ambassador in Saigon ‘invited’ me to join him. I had witnessed the Pentagon’s dreadful approach to ‘counter insurgency.’ I had also read Bernard Fall’s and Robert Shaplen’s superb books on Vietnam and realized that we were fighting a military war, with an unpopular Saigon government, against a primarily nationalist rather than communist popular movement. I declined his ‘invitation.’ I declined a successor ambassador’s ‘invitation’ in the summer of 1967.

Sam Adams, my excellent counterpart on Congo current intelligence, at CIA, switched to VietCong military order of battle, once the Congo had cooled down. A meticulous analyst, he was increasingly appalled by the inaccurate (deliberately? Or from stupidity?) assessments by military intelligence.

Sam’s carefully calculations in 1965 pinpointed more than 250,000 more VietCong soldiers than our military had ‘calculated.’ [This was when Defense Secretary McNamara was boasting of ‘the attrition rate’ of the VietCong.]

General Westmoreland became furious with Sam’s ‘embarrassing assessments’ and finally banned him from Vietnam. In Washington Sam sought to alert his bosses to his unsettling military intelligence findings. When this went to the CIA director, he was stonewalled and ordered not to provide these figures to White House personnel.

Ultimately Sam’s accurate military assessments were blocked by CIA, General Westmoreland, and the Pentagon. Sam was sidelined and ultimately obliged to resign.

As newly-appointed SecDef Clark Clifford discovered in early 1968, NO ONE IN THE MILITARY HAD EVER PROPOSED A ‘WINNING’ STRATEGY IN VIETNAM. President Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election in March, 1968. Under Nixon another 20,000 American soldiers and at least 1,000,000 Vietnamese died before our withdrawal in 1973.

A recent book on the twenty years of our ‘war’ in Afghanistan is similar to The Pentagon Papers, although our military deaths were only in the low thousands.At least President Biden had the guts to say “enough’ and get our military out.

Expand full comment

Thank you Keith for ticking off Sam Adams' analyzes. The Issues go back even further to WWII in Alllied strategies to harness deep nationalist fervor in China, Vietnam, "Malaysia" & the Philippines.

Expand full comment

Bryan Sam Adams was a good friend who I greatly admired. A fine book was published on Sam’s work on Vietnam and the law suit by General Westmoreland. I have it upstairs. If you are interested, I can send you the title.

Sam’s papers are archived at some unvisited (perhaps Harvard, but I would have to check my records). Through Sam’s family I contributed my insights.

The story of our opposition to Mao (see Marshall mission to China 1946-1947) and Ho Chi Minh are well worth remembering. Ho worked closely with Americans during and after WW II. In fact he joined the French Communist Party in 1919 in frustration, after Woodrow Wilson refused to permit him to be heard during the Versailles Peace Treaty negotiations.

Nationalism is a strong wave which, as Canute revealed, can not easily be resisted by mankind.

Expand full comment

Keith, as to Ho in WWII, I do recall some grainy footage of Ho doing Tai Chi near his group's supply drop zone. Apparently, this was an OSS ( now CIA ) operation using quid pro quos with the "Viet Minh".

Expand full comment

Bryan Ho was in close contact with some savvy Foreign Service Officers whose reports, years later, were used to try force them out of the Foreign Service because of their ‘communist-leaning reports.’

In 1966 I believe that I was the first FSO to send a memorandum to Secretary Dean Rusk urging that we not be concerned about some ‘communist’ activity in Congo-Brazzaville. This was my riposte to a CIA request that I support their request to the 44 Committee for authorization to spend $1,000,000 to ‘destabilize’ the government of Massamba-Debat.

Utterly stupid idea, but consistent with other CIA activities. In Chile, with my ambassador’s strong approval, I nixed all but one of CIA’s requests to fund candidates in the 1969 congressional elections. This incident in our sound-proof room would have played well on Saturday Night Live.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Bryan I need your e-mail address.

Expand full comment

Thanks. What is this "recent book" on the war in Afghanistan that you mention, please?

Expand full comment

Jeff I don’t know the name of the book. I recently read a review (NYT?) and, for me, it read like The Pentagon Papers. It underscored that Afghanistan was never declared a war and pointed out that militarily, as well in our many billions in economic aid, we seldom knew our ass from a hole in the ground.

Expand full comment

I was clear from the beginning in Afghanistan we did not understand the history, the people or the country (or the nature of tribal culture). See Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan. The afghans consumed us like they have other Empires. And we (that is the government broadly speaking) have poor knowledge of Islamic culture/traditions—Iraq proves that. We’ve made a mess. And destroyed cultures and more.

Expand full comment

Jeff, I think Keith is referring to The Afghan Papers. I haven't read yet, but it's suppose to be fascinating

Expand full comment

Yes, "The Aghanistan Papers" and/or " The American War in Afghanistan".

