A Different Angle on the Vietnam War

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A Different Angle on the Vietnam War


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Preface / Introduction


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Table of Contents

1. The man who survived. Norodom Sihanouk. Sometime prince of Cambodia, king, prime minister,revolutionary, demigod. Dead at 89, October 15, 2012.2. 'One, two, three, what are we fighting for?' Thoughts on the turbulent life and times of GeorgeMcGovern, dead at 90, October 21, 2012.3. 'Fortunate son.' The life and times of Stanley Karnow, equitable historian of the Vietnam War andof a great nation's mad divisiveness and self destruction; dead at 87, January 29, 2013.


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The man who survived. Norodom Sihanouk. Sometimeprince of Cambodia, king, prime minister, revolutionary,demigod. Dead at 89, October 15, 2012.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

Author's program note. When the Abbe Sieyes, one of the first three consuls of the new French

government of 1799 was asked what he did during the Terror, he replied "I survived." Everyonewho had done the same would have understood at once just how signal an achievement that was. Itseems a particularly apt comment to apply to King Norodom Sihanouk... who lived to a venerableage which so many times looked unlikely, even impossible. It may well have been his mostsignificant achievement. You may judge for yourself.

Geography is destiny.

To begin this article, go to any search engine and print out a map of Cambodia and its contiguousneighbors, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam. Then cast your eye North, to China, which monitored andinfluenced his every move his entire life.

I suspect His Majesty knew every boundary, highway, minor road, river, city and town. He was noscholar, but on this subject I imagine he excelled. Much of what he could do, much of what hecould not do was played out on the maps of Southeast Asia; his dreams, his fears, his rationales forso many shifts, turns, lies, deceptions, convolutions, "irrational" decisions made, reversed, madeagain, reversed again and again.

You will never understand this man and his decisions, which so often infuriated and exasperated somany uncomprehending statesmen and diplomats, without understanding the geography of the place.

I am writing this article with such a map at my fingertips. You should do the same. To achieve hisgoals of staying alive, keeping Cambodia independent and autonomous, and its population safe, he

had to master every nuance of these maps and his options... options which changed as the goals ofhis contiguous neighbors (and their near and far-away allies) shifted... and above all whenever theshadow of great China crossed his path... as it seemed constantly to do.

Born in the purple October 31, 1922.

Cambodia at the time of King Sihanouk's birth was part of French Indochina, a protectorate since1863. The royal dynasty reigned; the French ruled everything including the dynasty. To make thiswork as efficient and thorough as possible, they wanted young, naive, powerless princes at the helm.

Shy 18-year-old Prince Sihanouk seemed tailor-made and so in 1941 French colonial authoritiesraised him to be king. No one, certainly no Frenchman, took this adolescent monarch seriously; he

had wept after all when elevated. They wanted "a little lamb", Sihanouk said later. They got a tiger.The man had been misjudged and misunderstood from the beginning; that never changed.Everything else did, including the French Protectorate over Indochine.

The beginning of the end of the French Colonial Empire.

The breathtaking 1940 German invasion of France and the French capitulation (June, 1940) gaveKing Sihanouk the chance he needed to advance Cambodian independence. He worked with the newconquerors, the Japanese, as he had worked with the previous conquerors, the French. On March 9,1945, the Japanese still in charge, King Sihanouk proclaimed an independent Kingdom ofKampuchea. The Japanese soon left; the French were prostrate. The King had had a very good war,despite General Charles de Gaulle's insistence that the ancien regime be resurrected. He might so

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desire, but he could not dictate; a lesson he found hard to learn, then or ever.

In due course, October, 1953, Sihanouk declared independence. The "little lamb" hadoutmaneuvered the Cross of Lorraine himself. The King was now as grand as the kingdomproclaimed itself to be... and the Golden Age of his reign and his nation were at hand, a gracefultime revered by every subject and remembered with joy, gratitude and bittersweet nostalgia. If onlythings had so remained... if only.

But now one word hung over Cambodia, its king, its gentle people and their life of beauty, serenity,grace and tranquility. That word was Vietnam and in this single word there was an unimaginablehorror and woes beyond measure. No one knew this better than the liberator King of Cambodia, atthe very center of so much that went so wrong for so many, including himself.

