“The Long Shadow of Vietnam”

p. 21

“The true cause of the Vietnam trauma to America was that the country’s fathers failed. The grownups poured their children into a devouring misconception–a bad war that was a vast elaboration on the theme of lying, almost of hallucination. Lyndon Johnson won the election in 1964 by promising that American boys would never go to do the job that the Asian boys should do. As late as 1968, Herbert Humphrey told munitions salesmen at the White House, ‘Vietnam is our great adventure. . .and a wonderful one it is.’ After deciding in 1969 to withdraw from a hopeless cause, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger allowed 18,000 Americans to be killed so that, bizarrely, Americans could exit from Vietnam with sufficient style, an illusion of credibility.” [i.e. so Nixon wouldn’t have to preside over “defeat” and could have his peace with honor]