The Pro-War Movement: Domestic Support for the Vietnam War and the Making of Modern American Conservatism

Conclusion: Defining the Vietnam War

[ 328 ] Conclusion Defining the Vietnam War T he Watergate scandal in 1972–74 undercut what remained of the Nixon administration’s commitment to South Vietnam. It also convinced conservative leaders that the provisions of the Paris accords that were designed to ensure North Vietnam’s compliance were in fact hollow. Although individuals like Goldwater , Reagan, and Buckley became disillusioned with Nixon during this period, their reasons for supposing that the accords would ultimately fail to ensure South Vietnam’s independence were not entirely related to the president or even to the details of the agreement ending the war. In part, this was because they had not fully expected the accords to end the war in Vietnam; in the months after the U.S. troop withdrawal it became clear that the struggle between the two Vietnams would continue. Primarily, however, conservatives lost faith in the accords because of their perception that Congress was undermining the Americans’ ability and obligation to uphold the agreement by supplying aid to South Vietnam and the realistic threat of a resumption of the air war once violations occurred. Stressing almost exclusively Hanoi’s transgressions rather than acknowledging that Saigon and Washington also violated the agreement, conservatives lambasted Congress ’s refusal to extend additional military aid to South Vietnam. [ 329 ] defining the vietnam war They steadfastly failed to engage in any serious analysis of the political weaknesses that defined the Saigon government. Nixon echoed this line in his memoirs. What Nixon dismissed and conservatives ignored between 1973 and 1975 was the reality that the administration did not wish to raise the Vietnam issue again. The “decent interval” means of facilitating the U.S. troop withdrawal had become dominant in administration policy during the final year of engagement. Whether or not conservatives were publicly willing to acknowledge the fact, they too had come to accept the probability that South Vietnam might not be able to withstand the expected North Vietnamese attack. Few, however, thought that the fateful day would come so soon after Nixon and his conservative backers declared peace with honor in Southeast Asia. As the situation in South Vietnam deteriorated rapidly during early 1975, conservatives launched an ad hoc attack on Congress and the Ford administration. They claimed that the War Powers Act of 1973 had dangerously undermined the president’s room for maneuver and was indicative of liberals’ policies of appeasement toward the communist world. Although Ford appealed for $522 million in military aid for South Vietnam and Cambodia in January 1975, conservatives continued to challenge the administration ’s response to the Vietnam problem. On January 11, 1975, the State Department sent diplomatic notes to the governments of the Soviet Union, the PRC, Britain, France, Hungary, Poland, Indonesia, and Iran and to Secretary General Kurt Waldheim of the United Nations; the notes requested aid for South Vietnam and detailed North Vietnam’s violations of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam. Over the next several weeks the State Department continued to issue statements highlighting violations of the agreement. This seemingly half-hearted diplomatic approach did little to satisfy conservatives’ demands that the administration threaten to use force in order to stop the North Vietnamese advance. Conservative leaders, particularly the Republican Right and the National Review circle, certainly wished to push Congress to extend additional military aid to Saigon and anticipated that such aid would enable the South Vietnamese to forestall the immediate [ 330 ] conclusion communist advance. The ASC commented that the $300 million of aid for South Vietnam “will not end the war. It will not even permit the South Vietnamese to drive the invaders out of their country. It will only buy time—and not much of that.” Conservatives had no real expectations that either Congress or the administration would launch campaigns in support of the beleaguered South Vietnamese sufficient to ensure the country’s survival. Their efforts of early 1975 were designed to expose the fallacies of détente and to shore up their own positions in having endorsed the accords in 1973. The ASC, asserting that South Vietnam had not violated the agreement, charged that for “Congress to refuse to give South Vietnam the military aid it needs will amount to the adoption by the U.S. of punishing its former ally for abiding by the Agreement and rewarding its former enemy for violating it.” In failing to provide immediate military assistance, Congress was not...