178. The Vietnam War: Nixon, Vietnamisation, and the Fall of Saigon
57:13 Share

If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, ad-free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.empirepoduk.com.

In the 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee L, the journey from point A to point B isn't such a rush. In fact, with three rows of spacious comfort, thoughtfully crafted luxurious design, and an available premium Macintosh audio system, you'll find yourself seeking out the scenic route more often, even if it's just another lap around the block. Jeep. There's only one. Visit Jeep.com to learn more. Jeep is a registered trademark of FCA US LLC.

With an hour before boarding, there's only one place to go: the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. There, you can recharge before the big adventure, or enjoy a locally inspired dish. You could recline in a comfy chair to catch up on your favorite show, or order a craft cocktail at the bar.

Whatever you're in the mood for, find the detail that moves you with curated touches at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com slash sapphire reserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval.

Why is it that with sparkling water, I'm always playing guessing games with what flavor I'm drinking? Is it citrus? Is it aluminum can flavored? Not sure. Sparkling ice though, they really mean flavor. Like in your face flavor. Orange mango, black raspberry. Don't even get me started on the strawberry lemonade. Kiwi strawberry slid right into my taste buds DMs last night and let them know who's boss. No subtleties there and no sugar either, but it does have vitamins and antioxidants. Find sparkling ice at a major grocery store or club retailer near you. Sparkling ice, anything but subtle.

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William Durumpo. And we are joined once again by, I have to say, one of my favouritest, and I don't care if you write it about the grammar of that, but it's true, Frederick Longaville, author of Embers of War, The Fall of an Empire, The Making of America's Vietnam.

And this has been just so eye-opening. It has been so important because we have these sort of bulwark breaks of Vietnam, courtesy of people like Oliver Stone. But to have the bits that make it relevant, that make it make sense, to flesh out...

two-dimensional characters is just terrifically helpful. Just to see it treated in a sort of proper academic history is something to be studied and to be looked at in terms of policy and narrative and to see it also, which is so interesting from the perspective of decolonisation and empire,

rather than just as a place where Americans get to fire off palm trees and smell the tang of napalm before breakfast. What's the line? I love the taste of napalm in the morning. But can I also... I mean, Frederick, you're an expert. Do you object, as strenuous as I do, to his pronunciation of napalm as napalm? I mean...

I mean, what is he doing? It's a very old pronunciation. Frederick, you're from Harvard. Tell him. Well, let's just say it's a very unique pronunciation. Thank you. We should be having you on this podcast every week, Frederick. That's just Harvard for wrong. That's not how it is. I'm just saying. He's a very polite person.

Polite man. He is very polite. Napalm. Anyway, look, in the last episode, we left LBJ leaving office and having second thoughts. But you said something so tantalizing in that episode. You said, actually, there was part of him that did want to come back, but...

but another part that thought Nixon, not somebody from his own party, would be the best inheritor of the mess he had found himself in. And tell us a little bit about what Nixon is saying. Well, first of all, tell us about not the cartoon version of Nixon, but the real Nixon. Who was he? Where does he come from? And does he have thoughts already formed on Vietnam? Well, Nixon, of course, is from California and

one of the most important political figures, I think it's fair to say, of the 20th century in the United States. He had been Eisenhower's vice president. He was famous as a red baiter, as somebody who would go after liberals and Democrats, as being insufficiently anti-communist.

He had run and lost to JFK. This is an interesting part of this whole story. Had lost the 1960 election, very close election to Kennedy. He was the Republican nominee and now has an opportunity in 68.

after some years in the wilderness, as he called it, to come back and actually try again. And lo and behold, he becomes the Republican nominee. The other thing I think we should note about him is that in 54, when Eisenhower is weighing this important decision about whether to go in and try to save the French position at Kim Bien Phu, among those who vociferously supported military intervention was none other than Richard

So none of the doubts of JFK, none of the suspicion of LBJ, yeah, he's full in there. Fully in there, this sense of JFK, which was that in an age of decolonization, the United States can't simply be anti-communist, period, full stop. It needs to be for something,

I think that way of thinking was foreign to Richard Nixon, and he's now in the fall of '68, the Republican nominee. Yeah, and he's not on his own because there is another massive figure like a Germany cricket on his shoulder, and that is Henry Kissinger, who died only earlier this year, a childhood refugee from Nazi Germany, a man who, it is said, had an intellect of the size of a mountain, but also

had some very, very strong views on foreign policy. Yeah, he did. And one of the big questions, as far as I'm concerned, that still needs to be fully answered by historians, is what did Nixon and Kissinger really believe about the war when they took office? Nixon as president, Kissinger as his national security. Historians are divided on this question. My own view is that they both had private, and the key word there is private, private doubts about

about whether any strategy was going to succeed. Hardly surprising, given the fact that the area of American influence is diminishing every day. You'd be crazy to be an optimist. Yes, and these are two smart individuals. And I think there is tantalizing evidence that Kissinger

walking around Harvard Yard, a professor at Harvard, prior to entering the government, Kissinger in '68 was saying to his faculty colleagues, in so many words, "We're not going to be able to win this thing." In other words, he was gloomy in those sessions. I actually met Kissinger and had dinner with him once and had a little chat to him about this.

