Category: Vietnam

Categories
Comrades in Arms Vietnam

Peace Politics and Military Strategy: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq & China

Peace Politics and Military Strategy:

Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and
China.

By Dr. Roger Canfield, Presented at Vietnam Symposium, Vietnam Center, Texas Tech, March 10-12, 2011.

Adapted from Comrades in Arms: How the Americong Won the War in Vietnam Against the Common Enemy—America.

Copyright Roger Canfield, 2011. www.americong.com

History of Peace Movement in Vietnam War is False…Mostly

Much of what our children learn, our historians write and the mass media tells us
about the war in Vietnam is false. Consider the near universally effusive
accounts of the peace movement, portraying idealistic youth and honest
pacifists rightfully protesting an illegal and immoral war by U.S. imperialism
against innocent peasants in a far away place of no strategic interest to the
United States.

At home the battle was between war criminals and peacemakers. This deconstructive
history teaches our children to hate America as well as the war. The truth is
hard to come by.

Historians of the peace movement breezily dismiss the multiple dealings of the leadership[1] of
the American antiwar movement with the top leadership of North Vietnam.[2]  “No evidence has ever been produced for
foreign communist involvement in the anti-Vietnam War Movement,” Tom Wells, writes
in his The War Within. “The antiwar movement was not a movement inspired
or led by foreign powers,” write Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan in their
Who Spoke Up?

Compare Wells with captured enemy documents; “The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and
guidance from the friendly [Viet Cong/North Vietnam] delegations at the Paris
Peace Talks…. The PCPJ [People’s Committee [sic] for Peace and
Justice]…maintains relations with us…” from
the Viet Cong’s Circular No. 33/VP/TD.

Time and again Hanoi, Cuban and Soviet bloc meetings and conferences across the planet forged international
unity on dates, events and propaganda themes despite bickering leftist groups
in America. Hundreds participated in hundreds of meetings across the globe.  Much was duly recorded in newspapers,
memoirs, leaflets, radio broadcasts, investigations etc.

Politics is War

Ho Chi Minh’s instructions to general to-be Vo Nguyen Giap on December 22, 1944 were that the first unit
of the Liberation Army of Vietnam was the Armed Brigade of Propaganda, because
Ho told Giap, “Politics is more important than military affairs” and “Fighting
is less important than propaganda.”[3]
Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote, “Political struggle [dau tranh chinh tri]
plays a very fundamental role because it is in the political field that lies
our fundamental superiority and the enemy’s fundamental weakness.”[4]

Hanoi’s Politics was total.
It involved everyone everywhere.  Arlene Eisen Bergman, an activist for peace and justice and a Marxist-Leninist, wrote of
“The concept that every citizen is a soldier…is a tried and tested tradition.
…During the People’s Wars of this century…there were no civilians. …The front
is everywhere and everyone is involved in the fight.”[5] General Giap said,
“Each inhabitant is a soldier, each village a fortress…”[6] Hanoi told the
leaders of the peace movement that they were fellow “Comrades in Arms”, gave
them rings, war trophies, made from shot down American aircraft and a few won
war medals for fighting behind enemy lines.

Peace Movement, a Strategic Asset

Harold W. Rood, military strategist, has written, “The victories denied the Communists on the
battlefields of South Vietnam were recouped strategically through a campaign
waged within the West. Campuses, editorial offices, film and television studios
became the strategic arena. …The politics of peace in the West was the politics
of war for the communist conquest of Indo-China.”[7]

Hanoi targeted the antiwar movement and U.S. media politically. This was a well-designed program of
unified “political actions among the enemy” (dich van) which was one of
three pincers of “political struggle” (dau tranh chinh tri) equal to or
greater than “armed struggle” (dau tranh vu trang) in Hanoi’s grand
strategy for winning of revolutionary war against a stronger enemy.[8] The
Vietnam War was a political war, a unified struggle, dau tranh, of
politics as much or more than arms.

The Vietnamese Communists considered the antiwar movement an essential, ultimately the most critical
factor, in their grand strategy for a military victory. Hanoi integrated the
peace movement into a unified struggle, dau tranh, of politics making
the campuses of universities, newsrooms of mainstream media, and the lobbies of
Congress the crucial battlefields in America (dich van). Douglas Pike
says that dich van was political action in the world arena, specifically
among the American people… “To do battle with America on its home ground, not
with guns but with weapons of perceptual obfuscation…”[9] Dich van had
the strategic objective of convincing Americans “victory in Vietnam was
impossible.”

