# If The USA Had Quit Vietnam in 1968? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2008, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713 "2008-04-10T01:50:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/1 "2008-04-10T01:50:14Z")
How amny lives would have been saved? Since the war continued till 1973 or so, what was accomplished for the 5 years? Given the debate about iraq-would it have been better to have “cut and run” from Vietnam in 1968? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/2 "2008-04-10T02:12:33Z")
1957 - 1 1958 - 0 1959 - 2 1960 - 5 1961 - 16 1962 - 53 1963 - 118 1964 - 206 1965 - 1,863 1966 - 6,144 1967 - 11,153 1968 - 16,589 1969 - 11,614 1970 - 6,083 1971 - 2,357 1972 - 640 1973 - 168 1974 - 178 1975 - 160 ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/3 "2008-04-10T03:06:29Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] How amny lives would have been saved? Since the war continued till 1973 or so, what was accomplished for the 5 years? Given the debate about iraq-would it have been better to have “cut and run” from Vietnam in 1968? [/QUOTE] I’m trying to figure out what we accomplished in those five years. It seems to me that Vietnam would look the same today had we left in 1973 or 1968 or 1964. The only difference I can estimate is that there would be tens of thousands fewer Americans killed and wounded, and at least hundreds of thousands fewer Vietnamese killed or wounded. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/4 "2008-04-10T03:12:36Z")
[QUOTE=Ravenman] I’m trying to figure out what we accomplished in those five years. It seems to me that Vietnam would look the same today had we left in 1973 or 1968 or 1964. The only difference I can estimate is that there would be tens of thousands fewer Americans killed and wounded, and at least hundreds of thousands fewer Vietnamese killed or wounded. [/QUOTE] As a Vietnam veteran who spent 13 months and 12 days in the country at the peak of US troop strength and very much against his will, let me say: Amen, Dude. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/5 "2008-04-10T03:51:27Z")
[QUOTE=Ravenman] I’m trying to figure out what we accomplished in those five years. It seems to me that Vietnam would look the same today had we left in 1973 or 1968 or 1964. The only difference I can estimate is that there would be tens of thousands fewer Americans killed and wounded, and at least hundreds of thousands fewer Vietnamese killed or wounded. [/QUOTE] Well, have you ever wondered why there is an Abrams tank and no Westmoreland one? ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/6 "2008-04-10T06:02:59Z")
He got turned into a helicopter. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/7 "2008-04-10T13:11:12Z")
Previous threads: [Vietnam War – wrong to fight or wrong to quit?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=443218) [What if America had used nukes in Vietnam?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=443549) [Bush says it was a mistake to pull out of Vietnam](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=433758) [Is Vietnam better off today than it would have been if the U.S. had not pulled out?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=422789) ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/8 "2008-04-10T14:17:57Z")
The relevant mistake was not to continue to _support_ South Vietnam. The South was quite capably holding against the North (just as South Korea does). The diffierence was in the difficulty of defending a border in Vietnam, but overall the situation was clearly stable; the U.S.'s pullout was not so much military as economic. In any event, the situation was relatively quiet until the American kneecapped the South and the North smelled blood. It was the single most evil act ever perpetrated by any American in history (yes, IMHO even past slavery and the various nastinesses against the Amerindians), but less known and more easily hidden because it was so banal. It was a quiet thing, and as long as we didn’t have to see it, the papers really didn’t care. Its easy to just say, “Oh well, see how it ended: it couldn’t have happened differently.” That’s bull, and unless you believe in some historical determinism there’s no way to even rationally believe it. That said, the military bears part of the blame for the general BS line they adopted during the war. But the various tools in America who pretended the North was some virtuous garden of love and socialist joy were gratuitous idiots, and the moral midgets who cut off aid were losers, too. Some people apparently were of the opinion that if South Vietnam couldn’t stand on its own, it didn’t derserve to live. Ignoring, of course the vast aid handed out by Russia and China to the North. I’m sorry if this seems… vehement… but if you are going to argue that we shouldn’t have gotten involved, fine. Or if you are arguing that it wasn’t worth our (relatively light) losses, fine. But let’s not pretend the North were anything except tyrants. (I know, no one said it. Just sayin’.) And as for the idea that “it was inevitable” - don’t go there. It’s the pinnacle of irrational thought, in defiance of all sanity and history. And it trivializes (when it does not outright ignore) the untold suffering of the relatively decent South Vietnamese government\* under the malicious monstrosity of the Communists. \*Yes, I know it was not your idea of the pinnacle of human social kindness. It didn’t have to be. The standard is not the ideal, but the _alternative_. And the alternative was grinding poverty, purges, mass murder, and at heart the sort of willing stupidity all totalitarian nations get to as a result of their inherent contradictions. … This is a topic which really burns me, if you haven’t noticed. There’s so much excuse-making bull thrown around it makes me sick. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/9 "2008-04-10T14:56:33Z")
