Rumsfield is right…,
if you read the now available secret white house tapes of Lyndon Johnson. Everything Johnson said and everything all the presidents staff said and thought, are now available for all to read.
Since there was no plan, no intention, and no way to win that war(according to Johnson, Clark, Dirkson, McNammara, etc and all the presidents advisors and the Joint Cheifs of Staff), the draftees added nothing to a losing cause and to a war that they did not want to win.
The draft did not change the war in Vietnam in any way, other than to add to the body counts on both sides. The North Vietnamese matched EVERY increase in drafted american troops, as so noted many times by Johnson and McNammarra.
Vietnam did not even have to call upon the hundreds of millions of Chinese if they needed to. Johnson knew full well and so admitted that any war of “attrittion” against the asian peoples, could not be won.
Rumsfield is right…,
read the books : “Taking Charge”, and “Reaching for Glory” which are published books of the early Johnson white house tapes, available anywhere.
Those books(i.e. Johnson own words) say that the draft did not make any difference in the outcome of the war.
The complete set of white house tapes are now available in the Johnson library.
Nixons not so secret “intention” in ending the draft, was to reduce opposition and demonstrations to the vietnam war.
If any war is just and popular with free citizens, no draft is necessary. If Amerians believe that war is needed(e.g. immediately after Pearl Harbor), the lines to join will be so long, that it will tie up traffic.
This just in.
I am perfectly satisfied with the Secretary’s response – it respectfully clarifies his statement.
Excerpt:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, responding to growing criticism for recent remarks about draftees adding “no value” to the U.S. military, offered a “full apology” yesterday to veterans groups and their supporters in Congress.
“Hundreds of thousands of military draftees served over the years with great distinction and valor – many being wounded and still others killed,” Rumsfeld said in a letter sent last night to the American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America and other veterans organizations. “The last thing I would want to do would be to disparage the service of those draftees.”