Expand full comment

TC’s book.

Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, The: Naval Aviation in the Vietnam War https://www.amazon.com/dp/1472845951/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_99M6712RSTS9B6VKG4GJ?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Expand full comment

It's a good book and an important lesson about the "false flag" incident that was used to bury our country in that horrible war.

Expand full comment

Just finishing it now. We built our aircraft for the wrong war.

Expand full comment

Thank you Irenie for the detailed Link to Daniel Ellsberg's important Memoir. I recall that I met Mr. Ellsberg at a radio station (KPFA) in the mid-1980's & got the opportunity to answer his piercing question to a Pacific Panel about United States policy in the Marshall Islands (Kwajalein atoll missle testing zone) and the islands of Palau (the then planned U.S. Nuclear Sub Base) for access to the immediate deep waters of the far Western Pacific. Mr Ellsberg spoke earlier about the post-WWII history of SE Asia, the French attempted re-colonization, the purposeful split of Vietnam, the Vietnam War involving Cambodia & Laos & the aftermath. Vivid memories.

Expand full comment

Huff Post had a piece yesterday about how we Americans have accepted killing and death as normal. I remember being in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone (also there for all the assassinations of that period) when LBJ decided not to run and how delighted we were because of the mess we had made in Viet Nam. In those days males were usually not drafted if they were in the Peace Corps, but it did occur. Some of them knew that as soon as their PC days were over, they would be drafted. It depended on local draft boards. My husband was lucky as he was 26 when our tour ended, a magic age for him and his draft board. My brother-in-law joined the army and spent those years in the San Francisco area.

Expand full comment

I think we still accept killing and death as normal. I called game over when we apparently discovered that, as a nation, we are willing to live with children massacred in a classroom. I don't know where this stops. It makes me terribly afraid.

Expand full comment

This was the lament of the article.

Expand full comment

Yes. And I think one of the great losses of our time is that we have forgotten how to lament.

Expand full comment

It appears that "thoughts & prayers" are now the US lamentations ? go to! Seems to take care of the whole issue, doesnt it?

Expand full comment

unfortunately, Irene, that link doesn't open the link to the Gulf of Tonkin excerpt, but this is a substitute:

http://archive.pov.org/mostdangerousman/excerpt-ellsberg-memoir/2/

Expand full comment

Thank you, Jeff.

Expand full comment

Thank you Jeff. I think.

Expand full comment

Significant story. My resposne to HCR is the same as yours, if only Johnson had not been misled into the horror of Vientam and destroyed the hope for our generation to be what he called for and envisioned. We were promptly divided and those of us who knew the war was misguided based on misinformation were treated with the utmost disrespect. My heart and soul still burn with anger and frustration as we struggled to live the vision of the Great Society, but alas people were hellbent on electing the law and order Nixon who would murder students and expand the war. The generation that gave us Newt Gingrish and nastiness is the same generation that was brutally didvied because of that horrible war. We still live that that unforunate legacy. We believed "we shall overcome" but too many hated our vision of love, hope, peace, justice. We shall persist in our later years, and Bill McKibben and the Third Act (thirdact.org) is but one excellent example. Onward still!

Expand full comment

I'm glad you mentioned Third Act, Karen! I've signed up to make graduation card inserts with voter registration QR codes, and a short video, more if I can.

Let's all give it a try. I love the energetic young generation of my grandkids and their friends. They are beginning to realize, and organize, e.g. Fridays for Future and March for Our Lives! I'm alongside them to encourage and help.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Maggie, they make it so quick, easy and non-partisan that tech-savvy youngsters are more likely to register. Studies show that kids who are encouraged to register become more willing to actually vote! I also write letters via Vote Forward votefwd.org

Expand full comment
deletedMay 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
May 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022

Well, not exactly. No more than we went to war in Iraq because of yellow cake. The US war in Viet Nam was locked and loaded, just waiting for a spark. The domino theory of Asian nations falling to communism was being bandied about, and the embrace of communism by Ho Chi Minh (a one time US ally) was seen as an existential threat by American hawks. If the Gulf of Tonkin incident hadn’t created an excuse for war, something else would have. You're right that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was trumped-up, but it didn’t cause the Viet Nam war. It was just the excuse.

Expand full comment

Well said! TY

Expand full comment

Said well JR

Expand full comment

OMG! Can’t unsee that in my mind, and it changes my perspective of that era as I lived through it.

Expand full comment

I’m speechless…..except to say thank you, TCinLA, for sharing.

Expand full comment

I always blamed McNamara for Vietnam, well not always. At first someone called him the smartest man in the room. I believed that for awhile. I think he apologized before he died, if memory serves. What more proof do we need that smart can also be dumb arses. It’s all the repubs have these days. Maybe I didn’t want to blame LBJ because I wanted to believe in his vision. He didn’t blame McNamara, nor did he name Nixon (for screwing up his effort to stop the war in 1968). How deluded am I TC??