Saving his house from the inferno next door.

Before continuing you must remember this man's objectives -- to save himself, to preserve hisdynasty, to ensure the nation's freedom and self-rule, and to keep his adoring people safe from thecollateral damage inflicted on them by bigger, richer, careless nations. It was not merely a tall order;it was the devil's own conundrum. And he could not avoid action or, in the way of so manyacademics, avoid making crucial decisions altogether; no, he had to decide, he had to act, he had to

row his tiny boat and its 5 million vulnerable inhabitants through the growing maelstrom thatemanated from and engulfed his proximate neighbor Vietnam.

For 17 years, he kept his people out of the ever-growing civil conflict destroying his much largerneighbor. This is the key fact by which he should be judged, not the fact that he employed everysingle stratagem, tactic, ruse, insinuation, prevarication or deception he had to. He was a king,charged by heaven with the care of his people, whom he called and considered his "children". Godwould understand.

As a result, Sihanouk became the very personification of the oldest Western stereotype, the WilyOriental Gentleman (WOG). This and other far cruder characterizations and epithets permeated theCIA's "top secret" (1964) report "Prince Sihanouk and the New Order in Southeast Asia" by John W.

Taylor, the word "patriot" seems hardly to have occurred to his detractors.

And so as the fire consumed Vietnam one killing field at a time, King Sihanouk perfected hismastery of the legerdemain that kept his most vulnerable realm as secure as a world of insecuritywould allow.

Item: He became the darling of the world's left-leaning non-aligned nations while discouraging thegrowth of Cambodia's left-wing parties.

Item: After the Vietnam war broke out again in 1961, he secretly allied with North Vietnam andbegan allowing Viet Cong troops to use Cambodia as a military base. At the same time he tacitlyapproved limited US bombing runs on Cambodian soil.

Item: But you get the picture. His Majesty would do what His Majesty needed to do... and he did ituntil it no longer pleased all the people all the time, which had always been His Majesty's special,impossible assignment. In March, 1970 the United States tacitly approved a CIA coup that removedSihanouk, turned the nation over to Lon Nol, a former military adviser who gave the United Stateswhat it wanted: a friendly regime that turned neutralist Cambodia into an American base, corrupt,propped up by lavish US aid. The golden days of Sihanouk's Cambodia were done and truly over.

War, genocide, an impatient, impotent ex-monarch watches. Now the great Cambodian tragedybegan; Lon Nol tethered to US interests, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge Communists infiltrating,destabilizing from the left. Sihanouk, in exile in Beijing, condemned Lon Nol and backed the Khmer




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Rouge which in 1975 imprisoned him in his palace thereby effectively silencing the Cambodianpeople's best friend and "father". The genocide of Pol Pot's regime, responsible for over 1.7 millionbrutal murders, starvations, and exterminations as it tried to convert the entire nation into an agrariancollective, showed just how good the "good old days" had been.

And so he watched from afar as the nation he had built was destroyed; the people he loved werekilled in their tens and hundreds of thousands and the United States condemned him for hisunaccountable advocacy of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. A realist to his royal fingertips, the

ex-monarch knew he must explain himself on this matter, or languish on the sidelines forever,anathema to the Great Republic and its "do as I say, not as I do" approach to international relations.

"War and Hope," my dinner with King Sihanouk, my ticklish assignment.

The result was Sihanouk's book "War and Hope: The Case for Cambodia" (Pantheon Books, 1980),a ringing denunciation of the Khmer Rouge and its spectrum of brutalities, a denunciation he took toHarvard and its Center for International Affairs; where in those days I was a marketing, publicrelations and development consultant to Professor Samuel Huntington. As such I was invited to hislavish black-tie dinner in honor of the man called "Former Chief of State" and his Samuel L. andElizabeth Jodidi Lecture. Before that dinner, Professor Huntington handed me the evening's hotpotato: on the pressing need to ensure the Prince's traveling concubine did not attend the festivities

in honor of her aging but agile Lothario.