Dich van’s tactical aim was “power nullification…inhibiting full use of American capabilities…”[10] False or
distorted claims of war crimes were effective in changing public opinion and
limiting military actions. Skillful propaganda, usually unanswered,
significantly restrained U.S military actions and tactics: inside North
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; against dikes, dams, harbors and supply routes; and
using napalm, cluster bombs, B-52s. The political struggle inside the USA
effectively limited U.S military strategy, tactics and weapons, exhausted the
political will of America’s leaders, killed congressional support for allies in
Indochina and ultimately abandoned the people of South Vietnam.

Very many of those leading demonstrations and lobbying congress happily collaborated with Hanoi. We can
only hint at the whole story here so we cover a few final scenes.

Hanoi’s US Agents Conduct Political Operations in USA

In January 1973 a peace accord had been signed in Paris, POWs returned, American troops were gone, but
Hanoi conquest of South Vietnam was incomplete. The American
peace movement played the critical role in that conquest. Tom Hayden,
a founder of the Students for a Democratic Society and a very frequent visitor
to Hanoi, Paris and elsewhere to meet the enemy in war, returning from meeting
Hanoi and Kymer representatives in Paris, in mid October 1973[11] brought back
a new sense of focus for the peace movement.

In order “to clarity and to develop a coordinated strategy” among over a dozen peace
organizations,[12] the Hayden and Jane Fonda’s Indochina Peace Campaign, IPC,
held a National Planning Conference on Indochina October 26-28, 1973, at a
chapel in a Methodist camp in Germantown outside Dayton, Ohio.[13]

In Paris on October 20, 1973 Ly Van Sau,[14] had instructed Tom Hayden that political “action should be
pursued” to cut aid to Thieu in South Vietnam and Lon Nol in Cambodia, free
200,000 political prisoners and to implement the Paris Peace Treaty, i.e.
overturn the Thieu regime.

In Germantown in October 1973 the Coalition to Stop Funding the War, the IPC’s
ad hoc coalition, pursuing a hodgepodge of goals, was transformed into a
strategically defined political campaign with quite specific tactical
objectives. The tactics created the conditions to achieve the strategic objective
of a communist victory in Vietnam.

The Germantown conference document, almost certainly drafted in Paris, focused with
“clarity” upon a single overriding issue, political prisoners, and a single
target, members of Congress in selected states. The IPC said falsely on all
accounts that South Vietnam had 200,000 political prisoners, many kept in inhumane tiger
cages, and had created six millions refugees. IPC-Hanoi would stick to this
10-year old, story, a political campaign plan, for another two years.

IPC outlined a sophisticated grass roots political campaign in key states and Congressional districts to put
local service group pressure on U.S. Senators and House members to cut off aid
to Thieu. Indochina Resource Center and IPC produced common pamphlets and
sample letters.

The short of it is that Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda toured the country and their allied organizations
successfully lobbied Congress to cut off aid.

How can this possibly be this relevant today?

One, Long War

Until we understand the political warfare of Vietnam and of the Jihadists we shall never achieve today’s limited
counter insurgency and counterintelligence goals let alone victory. There is
“one war” to win or to lose, both military and political, counter terrorism and
counterinsurgency.[15]  There are signs that the domestic element may again be the critical political battlefield in
the war against Islamic terrorism.

The US has a growing inability to cope with future enemies (Islamo-fascists, or Chinese
totalitarians). Today Jidahist terrorists and Red China practice Hanoi’s dau
tranh franchise allied with many of the cast and characters of the Vietnam
War and severely limit US capabilities in waging war against Islamic terrorism
and in preparing for emerging military powers, e.g. China.

Today the Chinese and the Jihadists understand the value of
American public opinion and politics to their war winning strategies.

Many of the same organizations, individuals and propaganda themes now arise in opposition to the
long war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. From the Vietnam era United For
Peace and Justice includes American Friends Service Committee, Center For
Constitutional Rights, Coalition for Peace and Justice, Communist Party,
Episcopal Peace Fellowship, IPS, Fellowship of Reconciliation, National Lawyers
League, Peace Action, Pledge of Resistance, Students for a Democratic Society,
Unitarian Universalists, United Congregational Church, United Church for
Christ, United States Student Association, Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, War Resisters League, and WILPF.[16]

Today’s antiwar protesters, Congressmen, and the media have mounted a propaganda war
against our Presidents, U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, the War on
Terror, the Patriot Act, NSA intercepts of phone calls domestic terrorists and
agents of foreign powers and the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants.