Expand full comment

Jeri There is enough blame to go around. LBJ, General Westmoreland, Walter Rostow, Robert McNamara—-the list is very long. Only George Ball, State Department Under Secretary, was the only member of the ‘inner circle’ who spoke early and clearly about getting out of Vietnam. His ‘eyes only’ 75-page assessment in October, 1964 was a most honest and true analysis. It was sidelined and Ball was treated lightly as a ‘devil’s advocate.’

LBJ considered McNamara the brightest guy he had ever met. McNamara, a Ford Company super technocrat, reduced Vietnam to numbers. [He did the same with design of the F 111 with disastrous results.] He went from being self assured to almost having a nervous breakdown during a speech in Canada, as he realized that he had been dreadfully wrong. Ultimately he was shuffled off to head the World Bank.

Personally, I don’t believe that he ever clearly apologized for the principal role in playing regarding Vietnam. His book (I have it upstairs) in, I believe, 1991 did not read as a personal apology for his initial and wrong-headed arrogance.

Expand full comment

FDR opposed actions supporting the French colonial war in Vietnam but was too busy winning WWII to battle a pack of bellicose warmongers around him to put a stop to it. Truman or Eisenhower could have shut it down, too, but let rabid anti-communists like the Dulles brothers have their way. JFK had a brief opportunity to stop it but had his hands full making sure Curtis Lemay didn’t start WWIII. Johnson, McNamara, and the lot of them knew it was wrong but feared the wrath of (primarily) the white working class and other cheerleaders for the National Guard in the 1970 massacres at Kent State and the police in the massacre at Jackson State.

Expand full comment

Watch Morris’s “The Fog of War” for an incisive account of McNamara’s Viet Nam war beliefs and actions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War

Expand full comment
May 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022

Many subscribers have responded to TC's comment about how his life has been divided between 'Before Tonkin Gulf and After Tonkin Gulf'.

How many of us will reflect on the USA today based on LBJ's vision for The Great Society --the focus of today's Letter? In sum,

‘…of A COUNTRY THAT DID NOT CONFINE ITSELF TO MAKING MONEY, but rather used its post–World War II prosperity to “enrich and elevate our national life.” That Great Society would demand an end to poverty and racial injustice.'

‘…that we are CONFINED TO A SOULESS WEALTH. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.”

How close or far are we from confining our society to making money as measured by the country’s current wealth gap -- to ending poverty and racial injustice -- the functioning of the two party system and minority rule over the majority of Americans?

How does the USA measure up to its democratic principles? It is time to issue a Report Card. How are we doing?

The following are a few recent articles which pertain to the subject of today’s Letter. It is our job of citizens to know how our country is performing and to voice what is important to us.

‘Corporate greed trumps public need’

‘Last year was the best of times for corporate America and the worst of times for hard-working American families. New reports on corporate profits and inflation demonstrate the fundamental problems in the U.S. economy. Big business reaped big profits while hard-working Americans wept over their declining standard of living.’

‘The dry numbers paint a vivid portrait of corporate greed and human suffering. In the last 12 months ending in January this year, real hourly wages adjusted for inflation declined by 1.7 percent.’

‘Big businesses, in sharp contrast, hit pay dirt last year with estimated profits for S&P 500 companies rising by nearly 50 percent in 2021.’

‘The immense gap between rising corporate profits and decrease in consumer buying power is a sure sign of an economy in decline. We won’t enjoy a true economic recovery until consumers do as well as big business already is. Aggressive government intervention, not laissez faire economics, is necessary to eliminate the stranglehold that Wall Street has used to choke off mobility for the poor and middle class for the last generation.’

'Gas pump sticker shock is the biggest culprit in the disparity between the fortunes of big corporations and plight of ordinary Americans. While drivers stared in disbelief as the price at the gas pump ticked higher and higher, big oil enjoyed record profits.'

'Gasoline prices rose dramatically by 40 percent last year, so it was hardly surprising that the oil company behemoths recorded astronomical earnings. The pandemic put most people in a tight financial squeeze, but it was a great year for the giant ExxonMobil which enjoyed a $ 23 billion profit last year. Yes, that’s $23 billion with a “b”.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/594886-corporate-greed-trumps-public-need/

'As inflation spreads, rising prices fuel charges of corporate greed'

'Liberals allege companies are taking advantage of the moment, but companies say much more complicated economic forces are at work'

'Procter & Gamble is charging more for diapers, laundry detergent, razors and just about everything else it makes, joining scores of corporations in a display of market power that is shocking consumers who grew accustomed over the past decade to prices virtually flatlining.'