"Girls, girls, girls"... but not at Harvard!

Sihanouk, like all the kings of Cambodia, was a sybarite, a libertine, a frequent, frequentlyindiscriminate, lover and prodigious producer of princely children (at least 14), a real life characterlike Mrs. Anna Leonowens found in Bangkok in 1862. The CIA made much of his concupiscence;he enjoyed his droit de seigneur. In any event, it helped pass his gilded exile. But whatever wasacceptable elsewhere, such behavior did not suit Fair Harvard, at least the residual Puritans at theCenter for International Affairs (now called the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs). Theywanted no part of his current traveling companion. And because I was a hired consultant I was told

to get the lady gone.I can see her to this day and even smell her intoxicating Rue de la Paix scent. She was lovely in theCambodian manner, young, lavishly dressed, a doll. She disdained me... and no wonder.

Had it been me alone, I would have invited her, but I was merely following orders. And so while shefiled her nails and cast her eyes down, I stumbled through the message and her contempt. She knewmy discomfort and dragged it out. I felt like a worm, for all that they paid me well. She was not inattendance that evening.

But King Sihanouk was, to deliver his "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" on the Khmer Rouge, toppledin 1979 but not forgotten or forgiven in Washington, D.C.. When I was presented, I murmured the

expected compliments which he, the consummate man of the world, reciprocated without amoment's thought. It was what he'd been doing for a lifetime, saying the expected, while doing whatneeded to be done.

But what was clear was that he was in Cambridge, at Harvard, because he wanted to return toKampuchea and if exchanging small talk with someone like me, if giving up his play fellow for atime were required, he would do it all, and more. For Cambodia was his real love, his one and onlylove, and he missed her to distraction. And so after Pol Pot fell; after the Vietnamese were expelledhe got his fervent wish, to be reunited with the beloved.

Now this man, this king, this tiger once thought to be a little lamb, this lover of women and greatpatriot, this evasive man, ambiguous man, deceptive man for whom mere truth was a luxury he




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could hardly ever afford is dead. We shall never see his like again in our time. Go then to any searchengine. Find "Nokor Reach", the national anthem of the Kingdom of Cambodia... "Heaven save theking/ Give him happiness and glory/... rule the Khmer Land and/ make it high and filled with honor",as in his way he did.




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'One, two, three, what are we fighting for?' Thoughts on theturbulent life and times of George McGovern, dead at 90,October 21, 2012.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

Author's program note. On Election Day November, 1968 my father and I walked to the polling

place in West Los Angeles where I proudly voted for the first time (as he told the poll worker), forelectors pledged to Richard M. Nixon for president of the United States.

Four years later, now a graduate student at Harvard and a resident of Massachusetts, I walked aloneto the Cambridge polling place and with a pencil cast my vote for electors pledged to GeorgeMcGovern.

All that was missing was the tune the victorious new Americans played at Yorktown in 1781 whenthe British forces under Lord Cornwallis surrendered; that tune was "The World Turned UpsideDown"... and so it was. What had caused this seismic change in me and in the Great Republic?Vietnam. A word, a place, an event, a symbol, a tragedy, a charnel house, a quagmire, a conundrum.

A squalid moment in the often squalid affairs of mankind... a place where many erred and far toomany died .. but where one decent, thoughtful man gained honor and the hard-won title of "patriot",a designation he would gratefully have laid down if that would have spared a single young life.

That man was George McGovern. This is his story. And this is why it matters and why, upon theoccasion of his death, it must be recalled, if only to remind what one individual of vision,commitment, and determination can do to right the greatest wrongs and make the crucial difference.

Born George Stanley McGovern, July 19, 1922, Avon, South Dakota.

To understand a man you need to know where he comes from, who his people were and what theybelieved in and stood for. George McGovern was born in the 600-person farming community of

Avon, a hamlet which shared a name but nothing more with Shakespeare's verdant village. Thosewho love South Dakota, and he remained one of them for life, never underestimated or glamorizedits stark, unyielding, punishing realities. Life was hard in the Dakotas, but it offered the one thingthat made life worth living: freedom. Freedom to work hard, to risk all, to find God and to lookevery man squarely in the face, the equal of all, subservient to none. In short, it was, despite itsunending challenges, the best possible place on Earth, for here was everything that mattered.

