“Fifty years later, and officials from both countries have the chance to make another round of potentially graver, more calamitous decisions”.

History repeating:

http://youtu.be/yzLT6_TQmq8?si=MvPHSedrjAsHI7RD

I am personally disgusted by your article.

The last that I shall ever read.

The only whitewashing is the author's refusal to accept that, 50+ years ago, the threat of communism in south east Asia was real. Russia and China were large and powerful communist countries and eastern Europe was under communist control. In south east Asia, there had been an attempted communist war in Malaya and the Indonesian government under Sukarno was sympathetic to the ideology of communism. Yes, there was a strong independence/nationalist movement in Vietnam but that did not diminish the threat to other south east Asian countries from a successful communist takeover of South Vietnam (remembering that North Vietnam under Ho Chi Min had a communist government).

How many young lives were wasted and for what!?

Leave communism alone and it will eventually founder as it requires slaves and slavery to prosper. The day comes when even the worm will turn.

I mean, take a butchers at Russia.
Alan B.

Fair comment, Alan B, but the paranoia surrounding the threat of communism in the 1950s and 1960s was extreme and it was far from certain that time would see communist ideology failing.

The problem for the yanks was, they saw Buddhism and communism as the same animal.

Had they left those people alone and allowed free and fair popular elections, the Buddhists who hate communism more than we do would have won in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Our stupidity was to go all the way with LBJ!
Alan B.