'To P&G executives, the price hikes are unavoidable at a time when costs for wages, freight and raw materials are rising by the largest amount in two decades. Failure to act, the company says, could lead to thinner profits, layoffs, investment cuts and, eventually, a lower stock price. Plus, after years of balking at higher prices, consumers now are swallowing them.'

'But to liberals, P&G and its corporate kin are not reacting to inflation so much as causing it. Companies that are raising prices for beer, chicken, toys, gasoline and medicine, the critics say, are just using inflation as an excuse to pad record profits and to reward Wall Street.'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/04/02/inflation-corporate-greed/

'Another Sweeping Far-Right Court Ruling'

‘Following the practice of ignoring precedent, an appellate ruling seeks to destroy consumer and investor protection.’

‘On Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling that, if upheld by the Supreme Court, could literally shut down the regulatory authority of large parts of the federal government. In Jarkesy v. SEC, the Fifth Circuit overturned a penalty ordered by an SEC administrative law judge on the grounds that the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial. The Court, ignoring decades of Supreme Court precedent, held that Congress's delegation of such authority to the SEC is unconstitutional.’

‘Jarkesy operated two hedge funds. After an extensive investigation by the SEC, the administrative law judge found that the hedge funds had misrepresented facts and risks in order to deceive investors, and ordered a fine of $300,000, a disgorgement of $685,000 in ill-gotten gains, and barred Jarkesy from a variety of securities activities. But the court reversed the orders as unconstitutional.’

‘The federal government uses administrative law judges in some 30 different agencies. There are about 2,000 such judges, who are civil servants, about twice the number of federal district court judges. They do everything from adjudicating benefits disputes at the Social Security Administration to issuing findings and penalties at other regulatory agencies.’

‘If all these questions must go before a jury, much of what the far right disparages as the “administrative state” is out of business. This is of course the Fifth Circuit's broader agenda, and it chimes with anti-regulation views of Chief Justice Roberts. The SEC can appeal to the Supreme Court, but good luck to that.’

‘The irony is that regulatory agencies are finally doing their jobs. The Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Jonathan Kanter, recently gave an interview to the Financial Times promising a long overdue crackdown on abuses by private equity. But such efforts are now on a collision course with far right courts that have been half a century in the making.’

‘ If the Democratic Party had not gotten into bed with Wall Street under Carter, Clinton and Obama, Democrats might have remained the national majority party—and those far-right judges never would have been appointed. Back when the judiciary was more supportive of regulation, the SEC might have closed down private equity before it even gained a foothold by ruling that you can't take over a company using its own assets as collateral.’

‘Now, despite Biden's attempt to revive regulatory agencies with assertive public-minded appointees, good Democratic regulators will be hobbled by the sins of bad Democratic presidents that led to even worse Republican ones, and a legacy of reactionary courts.’

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/another-sweeping-far-right-court-ruling/

Expand full comment

TCinLA: My God! What an injustice was this General Court Martial! Your best friend from boot camp is now my own hero. A man of courage! I dearly hope life has rewarded this hero. I think he should receive a Presidential Pardon, and I hope he has lived a life with rewards worthy of such a highly moral person. God bless him!

Expand full comment

Vietnam war was the defining moment in my life as to realization that our government was not always truthful. The military often did not hold officers responsible for their actions. This came to me slowly during and after the war and then 911, the bank crisis 2008 and of course the Trump years. Trumps's campaign and subsequent legal issues brought out of the closet his accomplices and what they had done gotten away with in New York City for decades.

Expand full comment

It was crucial for me too, but I think in a different way. I was just coming of political age during the Vietnam War. I never had a baseline of thinking our government was always, or even usually, truthful. Since I'd been studying the history of the Arab world on my own, my baseline was more "governments routinely lie if it's to their advantage." The governments in this case were the British and the French, but as I learned more about the run-up to U.S. involvement in Vietnam (which of course involved learning about the French in Indochina), it wasn't hard to draw the same conclusion about the U.S. government.

Expand full comment

The French told us (U.S.) NOT to get into the Indochina/Vietnam fray. The French were slaughtered there (la Drang). The movie "We were Soldiers", authored by retired Lt.Gen Hal Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway is a seering indictment against our entry into Vietnam. The movie itself is based on facts (Hal Moore was a Captain/USA at the time). It also is very difficult to watch. Fast forward to the mid-1970s when Kissinger secretly met with the North Vietnamese, all but assuring them the U.S. knew we had lost that war. Think about that! A major player in U.S. politics going behind our very own DOD, telling the enemy the U.S. knew we had lost the war. 58,000+ KIA all for a deception. Of course, years later "we" started the Iraq War under the guise of WMDs, etc., etc. That "war" was for the oil. Period. Years later Dick Cheney remarked on a national TV talk show when asked about the 4,000+KIA in Iraq, "Well, they volunteered." Let that sink in.