His parents were stolid Republicans, of Northern Irish, Scottish, and English descent. And they wereMethodists, his father the pastor of the local Wesleyan Methodist Church. As such they were theheirs of John Wesley's "Great Awakening", commencing in the 1730s; people who knew what Godintended and accepted the necessity, yes the privilege, of being responsible for improving, not justaccepting, present reality. This was a key factor in McGovern's life and work, for he was no

respecter of present realities per se but only the necessity to improve them. And so he set to work onhis first reform project, targeting himself. He realized he could not ask others to improve if he wouldnot improve himself.

Thus this painfully shy boy, average in everything, forced himself to talk, to learn, to advance, to bebetter. Tongue-tied, he turned himself by assiduous, painstaking effort into an admired debatechampion.

And when in seventh grade, a gym teacher called him a "physical coward", in the thoughtless way ofthat ilk, McGovern vowed to show him. And in due course in the "good war", World War II, he did;flying the B-24 Liberator, one of the most difficult airplanes to fly because in the early part of the




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war, they didn't have hydraulic controls. McGovern likened it to "driving a Mack truck without anypower steering or power breaks."

He flew 35 combat missions as a B-24 pilot, receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross and an AirMedal with three oak leaf clusters. He was no coward, physical or otherwise. Nor did he brag abouthis achievements; few, even friends, knew anything about his valor and pluck. He was aprofessional. He had been called to do a job. He had done it well. He was ready for his nextmission... and the one after that.

A learned man, a growing sympathy for the underdog.

Like all the great reformers, McGovern recognized the importance of education, not just for childrenand young people, but for everyone. And so he studied for the ministry at Northwestern University;then took a Master's degree (1949) in history; then in 1953 his doctorate. His 450-page dissertationwas titled "The Colorado Coal Strike, 1913- 1914". It was a sympathetic account of the miners'revolt against Rockefeller interests in the Colorado Coalfield War. His thesis adviser, eminenthistorian Arthur Link, later said he had not seen a better student than McGovern in 26 years ofteaching. He was far indeed from the awkward, shy, tongue-tied boy of yore.

From teaching history to making it.

Having graduated, he did what most newly minted PhDs did: he taught college history and politicsfor several years. But research, contemplation, writing and teaching weren't enough. He itched to domore than write and lecture about history's reformers; bit by bit, as he knew himself better, headmitted he wanted to become one. And the fertile field of South Dakota politics lay open beforehim. What he did next was bold, audacious, a course of genius or just madness. He decided to bringthe Democratic Party to one of the most Republican states of the Great Republic; a state where everyoffice-holder was Republican and 108 legislative seats out of 110. With his family background andexemplary war record, he might easily have joined the majority party.

However, he'd been touched by FDR, Henry Wallace, Harry Truman, and Adlai Stevenson, the manhe named his only son after, in 1952. They enlightened him; they clarified; they enthused; they

motivated. In the 1954 elections he showed what he could do; 25 seats went Democratic andMcGovern was launched. The party he forged then sent him to the U.S. Congress in 1956; to theU.S. Senate in 1962 (after losing the 1960 race to Senator Karl Mundt whom he loathed as aRed-baiting McCarthyite).

In office, he focused on improvements for rural America, farm support, and the popular Food forPeace program. Under usual circumstances a senator in his position could have reasonably aspiredto the chairmanship of the Senate Agriculture Committee, even the Cabinet as Secretary ofAgriculture. These were worthy, if not stellar, objectives. However, in September, 1963 he rose onthe Senate floor; his subject was a nation not one in a thousand citizens of South Dakota could evenfind on a map; a small, far-away nation; a nation now engulfed in war and disintegration. Senator

McGovern rose and admonished America on its course of involvement and escalation. America soonenough would have reason to rue the lack of care and attention it gave his pressing message.

Vietnam. The apotheosis of George McGovern.