And he said he was very much taking the view that it's easy in hindsight to know what happened. These were very difficult times. He was very unrepentant. He was surprisingly charming. I had expected not to like him at all and even was sort of all set to hate him. And he was clever, charming, flirtatious around the rest of the table in his 80s. Life and soul of the party still. I mean, very, very lively company. Yeah, oddly unrepentant about this. He defended his record.

Yeah, and that's a very commonly held view of the people who interacted with Kissinger in later years. The argument that he made to some extent at the time, but then also later, maybe even in your session with him, was that it was about credibility, that American credibility was ultimately at stake. And the fact that you had half a million troops on the ground, which the United States did when they entered office, had settled the question, according to Kissinger, of how important Vietnam was.

American credibility demanded that you see some kind of acceptable solution. Now, other critics would say, and many of us would say after the fact,

that this was bogus, that American credibility was not in fact at stake. To the extent that it was, it was going to be harmed further if the United States continued with a losing military effort. But the argument that he made, and to some extent Kissinger made, and I think it helped shape their strategy in those critical early months, was that you needed for the sake of America's position on the world stage, you

you needed to have some kind of political settlement. And I don't think they doubted that negotiations wouldn't be necessary, but it had to be an acceptable agreement that preserved

South Vietnam as an independent non-communist entity into the foreseeable future. I think that was the objective going in. Well, I mean, spoiler alert, it doesn't go that way. And I just wonder, just pausing for one second, if we can talk about this. I've often thought about this, and let's just have a chat about it because it's a little monologue I sometimes have.

on my own, lonely at night, which is why don't people repent later, especially when they see that decisions they have made have cost so many lives, have ultimately gained them not one inch of ground, credibility, or power? Why don't they repent? I mean, you've studied great men. You're currently working on a book about JFK and trying to unravel what made him tick and what made him do the things that he does. Is it that you would go mad

if you stopped and thought, actually, I really screwed that up? I mean, I think it is partly, and maybe this is human, maybe it's not just leaders, but maybe all of us have this to some degree, to will yourself to believe that if only we apply a little more pressure, if only we try this thing that we haven't tried before, we can turn this around. And there's certainly that first on the part of the French in Indochina, leader after leader says, I think I can somehow make this thing work out.

And then it's true of the Americans. So I think there's some of that. There's also, I think, some version of what is sometimes called the sunk cost fallacy. And so it goes something like this. We've already lost X number of soldiers. If we don't make this thing work out in some fashion, their lives will have been lost. So we got to hang in there to justify the losses we've already experienced.

You put those two things together and then add in the American political context, this domestic anti-communism, this inclination of especially Republicans, but also Democrats, when the shoe is on the other foot, to charge leaders who are not vigilant enough with losing to communists, that fear is there. So there's careerism on the part of both

leaders and their subordinates. Yeah, I mean, Willie, you're listening to this and I know you think about this too. I just on a human level, you said it's quite human. I regret loads of things. I wish I'd done things differently. I wish I'd done things better. And I hope not to repeat the same mistakes again. And to me, it feels a little bit like toddler thinking. You know, when you have a little kid

and you're walking him around a supermarket and he suddenly wants something, you don't give it, he doesn't get it. And instead, this child, and I have two, doubles down and doubles down until there is a self-harming screaming mess on the floor in front of you. I mean, I'm just often, again, shocked at how grown-up people don't just take stock from time to time and say, you know what, we've lost so many men. This is bad. We're not going to win this. Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more that surely one mark of maturity...

which is what we expect of our elected officials. One mark of maturity is to be able to say, you know, having thought about this and having learned about the intelligence and having learned about what's actually going on, I now see that I was wrong.

that we were embarked on a course that we shouldn't be on, and therefore we're going to shift. But I think another important point is the global context of this. We're now entering the early 1970s. The battle which had started in Korea and the Berlin Airlift has now spread to Angola, to Mozambique. You've got the 1971, isn't it, the coup in Chile. This is a global struggle.

And if you just pull out and pack out of Vietnam and lose that one and acknowledge that it's a non-starter, the worry is that all these other places that you're arming and supporting and all these other, you know, the dams will break in every continent. Yes, absolutely. And it's a version of the domino theory, isn't it? Yeah. But it's not the geographic domino theory that we think of, whereas, you know, where you have one domino and then it topples the others. So it's not about one country falling

falling and then adjacent countries falling. Now, as you're saying, William, it's a global psychological domino theory, as Jonathan Schell put it, and I think he's absolutely right. And by the way, closely connected to this notion of credibility by one way of thinking, if you allow South Vietnam to be taken by North Vietnam, American adversaries will no longer fear the United States. American allies will no longer be able to

depend on the United States. I think you're right. That thinking is there. No question. I just remember from a child, I mean, I was born in 1965, and even towards the late 70s when I was old enough to start reading this stuff, you had those things in...

books that were available even to young children of the different number of tanks, the different number of helicopters, the number of missiles, the number of ICBMs, and the relative scale of the puny forces in the West against this enormous army in the USSR. And pictures of rather sort of scary-looking Russian troops, often kind of just very different, very much of the other

inarmoured personnel carriers. I remember sort of imagining them rolling around my sort of borders countryside. That's for the consumption of excitable little boys and girls as well, because I've seen much the same thing. But you also have briefings, you have intelligence, you have the experience of the last incumbent in the White House. And what Nixon does inherit is a dire situation. You've got 200 Americans dying every week, Americans spending a