Expand full comment

Wasn't some of that going on during the 1968 campaign, with the Nixon team pulling strings to ensure that no peace agreement would be reached before the election (which would have benefited the Democrats)? My memory is a little hazy on this. I should look it up!

Expand full comment

I had to check my historical memory on this, before responding. It was 1970. Nixon invaded Cambodia with the SVN (South Vietnamese) to take out a communist stronghold in Cambodia. That incursion resulted in the Kent State protest which then resulted in four students being shot to death on campus. No one has ever come up with an honest answer on that event; sadly.

There is every good reason to suspect Nixon's hands were in the background manipulating things. I have never understood why Johnson was beaten down so badly, while Nixon kept the war going for the next SEVEN years! But Johnson had become so horribly unpopular that the stage was set for "any" Nixon to get elected. (I actually voted for Nixon 2x. OUCH!)

Years ago, I had a retired US Marine friend who was a spotter along the Cambodian/S. Vietnam border. He was posted in a tree. Slipped out of his post and caught the inner right thigh on a broken limb along the trunk. His inner thigh was severely torn. He laid waiting for three days before our troops rescued him. He was most grateful our men found him before the VC did. Needless to say, he limped for the rest of his life. I share this, because it became clear to me long ago that our so-called "leaders" do not give a damn about how they use our Military to achieve THEIR sometimes-sinister objectives.

Expand full comment

If you served in-country, God Bless You! I was USAFSS Intel, but not in 'Nam. "Tell them (the people) what we want them to hear; not what they should know." That adage is as old as humankind.

Expand full comment

TC, thank you for sharing that amazing information, wow! Why didn't the captain get reprimanded for not checking the radar before ordering to open fire? I have seen fishermen in the S. Pacific wearing headlamps and netting flying fish that leap out of the water towards the light. We were in an achorage in Nuie watching this fishing method from our boat, coincidentally where we got the news of 9/11!

Expand full comment

No doubt HCR is aware of the Tonkin Gulf incident improperly used by LBJ as a provocation to war. My guess is that her focus is elsewhere--LBJ's grand vision for America, in line with Winthrop's "city upon a hill" vision of 1630 and Reagan's "morning in America" vision 350 years later. Vietnam was the result of hubris, the arrogance born of power, and this cost Johnson his continued leadership and legacy. At least he had a vision consonant with the inherent idealism of the American spirit. Not so the hubris of the Iraq War, which an extremely callow George W. Bush was persuaded to pursue by his neocon advisers Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al. That policy was based on the arrogance of power, shockingly expressed by Michael Leeden: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall to show the world we mean business." That is Russia's policy under Putin. Diplomacy with realism is not only more morally acceptable, but under competent leadership, more effective.

Expand full comment

The unfortunate thing is that the grand vision was torpedoed by the fact no Democrat in Washington could ever afford to be thought "soft on communism," regardless of what it did to the domestic agenda. And that is why we don't have nice things.

Expand full comment
May 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022

Anti-Vietnam war political figures - Frank Church, John Sherman Cooper, J. William Fulbright, , Mike Gravel, Vance Hartke, Mark Hatfield, Jacob Javits, Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Patsy Mink, Wayne Morse, William Proxmire -- some Republicans tossed in, and this is only among the senators.

Expand full comment

I understand that and in part agree. On the other hand, LBJ could have made a stand, made the argument, and called the Repubs war-mongers. The Thieu-Ky government was as corrupt as the Marcos government on the Philippines. Ho Chi Minh was a patriot who admired the cause of the American Revolution. Yes, he was on China's turf; yes, Vietnam was a proxy war between authoritarian Marxism and free-market liberal democracy. But a principled stand could have been made. Easy to say in hindsight, of course, but great leaders make tough decisions.

Expand full comment

I think you must be too young to have any visceral understanding of McCarthyism. Every Democrat in power in DC in the 60s had gone through that fire. Between the time the Korean War began June 25, 1950 and MacArthur's successful landing at Inchon on September 15, which should have been the point where the Korean War was declared "won," McCarthyism had become a white-hot fire in Washington, with Democrats defending themselves over being accused of not only being "soft on communism" but actually overrun by communists. The result was the UN invasion of North Korea that October, which led to the Chinese communist intervention in the war, which led to the "Great Bug-Out" from North Korea, termed at the time by Secretary of State Dean Acheson "the greatest defeat of American arms since the Second Battle of Bull Run" and by British historian Sir Martin Gilbert later "The greatest defeat of a previously-victorious army in history." Truman was seriously planning to use the A-bomb to stop the Chinese that December. The next year, the Democrats faced their worst defeat in 20 years, with "soft on communism" being the main Republican line of offense. Careers were destroyed and lives were ended. No Democratic politician after that was ever going to let that happen again. LBJ was up against Barry Goldwater in 1964, and he knew that charge was going to fly. There was no way he was going to do something that would leave him open to that. To top it off, he kept all the morons from the New Frontier, all of them the dedicated Cold War men who were out to assassinate Castro, keep the Russians out of Berlin, and the commies out of Saigon (JFK was the one who took us into Vietnam in 1961; it was his response to being made a fool of by Krushchev at the 1961 Vienna Summit, and deciding to oppose the Soviets at their own game after K announced support for "wars of national liberation" after the summit).

