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By Root 1680 0

media, and most people, want to remember is Kennedy was a hero and Nixon was a jerk. When discussing the presidents, Kennedy is normally credited with the desire to get us out while Nixon is smeared with the idea that he expanded the war. Love them or hate them, Kennedy got the United States in, and Nixon got the United States out. The old rivals of the 1960 debates bookended the war.[384] In the event, Nixon was right when he said the United States must closely evaluate its vital national interests, and Kennedy was wrong when he said we could not give up one foot of free ground. Vietnam was the test of the two theories—and Nixon was correct.

After the Fall

1975 to 1978

It was over. All of Vietnam came under communist rule at an extreme cost to the people of South and North Vietnam. The communists murdered thousands of people who had helped the Americans. Many boatloads of starving, half-dead South Vietnamese people, risking all to flee Vietnam, were picked up at sea. Some refugees made it all the way to Australia by boat. Horrifying stories of oppression and murder were recounted. The numbers who died trying to flee the “workers’ paradise” of communist Vietnam are unknown, but it was clearly many thousands.

Worse was to come.

The communists took over the rest of Laos and Cambodia. Little is known about events in Laos, but in Cambodia the truth bled out. Literally. On April 17, 1975, the communists under Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh the capital of Cambodia. Immediately thereafter Pol Pot began systematically killing millions of Cambodians—because they were city dwellers.[385] The communist Khmer Rouge marched millions of innocents into the countryside to “teach” them how to be peasants. In fact, no re-education occurred. It was simply a plot to kill everyone that lived in the cities. There was no reason to execute these people. This debauchery was a direct result of the communist takeover of Vietnam.

Why? The Analysis of the War and its Aftermath

The strange circle of history was complete. The United States turned down the French when they asked for aid against the communists, then the United States, under President Kennedy, committed troops to Vietnam. Following Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson fully committed the United States to Vietnam and then refused to use the available power of the US Military to “win.” Then President Nixon, Kennedy’s rival in the 1960 election for president, took office and got America out of Vietnam with a treaty guaranteeing the North would respect the South’s sovereignty. Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment, Congress forbade aid to South Vietnam, the communists invaded with a large army, and South Vietnam fell. Then, as predicted, Indochina began to fall to the communists, and slaughters of vast proportions took place in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and probably Laos.

Did all of Southeast Asia fall to the communists? No. Burma and Thailand remained non-communist without massive intervention of US Troops. Both nations were threatened with communist guerilla insurgents for a while, but those problems were held in check. What was the difference? The key difference concerned the governments and people of these nations. Both nations possessed marginally decent governments in 1975, in that, corruption levels were less than Vietnam. In both of these nations, the population remained at least somewhat loyal to the government. The terrain was similar, but the people and the governments vastly different. The communists failed to make inroads when the population remained loyal to the government and rejected communist intimidation tactics.

In addition, the lessons of Cambodia and Vietnam became well known throughout Southeast Asia. People could see what it meant to lose to the communists. The population began to reject the murderers’ lies and realized what they faced under communist rule. Understandably, the people of Thailand, Malaya, Burma, and Indonesia wanted nothing to do with the bloodthirsty murderers.

Another reason might have been in play, but one seldom discussed. The