2013 Olin Lecture: The Meaning of the Vietnam War

Live broadcast - It's perhaps the most important question of America's past half century: Why did we go to war in Vietnam? On June 7, 2013 at 3 p.m., Cornell history professor Fredrik Logevall, one of the world's leading scholars of the war, will consider U.S. intervention in Vietnam anew, drawing from his Pulitzer Prize-winning new book, Embers of War.

[@rrbaggett7]

While I can't say I "enjoyed" this lecture, it was riveting. I vacillated between helpless rage & mournful tears over the folly of our bloody interventionism. May America learn her lesson & soon.

[@havu-oj4qh]

Vietnam has never been hostile to US

[@user-qv1gc1vn7o]

too late to say they did not

[@StellarFella]

This is the best lecture I have ever heard on Vietnam. Simply outstanding!

[@oaktowndaddyg]

I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam. His Embers of War has entered the canon of important historical critiques of the war, up there with The Best and the Brightest and American Power and the New Mandarins.

[@mariannguyen9577]

One of the greatest living historians I have to said Fredrik Logevall he really do this math and understand both side.

[@StellarFella]

Col. L. Fletcher Prouty is an excellent source for insights.

[@johnboyle6294]

One of the greatest living historians out there

[@kinhnikaya669]

Tuyệt vời.

[@crimony3054]

America assured that there was more than one choice in a post-colonial world. Organic nationalism did not automatically lead to a client state status to Soviet Communism, or Chinese Maoism. Even the North Vietnamese fought a border war with China in 1978. The domino theory is solid.

[@exenrontexas]

Read "The Fire in the Lake" by Francis Fitzgerald for a far more detailed, more supported by evidence and more intellectual read on the war. And I was there.

[@StellarFella]

The "Pentagon Papers" are the gold standard for truth over star struck ideology. We could have killed them all, left their land a barren desert, and declared victory. We had the technology and manpower to do so, but reason prevailed.

[@exenrontexas]

@@StellarFella SAC commander, Curtis LeMay proposed using nukes in Vietnam, Korea and against Cuba. He should have read Hermann Kahn's "Effects of thermonuclear war", Even Robert McNamara warned of the finality of using nukes. Can't undo total destruction.

[@StellarFella]

@@exenrontexas Yep! This guy was a real hero from World War II, but he became a most detestable figure in the modern era. It was difficult for he and JFK to be in the same room together. He was present puffing his cigar and gloating away when the sham autopsy was conducted on JFK's body in Bethesda Maryland. He wanted a nuclear exchange between us and the Soviet Union in 1960, 61, and 62.

[@exenrontexas]

@@StellarFella He commanded the unit that nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki..after the Japanese had decided on surrender.

[@ccie4101]

Frances Fitzgerald is a despicable VC sympathizer

[@leeweisbecker6048]

the careerist interpretation of Vietnam origins

[@senior_ranger]

"Force is the weapon of the weak." -Ammon Hennesy

[@swat19]

How do you give this presentation and call out “permissiveness” without saying the words “military industrial complex” He doesn’t even acknowledge pressures felt by these presidents from the military

[@BobDingus-bh3pd]

The military industrial complex is intervention from the private sector to enact war for profit. He said that wasn’t a very big part of it. Which makes sense. Businessmen aren’t to blame for the propaganda struggle between the communist and western governments.

[@hankochai]

Very interesting! I do think it’s easy to tend to guess that JFK would’ve handled things better (though it’d be pretty hard to have fouled things up more than LBJ) because he died, and we can project our hopes & wishes onto him. Many leaders were highly dubious of involvement in Vietnam but pressed ahead anyway.

[@davidrodgersNJ]

There is zero evidence that JFK was not interested in increasing US intervention in Vietnam. Only a few weeks before he was assassinated, he approved a coup in Vietnam in which President Diem was assassinated, after refusing an American offer of safety if he agreed to resign.

[@dennissalisbury496]

It is no secret that the Chevron corporation was exploring for oil in the South China Sea for the entire 10 years of the Vietnam War because it was thought that region was another Persian Gulf due to the high quality of the oil they found; in 1973 Chevron published a position paper that due to the fracturing of the sea bed floor wells would quickly go dry and the oil could not be brought into economical production, it was then that the war ended.

