Below is an excerpt from the Epilogue in my novel, RECALL.
The Vietnam War’s aftermath led to ingrained mindsets and perpetuated confused perceptions lasting decades and into the present. It’s difficult to unravel the complex issues, determine what’s relative, what’s credible in the fog of a war with so many conflicting versions and opinions preserved in the archives and historical literature. Authored by war hawks and anti- war doves, both sides advocate divergent worldviews. Attitudes die hard and reflect the way people behave after perceiving the same event and reaching a different interpretation. Often contradictory viewpoints clash despite authors striving for objectivity. I’m certain to be accused of bias. Naturally, my experience and research influenced my opinions. I offer no apologies. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not their facts. I’ve carefully checked mine and will stand by them. There are “Lies, damn lies, and statistics.” This quote popularized by Mark Twain, is attributed to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s allusion to the persuasive power of numbers. Pick your choice, take any number, and stand in the long opinion line. Find a number that fits your perspective from the broad range of choices. The Vietnam era offers three categories of lies: deception, disinformation, and shameless prevarication. Many are supported by numbers to mask their lack of veracity. Don’t be misled. Do some critical thinking before making your selection. It’s difficult to get comfortable with three shades of lies, but politicians seem not to have any trouble managing all three categories. Fortunately, the truth eventually comes out despite the cover- up, which is often worse than the original transgression.
The most egregious example of LBJ’s ignominious behavior and duplicity came to light in 1980 almost twenty years after the bombing of North Vietnam commenced. War correspondent, Peter Arnett of CBS interviewed LBJ’s former Secretary of State Dean Rusk in a Canadian documentary, The Ten Thousand Day War. Rusk confessed that he and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara provided the North Vietnam government the list of targets the U.S. planned to bomb the next day. Our detailed aerial attack plans were relayed through the Swiss Embassy in DC to their Swiss Embassy in Hanoi. Rusk attempted to justify this policy by saying the National Security Council wanted to demonstrate to North Vietnam that America could strike at will, but wanted to avoid killing innocent people causing collateral damage. A utopian goal on paper, but untenable, impractical, and not well thought- through for real life solutions. Typical of DC’s naïve and fuzzy thinking. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors. LBJ’s administration’s flawed policy vainly attempted to conduct a “noble” war, one at great risk of putting our pilots in harm’s way. The reckless nature of telegraphing of our bombing raids ignored the peril to our flyers, the “noble warriors.” LBJ once bragged our air force could not bomb an outhouse without his approval. On another occasion, he stated wars were too important to leave decisions with generals. That is the essence of astounding conceit and arrogance. Those pompous statements should leave no doubt LBJ was onboard with this contemptible “tip off” policy instituted by Rusk and McNamara. Many principled critics would consider it an act of treason. If not, they should. Where was the outrage? MIA? Like the fate many pilots suffered as a consequence of this deceitful policy? Our pilots soon suspected the enemy had foreknowledge of their objectives, facing heavily fortified ground fire upon arrival at their classified missions’ targets in North Vietnam. Not without reason, the enemy possessed inside information. It was not an uncanny coincidence. North Vietnamese intelligence was not that good. The telegraphing of proposed classified bombing missions represented a reprehensible betrayal of our military by LBJ’s administration, an irresponsible, despicable perfidy, if not treason.
There is no final reckoning of how much this outrageous folly contributed to our loss of aircraft and crews. Or, how many POWs or MIAs resulted from the cause/effect of the betrayal of classified information. Or, how much the LBJ administration’s deceit contributed to the following statistics. Documents verify that ten percent of Vietnam War mortalities were associated with aircraft fatalities.
I’m sure you will find this revelation astounding, as I did while conducting my research to write my historical narrative, RECALL. I found it profoundly disturbing.
Did the media’s anti-war bias cover this deception up ? Why did it take so long (to the 1980’s) before Peter Arnett’s CBS documentary disclosed the LBJ administration’s perfidy to the public? Where was the outrage? Where was the accountability?
Those are questions I address in my novel, RECALL. I link and relate events like this disingenuous and controversial behavior to the polarization of our nation’s politics over the following decades to the present. If this upsets you, I urge you to read RECALL to get the facts and statistics.
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