Now the dance macabre began. North Vietnam and its allies advanced; South Vietnam fell back; theUnited States escalated its support; McGovern escalated his disapprovals, condemnations, anddenunciations. And all the while vulnerable flesh paid its bleeding price in death, disfigurements,dismemberments, each incident blighting a young life, sundering a great nation and causingworldwide disbelief and censure. McGovern, however reluctantly, took up the cause as his crusade.The Great Republic had fashioned this man for its great need. And the man was ready.




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This was what the man came to believe and what he told his Senate colleagues, the Great Republicand the world in September, 1970:

"Every Senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to anearly grave. This chamber reeks of blood. Every Senator here is partly responsible for that humanwreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land -- young men without legs, orarms, or genitals, or faces or hopes... If we do not end this damnable war those young men will someday curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution

places on us."

But the Senate defeated his position 55-39. At this the greatest moment of his life, he knew he wouldhave to run for President because only the President could end the war, end the unending blood andfutility, and redeem the nation.

He runs, he loses, 1972. Plane talk with RMN.

One day in 1991, McGovern found himself on a plane sitting next to the man who crushed him in1972 in a electoral rout of near historic proportions. "We had a nice talk," said Nixon. "He wasalways a very decent guy who had the guts to stand up for what he believed in." In other words, theman on the moral high ground ran the worst possible campaign with Nemesis its manager.

Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. quipped that McGovern had been nominated bythe cast of "Hair". He was tagged with the label "amnesty, abortion and acid." He goofed everyaspect of the campaign, not least the fiasco of his vice presidential choice Missouri Senator ThomasEagleton. Eagleton was hardly vetted at all; was found to have a history of mental instability andshock treatment.

McGovern said he'd stand by his man "1,000 percent", then promptly dropped him. The next 5prominent Democrats he asked to run with him turned him down flat -- and publicly. He never laid aglove on Nixon. Famously McGovern carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.Decency alone wasn't nearly enough. Being right wasn't enough. You needed a unique set ofattributes, skills and a willingness to do everything, go anywhere, say anything to get elected.

McGovern didn't have them... as I came to see for myself when I met him at Harvard in 1977.

Food for peace, food for thought.

In those days, McGovern was focusing on what he should be more widely known for: feeding theworld. He came to Cambridge to collaborate with Dr. Jean Mayer, internationally known for hiswork eradicating hunger, promoting proper nutrition, fighting obesity, each and every one alifetime's work. Because I was one of Dr. Mayer's assistants, I had the run of the house and so metGeorge McGovern (re-elected Senator in 1974) at Mayer's Dudley House residence. And in my roleas fly on the wall, I noted everything. I already knew just how much historians value the smallestdetail, the detail that, in a few words, provides the critical aperture to understanding.

There was none of that divinity that doth hedge a king about McGovern. His charisma was zero. Iown to being disappointed. This was my man; I wanted to be impressed, awed, bowled over by witand wisdom. But that wasn't how he was, especially on that day.

It was easy to talk to him, and I made good use of my opportunity. I told him of my family in andabout Blunt, South Dakota, the Lauings. He said, as one does, that the name was familiar. I didn't tellhim they were rock-ribbed Republicans. He probably deduced as much for himself.

Then the phone rang as it would ring for him many times that day. It was his son, his only son Steve,alcoholic, problem, lifelong worry. I could tell from Mcgovern's side of the conversation that therewas a crisis brewing; the calls were frequent, short; arrangements were being made. McGovern




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looked worn, tired, fretful. There was nothing I could do; just stay at hand in case he neededsomething. It was the kind of support South Dakota folks provided, useful, silent, not worthmentioning, coffee's on the stove; the essence of Prairie friendship and true grit.

McGovern knew, none better, the tragedy of adult children in crisis, children he loved but couldn'thelp, couldn't reach; first Steve who finally found peace July 27, 2012; then his daughter TerryDecember 13, 1994. He captured her harrowing struggle in his 1996 book "Terry: My Daughter'sLife-and-Death Struggle with Alcoholism." He would later say that Terry's death was by far the most

painful event of his life. It was no wonder he seemed, pre-occupied, distant, distracted the day I methim. It was the kind of day one faces often with alcoholics and drug abusers; a day where there ispain and where any hope at all is the greatest self-deception. He no longer hoped... and for such aman that was torment.