[@inouelenhatduy]

there is oil in south china sea but not that huge like in Persian gulf

[@RUMPLEforeskin25]

Mean while this comment isn't at the top of the video.. which is fucked

[@inouelenhatduy]

well there is plenty of oil/gas that why china wanted it all for them , but like allway they cant dual to they far far far cousin call vietnam lol , we the one that stop they expanding southward ( if vietnamese didnt live in vietnam now day the chinese will rule all of indochina lol ) no wonder the chinese regime ( from ancient to now ) hate us , we like the rock that allway stand in they way haha

[@StellarFella]

Unfortunately, this audience represents the last generations to be well read and reflective about these critical issues. Today's generations have been anesthetized and smothered by the full spectrum of consumer comforts and distractions. The shadow government now walks all over them.

[@crimony3054]

Those who fail to learn history are condemned as we relive it.

[@user-mv6he6gl8m]

Haha. So said the romans:) You need to have some faith - after all you seem to be an informed citizen - there are, and will be, plenty more out there.

[@katherineanderson3694]

Don't be so pessimistic, many of us are watching this video!

[@StellarFella]

Not Shadow Government. DARK MONEY INTERESTS who gain influence within various levels in our government. Please read 'The Brothers' by Stephen Kinzer. 'Mary's Mosaic' by Peter Janney. 'JFK And The Unspeakable' by James P. Douglass. The Big Boys gave LBJ what he wanted domestically as long as he let them have their war in Vietnam.

[@StellarFella]

@@katherineanderson3694 - Oh yea! 218 thumbs up? Such widespread enthusiasm on the topic or on this video. I am not being pessimistic at all. REALISTIC would be far more accurate. Who were the Dulles brothers? Knowing their strong roles in the big picture will help to explain a lot. Although we are supposed to be self governing, we decided to have a turnkey approach in the 50's and part of the 60's when we started to pay closer attention to things. In the meantime however, we fell into the convenient habit of letting the big boys run things. Until the presidency of JFK, prime time news grew from 15 minutes to 30 minutes minus commercials. Wow! Such national interest! 16,000 troops at the time of the Kennedy assassination. Please read 'JFK And The Unspeakable' by James P. Douglass.

[@khangbluewind]

Người Mỹ đã đánh bại siêu cường Anh giành độc lập thì người Việt cũng đã làm được điều tương tự với siêu cường Mỹ.

[@jamesanthony5681]

26:03 "I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that John Fitzgerald Kennedy understood this dynamic perhaps better than any US official with the possible exception of Franklin Roosevelt." Really?? What about Dwight Eisenhower?? He understood war, the military-industrial complex, how governments operate, and the world in general, possibly better than ANYONE. After all, he was the Allied Commander in WW2, and did serve 2 terms as president. And he did understand Vietnam. In 1954, General Matthew Ridgway gave a presentation to Ike on what it would take on the part of the USA to re-establish western control in Vietnam. Ridgway said it would take anywhere from 500k to 1 million troops, and even then, Ridgway said, that may not be enough. Very prescient on the part of Ridgway. Ike was smart. He knew. When Eisenhower left office, there were 500 (approx) military personnel in Vietnam. When Kennedy was killed, there were 16,000 military in Vietnam. Tell me? Who understood better?

[@StellarFella]

JFK was going to get ALL troops out of Vietnam in 1965. He definitely understood better than them all.

[@jamesanthony5681]

@@StellarFella He didn't understand what was going on in Vietnam because the people in place didn't speak truth to power. With the death of Diem in early Nov/63, that changed things, and getting that military out of the country became much more problematic. They weren't coming out, regardless of how many NSAM 263 directives he signed.

[@StellarFella]

@@jamesanthony5681 - Wrong! We were definitely getting out under JFK. This is why the big boys killed him.

[@jamesanthony5681]

@@StellarFella There's no evidence that there was a conspiracy to kill him. None.

[@StellarFella]

@@jamesanthony5681 - Sorry. That is not true. Allen Dulles was probably one of the persons in on it. I rely on the honest disclosures of the late L. Fletcher Prouty through his interviews and books. A very credible individual with an inside perspective.

[@aaron2709]

None of this info is new or particularly insightful.

[@robertcatesby4800]

Exactly, it's all been said before. He's pedantic and unoriginal.

