The War That Never Ends: New Perspectives on the Vietnam War

16. A Speech for LBJ with Comments on George W. Bush

16 A Speech for LBJ with Comments on George W. Bush HowardZinn In early 1967, two years after the escalation of the war in Vietnam by the United States, some ofus in the movement against the war were calling for the withdrawal ofAmerican troops from Vietnam. But no major political figure and none of the major media were willing to support that idea. I wrote a book at that time, Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, published by Beacon Press in 1967. The last chapter in the book, ''A Speech for LBJ;' was an imaginary speech for President Lyndon Johnson, explaining to the American people why he had decided to withdraw from Vietnam. A businessman in the Midwest bought six hundred copies ofthe book and sent it to every member ofCongress. The speech was reprinted in fullpage ads in newspapers in various parts of the country. A columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, "Howard Zinn, a professor of government at Boston University, who served as a bombardier in World War II, has written a speech for Lyndon Johnson which, if he delivered it, would make the President one of the great men ofhistory in my opinion:' But Johnson did not deliver that speech. The war continued, and the antiwar movement grew, and, in 1973, the United States finally withdrew. Over fifty-eight thousand Americans had lost their lives. Vietnam was devastated, and 2 million ofits people, mostly civilians, were dead. Essay originally published in Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal by Howard Zinn (Beacon Press, 1967). 351 352 Howard Zinn North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong greets an American antiwar delegation, including Dr. Howard Zinn of Boston University. Courtesy of the Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Douglas Pike Photograph Collection. Today, forty years later, the United States is mired in a war in Iraq, but there is resistance in the higher circles of politics and the media to the idea ofwithdrawal. The reader may find this imagined speech for LBJ relevant to the policies of President George W. Bush. My Fellow Americans: Not long ago I received a letter from my fourth-grade schoolteacher who still lives back in the little town where I grew up. She is of advanced age now but still as she was when I sat in her class, a kindly and wise woman. She had been through depression and war, through sickness and the death ofloved ones, more than most ofus. Let me share her letter with you; I am sure she will not mind. Dear Lyndon: You know I have always had faith in you and knew you would do what is right. And you have been trying your best on this Vietnam situation. But nothing seems to be going right. So many people are getting killed. Not only our boys, but all A Speech for LBJ with Comments on George W. Bush 353 those poor people over there. You have tried talking peace. And you have tried bombing, and whatnot. But there is no end in sight. I hear people in town saying: "We should never have gotten in, but now that we are in, we don't seem able to get out:' Lyndon, can't you get us out? I am getting on now in years and would like to see peace gain. God Bless you. Sincerely, Mrs. Annie Mae Lindley. Now let me read just one more letter to you. It came to me from a young man fighting with the First Marine Division in South Vietnam: Dear Mr. President: I am twenty years old and enlisted in the Marines as soon as I left high school in Massilon, Ohio. I have been in Vietnam six months now, and I have seen a lot. Three days ago my closest buddy was killed. Yesterday our outfit destroyed a hamlet that Intelligence said had been used by the VC as a base. We burned the huts and threw grenades down the tunnels. But there were no VC there. In one ofthe tunnels there were two women and three kids. We didn't know that. One of the kids was killed and one of the women lost an eye. We rounded up all the villagers and they stood around-children, old folks, women-crying and afraid. Ofcourse we didn't mean to kill any kids. But we did. And that's war. I know you need sometimes to do nasty things for an...