In al Qaeda training manuals captured terrorists are told to claim torture and Osama bin Laden tells us he
knows the lessons of Vietnam. Osama watches American public opinion polls and
believes troop morale and political will are waning under the impact of a long
war against terror.[17]

Like the Viet Cong, today Jihadists rely upon a culpable media to pass on outrageous claims of American
atrocities. George Soros funded a study claiming 650,000 deaths in Iraq from
2003 to 2005, about eight times the actual number. The New England Journal of
Medicine published research showing far fewer deaths over a longer period,
151,000, from 2003-2007.[18] Torture stories in the Iraq War were manufactured
out of distorted versions of incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.[19] From a
firefight at Haditha with insurgents hiding “among civilians and …aided by
them” Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, claimed it was a cold-blooded massacre
that courts martial largely proved not to have happened.[20]

As for Guantanamo the true story later revealed by FBI, DOD and other investigations.
Prisoners have excellent medical care, 5-6,000 calories daily, recreational
opportunities, satellite TV, library, and institutionalized respect for their
religion. Tales of the toilet and urine desecration of the Koran though proven
false rated 4,677 mentions in news coverage.[21] Nasal feeding tubes for
fasting prisoners are humane, standard hospital equipment. “No prohibited acts
were found and conditions are humane,” according to a Pentagon study. Reports
of torture at Guantanamo were false: all interrogations are voluntary. An FBI
study based on interviews of 450 FBI employees found no prisoner beaten,
burned, electrocuted or subjected to frightening insects or animals. Yes, a few
detainees were subjected to sleep deprivation, loud music, bright lights,
isolation, and some held in painful positions. There was one case of water
boarding.[22] Life is far, far better in Guantanomo than in most American state
prisons and county jails, not to mention hardscrabble existence of most of the
people in the Middle East.

Responding to distorted enemy propaganda, domestic echo chambers thoughtlessly repeat
inflated allegations of U.S. atrocities, terror and torture at Abu Ghraib,
Guantanamo and Haditha. The Obama administration has been persuaded to close
Guantanamo and to grant enemy combatants in wartime American Constitutional
rights, the same Miranda rights, attorneys, and criminal trials given to
pickpockets, shoplifters and delinquents.

The Hard Questions

Jidahist terrorists and Red China practice Hanoi’s dau tranh franchise. They operate near freely in
the open stirring up dissent that they do not allowed in their midst. When does
dissent become treason? How can republics wage long wars against fanatical and
bloody tyrannies when their enemies know their vulnerabilities to popular
abhorrence of the barbarity of war and the sacrifice of innocent civilians? How
is it possible for democracies to wage war against opponents for whom there are
no innocent civilians, women and children?

Consequences of a False History

Hate America

The consequences of a false history are many beyond the military consequences of a lost war.
Since the conventional Vietnam War template of U.S. government war criminals
and innocuous peacemakers is carried to the present, our children are taught a
deconstructive history not only of the Vietnam War, but also of a grievously
flawed America. Many do not believe America is worth defending. Very many
Americans of left progressive persuasions presume that every U.S. military endeavor
is evil imperialism, a futile exercise rather than a defense of U.S. national
interests or of freedom. Those who have learned to hate the Vietnam War have
come to hate in turn the politicians, the warriors and America itself.  Howard Zinn, an antiwar activist, traveler to
Hanoi and secret member of the CPUSA, wrote the extraordinarily hateful A
Peoples’ History of the United States, required reading in thousands of
American high schools and colleges.  As
in Vietnam some of the most vociferous purveyors of hate, e.g. Noam Chomsky,
declare themselves for love, peace and social justice.

Vietnam became a template for destroying, “deconstructing,” the legitimacy of ordinary
patriotism through ridicule of simple acts and symbols of loyalty and allegiance,
the pledge, the flag, and assaulting the integrity of the nation’s leaders as
universally liars, fools and war criminals.

The pervasive perception that American wages unjust wars has eroded the very legitimacy of
the America’s exceptionalist claim to be the regime of liberty. The nations of
the world assembled at the United Nations in New York, listen not to Barack
Obama, but rise to applaud Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro.
Indeed, since most of what we think we know about the Vietnam War is false, we
have distorted visions of ourselves, of our place in the world and of how wars
should be fought.[23] Napoleon said, “History is a fraud agreed upon.”[24]

Roger Canfield, February 2, 2011

What reviewers are saying about Comrades in
Arms: How the Americong Won the War in Vietnam Against the Common
Enemy—America.