There was literally no possible reality in which LBJ would have done differently. And he did declare the Republicans "war mongers" - the "daisy chain countdown" ad (run only once) declared that in no uncertain terms. LBJ declared his "policy of restraint in the face of communist provocation" the "peaceful" alternative to Goldwater and the far right's war mongering.

If you're going to engage someone who's written six well-received books on this topic, come armed with more than platitudes, please.

Expand full comment

Fair enough, TCinLA. I stand schooled. So, where does your argument/explanation leave us? Victims of historical forces we cannot control? Doomed to expend billions of treasure and seas of blood because we really have no choice? We had a choice in Vietnam, we had a choice in Iraq, just as we had a choice in 1941 and we have a choice today regarding Ukraine. Of course we are constrained by a complex myriad of factors, but I think your apparent historical determinism needs some attention. The gratuitous gibe at the end is also quite unnecessary.

Expand full comment

Thank you. I am glad to find I am dealing with what/who I was hoping for. A probing intellect.

We have a choice, but I don't think we will take it, any more than any other empire does so voluntarily. That is to stop all this crap. It would indeed be nice to find a national-level politician who would do what you wished LBJ had done in 1964, but I don't see how it happens. Any one who would think to do such a thing would have been knocked off the board long before they got to that position.

Empires remain empires until they are either defeated (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans and Romanovs in WW1) or so weakened (think Britain after WW2) that they cannot remain empires. We've been either the outpost of empire at the original colonization or an empire outright when we began taking the continent. Since WW2 we have been a republic within our borders and an "empire" beyond them in the way Rome was after the Punic Wars until the fall of the Republic.

I really wish I could see some way out, but there is a strong element of "historic determinism" in an empire. Once you're on that track, there aren't many off-ramps, and what there are, are not the ramps those in power willingly take.

Expand full comment

I don't draw any conclusions, but Johnson City, Tex, which I understand is where LBJ grew up, is a nice place to live. I lived there last summer for a few months. Texas seems full of places where folks have the liberty of more trees around them than people. A privilege, to be sure. It seems to me that the Johnson family turned that privilege to good end. To me it seems like that's what a lot of this is about - enjoying privilege, and sharing it.

Expand full comment

Dave

I copied down your e-mail to send you my review of DUTY, but apparently my shaky 88-year-old penmanship failed me once again.

Could you please repeat?

Klutz Keith

Expand full comment

There is one inescapable conclusion to draw from your account, several of the other close encounters with history noted in the replies, and the current observation of Russia's actions in Ukraine: War is stupid.

Expand full comment

Thank you for that insight and information , TC.

Expand full comment

Thank you for this telling me/us about these events. Otherwise we would have never known.

Expand full comment

And, across the "Percific" Orstralia yesterday has just dumped the wanna-be GOP (LNP) rather dramatically - it's going to be an interesting exercise re-directing Labor (the winner) who are really LNP lite, to a better mindset - it can be done. The Green vote has really increased - but, you see, we are a multi party society, and we have compulsory voting, and we have preferential voting (which means no vote gets lost) and we use PENCIL AND PAPER to record our votes. Plus we have an Australian Electoral Commission which sets the electoral boundaries across the whole country - no gerrymandering and uniform electoral procedures everywhere. Can the USA follow our example?????

Expand full comment

Hey, what's this "Orstralia"? That dates from WWI. Even the Poms know it's "a Straya" now. :) And there's one more thing you didn't mention: Election Day is always a Saturday, which generally isn't a working day. When you vote, your name has a line ruled through it on the electoral roll, and if that line doesn't appear, you get a please-explain from the AEC, and a fine if you can't produce a recognised verifiable excuse.

Expand full comment

Yeah - but don't come here, you are likely to accidentally get killed! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNEeq5qGh8I.

(I'd be more scared in Georgia or Florida -water moccasins, etc...)

Expand full comment

You’d need to be more worried about the humans than the poisonous snakes. I live and garden in eastern NC; rarely meet a snake.

Expand full comment

The wonderful travel writer, Bill Bryson, in his book on Australia said that undoubtedly there were more things per square inch in Australia that could kill you than any place else on earth. Everywhere he went he was constantly getting warnings about this or that that could be lethal. Nevertheless, I always greatly regret in all my travels I never made it to that region--a part of me thinks I'd probably not want to leave.