[@miketaylor3947]

I just stumbled upon this lecture, and it is awesome! I got to visit Vietnam pre-covid and traveled from Hanoi to Saigon over three weeks (yes, I asked, and most Saigon locals prefer to use this name over Ho Chi Min City). All the people we met, North to South, were awesome and the phrase we heard many times vis. a vis. America was "we forgive but never forget". Incredible food, art, and crafts; crossing a busy city street is terrifying. War memorials were interesting, but very sad. Very few birds, aquatic or land; industrial pollution or lingering effects of napalm and agent orange? My guess is that US Civil war losers were treated better after their loss than the South Vietnam losers. Generations of South Vietnam families are unable to hold certain positions, for example. No surprise that Olin's theory is that none of the US presidents thought the war was "winnable, whatever that means" nor necessary. I'd like to see more on what the Vietnamese were thinking / wanted. Clearly, they felt their war was "winnable" and necessary. I'd also like to see a comparison with the Korean conflict, one that's still frozen in time with the North and South technically at war with each other. Had we not intervened (or called it quits), what state would Korea be in now? Three Vietnam travel stories: 1. Stay away from the North/South train, yuk! 2. Was in Hoi An and wanted to extend our stay but needed to change hotels. Walked to a hotel on the river in the morning and asked for two rooms with a view, they were happy to oblige. It turns out, every other room in the hotel had zero windows, just closed boxed spaces with bed, bath and a/c. Next day we met a Canadian couple who had been traveling for six months with great stories to tell. We later found out that they had gotten stuck in one of the windowless box rooms in the hotel we were at, even though they had had their room booked for six months prior, a room with a window and a view of the river. Well, guess who had unknowingly taken their window room out from under them *the morning of their arrival* on their well-planned trip🤣? Keep that in mind all you planners, you know who you are 🤣! 3. You’ve seen this girl meets boy movie dozens of times, but “A Tourist’s Guide to Love” is set in Vietnam was really fund and interesting for me because it was approximately the reverse of my trip. The opening shows the hotel we stayed at in Saigon, the closing shows the hotel we stayed at in Hanoi and in, the middle, they show Hoi An. They also show what it’s like to cross a busy street in Hanoi. Not just any street, but the very street I was terrified to cross when a local gentleman came up to me, held my hand, and helped me get across, I was so thankful! Anyway, I’ve never seen another movie that has attempted to be my lived experience before 😉.

[@forestreader]

haha Kent Fuchs that's an awesome name. I bet you do buddy yeehaw!

[@StellarFella]

We were so smug then. We took over the Panama Canal project and showed them how it was done! And we thought we would do it once again by taking over the Vietnam War. Ended up being a 'tar baby' enterprise with no end in sight.

[@ai_serf]

i just wanted to say my highschool did a walk out in northern california, there were hundreds and hundreds of students protesting the war, but no media coverage. also, your argument about people living their day to day live vs calling their constituents may have been forgotton by you. just because the normie can't coerce their senator doesn't mean people don't care. congress people don't care about me.

[@silone20101]

Americans are government has missed that they should not starting wars at the same minds in three states so-called Indochina itself as easy war?

[@sgtcwhatley]

Jfk the genius.....nope

[@davidrodgersNJ]

Based on the first twenty minutes of the lecture, the war seems to have been about glorifying Cornell :/

[@daphuc502]

The US lost Vietnam in 1945 , by being the closed ally and the sole and fully supporter of French war against Vietnamese people. That is like the Germans went into Greece, and the Balkans to " liberate " the indigenous people after the Italian ally have failed miserably. Ngo Dinh Diem asking for america to not support the French in 1953 were absolutely meaningless, by that time the French already packed up humilated capitulated and were about to be dealt the final brutal blow by Vietnamese nationalists , here is nationalists because anyone who fought foreign invaders were foremost nationalists and patriotic before any political ideologies . Diem were head of the French colonial puppet government , actually Bao Dai were the head with prime minister Diem as a traitor foreign puppet government in the French Union, which gave him absolutely no nationalist credentials , neither were South Vietnam ever a Vietnamese government , but a fully French government , since the Geneva conference splitted Vietnam between France and Vietnamese , it were never splitted Vietnam between Vietnameses or between the USSR and the US like korea or Germany .

[@Kavala76]

The politicians drove the Vietnam war? I'm sorry but I don't buy it. Why did the media also support the war? Why did academia also support the war? Who did the politicians serve? Owners and donors maybe? Logevall never really touched on this wider picture. Also, it seemed to me like he was less than keen to answer too many questions at the end.

