Richard Nixon Quotes
There are no American combat troops in Cambodia. There are no American combat advisers in Cambodia. There will be no American combat troops or advisers in Cambodia.
The President was lying. American special forces were operational in Cambodia. This is the kind of deception that is puzzling to many in that the enemy knew there were American forces in Cambodia as did our closest allies. The logic of the deception was to not give the Communists a chance of a propaganda advantage by claiming that the U. S. was escalating the war. Cynics claim that Nixon was more concerned with not letting the American public and Congress know that he was widening the war.
Richard M. Nixon, 1913-1994, 37th President of the United States (Republican, CA), Statement, November 1971
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After the French were driven out, Vietnam was supposed to have a national election to choose a government but the people of Vietnam were deeply split between those supporting the Communists and Ho Chi Min (who had led the campaign to oust the French from their colony) on one side and Vietnamese who were more Westernized and favored a democracy. Vietnam was mostly Buddhist but most of the Western oriented leadership of the Democracy advocates were Christians. They wanted to delay the election to give them a chance to organize to catch up with the communists at political organization. Ho Chi Min and the Communists already do facto controlled the North of Vietnam and decided to use force against the Western oriented forces whose military was much smaller than the Communists who had ejected the French. The United States provided financial aid and supplied weapons and Central Intelligence Agency assistance to the South Vietnam forces who were afraid of being overrun by the Communists headquartered in the North. Taylor’s mission was to go to Vietnam, assess the situation and make recommendations to President Kennedy.
Later, when he ran for the Democratic Presidential Nomination had had changed his mind and was a major opponent of the Vietnam War. This was the pattern of so many Americans whose first instinct was to support the government’s decision to wage war, and over time grew disenchanted with the war and ended up opposing the war actively.
sending American troops to Vietnam
Chomsky was not asserting this statement as the truth. He was making the statement assuming that the absurdity of it would be clear to the listener and they would also realize that was what the then government policy was. North Vietnamese had infiltrated the South and had much support in many of the South Vietnamese villages. When the U. S. bombed the North Vietnamese—and the Vietnamese inhabitants—of those villages, the intention was indeed to help the South Vietnamese. If Chomsky were a politician running for office, his opponent might well have taken this quote and used it to “prove” that Chomsky supported the American effort in the Vietnam War when he was a vehement opponent.
Up to that time U. S. policy was to provide training and assistance to the South Vietnamese government and military, but not to attack the North. America had backed a corrupt and incompetent South Vietnamese government and Bundy and other policy makers were convinced that the North Vietnam would win, if the fighting and governing were solely left to the South Vietnamese. Johnson, who had resisted this policy for several weeks finally acceded. It was a major escalation of the Vietnam War.
The U. S. was evacuating all its forces and agents as the Viet Cong overran Saigon. This ended the Vietnam War. The CIA, had been telling the President and the National Security Staff that the Army reports were exaggerated and we were not faring well in the Vietnam War. Events proved them right. Their earlier track record, especially with President Nixon was very poor in intelligence analysis and prediction. See {634511}, {634509}, and {634503} for Nixon’s view of the CIA.
When McNamara was itemizing the list of dangers with the Joint Chiefs’ Cuban invasion plan, McGeorge Bundy told the not to forget the possibility of a nuclear exchange. The Joint Chief’s plan and recommendation was to invade Cuba, which could have been accomplished with relative military ease they thought. However, they had not gone the next steps and had no planned responses to the various possible Russian responses. The Chiefs of Staff were senior battle hardened WWII and Korean War veterans whose tactical knowledge and leadership was as good as there was. However, none of the had any experience or training with the strategic aspects of military planning the way senior military officers did in the next generation of military leaders. The civilian leadership had to put the breaks on the Joint Chief’s notion of simplistic invading Cuba.
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, Nixon previously served as the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961, having risen to national prominence as a representative and senator from California. After five years in the White House that saw the conclusion to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, he became the only president to resign from the office, following the Watergate scandal.
