The People's Forum
The People's Forum Viet Veteran Dissents Dear Sirs: On January 2, 1969, I was drafted into the United States Army. Unable to accept my country's position in Vietnam, I was faced with three...
...3. The Vietnamese peasant and his culture have been immeasurably wronged...
...Establishment, no...
...Paul H. Adriance Moses Lake, Washington Dear Sirs: The article by Professor Stephen Ambrose, "The Failure of a Policy Rooted in Fear," in the November Progressive, is not just another magazine article but part of the permanent history of the postwar years...
...It has been said, and with some justification, that "truth" cannot be found in history...
...It is alleged that historians, when dealing with international conflicts, succumb to nationalistic or chauvinistic influences or governmental pressure (as in Russia...
...6. In our own country, the Vietnamese war has set distrust and prejudice against reason and restraint...
...It is the force on which the giant corporate establishments depend in their pursuit of imperialistic aims...
...involvement in Southeast Asia is based on naive assumptions motivated out of ignorant fear of any Communist movement...
...But from the moment we were told to begin concocting the phoney report, we never for one instant believed that the report would actually be used to "hang" certain members of the Goodrich engineering hierarchy for their part in instigating the deception...
...The Pentagon, meaning the military establishment, with its political arm, the CIA, is a self-perpetuating body...
...Government's military involvement may be further expanded...
...We were both stunned when the moment of truth actually arrived and we knew that the incredible document was to be published after all...
...I am proud, first, that the behavior of the American student has proven Mr...
...Chip Sharpe Greensboro, North Carolina...
...Behind the sinister evil of B. F. Goodrich (reported by Vandivier as "A Case of Corporate Corruption" in your November issue) looms another evil: why, it is the good Samaritan himself, co-author of a report documenting as acceptable an airplane wheel brake that was in fact dangerously unsatisfactory...
...Would anyone have ever known the truth...
...A large dose of Darvon, unlike aspirin, results in a euphoric dullness which blunts painful stimuli much the way of alcohol or other drugs...
...that in the name of the safety and sacrifice of U.S...
...And while we decide upon the height and girth of his pedestal, Vandivier feels free to make money writing about the corruption of the other employes of B. F. Goodrich...
...servicemen who are against that involvement, I must declare: 1. U.S...
...By intervening, without a declaration of war by Congress, in the civil wars of four Asian countries, President Truman was guilty of a fourfold violation of the Constitution of the United States...
...Sure, we could have refused flatly to have any part of it, and would have been fired or forced to resign...
...Today, those of us to the political left of center strongly condemn the use of the same plea as an excuse for massacres in Vietnam...
...I think that we should leave the Asian mainland now, and tend to our own neglected domestic business...
...Charles A. Asher Earlham College Richmond, Indiana 'Evil' Samaritan Dear Sirs: How comforting it is to us all to know that between us and America's great corporations stand such good Samaritans as Kermit W. Vandivier...
...Reliable gadfly, yes...
...This allegation of bias makes the article by Professor Ambrose exceptional and all the more impressive...
...Ambrose ends his commentary by stating "this is a major tragedy of our times...
...At the present time it has dominion over foreign policy and in turn determines domestic priorities...
...Rhee cast a brief shadow and disappeared...
...But wait...
...There is some evidence—although admittedly not conclusive—that the first news report of the hostilities that broke out on June 25 spoke of South Korea attacking...
...Shillaker makes, but still feel that it was the North Koreans who decided to change the nature of the conflict from border raids to full-scale warfare...
...I sometimes think that the American student has been overly charitable in providing for the Nixon-Agnew Administration an ill-deserved and thoroughly unrequired honeymoon of inordinate length...
...But that the individual criminals themselves can then pose as heroic martyrs is intolerable...
...In the case of Darvon, however, I suspect an additional factor helps to explain the high consumption by the Department of Defense...
...The present calm on the American campus is common knowledge...
...In the face of this effort to tone down rhetoric, just as the President has asked, the American student has been rewarded in the form of such ill-conceived attacks as "college bums," "impudent snobs," and "to-mentose exhibitionists...
...Yet if a fatality had in fact occurred, the blame would in part rest upon the Vandivier-Lawson report and its ties about the brake...
...And how comforting it must be to Mr...
...As for myself, the reasons for not walking out are much more mundane...
...Mrs...
...Are we supposed to equate what is termed a tragedy with winning...
...It seems strange, however, that after rightfully scoring Mr...
...One wonders whether, either in Syng-man Rhee's entourage or among President Truman's advisers there was not a good psychologist, and if North Korea did not fall into the trap set for them...
...Congress, in varying degrees, changes its complexion with each election...
...As opposing candidates in so many races found themselves vying for the Apple Pie vote through the use of innuendoes, sweeping half-truths, and vague references to non-existent social cancers, the victims of these new smears took on a new form...