30 billion a year on this wall, which briefing after briefing is saying, you're not going to win it. There's the boy's own version, which is fine. That's for public consumption. We understand all of that. But if your briefings are telling you, this is what happened before, this will happen again. What is the mindset that then comes in and goes, you know what? We're going to win this. I knew I went to hell with all of that. We're going to win it. There is quite a sensible change of policy, isn't there, at this point, which is the Vietnamisation policy.

of the war. Tell us about that, Frederik. Yeah, so Vietnamization is, as the name suggests, it's a reversal of Americanization. So Americanization involved the United States taking over not only the direction of the war effort, but to some extent also the fighting of the war effort. Vietnamization, which really begins under Lyndon Johnson, it's not, or at least the idea is substantially conceived late in the Johnson years.

but it's implemented under Nixon, is the reverse. You're now going to turn much of the war fighting back over to the South Vietnamese. Americans will still largely direct the fighting, so American commanders are still going to be critical, but more of the burden is going to be borne by the Vietnamese. And so that has the effect, as it's hoped it will, of reducing agitation on America's college campuses.

It to some extent reduces the amount of opposition that's brewing in Congress. It does diminish the gradual withdrawal of American forces, does diminish the anti-war opposition in the United States, and understandably so. It does also sound a lot like American foreign policy in Afghanistan, if I may say. Yeah, I think there are really interesting parallels, which we can discuss

between the two wars, and that's one of them. Okay, let's talk about Nixon and his madman theory. So he wants to win this, that we've made clear. He thinks on some level he might be able to, although he comes into office, as you said already, doubting that that is possible.

What is his policy then? Is to put his foot right down on the accelerator? What does he want to do? Well, what he's hoping to do is to use Vietnamization, the gradual withdrawal of American troops, combined with an increased air war. In other words, he's going to step up the air war and he is going to widen the

the theater of operations with respect to the air war, and he hopes that those two things combined with linkage, that is to say, combined with perhaps

inducing Moscow and maybe Beijing to put pressure on the North Vietnamese. This part is always a bit murky. Maybe get Moscow in particular to lean on Hanoi to agree to American terms. He embarks on this strategy in 69 in the hopes of turning the war around. That's, I think, the essence of what he's doing early on. And is it not Kissinger's specific idea to bomb Cambodia? He's always blamed that it'd be a really smart idea to bomb.

bomb the shit out of Cambodia and that incredible amount of munitions which is dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail at this point now. Is it Kissinger's fault? Who comes up with that idea? Blame has to be spread and ultimately it seems to me it's the president's responsibility. So I would say that the

The two men are jointly responsible. It's true that Kissinger advocated this expansion of the war, but Nixon felt that it was important as well. And that if you are going to turn this around, which they hope to do, and had thoughts of doing in those early months, as we've discussed, this was going to be the way to do it.

And of course, it also results in an invasion of Cambodia, as we know, in 1970 that goes disastrously. But I would say it's both men. But it's a doctrine. They even give it a name, what they're going to do here. It's called the madman theory. And what Nixon says about it, he says, I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop this war. Well, that's true. And the madman theory as a general principle, if that's the right word, probably isn't

is very much in operation. And I think there is this belief that if you can get them to believe, and maybe by extension, Moscow and Beijing to believe, that this guy, the new president, will do anything, then maybe we can use that to our advantage. And so they do try to play that card with, I would say, at best, mixed success. And how soon after declaring yourself to be a madman who's capable of anything, any amount of destruction,

Does the start of ping pong diplomacy occur with Nixon going to China? That extraordinary event that nobody ever thought could happen suddenly does happen. Which got turned into an opera. I saw it was, John Adams. That's right. It sure did. And I want to say on that score, to my way of beginning, that Kissinger was deeply dubious of the whole China opening.

He often later would claim credit for it, or at least shared credit for it. But at the time, it was Nixon. It was the president who said, we're going to do this. We're going to have an opening to China. It's the right thing to do for our national security. I, as a Republican, can do it. No Democrat could probably do it.

But I, as a Republican, can do it. Only Nixon can go to China. But Kissinger was skeptical of the whole endeavor until pretty late in the game. Nevertheless, it happens, as you say. It is connected to the Vietnam War because there's a hope, again,

that the communist powers will force Hanoi to the bargaining table on America's terms. That you can use these communist powers to lean on Le Xuan and the leadership in Hanoi doesn't really work, of course, as we know, because the war continues. But both sides, both the United States and the North Vietnamese,

and also the South Vietnamese come to see that there are reasons here to give negotiations a more serious try. Both sides, I think, ultimately want something to happen. Well, I mean, people are tired. People are dying. In large numbers, yeah. That's one of them, a hugely motivating factor. It's called ping-pong diplomacy, and sometimes people use these phrases without understanding or knowing perhaps the full story behind this.