Envoi.

In 1976, George McGovern, uncomfortable with Jimmy Carter, moved right as ex-Democraticpresidential candidates not infrequently do (John W. Davis, Al Smith) and voted Republican, thistime for Gerald Ford, the decent man who performed the healing role McGovern might have likedfor himself. He could appreciate the many virtues of such a man, for he was such a man. No wonderhis last creative work was his 2008 book on Abraham Lincoln and his recorded narration for Aaron

Copeland's "Lincoln Portrait", done with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. Find it now in anysearch engine. McGovern found solace in the work, peace, tranquillity, and a renewed belief in greatAmerica and its Great Republic, of the people, by the people, for the people.

... and so will you.




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'Fortunate son.' The life and times of Stanley Karnow,equitable historian of the Vietnam War and of a greatnation's mad divisiveness and self destruction; dead at 87,January 29, 2013.

Author's program note. I woke up lathered in sweat again, the way I had most every frightening

night when every "dream" was a nightmare. As is the way with dreams, each disconnected scene wassupremely real, surreal, always accurate in the way the brain renders accuracy. And, of course, thatmade what played in my anxious brain so influential.

I was dressed in khaki and went, alone, into a cave in an area which "Charlie" traversed withimpunity and murderous effect. Everything was as it should be; thus profound terror emanated fromthe most normal, prosaic of features... the real world rendered into a thing of peril and hazard.

I entered a world of filtered light, where every sound from the receding reality above was muffled,indistinct. There was no sign of menace... and yet I knew the most profound of menaces was here,fully present, and lurking; ready to change everything in an instant.

... And then that instant came...

I hardly felt the bite; thought, "just another irritant in a jungle of irritants", and softly cursed everyperson who had anything whatsoever to do with my present position on the highway to Hell, thatincluded the mother who bore me and told the world I was destined for greatness, able to handleanything, including my present situation. But she was wrong...

Then I saw it, saw it up close and horrible, its scales glistening; a mixture of fear and nausea seizedmy body and high jacked my mind. Its tail was tied to the ceiling of the cave... its mouth was deep inmy face, my left eye now blinded, blood and venom the cocktail of death, running down my face.

One summer I had almost drowned at Lake Michigan. Before the life guard pulled me out, I

discovered the truth of something I had long heard but was skeptical about, namely that as deathapproaches your life does indeed flash before your eyes... it was happening again now... fast, so fastI couldn't grasp every image as it sped by, but I knew each was passing for the last time...

...the way my young mother looked at me as she read when I was 4 and still an only child... a longforgotten incident when my grandmothers came to blows about whose sailor suit I should wear tothe park... and the day I learned my best friend had died tragically and achingly young. I wasworking on a book in this very room and sobbed at this desk... but I finished my quota. Both of uswere that way... and he came at the end, in this dream to smile and reassure...

Now I was woozie. The snake still bit deep, its work already sufficient... but death had one moremacabre refinement. Thus before I woke up, as one always does in a dream, I turned to see a cave

filled with such reptiles; all impaled up-side down, mad with hunger and in sight of their easy prey...These snakes were coming for me now...

And then I woke up... exhausted, appalled, disoriented, another casualty of a war that was killingeverything I loved about America. An article in the daily paper on Vietcong atrocities had capturedmy attention. And this was the dread result...

Against this background of rancor, hatred, contempt, malice, recriminations, unremitting bitterness,lies, distortions, rage, and disdain, one man of the old school of journalism and history set out to tellthe truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the most tragic episode in our national life.




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He chose to tell the truth about the Vietnam War, 1955-1975. 19 years, 5 months, 4 weeks, and 1day. 58,156 dead... over 580,000 pints of blood, an ocean of life force wasted... each drop erodingour civility, our values, our life, liberty and our once sacred honor.

His name was Stanley Karnow, and this is his story.

The facts.