...Finally, Vandivier piously tells us, he had to salve his conscience somehow—he calls it "a final, desperate gesture of defiance"—so he concluded in his report that the brake was not qualified for use...
...This is not the same as- saying that the North Koreans were aggressors, for they surely were provoked, as Mr...
...Agnew for conducting an election campaign appealing to the basest emotional instincts of our people, The Progressive would run Erwin Knoll's article in the same December issue questioning the effectiveness of John Gardner's Common Cause because it seeks reasoned, rational approaches to burning issues instead of further polarization and violence...
...military may count me as a supporter of the U.S...
...servicemen, the U.S...
...Presidents come and go...
...I have written this as a beginning payment on the debt to my conscience...
...I challenge the worth of such concepts as citizenship, patriotism, and that of the nation-state since each of these concepts is based on assumptions that ignore the basic unity of all men...
...The Progressive is to be highly commended for securing and publishing this manuscript...
...Vandivier and an equally pure-hearted engineer named Lawson wrote the report, With it...
...To your editorial I would like to add a comment concerning what I believe to be one of the ugliest and most peculiar by-products of this fraud...
...Chiang gained a reprieve—the ultimate demise of his regime as a government and Formosa as a nation was postponed...
...involvement in Vietnam and wanting to join in the growing number of U.S...
...On occasions he used them forcefully, if not always wisely...
...Which is to say that Vandivier and Lawson themselves would have to share a large part of the guilt for the pilot's death...
...Some of their parents grew up on it...
...Nevertheless, Lawson and I agreed during the early stages of the game that if the report were actually published, we would go to the FBI with our story...
...foreign policy, "The Failure of a Policy Rooted in Fear," in the November issue...
...foreign policy in the Truman years, one hesitates to mention what might be a minor misjudgment, but I think the statement that "The North Korean offensive was too strong, too well coordinated, and too successful to be simply a counterattack" may be such...
...Nixon wrong and, second, that the vote of the American public has declared him wrong...
...And, though he does have a good job now, he still doesn't know what effect his testimony will have on his future...
...Try it...
...No argument about that...
...I am saddened by U.S...
...Some Vietnam veterans have returned to this country in a state of semi-addiction...
...I fear that my past service in the U.S...
...Evert Bergstrom Los Angeles, California Dear Sirs: I wish to thank you and Stephen E. Ambrose for showing how the United States became involved on the Asian mainland...
...Besides the enormous waste of lives and capital, the United States now exists in two warring camps, each day growing more impatient and less compromising...
...In view of the splendidly unbiased and, I am sure, historically accurate appraisal of the change in U.S...
...Shillaker points out...
...At forty-two, with a high school education and a wife and seven children, I simply surrendered to economic blackmail...
...David Dvorkin Friendswood, Texas 'Economic Blackmail' Dear Sirs: Reader Dvorkin's point is well taken, and from the very beginning of the Goodrich mess both Searle Lawson and I knew that we must share the guilt...
...Stephen E. Ambrose Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas Common Cause Dear Sirs: Perhaps the editorials and the articles aren't always intended to agree...
...Contrary to the majority of appeals which we receive, Common Cause identifies the entire population as being responsible for ameliorating and/or eliminating the ills of our society...
...Unable to accept my country's position in Vietnam, I was faced with three alternatives: (1) leave the United States, (2) go to jail, or (3) allow myself to be drafted...
...For Lawson this could have meant a lifetime blackball, a fact brought out in the committee hearing...
...If we are ever to get this nation away from the Agnew-Nixon version of what one newspaper called "pigpen politics," it will have to be some group like Common Cause...
...What galls me the most about this nauseating affair is Vandivier's tone of self-congratulation: having been one of the major figures in the crime, Vandivier now expects us to praise him as a protector of our tax dollar...
...And, had we both walked out, the report would have been written still...
...And yet we are expected to sympathize with Vandivier's whine, "His words left me little choice...
...Yet, his conclusions are erroneous...
...That's why I just sent in my $15 membership fee...
...Some of the young grob its independence...
...I could either write the report or quit my job...
...I see no value in any ideology that sets one man against another...
...Still holding to the belief that our governmental system could be made to work for and respond to the people and that freedom of dissent remained one of our most cherished freedoms, I chose to remain a citizen of this country—this country having the greatest potential for leading the world to a better future...
...The Truman Administration carried the day and U.S...
...there is no list of "important" people who support it...
...4. The Nixon Administration's policy of "Vietnamization" would be better described as the "Americanization of Vietnam...
...It remains, however, that during his Administration this country was set on a course that was to make the White House and Congress subservient to the Pentagon...
...Apparently the Army uses Darvon not so much for the treatment of physical pain as for the dulling of the mental pain which results from the soldier's having been forced to do our dirty work against the Vietnamese...
...The present policy is not to disengage the United States from South Vietnam, but rather to reduce American casualties to an acceptable level for the American public...