But this is the American ping pong team being invited to China in April 1971 that almost makes it possible for Kissinger then to go over, pave the way for this great Nixon goes to China moment. That's why it's called ping pong diplomacy, not because they're just exchanging ideas across, you know,

No, no, they're actually playing. And of course, the Americans will get their clocks cleaned because, you know, you're talking about the best table tennis players in the world somehow having to humor these American pretenders. But yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And it's about increased, to some degree, increased cultural contacts. This is one example of that.

various means, which by the way, have been discussed in the American government for a long time, even under Kennedy, the guy I'm researching now. Kennedy thought this policy we have of excluding China and of not having relations with China, the world's largest population,

This is crazy. We've got to move toward some kind of rapprochement. So this has been building for years. And it's Nixon who, to his credit, Nixon acts on this. Can I just read you something from Nixon about explaining himself? I think maybe even to Kissinger about why he was going to do what was unthinkable until this moment.

He says, we're doing the China thing to screw the Russians and help us in Vietnam and maybe down the road to have some relations with China. But to screw the Russians, first of all, and maybe help us with Vietnam and the better relations with China. So he's very, very clear about what he wants out of this meeting. I mean, that's partly if it is to Kissinger, it partly could be because Kissinger, again, is skeptical of this. And so he's wanting Henry, as he would say, you know, Henry, this is

This is why I'm doing this. You know, there are other times when Nixon believes that a relationship with Beijing is necessary for a whole host of reasons. It's not just screwing the Russians or helping us in Vietnam, but it's there, no question. And just for those, again, who are new to this side of the story, how is Nixon greeted in China? What is the kind of reception that he gets? I think he gets a good reception. I think the Chinese have their own reasons for wanting an improved relationship with Washington. And

And I think both the Chinese leaders and to the extent that ordinary Chinese are able to observe this and see this extraordinary visit, I think it's a positive experience on the whole for them. And I think for Nixon, and of course, Nixon has the immortal words that he utters when he's on the Great Wall. He says, wow, this is a great wall.

Only Nixon could say that quote. But the optics are all there. I mean, the optics are right. Again, we've talked about this being the age of mass communication, massive crowds of young children waving flags and dancing and garlanding and all of that kind of stuff, which has not happened before. Absolutely true. The other thing we should say about his visit to China is that it's happening at a point, I believe, and I think the evidence supports this,

It's happening at a point when he has concluded and Kissinger has concluded that

that the best that they can hope for in Vietnam is what comes to be called a decent interval. That no longer are we going to be about securing a victory against North Vietnam that preserves South Vietnam forever, or at least for a long time. Now what we're going to be about is having a decent interval. There's a quote, isn't there? That's, all we ask is a degree of time so as to leave in such a way there's a communist victory is not guaranteed.

However, we are prepared to leave so that a communist victory is not excluded. I think de facto, though, what they say behind closed doors is that they are under no illusions by this point that the end result is going to be South Vietnam falling to the north. And the question is when? How soon after an American withdrawal will that happen? That is the question that I think they're debating. Again, not publicly, but confidentially behind closed

Right. But I mean, publicly, what the world sees and what the North Vietnamese see is, hang on a minute, how the hell did Nixon get to China? And then the next minute after that, it paves the way for Nixon to go to Moscow. I mean, if you thought China was a fever dream, people seeing an American president visiting Moscow at this time must have felt like, I don't know, some kind of LSD hallucinogen had been

released upon the world. One could say that this is Nixon's miracle. It's his annus mirabilis. Well, no, that's not true because 72 is also so problematic as far as the war is concerned. Yeah, 72 on the ground is a highly, the bombing increases. 72 is the year when the famous picture, for those that don't know it, of this naked girl

aged about seven or eight, running with her arms outstretched along the road with all these kids around her, all in tears. And behind it, this wall of napalm flames rising in the background, an image of true horror. And this, of course, is something that leads to increased demonstrations in America, more and more calls for the end of the war, and an awareness of the effect of this

war on kids. Why are these things happening at the same time? On the one hand, you're whispering nicely to Moscow and Beijing, and on the other hand, you're dropping napalm on children. Well, I think it's from the perspective of Nixon, I think it's...

A belief that you've got to maintain the pressure, military pressure on Hanoi, so you need to maintain the bombing and indeed maybe increase the bombing to get Hanoi to the table to make concessions. On the other hand, or simultaneously, a growing realization that the rapprochement, the opening to China in particular, didn't have the hoped-for effects.

It didn't cause Hanoi to appreciably change its position, which leads to frustration, which leads to a determined to up the ante militarily. But we should note, beginning in the spring of '72, continuing into the summer of '72 and then the fall,

Both sides are coming to the realization that things can't go on as they've gone on. Nixon knows he's got to end the war. Hanoi now wants to reach some kind of settlement. It's a very important moment in the story that the North Vietnamese determine they can't just continue year after year. They're prepared to do it if necessary, but if we can get an agreement with the Americans...

Let's do it. And so you see this stalemate at the bargaining table begin to, what's the word? Loosen up. Loosen up a little bit. Yeah. And one of the things that's fascinating about this from my perspective is this. If you listen to the Nixon tapes and think about this, we have 4,000 hours of Nixon tapes. Somebody's got to listen to all of these. It won't be me. What?