Expand full comment

I prefer to have Bill Bryson do my traveling for me.

Expand full comment

Thanks, Hugh. I'll be quieter about the wonders of nature after seeing this video!

Expand full comment

Well, that was scary.

Expand full comment

Brilliant! 😆

Expand full comment

One hopes, but in USA the recent phase is to love expensive, poorly-functioning future piles of e-waste (think “smartboards” or “chromebooks” in schools) that make beaucoup de $ for a few over delightfully recyclable, fully-functional papers and pencils, and if course that extends to worthless-piece-of-shit voting machines that threaten our very democracy. If elected to Congress (trying now to get on the ballot in NY; primary delayed so collecting petition signatures) going back to paper ballots will be among my first pieces of proposed legislation, if possible coupled with compulsory voting. Which is no doubt why I’ll be a one-termer if I pull off a statistical miracle.

Expand full comment

Have you read 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting by EJ Dionne and Miles Rappaport? They rely heavily on the Australian model.

Expand full comment

The vote percentage was a little over 30 percent and it isn't like voting is difficult here in Oregon.

Expand full comment

Thanks for a great addition to summer reading list!!

Expand full comment

Here in Oregon we have a mess in Clackastan (Clackamus) County with machine readers. The bar code on many ballots were unreadable. The county clerk (clearly a R dingbat) knew two weeks in advance and did little to fix the situation. Her remedy was to have two people (one R, one D) open the original ballot and mark a new ballot that could be fed into the machines. Election Day arrived and went. The clerk was unrepentant and everyone else was having a fit. She had many excuses, but never has owned her own part. There was an audit before this and she refused to make the changes they suggested. Now the county has provided 200 county workers who have to have some training. And we wait for the results which have to certified by June 13th and the clerk says it will take all of that time. The main contest people are watching is the one between Schrader and McLeod-Skinner who is to his left. She has built up a commanding lead and the consensus is that there will not be enough votes in Clackamus to save him. We'll see. I am hoping that the clerk is out on her ear come November.

Expand full comment

I should say that we mark paper mail in ballots which are fed into a machine. I haven't voted in a polling place in over 20 years. Usually this works very well.

Expand full comment

I had not heard "Clackastan" with respect to Clackamas county. That is rich!

Expand full comment

We have an astute friend that refers to Clackamas as this. Tootie Smith as county chair and this clerk is something else. Remember that it was Clackamas County where the R election worker got in trouble for adding to a ballot. That's why two people now open each ballot.

Expand full comment

Unfortunately, there is some verisimiltude to it. It's hard to believe, but it is a very different place from the Clackamas County I used to enjoy visiting. It was conservative then, but rational. I know some good clear-thinking people there, but oh god, the place has a lot of nuts.

Expand full comment

Including the county clerk.

Expand full comment

Good luck. If you succeed, check out the system St. Louis County, Missouri uses, I think the provider is Verity. It's a combination of paper and computer and works amazingly well.

Expand full comment

In Waltham, MA we mark paper ballots which are then fed into machines for counting. Easy to use, easily verified.

Expand full comment

That’s how I voted in the NC primary last week. Easy peasy.

Expand full comment

Michigan, too. Works great.

Expand full comment

That’s what we use in Knox Co, TN. First used in 2020 and voters loved it. Used in last month’s primary too. Both times ballots and votes matched exactly.

Expand full comment

Same here; I was an election judge in the locals in April and met it for the 1st time. Made things much easier and, as with you, the statistics were a perfect match. Going back again for the primaries in August.

Expand full comment

Attempting to roll back the clock to the 1950's?

Expand full comment

Not at all; the system is computerized on a unique server that, at least here, can print a bespoke ballot for every voter anywhere in the county and it will reflect only that voter's options. The voter completes the ballot by hand and feeds it into an optic scanner which tallies the vote, rejects any incorrect ballot on the spot so the voter can make corrections if needed and tallies the ballots so that they can be verified against the number issued as well as provide preliminary counts. The paper ballots are retained for verification and/or recount if needed. Definitely not the way it was done in the 50s or even the 60s and 70s where we were pulling levers.

Expand full comment

That is not what I was addressing in my reply to Laura Thomas. You may have lost the thread; which is easy to do. I am calling out much more that just paper and pencils with my roll "back the clock to the 1950's" statement and I don't want to have to spell it out. We've heard a lot from folks who have the same 1950's mindset haven't we?

Expand full comment

I think I understand your point now and, yes, we've seen sufficient of that. I do think though that the voting conversation was well worth it.

Expand full comment

Yes and no on the voting issue. I believe Americans have been bamboozled and are being led down a path of "but those darn voting methods" away from the urgent, catastrophic reality of Republicans setting up a State by State system of stealing elections no matter the method for voting. Voter suppression, gerrymandering and installing stop the steal Secretary of State in States is part of the blueprint.