“Awesome. Fascinating. Incredible. Every Vietnam vet should
have a copy of this work.” LT. COL ROBERT K. BROWN, publisher, Soldier of Fortune, Capt. Army
Intelligence, Special Forces, 1st Infantry, Phoenix Program Vietnam 1968-1971. sofmag.com.

“A very detailed and valuable study of the antiwar movement.” MARK MOYAR, author of Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 and
Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam.

“Connects America’s left-wingers and the Communist brass of North Viet-Nam”
ARMOND NOBLE, Publisher, Military magazine. Warrant Officer, California State Military Reserve; US Army Signal Corps, Westinghouse
Broadcasting, Time Magazine. Vietnam, 1966-67. milmag.com

Obtain a prepublication release of either a CD-R in
Microsoft Word at a discounted price of $15 or a PDF from Roger Canfield Rogercan@pacbell.net at 7818 Olympic
Way, Fair Oaks, CA 95628, 916-961-6718 or at www.americong.com

Completely SEARCHABLE for any name, date, place or event of
the War and its protesters.

Notes

[1] Though hundreds of persons led the usual American suspects include: John Kerry,
William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Joan Baez, David
Dellinger, Cora Rubin Weiss, Daniel Berrigan, Tom Harkin, John Conyers. The top
Vietnamese Communist leaders meeting American fellow travelers: Ho Chi Minh,
Pham Van Dong, Nguyen Van Hieu, Nguyen Khac Vien, Madame Nguyen Thi Binh,
Nguyen Thi Dinh, Col. Ha Van Lau, Le Duan, Le Duc Tho, Xuan Thuy, Nguyen Minh
Vy, Huyn Van Ba, Do Xuan Oanh, Hoang Tung, Hoang
Minh Giam, Mai Van Bo and scores more.

[2] Zaroulis Who Spoke Up; Tom Wells, The
War Within

[3] Ho Chi Minh, Directive on Establishing
Liberation Army of Vietnam Propaganda Units, December 1944, Historic Lao Dong
Documents, Hanoi Feb 3, 1970, JPRS, 30 May 1970, Indochina Archives, Univ.
California, 011043; Also Tran Van Dinh, “Cigarette Pack Helps Start North
Vietnam Army,” Collegiate Press Service, (National Student Association)
November 10, 1967; Arlene Eisen Bergman, Women of Vietnam, San
Francisco: People’s Press, 1975, 148; SGM Herbert A. Friedman, “National
Liberation Front (NLF) Anti-American Leaflets of the Vietnam War,” 2,
psywarrior.com/VCLeafletsProp.html.

[4] Quoted by Vu Can, “The NLF and the Second Resistence in South Vietnam,” in South
Viet Nam: From NLF to PRG, Hanoi: Vietnamese Studies #23 1969, 40.

[5] Arlene Eisen Bergman, Women of Vietnam,
San Francisco: People’s Press, 1975, 118

[6] Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War, People’s
Army, Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960.

[7] Harold W. Rood, Kingdoms of the Blind:
How the Great Democracies Have Resumed the Follies That Nearly Cost Them their
Life, St. Petersburg: Hailer publishing, 2005, 243-244.

[8] Douglas Pike, Viet Cong: The Strategies
and Tactics of the National Liberation Front, MIT Press, 1966; Douglas
Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Presidio Press, Novato,
California, 1986; also Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam At War: the History:
1946-1975, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991; Mackubin T. Owens,
“Senator Kennedy, Iraq is No Vietnam,” National Review, April 2004.

Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam, Presidio Press 1986, 236-245: also
Rothrock, Divided We Fall 5.

[9]  Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of
Vietnam, Presidio Press 1986, 239; also Rothrock, Divided We Fall, 5.

[10]  Max Friedman, Council for Inter-American Security,
study in lieu of testimony to Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee, Lobbying
and Political Activities of Tax-Exempt Organizations, Hearings, Committee
on Oversight, March 12-13, 1987, 403.

[11] Some 200 representatives from 15
organizations attended the Germantown gathering of mostly hard-left
organizations: America Friends Service Committee, Clergy And Laity Concerned,
Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, War
Resisters League, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, People’s Coalition for
Peace and Justice, Fellowship of Reconciliation, SANE, Episcopal Peace
Fellowship. Church groups were in the majority. Some others organizations
performed specialized tasks or represented special interests such as Bill
Zimmerman’s Medical Aid to Indochina, Indochina Resource Center, Don Luce’s
Indochina Mobile [tiger cage] Education Project, church affiliated
International Committee to Free South Vietnamese Prisoners from Detention,
Torture and Death and the small, but symbolic Union of Vietnamese in the U.S.A.
Together the tax exempted United Methodist Church, Board of Social Concern,
United Church of Christ, and the United Presbyterian Church funded the tax
exempt Indochina Resource Center, which illegally lobbied Congress despite a
demand for records from the House Committee on International Affairs.