What does it sound like, actually? But what does it sound like? I mean, is he just drawling to himself? I mean, tell me, give me a flavour of these tapes. It's a range of conversations with a range of people. I'll be honest, I've listened mostly to the ones with people like Kissinger or Melvin Laird, the Secretary of Defence, or others of that kind.

extraordinary resource to have. A lot of self-pity, a lot of railing against domestic opponents, you know, Daniel Ellsberg, what are we going to do with this communist? Daniel Ellsberg is the journalist who he holds responsible for all his bad press. Yeah, the journalist who leaked the Pentagon Papers, a remarkable figure in his own right. But there's a lot of that kind of thing on these tapes. But the reason I mention the tapes here is quite candidly, he must forget that the tape is on.

Quite candidly, Nixon basically asks, do we want, and I'm paraphrasing, do we want the agreement before the election or after the election? Right. Which is stunning to me because what he's really saying is that American lives, not to mention Vietnamese lives,

are going to be at stake because of what's best for my party and my re-election. That is shocking. But hardly surprising. Well, I mean, do you know, the thing is, it is surprising because these things are all on tape. That's surprising. Everybody sitting in the Oval Office knows that these things are being recorded for posterity.

And I just wondered, again, as a man who is not cognizant or rather forgets that there are tapes, is he the kind, apart from the self-pity, is he the kind who is effing and jeffing and losing his temper? How does it work? I mean, I've heard things, but I haven't heard the tapes. Yeah, he is very candid and will disparage groups of people. He will disparage individuals. He will curse people.

There was actually a diplomatic incident at one point when the tapes first came out, when Nixon is out there calling Mrs. Gandhi a bitch and worse. And the Indians lodged diplomatic protests, if I'm not wrong. Yeah. I mean, what you see in the tapes, it seems to me, is a person. And Kissinger's no better, by the way. He's a sycophant on lots of these tapes. He is groveling. He is affirming Nixon, you know, left, right, and center. But what you see in Nixon, it seems to me,

is a person who sees all of his Vietnam options through the lens of domestic politics, which shouldn't surprise us. It's kind of a theme in my own scholarship that domestic politics matters enormously in American foreign policymaking, as it does in other countries, although I would say more in the United States than in other countries. But it's still striking to listen to them and to hear him say, you know,

Do we want this deal before the election? And so tell us about this peace deal that suddenly emerges on the 23rd of January, 1973. So the basis of this deal was really in place by the late summer. And then for various reasons, it collapsed. And then after Nixon's thumping reelection, landslide victory, he wants to get the deal back on. And so the so-called Christmas bombing is launched.

which is a very intensive bombardment of targets in North Vietnam over Christmas that leads to worldwide condemnation. The prime minister of my native country, Olof Palme, Swedish prime minister, compares this to Nazi atrocities in World War II, for example. But it's worldwide. And one of the large questions for historians is, did this drive the North Vietnamese back to the table?

And I think people's opinions are divided on this. The point is, whether the Christmas bombing affected this or not, we do indeed get the Paris Peace Accords in late January of 1973. And basically what it calls for is a ceasefire. It calls for the release of American POWs. The last American ground troops will be out by the end of March, according to the agreement.

And you will have, for an indefinite period, a continuation of a North Vietnam and a South Vietnam with provisions for some kind of political settlement at some point in the future. I think I'm capturing the essence of the agreement. No, no, exactly that. I'll tell you what Nixon told the American people three days after being re-elected when he's talking about this American withdrawal that's coming up.

He says, we have today concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honour.

in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Ominous phrase. It's an odd phrase considering it's after the Christmas bombings and after the world has turned around and said, you know what, this is not okay and we are not with you anymore. You know, I think about the symbolism of this moment and I've written a little bit about this, but Lyndon Johnson, a man broken by this war, politically killed and maybe physically killed

in a way, by this war, is in his final hours of life down in Texas. And he has to listen to Richard Nixon say that we have secured peace with honor. I don't know what must have gone through LBJ's mind if he was listening to this. What he thought of the fact that it's his successor now,

who has secured this agreement at long last. A peace agreement is in place, signed in Paris, and the Americans are nominally out of the war. But what does this actually mean on the ground? Because the drama is not yet over, and in fact, the most dramatic days are ahead of us. With an hour before boarding, there's only one place to go, the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. There, you can recharge before the big adventure.

or enjoy a locally inspired dish. You could recline in a comfy chair to catch up on your favorite show or order a craft cocktail at the bar. Whatever you're in the mood for, find the detail that moves you with curated touches at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com slash sapphirereserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval.

Awaken your senses with a curiously refreshing Hendrix Cucumber Lemonade. Curious how? Cue the aroma. Marvelous! Cue the taste. Magnificent! Cue the cucumber. That's the refreshing secret. Hendrix is uncommonly crafted with cucumbers, roses, artistry and imagination. Other gins are ordinary, but Hendrix is... Refreshingly curious. Discover Hendrix Gin cocktail recipes at HendrixGin.com. Please drink the unusual responsibly. Hendrix Gin, 44% alcohol by volume. Bottled and imported by William Gunton Sons, New York, New York. Copyright 2024.