An example of what I am saying

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-election-denier-who-could-run-michigans-elections/ar-AAXzAMy?li=BBnb7Kz#:~:text=The%20Election%20Denier%20Who%20Could%20Run%20Michigan%E2%80%99s%20Elections

Expand full comment

You bloody Ozzies always make too damn much sense. :-)

Expand full comment

Snark (grin)

Expand full comment

If that was true we wouldn't have had the Libs in for so long. It's a toss-up who was worse: Tony Abbott or mini-Trump ScoMo of all too recent memory.

Expand full comment

I wish we could post images - I was sent a fantastic one of dear Rupert Murdoch as an octopus engulfing the globe. Australia has been one of his early victims, we have almost no National "liberal" press left - some, but vanishingly small.

Expand full comment

Worse than a victim: he's our "alien". An octopus? yes. I've saved the one of tfg done by a Norwegian(?) cartoonist, before he was even elected (?) - he's portrayed as a huge overgrown crawling baby in a filthy diaper, mouth hanging open, reaching up to pull on the tablecloth to make the world (a globe on its stand) come crashing down. Everything he's touched is marked by his filthy hands.

Expand full comment

I have that. Also, the pic I have from the Helsinki debacle is a fav. It has Putin leading chump by his long red tie. The length of the tie is photoshopped to look like a leash, but the facial expressions are priceless, and 100% real. Tells the tale..

Expand full comment

That’s a perfect description of the lying POS that befouled the presidency.

Expand full comment

A picture is worth a thousand words, that said, I hate to associate any creature of nature with the slime ball Murdoch. Sorry slime (NOVA “The Secret Mind of Slime”). He was likely brought in By Reagan to do what he does best, Goebbels’s style propaganda. Our home-grown evil loved it.

Expand full comment

I know one Aussie who referred to their previous leader as "Scotty from Marketing." She is thrilled now with their new leader.

Expand full comment

I don't know anybody that isn't! The sunshine is blissful today. Even the fog was lovely yesterday.

Expand full comment

Can we? Sure. Will we? Probably not, it would cost too many people too much of what they value most. But, we'll try.

Expand full comment

Nah, our states (well, some) are too busy trying to rule the country. United we are not, and it will destroy us before any external threat.

Expand full comment

Agreed but—Not if we come out swinging SOON, and mean it.

Expand full comment
May 22, 2022·edited May 22, 2022

I've been wondering, why does the outgoing Australian party have liberal in its name, when they are conservatives?

Expand full comment

It's historic. And they aren't known for their truthfulness.

Expand full comment

Sure sounds great - but ever notice that USA doesnt do much "example following"? Guess its because we are so "special"? (I do seem to use quotation a lot lately)

Expand full comment

Yep, could just follow European social democracies in so many ways and we'd be doing much better.

Expand full comment

Sweet revenge for million,s of Koalas.....if a little late!

Expand full comment

I love the compulsory voting concept. How is this done?

Expand full comment

What do you love about compulsory voting? And what happens if a person doesn't comply?

Expand full comment

What's not to love about it? You actually get what most of the adult population wanted. Your name is neatly crossed off the electoral roll when you vote, and if in later weeks it's monitored that it hasn't been crossed off, you get a letter in the mail asking why you failed to vote. If your answer doesn't give one of the prescribed reasons, you get fined.

Expand full comment

Follow your example in what?

I haven't had my first cup of coffee and now I read some America bashing. So unnecessary and disappointing. And even more depressing is when Americans go along with it. I believe in the saying that I can complain about my family but no one else can.

Frankly your argument is apples and oranges. Our national configuration of States is different, our Constitution is different, our election process is different.

Surely there are some valid and long overdue changes needed in Australia you can turn your attention towards?

Expand full comment

I always appreciate comparative literature, and this is along the same lines. I always urge my i ternational students to share perceptions of America/ans from abroad and we learn a lot! Thanks for contributing to the discussion! Learning from everyone!

Expand full comment

Seriously? Comparative literature and international politics are not even remotely along the same lines. We're not giving participation gold stars out today. You know the intent of what I said. Please feel free to address those.

Expand full comment

Really, Barbara? Perhaps you’re so high up on your horse that you can’t see the flaws in your vaunted “exceptional" country, or that other countries on the planet may have very good reasons to dislike the US. That said, the benign comparison between Australia’s successful election system and the US’s foundering one was nowhere near US bashing. I hope that first cup of coffee took the bitter out of your reaction.

Expand full comment

Thanks, Jude. That was unexpected, and it did sting.

Expand full comment

In your haste to rage at me (or probably anyone handy today) you have confused/combined 2 separate things, comments, responses and issues in the comments. Take some deep breaths. And btw disagreement is one thing raging at someone on this comments site isn't ok.

Expand full comment