[@user-qv1gc1vn7o]

the media did not support the war, they are simply reporting the 'fresh' news uncensored back then which was a free speech, nowadays everything on social media is censored even for US. 'Academia support the war', they are not, the student was drafted unwillingly via lottery and even the goverments hide it from their parents, some ran away to Canada, the portests started when the family reconized their kids are on TV in the no man land

[@BigO4185]

Kennedy and Johnson we liberal Democrats. They were the one who went from 700 advisors in non combat roles to 500,000 troops. Truman established MAAG and started sending money to the Vietnam.Truman sent the first advisors to Vietnam. The French started it and lured us in. Foo Rankoo your revisionist history is astounding! Nixon was dealt a crappy hand but he kept his promise and got out of the war. It is strange that this professor relates a lot to students or teachers in Cornell (class 1953) (class of 1973). Cornell was very far from the war and policy.

[@defuse56]

+BigO4185 Agreed. However, the Olin corp., which funds the lecture series, also made ammunition components for the Army during Vietnam. Almost all of the 5.56 NATO ammo fired during the war was manufactured at Frankford Arsenal in PA; my father was the civilian executive in charge of ordnance at the time--he told me Olin was perhaps their biggest supplier. Cornell and Olin go way back. This is not to cast blame; I'm glad the ammo worked as well as it did. Of course, the M-16 rifle needed quite a bit of re-design before it became fully reliable.

[@drjimbomac]

Revisionist drivel. Nixon's repeated assurances to Johnson and public statements were that he ENCOURAGED the RVN to attend the conference. Johnson certainly WANTED to get the US out of Vietnam, but his plan was dishonorable at best. Nixon's strategy was "Peace with Honor," which he achieved in 1974. So why did RVN fall? The Ford Administration and the Democrats refused to honor their agreements to reinforce Saigon if the North violated the agreement. Nixon was perhaps the best foreign policy president in American history, Watergate notwithstanding BECAUSE of his ending the Vietnam War and triangulation of China and the Soviet Union. He deserved a Nobel Peace Prize. And your swipe at Trump is equally stupid for two reasons: (1) Like Nixon, his strategic policy in Asia brought North Korea to the negotiating table, and; (2) His presidency is far from over...but what's been seen thus far, he has been an exceptional success domestically AND internationally. If you want to see failed presidencies, I give you Obama, Carter, Hoover, Harding, Grant, Johnson (Andrew) and Buchanan. This is a mix of Democrats and Republicans / Whigs where massive failure and corruption were present.

[@robertholden3121]

Johnson was a Texas conservative who hated liberals. He had ties with the oil companies and construction giant, Brown and Root. Johnson is the one who expanded the number of military personnel from 16,000 to 540,000. A month before his death, Kennedy sent written orders to the joint chiefs to pull all U.S. troops out by the end of 1965. Truman only provided funding. The big change came with Eisenhower who sent in 700 military advisors and publicly pledged U.S. support, which Kennedy inherited. Eisenhower also stood by Diem's cancellation of the reunification plebiscite of 1956, a violation of the 1954 Geneva Accords. The French did not "lure us in". In general, they took a dim view of our meddling. As far as Nixon goes, yes, he inherited Johnson's war. And he got us out of it. But he did so through the "Vietnamization" plan which entailed a rapid pull-out of U.S. troops, leaving the South Vietnamese to sink or swim. It was well known the ARVNs were no match for the North and never had been.

[@robertholden3121]

LOL...LBJ was totally on board with the hawks until the Test offensive, followed by Army chief, Earl Wheeler requesting another 200,000 men with no guarantee of victory.

[@SandfordSmythe]

LBJ was afraid of "losing Vietnam", a standard political accusation by Republicans. Nixin continued the war for 50% of US KIA's and accomplished nothing that just pulling out would have. He did arrange for himself to look good.

[@Larkinchance]

Oh My God! Trump lost China?!

[@robertcarpenter7486]

Are you trying to be funny?

[@Larkinchance]

@@robertcarpenter7486 It goes back to the 50's when China became communist. The republicans accused the democrats of losing China, but yes, I was being silly...

[@JimDMarines]

It is very interesting to watch as men who live in the freedom and safety provided by US military forces talk about the right and wrong of being in Vietnam. Their claim to fame is that they were born that's it! Listen to the men who were there!