Who doesn't love getting something for free? Labor Day deals have arrived at the Home Depot and right now you can get a free Milwaukee 18-volt extended capacity battery, $159 value, when you buy a select tool. Get longer runtime and more battery life so you can power all your fall projects. Shop Labor Day deals and get a free battery when you buy a select tool at the Home Depot. How doers get more done. Limit one per transaction. Exclusions apply. Full eligible tool list in-store and online.

you

Welcome back. So the Americans are now saying that they're leaving. How quickly does that happen and what does that feel like on the ground in Vietnam? They leave in about two months. By the end of March, the last American troops are gone. I think from an American popular perspective, this is just greeted with wholesale relief. I don't think there's much angst, perhaps among some in Congress, maybe some in the right-wing press,

are upset about this or agitating for some sort of way of staying in. But I think for most people, this is now a chapter that they hope they can put behind them. Of course, it's not over for the Vietnamese. Right. But for most Americans, they can now say that this chapter is closed.

And do Vietnamese think that this is a betrayal? This is just them pulling out and leaving the house to burn down without them? Yeah, on the part of many South Vietnamese, that's exactly the feeling, that the Americans are leaving us here in a lurch. The Americans are going to leave us to our own devices. Maybe they'll still provide aid. Maybe we'll get air cover at best, or at least support in some regards. But I do think there's a sense of betrayal, a feeling of resentment here.

on the part of South Vietnamese and on the part of North Vietnamese, it's really interesting. They have to regroup as they do. They have to figure out what they're going to do next. And what they ultimately decide to do, of course, in 1974,

and then they launch it in 75 in a serious way, is an effort to conquer South Vietnam. But that's a period of decision-making in the North that takes time. And it wasn't always that they signed cynically, imagining that they're just going to walk in as soon as the last chopper's gone. No, no, no. I think the feeling in North Vietnam, it's really quite interesting, was that this

The final phase of the military struggle, which would involve conquering South Vietnam, might take up to two years. So they were anticipating that this was going to be a slog. This was going to be a difficult endeavor. And of course, it turned out to be something else entirely. It was a knife through butter.

when in fact the offensive was launched, which raises questions about South Vietnam, which we should also discuss. But also there is this realization from troops on the ground, senior brass, that they are leaving behind them a shit show, that this is a disaster that is imminent and that is not sort of peace with honor, but we're on the verge of a bloodshed. Wasn't there one army general who says,

we are leaving behind us not a country with an army, but an army with a country. Yeah, I think there were lots of both intelligence officers and, as you say, senior military commanders and mid-level commanders who had exactly that view and who felt even if they were supportive of disengagement, even if they understood that this is a struggle we have to end,

we cannot in any meaningful way win this thing. They nevertheless left with mixed feelings, with a sense that this thing is going to end and our allies here in South Vietnam are probably not going to be surviving when it's all over. Then you come to this situation, which as you say, was expected by many, but the speed of which was not anticipated by most, which is the spring offensive of March 1975, when the North Vietnamese are going to cut through, like as you put it,

a knife through butter. Am I right in thinking that Nixon has cut off military aid or cut down military aid at the same time? He hasn't just withdrawn the American troops. He then cuts the budgets available to the South Vietnamese to defend themselves. Well, yeah. And by this point, it's Gerald Ford who's in the White House. And this is, as you say, dramatically reduced. Yes.

With a specific view, I mean, rather like Biden pulling out of Afghanistan. Well, yeah, I mean, so much of this is like Biden pulling out of Afghanistan because you have this mad rush to get out and you're seeing sort of troops and armoured vehicles speeding towards the airports to try and get out, get those last shots.

halos out of the territory. You've got people who worked with the American services saying, hang on a minute, I was your translator. I was working. Are you just going to leave me here? Those faces pressed up against the fence. We've seen those in recent times. It was complete confusion, wasn't it, Frederick? Yeah, no, it was complete confusion. And I think in part, it was confusion for the reason we discussed before. Americans imagined

that the South Vietnamese military would put up more of a fight than it did. This offensive by the North was not going to go as fast as it did. The South Vietnamese had more artillery. The South Vietnamese had arguably more firepower, if you look at it in total.

Then did the attackers. As a result, the feeling was that the South Vietnamese are going to at least pull this out. Give us six months, give us nine months, give us three or four months to figure out how we're going to handle the withdrawal of personnel, including our allies. But it all went so fast, which is interesting in and of itself. And it created this, as you say, chaotic situation.

How much was a very bloody revenge at this point? Are the North Vietnamese looting, hanging, mass executions? What's the level of fury and anger by the time they get into Saigon? I think it's fair to say, William, that the bloodbath that a lot on the right wing, in particular in the United States, had warned against or warned of...

didn't happen. There was some of these kinds of reactions and some of these kinds of actions taken against South Vietnamese, but not on the scale that people had warned, both in the early going, that is to say, in those early days in late March, early April of 1975, but also in the weeks and months to come.

But I don't mean to underestimate or understate the degree to which this was very difficult for South Vietnamese, both because of the years of warfare. Now it was all over. They had lost.