...7. Certain members of the present Administration have done little to alleviate this growing tension, and, in fact, the "rhetoric of insult" has not only divided the citizens of the United States one against the other, but has also been responsible for the despair and low morale of a certain portion of the troops in Vietnam...
...No longer could the pseudo-patriots be content merely to attack each other...
...You have reached the heart of the most disconcerting, non-issue-oriented 1970 campaign, which featured on the one hand, a divisive Administration of galloping demagogues and, on the other, frightened Democratic Milquetoasts whose tactics were hardly any more tasteful...
...Constance Miller Cleveland, Ohio Slandering Students Dear Sirs: I can't compliment The Progressive enough for the brilliant editorial, "The People, Yes," in your December issue...
...Rod Ewing Stanford, California Truth in History Dear Sirs: After reading the article, "The Failure of a Policy Rooted in Fear" by Stephen E. Ambrose, in the November issue of The Progressive, I was immediately reminded of the quotation on page 3 in every issue of your magazine...
...It does not attempt an elitist appeal...
...Thus, the Thieu-Ky regime can lay no claim to the support of our Government...
...When the author of a technical paper adds face-saving conclusions which he is sure will be edited out prior to publication, he is using the cheapest conscience-balm (and one of the most popular) in the engineering lexicon...
...K. K. Baker Olympia, Washington Dear Sirs: Readers of The Progressive are beholden to Stephen Ambrose for his excellent article on postwar U.S...
...5. As American, ARVN, and NVA units moved through Cambodia, it was the Cambodian peasant who became the homeless refugee in his own land...
...I remember seeing a newsphoto of John Foster Dulles looking through field glasses across the no-man's-land just prior to the fatal day...
...The Progressive would perform a service by turning its investigative experience to an examination of how drugs are used to help maintain a willing fighting force in Vietnam...
...But he had preceded this conclusion with 200 pages of fake data showing that the brake was indeed qualified, and he doubtless knew that the report would be carefully edited before publication, so that his single negative and truthful sentence was sure to be deleted...
...Was it just coincidence or did he know that something was going to happen...
...2. The present Thieu-Ky regime is reactionary, repressive, and unresponsive to the needs or desires of the Vietnamese people...
...Robert Shillaker Altadena, California Ambrose Comments Dear Sirs: I agree with each specific point Mr...
...and finally, that burdened by the guilt of the deaths of 45,000 American servicemen, the Government will refuse to acknowledge its mistakes of the past...
...He names Chiang, Rhee, and the Truman Administration as the winners...
...As President, Truman was keenly aware of the powers and prerogatives of his office...
...Desiring to separate myself from the U.S...
...That vast corporations can so victimize us is awful enough...
...Edward A. Johnson Hay Springs, Nebraska Dear Sirs: The four-page letter introducing Common Cause is unique...
...Now, as a Vietnam veteran, I must voice my dissent...
...A lot of others, too, rely on its ammunition...
...Nixon and Mr...
...Well over two decades ago, Western man rejected the notion that "I was only following orders" as a valid excuse for evil-doing...
...Vandivier to know that such publications as The Progressive and the Troy Daily News will pay good Samaritans well to tell just how good they are...
...How brave...
...Say yes...
...Government's policies...
...The PROGRESSIVE Madison, Wisconsin 53703 a document full of fabricated data about a brake which was in reality so unsatisfactory that—as Vandivier states elsewhere in his article—use of the device could quite likely result in the death of the pilot testing the aircraft...
...Kermit Vandivier Troy, Ohio GIs Up on Darvon Dear Sirs: In your November issue, Erwin Knoll explains the predilection of armed forces doctors for expensive substitutes for aspirin as just an extension of the inefficient and exploitative practice of civilian doctors...
...In the name of his right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," these very rights have been suspended in an effort to more effectively destroy the "aggressor"—Vietnamese in Vietnam...
...The "backroom" transfer of power from civilian to the military is a stark reality, the bitter fruit of the foreign policy set during Truman's Administration...
...policies in Indochina and ashamed of my personal involvement...
...imperialism won its immediate objective, but for the present (and the foreseeable future), was that a victory...
...This, and what has followed and is likely to follow, is the tragedy of our times...
...Such was the prescription for the 1970 slander of the American student and university...
...Certainly not an excuse, but surely a reason...
...In Vietnam, Darvon is passed out to the G.Ls in quart bottles and many soldiers stay "up" on Darvon almost continuously...
...Later we were reminded of our guilt by the FBI, which informed us there would be no immunity from prosecution should charges be filed against Goodrich...
...instead, third parties were sought out...
...I believe a search of issues of The New York Times for six months prior to June, 1950, would bring to light that South Korea had made several attacks across the demarcation line, none of them in force, but cumulatively annoying enough to make it fairly certain that the government of North Korea would eventually come to the conclusion, "We have got to put a stop to this, once and for all...
...without the slightest hint of self-reproach, he wishes to occupy a pedestal right next to Ralph Nader's...
Vol. 35 • January 1971 • No. 1