[@drjimbomac]

"Pedophile scum?" You sound like a war protester or news reporter. In any case, its obvious you have no idea what you are talking about.

[@alloomis1635]

no, if you were there, you weren't making decisions for the usa, just doing what you were told.

[@KeithWilliamMacHendry]

Pure pish ya walaper!

[@StellarFella]

My late father was a career Marine who served in Vietnam in 1966/67. At the age of 38. In 1968, 57 Americans were killed each and every day. Today, over 400,000 AMERICAN deaths have been attributed to Agent Orange exposure and that amount keeps on increasing. Today, Vietnam is still communist AND a MOST FAVORED NATION TRADING PARTNER.

[@brendakabanda2181]

Fuck ofg

[@johnvanslykejr.8033]

This address is about as superficial as it gets. There is nothing new to be gained from listening to this talk, and the speaker wastes the first 15 minutes of his time. Harsh? Yes, and with good reason I am a veteran of four years form 1964 - 1969, and I study history of the period. I have friends who worked in Systems Analysis at DOD under McNamara, and others who worked at State. The truth about Vietnam is found in the details, particularly the absurdity of the US military strategy on the ground. Any amateur war gamer could have predicted, and many did, that the US and the French were doomed from the start. Vietnam was a fool's errand. This fellow is very short on details and skims the surface of what happened.

[@StellarFella]

This man is a thorough scholar/analyst who hits the nail on the head again and again. He has great speaking skills that most analysts don't possess. Nothing 'superficial' about him at all.

[@StellarFella]

Wrong! His macro view is spot on. Don't blame him for no fleshing out the micro view. That isn't what the substance of his presentation is all about.

[@genege6301]

This is a waste of time with no facts given. 0 zelch nada

[@jacksonk.fozzbodie213]

A communist view of Vietnam war.

[@havu-oj4qh]

Stupid babbling.

[@gbujarhead6440]

It never fails to cause me great anguish to hear people say that the U.S. "lost" the Vietnam War. The U.S. military was never defeated on the ground. We prevailed on the ground. We, soldiers, sailors and Marines, were defeated by Americans in America. We, who fought in Vietnam, have not forgotten that.

[@drjimbomac]

The facts are much different than the revisionists tell it. When the American forces left Vietnam, the conflict was ended in a cease fire, the aggression of the North was not successful in making all of Vietnam a communist / socialist nation state, and there were protocols established to defend RVN if the North broke the agreement. Was that a victory? Yes, because the USA never intended to invade and conquer the North...just to preserve an American ally from Communist aggression that could create "falling dominoes" all over SE Asia. At worst it was a draw...but certainly not a loss. So you and your compatriots that fought in that conflict succeeded, despite fierce opposition in the battlefields of Asia AND the American streets. In short, you are American heroes.

[@StellarFella]

Today, Vietnam is Communist. It is also a most favored nation trading partner. Go figure. JFK was decades ahead of his contemporaries. He was going to get everyone out of Vietnam in 1965. Please read "JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE" by James P. Douglass. It is probably the best book written on him.

[@robertholden3121]

You were forced to put your lives at risk because some suits at the CIA decided they didn't want Ho to win, regardless if Vietnam had any value to our security.

[@jamesanthony5681]

You're right when you say we were never defeated on the ground when you take all the battles into account. We won the military war with the greatest military juggernaut in the history of mankind, but the VietCong won the political war. Approx. 2,500,000+ Vietnamese were killed between 1962-1975, and still the Vietcong kept coming down the trails. How can you defeat an army such as that?

[@jamesanthony5681]

@@StellarFella He was NOT going to get everyone out of Vietnam in 1965, despite what the late president or anyone else has written or said. Kennedy was a tough talker when it came to communism - all politicians were in 1960 - and he and Johnson and Nixon (and the American right) saw Vietnam in cold war terms, instead of what is really was: a civil conflict. Kennedy puts 16,000 advisers (many were in combat roles- I know, I worked with 2 of them) and then says he's going to pull them out. Really? Kennedy was constrained by his tough talk. He would have been excoriated by the American right. The democrats were in power in 1949 when Mao took over, and 'now Mr. President you're going to let Vietnam go communist'?? Wasn't that one of the points made by this professor? They were haunted by events of the past. Kennedy was Harvard educated, articulate, smart, but as chief executive in the oval office, he made some awfully dumb mistakes. He was, frankly speaking, a terrible president. Some examples to back up that statement.