But in a more personal way, I think many of them also suffered persecution, either in work camps to which they were sent or sometimes worse. It just wasn't on the scale that some people had suggested. I do think it's fair to say that Hanoi was as surprised as anyone that it went as quickly as it did at the end. And they were not prepared for what would happen after they conquered Saigon. And they were not ready. And was one of the reasons that the South Vietnamese army

buckled and gave way so quickly because they realized that they could surrender without effectively committing suicide? I think that's a very plausible explanation. I'm sure it's at least one of the explanations for this. I think the military history of this phase of the war, meaning a really granular look at what happens beginning, say, at the start of 1975 right up to the end,

still really needs to be written. There's a lot, at least that I would still like to know, about what unfolds from the North Vietnamese

the decision-making there, and then more importantly, maybe what's happening at both the tactical and strategic level in terms of the South Vietnamese. And to what extent are they still getting some direction from the Americans in terms of what to do? It was an astonishing thing at the time. America is this unprecedented power. It has an air force, it has bombs, it has weapons.

on an extraordinary scale. And North Vietnam is half of a tiny country, and yet it has somehow pulled off this extraordinary coup, thanks partly to the charisma of its leaders. Ho Chi Minh is dead by now, but his successors also are very competent. One thing we haven't quite got is that impression that...

that we know from the movies of those last hours in Saigon, not just the rush to the airport, but the shredding of documents in the American embassy and the famous images from the roof of the American embassy. For those that don't know that, just take us briefly through that. Well, you've just summarized it so well. It is an absolutely crazy few hours where

all of a sudden there's a realization: enemy tanks are right here. And we have a very short time to shred documents, to pack up, to get wives and children and ourselves, and maybe we can also help our South Vietnamese friends.

And get out of here. I mean, I think it's really hard based on what I've read and some of the films that you mentioned that I've seen and the documentaries. It's hard to recapture just how chaotic this was, how tense this was. Nobody quite knew what would happen. Or just look at the fall of Kabul in recent times. It felt a lot like that, didn't it? Emptying out drawers, pulling out personnel, getting armed.

trucks to bring your people through the crowds, pushing through crowds of desperate people who want to get out. And failing to look after your allies, failing to look after the translators, the judges, the people that you'd put in power. And nobody could quite know what would happen, what local North Vietnamese commanders would do at the moment that they came. Would they start firing at you? Would they be sort of respectful and restrained?

Lots of questions are swirling around, I think, in people's minds. And they don't actually do the super brutal thing. No. You have the fear by all the people left outside the embassy gates, left at the airport, that they're just going to be wiped out. But there's actually relatively little that, certainly compared to what happens later in Phnom Penh. Yeah, I mean, we should say as well, just the speed of this, just for an idea is

The last chopper out of Saigon takes off from the roof of the embassy just before 8am on the 30th of April 1975. At noon, barely four hours later, tanks bulldoze the wall and fly the liberation flag over

over the roof of the building. So that is how tight it is. That is how, as far as military is concerned, that is on a nice edge, that departure and the arrival. Can we talk about legacy now? Because it's interesting. I mean, you mentioned just a little while ago that

Gerald Ford has now won the White House. He is now president. He is the fifth president we have talked about in this Vietnam series. Five presidents have tried to get to grips with what their predecessor has left in their lap. It

It has left quite a dent in American foreign policy and the psyche of America, has it not? Perhaps one of the biggest dents of all. Yeah, I think it's true. I mean, you could actually, Anita, you could say six presidents, unless my math is wrong here. But I think we're talking Truman through Ford. That may be six, actually.

Hang on a minute. Let's work it out. Hang on a minute. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford. Six. Six presidents. Good Lord, you're right. Six presidents. Gosh. And the reason I mention this, not everybody would. Many people would just say five. But I think that the effort, as we discussed before, the effort to try to bolster the French effort is critical and it really begins under Truman. I think there is a sense of

in the middle decades of the 20th century, and I'm dealing with this now in my study of JFK, that this is the world's most powerful nation, which it was, by many measures the most powerful in the history of the world. Moreover, this is a nation that doesn't lose wars. You could argue that the War of 1812 against the British was kind of a draw, but many Americans would say that was a victory too.

So this idea that little North Vietnam, underdeveloped, no industry to speak of. Yes, they've withstood the French, but they're not going to really be able to compete with us here on this field. The fact that the North Vietnamese have not done this, and it's graphically clear to some extent by 73, certainly by April of 75, I think is just an enormous blow to

America's self-image. No question about it. We must also record here, and it's very, very important not to forget this, the Vietnamese victims of this mess. Two million Vietnamese deaths.

long-lasting wreckage in the country due to unexploded ordnance, whole areas of the jungle destroyed by hideous American chemicals. And what makes that worse, William, at least for me, and I'm teaching a class this fall on the war, and I think this particular part of it will be difficult for me and maybe for the students. What makes that worse? Thinking about 2 million, possibly 3 million,

We don't actually know. Some have suggested 4 million. What makes it difficult for me is I think we have really good evidence, as we discussed earlier, that from an early point, from before the war began, American presidents doubted that the war could be won, even with major American military force. More important, more...

Chillingly, they doubted it was necessary to try to win it. In other words, they were not at all certain that Western security depended on preserving a non-communist independent South Vietnam. So you ask yourself, these presidents, Johnson and Nixon, as who I'm talking about in particular here,

who committed America's young men, some women too, but America's young men to fight for a cause that they themselves doubted is an extraordinary thing. 58,000 Americans from small towns and large cities across the United States who answered the call, who went and didn't come back. Then you think of, as you say, literally millions of Vietnamese who didn't get to experience the future that they dreamed of

Because even though these presidents were privately skeptical that the whole thing could work out, I don't mean for a moment to diminish the importance of Vietnamese decision-making in all of these. They have agency. The North Vietnamese are key. But my point is American presidents and even some of their senior subordinates were, I think, privately skeptical of this whole thing.