[Revisionist histories](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/steinglass) to the contrary, the South Vietnamese government was never able to capture the people’s loyalty except insofar as they saw it as a minimally acceptable alternative to chaos. It could not have survived in the long run, with or without U.S. backing. > [@](#): > > The loyalties of the South Vietnamese citizenry in the early 1970s, as even Moyar argues, were murky and fluid. Exhausted by decades of war, most were willing to back any regime that displayed the organizational strength and determination to govern. Which side displayed such strength? Which side was able to inspire its citizens’ loyalty? The answer is in plain sight. Shortly after Tran Ngoc Hue’s paratroop unit was devastated and taken prisoner in Laos in 1971, a group of American POWs were marched north toward Hanoi through the same area, just north of the town of Tchepone on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. One of them, 25-year-old infantryman David Harker, is cited in the 1975 book Survivors: Vietnam POWs Tell Their Stories, by then-New Republic reporter Zalin Grant: > > > [@](#): > > > > Each day on the trail we passed battalion after battalion of fresh North Vietnamese troops heading south. They walked single file, strung out for long distances, carrying new AK’s, SKS’s, B-40 rockets, heavy machine guns with wheels, and mortar tubes. They humped along quietly, it was hot and a little hazy, and we sometimes got by without their seeing us. > > Twenty-six years after Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam’s independence, seventeen years after Dien Bien Phu and six years after the United States sent half a million troops to fight them, North Vietnamese men and women still volunteered by the millions to go south and fight for a unified Vietnam. They would continue to do so for four more years. It is impossible to explain away those columns of troops pouring south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and difficult to imagine what could have stopped them. > > The implications for American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are not reassuring. Wiest concludes that the United States’ intervention reinforced the South’s fatal dependence on outside help: “The ARVN became spectators instead of participants in what should have been its war.” Like Colonel Honeycutt at Hamburger Hill, we were unwilling to let South Vietnam take the lead, to stand or fall on its own. When we finally did, it fell. The more the United States propped up South Vietnam, the less capable it became of inspiring loyalty. > > The sharpest statement of this conundrum comes from Pham Xuan An, the former Saigon correspondent for Time magazine, who turned out, after the war, to have been a crucial Viet Cong agent. As Larry Berman’s recent biography Perfect Spy relates, An was bitterly disappointed by Communist rule. He had attended college in California and had developed close lifelong friendships with American colleagues. Nevertheless, interviewed by Morley Safer for his 1990 book Flashbacks, An said he had no regrets. “As much as I love the United States, it had no right here,” he said. “The Americans had to be driven out of Vietnam one way or another. We must sort this place out ourselves.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/10 "2008-04-10T14:59:05Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] \*Yes, I know it was not your idea of the pinnacle of human social kindness. It didn’t have to be. The standard is not the ideal, but the _alternative_. And the alternative was grinding poverty, purges, mass murder, and at heart the sort of willing stupidity all totalitarian nations get to as a result of their inherent contradictions. [/QUOTE] :dubious: Vietnam isn’t so bad off under that same government **now,** is it? I very much doubt you could find many people in the southern part of the country who remember the RVN fondly. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/11 "2008-04-10T15:14:01Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] :dubious: Vietnam isn’t so bad off under that same government **now,** is it? I very much doubt you could find many people in the southern part of the country who remember the RVN fondly. [/QUOTE] Gee, when I go to Eden Center here (the hub of economic and social activity for many of Northern Virginia’s Vietnamese citizens) I see a big flag flying over the shopping center - and it ain’t the flag of North Vietnam or post-1975 Vietnam. It is the yellow one with red stripes - Republic of Vietnam. And while you are correct in observing that Vietnam isn’t so bad off now - and these same Vietnamese people would agree as they take advantage of less restrictive travel and trade restrictions - they would tell you that that government wasn’t so nice at the outset - which is how they ended up here in the first place. Furthermore, Vietnam isn’t particularly nice to religious or ethnic minorities - this is a matter of fact that I’m sure you won’t dispute. So your little response ignores quite a bit of history in the interim. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/12 "2008-04-10T15:27:19Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Gee, when I go to Eden Center here (the hub of economic and social activity for many of Northern Virginia’s Vietnamese citizens) I see a big flag flying over the shopping center - and it ain’t the flag of North Vietnam or post-1975 Vietnam. It is the yellow one with red stripes - Republic of Vietnam. And while you are correct in observing that Vietnam isn’t so bad off now - and these same Vietnamese people would agree as they take advantage of less restrictive travel and trade restrictions - they would tell you that that government wasn’t so nice at the outset - which is how they ended up here in the first place. Furthermore, Vietnam isn’t particularly nice to religious or ethnic minorities - this is a matter of fact that I’m sure you won’t dispute. So your little response ignores quite a bit of history in the interim. [/QUOTE] I know all that – just as I know Miami Cubans have no love for Castro, which is why they live in Miami – but in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=422789) we have an actual Vietnamese (as in now living in Vietnam) Doper, **Geekmustnotdie,** who (starting with post #28) expresses a general satisfaction with how things turned out and only wishes the U.S. had pulled out sooner or never intervened in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/13 "2008-04-10T15:40:53Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I know all that – just as I know Miami Cubans have no love for Castro, which is why they live in Miami – but in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=422789) we have an actual Vietnamese (as in now living in Vietnam) Doper, **Geekmustnotdie,** who (starting with post #28) expresses a general satisfaction with how things turned out and only wishes the U.S. had pulled out sooner or never intervened in the first place. [/QUOTE] Uh huh. I certainly understand that that opinion may be common, especially in a country only partly free. 😉 You seem to give certain opinions a lot more weight than others. Certainly it is your right to do so, but it reveals your biases rather clearly at times. Personally, I’m of the view that a vote with your feet is a clear expression of opinion - and I’m not going to discount it right off. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/14 "2008-04-10T15:56:22Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Uh huh. I certainly understand that that opinion may be common, especially in a country only partly free. 😉 [/quote] Free enough for Internet access, anyway. (Unlike, say, China.) [QUOTE=Mr. Moto] You seem to give certain opinions a lot more weight than others. [/QUOTE] Don’t you think the opinion of a resident of Vietnam, who has to live with the war’s results in his daily life, is of more weight on the question of those results than is that of those who gave up on Vietnam and left and now know little more about contemporary Vietnam than you or I do? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/15 "2008-04-10T16:00:41Z")
…if the 800$ billion spent on the Vietnam War , had been spent on giving the Vietnamese a wester lifestyle, every resident of Vietnam would have been a millionaire! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/16 "2008-04-10T16:00:52Z")
Hey, newsflash - for the most part these people didn’t give up on Vietnam - they were forced out of the country by the aftermath of the war. So they are dealing with the war’s results as well. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/17 "2008-04-10T16:07:01Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] It was the single most evil act ever perpetrated by any American in history (yes, IMHO even past slavery and the various nastinesses against the Amerindians), but less known and more easily hidden because it was so banal. [/quote] No longer supporting a thoroughly corrupt regime that didn’t enjoy the support of its people is worse than our enslavement a race for several centuries? And you are saying that the people of Vietnam suffered more in the past three decades than the American Indian did over a couple hundred years? You ought to explain those points some more, because I believe you have lost all perspective. > [@](#): > > Its easy to just say, “Oh well, see how it ended: it couldn’t have happened differently.” That’s bull, and unless you believe in some historical determinism there’s no way to even rationally believe it. It’s easy to say because I believe it is an astonishingly simple case to make. The only time the South had the popular support of the people is when elections were held that resulted in 110% re-election numbers. I throughly condemn the abuses and repression instituted at the hands of the Communist leadership of North Vietnam, but when a nation has a general desire to be united, neither American bullets nor dollars can prevail in the long term over the self-identity of a people. Any perception to the contrary is either illusion or John Wayne flag-waving hysteria. > [@](#): > > And as for the idea that “it was inevitable” - don’t go there. It’s the pinnacle of irrational thought, in defiance of all sanity and history. I went there. Why don’t you try to put together a cogent argument explaining why I’m wrong instead of implying I am insane. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/18 "2008-04-10T16:17:05Z")
A more interesting question is what would have happened if [Vietnam had been allowed to have its scheduled national referendum in 1956.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=463306) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/19 "2008-04-10T16:18:54Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Hey, newsflash - for the most part these people didn’t give up on Vietnam - they were forced out of the country by the aftermath of the war. So they are dealing with the war’s results as well. [/QUOTE] Which does not necessarily mean they know much of anything about Vietnam as it is today. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713/20 "2008-04-10T16:35:58Z")
However much that is true (and I think they know plenty) you certainly seem to be in denial about the reeducation camps, the persecution of ethnic Chinese, and the boat people crisis following 1975. In your post you said these people “gave up on Vietnam.” That’s a rather simplistic way of looking at these events, isn’t it? Pattern of events for you, sadly. You’ll excuse lots of sins so long as a leftist commits them. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-usa-had-quit-vietnam-in-1968/444713.md?page=2)