Every great nation is great in part because it never forgets and makes it a point to honor its historians,

keepers of the critical facts of national identity. These people must put aside their own, oftenprofound and adamant, viewpoints and put mere opinions on the side, for their job is not topontificate infallibly, but to discover, consider, confirm and know... then to report honestly on whatthey find, even if that starkly and completely contradicts what they may think or believe as privatecitizens.

Each true historian enlists under the stern banner of the Greek muse Clio, the muse of history. Herservice is difficult, often thankless, needing energy, an infinitude of patience, the ability to see athing in its wholeness, not merely in (perhaps erroneous) part.

Such people spend much time alone; they need peace, quiet, time to gather the essential facts, theability, like King Solomon, to make often exquisite judgements. Most will provide their essentialservice to humanity with scant recognition, if any recognition at all. They will work for minimumrecompense, riches a notion, rarely a reality.

One word sums up historians in general and Stanley Karnow in particular: integrity. Integrity meansa consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, outcomes and, aboveall, the kind of honesty it takes a lifetime to hone and perfect. Karnow had it... it defined him, hiswork, and now his place in Clio's eternal gallery.

Born in New York 1925.

Historians may, of course, come from anywhere, but those from the Big Apple are blessed. Theylive surrounded by every good thing on earth, including the most shrewd and clever of savants andpartisans. It is a great advantage. Karnow, for all that his father was just a salesman, had it. And, likeso many New Yorkers with ambition in their blood, he gravitated to media early and for life; startingby writing high school radio plays, writing for and editing the school newspaper. Harvard took him,of course; they were good for each other.

After Harvard, almost automatically, came Paris, of course. Harvard people need savoir faire,require polish; Paris is, therefore, de rigueur. And, if he stayed longer than most (10 years), heemerged as a man of sophistication, wit, the right word rightly used with devastating effect,mordant, aphoristic, eminently quotable.

By luck of the draw, his first book (for books there must be) was "Southeast Asia," an illustrated

Life World library release published in 1962, before the United States committed ground troops toVietnam. Thus, at a crucial moment in our history, as the number of troops swelled, the right man toscrutinize and report events was available and on the spot; which is what is meant by destiny.

And so he, uniquely, covered the mounting horror of apocalypse from its first two Americanfatalities to the unimaginable humiliation of a country and city he had once loved, like he had lovedParis; all the time reporting the plain truth, as all good journalists are trained to do. People whoadhered to the standard Pentagon and White House lines excoriated him but truth was never theirmission as it was his.

"What did we learn from Vietnam?", Karnow later told Associated Press. "We learned that we




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shouldn't have been there in the first place."

But, you see, the key point isn't the conclusion he arrived at, but the means he used to get there. ForKarnow started where most of us started, supporting our government because we believed eachpresident who advanced the "Domino Theory" and its every refinement. However, as Karnow, whowas arguably the nation's #1 authority on the matter, scrutinized the data closely and arrived at thetruth, as conscientious researchers will do, he changed his mind. Thus by stages, he understood, andas he did he grieved for the Great Republic which his work, no matter how controversial, always

served.

Now this man of truth, of discernment, of judgement is dead. But he has left us a masterfulrepertoire, including "Vietnam: A History", published in 1983 to coincide with a 13-part PBSdocumentary series. It was honest, complete, without rancor or bitterness. 9.7 million viewers tunedin per episode. Each viewer was grateful, for they, too, wanted truth, not the party line, left or right.That is what they invariably got with Stanley Karnow, "the fortunate son."

Envoi

In 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival released a bitter song called "Fortunate Son". It was writtenby John Fogarty and if nothing else it showed how very different the music of the Vietnam War era

was from that of World War II. It is featured in the film "Forrest Gump". Listen to its acid lyrics andask yourself if you could have been invariably and consistently fair-minded, like Karnow, as thegreatest nation on Earth destroyed its essential community in futile pursuit of a goal which cost useverything and gave us nothing. As I ask you the question, so I ask myself.




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About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a widerange of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home businesstraining, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting,hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online

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A Different Angle on the Vietnam War

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Transcript of A Different Angle on the Vietnam War