And yet they end up dropping more tonnage of bombs on Vietnam than they did in the whole Second World War. In the whole Second World War. And we should also note enormous cultural damage. I've just been studying Maison, one of the very earliest temple complexes in Vietnam, with very, very beautiful, very Indian sculpture from the earliest moments of Vietnam's artistic legacy.

phosphorus bombed by the Americans. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Destroyed forever. So what is left? Is it sort of just a white braille? It's a big complex and fragments of it are left, but some of the most important and early sculptures and buildings have completely gone. And you have a country that ultimately does reunify under communist control and remains that way to this day. Yeah, it's true. And when I go there, and I'm far from the only person to experience this, I think it's a common view. When I go there, I'm struck by...

The generosity of the people, I'm struck by the dynamism of the country. It's a very young country. Most Vietnamese have absolutely no memory of any of this. When you see billboards with Coca-Cola and

General Motors. And you just wonder, what was this whole thing about? Because these companies are there now and will be there. And you can't help but reflect on this bloody and difficult history. I've just come back from a conference where I was speaking in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago. And the main theme of the conference was the amount of investment now pouring out of China

into Vietnam and to a lesser extent, India. But Vietnam is the new tiger on the block. It is now the big hope. And it's what all the investors are getting excited about. It's where Apple is moving its manufacturing out of China into Vietnam. It's the hot new tip for investors, bizarrely. I mean, you can argue that in a way, this was in the long view of history, the long durate was a capitalist victory. No question you can. And there are those.

both at the time and since, who said that basically we should be supportive of America's intervention in Vietnam because it bought time. It bought time for these other Southeast Asian nations to build themselves up.

ultimately even allowed a post-1975 Vietnam to build itself up. I don't buy that argument myself, but that buying time thesis, it has adherence. But, you know, the following question is at what cost? At what cost? That said, the Vietnam War also...

had an unusually rich harvest in artistic terms, in terms of journalism, extraordinary books like Dispatches, Anyone Here Been Raped and Speaks English, very, very important groundbreaking works of journalism, some of the greatest movies ever made, Vietnam, Full Metal Jacket.

this whole world. Why do you think it became such an extraordinary honeypot for Hollywood and for writers? Yeah, I don't have a good answer to this, William, except to say that I totally agree with you. And I think one of the reasons why the war continues to resonate in American consciousness and why courses on the war, such as the one that I'll be teaching this fall, continue to get students is for the reason you just said. The music of that era, which young people still listen to,

It's incredible. I mean, I think it was Rolling Stone who a few years ago, I think it was Rolling Stone that said the top 500 songs of all time, rock and roll songs. And something, I counted them, something like eight of the top, seven or eight of the top 10 songs were Vietnam era songs. And so it is about...

Is it just something very cinematic about helicopters and napalm jungles? Well, I think it is. And so, I mean, when I saw Apocalypse Now as a relatively young teenager... I remember watching it as well. It's just absolutely mind-blowing. Yeah. The surfing scenes.

the helicopters with the ride of the Valkyries, all that. So in other words, I guess it's a non-answer to your question, except you're absolutely right to put your finger on this. I just don't have a good explanation. I do have one other thing that I'll say about the legacy, which I think about. I think that a lot of the divisions that we're experiencing in the United States right now, a sense of

alienation, a mistrust of one another, a mistrust of institutions, of civic discourse. I'm not going to say that they all have their roots in the Vietnam era. Some of them predate Vietnam. But I do think that the war helped deepen these or launch them on their path, if you want to put it this way.

And it's one of the reasons why I think it's so important that we continue to grapple with the war. The sense that poor kids were sent to war. Yeah. But the rich ones. Ironically, of course, Trump, Dodger, harvests this for his own. Oh, exactly. And this, you know, people spoke of the credibility gap with respect to Johnson, that what Johnson was saying was one thing and the truth was something else. So...

So the cynicism that I think is such a problem today, I tell my students, be skeptical, don't be cynical. Because cynicism, I think, is very, is ultimately corrosive to democracy.

But that cynicism that is so pervasive in my country and maybe in yours, that at least partly goes back to Vietnam. Listen, it's been an absolute delight to have such a wide-ranging conversation with you, Frederick. We're so, so very grateful. I'm very envious of your pupils. Me too. Wouldn't you want to do over? Wouldn't it be great? Wouldn't it be great?

And it's been great to be with you both. I could go on and on. So thank you for having me on. But look, the book is Embers of War, The Fall of an Empire, The Making of America's Vietnam. An absolute barnstormer of a book. And Frederick, we are so, so grateful for you being here with us and for giving us this incredible insight into a war we know so well from fiction and from movies. But so few of us have actually studied the actual political history of this war.

which is in some ways a very different thing to the fable we are taught by Hollywood, even at its most critical. So we've decided to end the American series here with this crucial pivotal moment. We will return to imperial America next year. We want to look at America's death grapple with radical Islam, the whole story of American support for Israel, 9-11, the invasion of Iraq, the fall of Afghanistan, this whole catastrophic engagement

that America has had with the Islamic world, something whose reverberations and echoes we are living with day by day today. So watch out for that. But for now, Frederick, thank you so, so much for being with us. Thank you very much for being with us. Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand. And goodbye from me, William Durham-Poole.