[12] Emphasis in original, IPC, “Indochina: A National Planning Conference,
October 26-28, in a camp near Dayton, Ohio, initiated by the Indochina Peace
Campaign,” n.d., [October 1973] provided by Max Friedman; Conference materials
also are in the papers of Jan Waggoner Suter, 1954-1985, MSS-059 at the Ward M.
Canaday Center, University of Toledo. Suter, a Harvard graduate, was an
antidraft Counselor for the Toledo Area Council of Churches, 1969-1973.

[14] Ly Van Sau was a Viet Cong spokesman at
the Paris Peace talks, a journalist and Vietnamese Ambassador to Cuba. Politics
in Brief, “Cuban hero’s birthday celebrated,” June 13, 2008.  Http://english.vietnamnet.vn/politics/2008/06/788292/

[15] Gen. Craighton Abrams, Philip Davidson, Lewis Sorley, John Lenczowski.

[16] United for Peace and Justice, 1, 444
member organizations at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/groups.php?country.

[17] Osama bin Laden, “Text-Bin Laden Tape,”
BBC, January 19, 2006 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4628932.stm
cited and discussed in J. Michael Waller, Fighting the War of Ideas Like a
Real War, Washington: The Institute for World Politics Press, 2007, 28-30;
captured documents are cited in David E. Spencer, “Red-Teaming Political
Warfare,” Second Conference on Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and
Political Warfare, The Institute for World Politics, May 2005 also in
Waller, ed., Strategic Influence; John Miller interview of Bin
Laden, May 1998 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html#video
also cited in David  Horowitz, Unholy
Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, Washington: Regnery,
2004.

[18] Brendan Montague, “Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study,” Times (London),
January 13, 2008.

[19]Lawrence R. Velvel, “Introduction” to “Are
Our Highest Officials Guilty of Torture?” The Long Term View, Volume 6
Number 4, Spring 2006. Velvel as a member of the Consultative Committee
of Lawyers Committee on American Policy Towards Vietnam made precisely the same
charges about the war in Iraq. Bruce Kesler, Advance
Screening: PBS’ Frontline Haditha Earns a “B-” Democracy Project,
February 16, 2008 democracy-project.com.; Tim McKirk, “Collateral Damage or
Civilian Massacre in Haditha?”

[20] Time.2006;for extensive
analysis of Haditha press coverage see http://www.sweetness-light.com/

[21]American Enterprise search of LexisNexis cited in Lt. Col. Robert ‘Buzz” Patterson, War Crimes New
York: Crown Forum, 2007, 102.

[22] Oversight and Review Division, Office of
Inspector General, A Review of the FBI’s Involvement in and Observations of
Detainee Interrogations in Guantanomo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq, May 2008,
171-201; See also Thomas Joselyn, The Real Gitmo: What I saw at America’s
best detention facility for terrorists, Weekly Standard, Vol. 15,
No. 15, December 8, 2009; Rich Lowry, Soft Cell: The Reality of Guantanomo,” National
Review; Gabe Ledeen, “A Firsthand Look at the Real Guantanomo,” Pajama
Media, January 15, 2009; Peter King, “The Real Gitmo,” The New York Post,
February 26, 2009.

[23] Thanks to John Del Vecchio, author of
both The 13th Valley and For the Sake of All Living Things
for his insights about the importance of the “story” of the Vietnam War.

[24] George Seldes, The Great Quotations,
New York: Pocket Books, 1967, 476.

Categories
Comrades in Arms Vietnam

Peace Liberation Propaganda Vietnam

The “Peace” Movement and the “Liberation” of South Vietnam. By Roger Canfield,

Adapted and excerpted from Comrades in Arms: How the Ameri-Cong Won the Vietnam War Against the Common Enemy—America. Copyright 1988-2010. www.americong.com
Saigon Arts Culture & Education Institute, September 25, 2010, Tysons Corner, VA
This is a sample of the complex history of how the American peace movement actively contributed to the fall of Indochina in 1975, celebrated Communist victories and continued to deny the human costs years thereafter.  Key events and personalities are presented chronologically, simultaneously and sometimes chaotically just as they happened on battlefields both in Indochina and on the streets of America. The critical time periods were: after the Paris Accords of January 1973 when plans were hatched for military and political actions in Vietnam and in the halls of Congress; the military conquest and its American cheerleaders in early 1975; the horrific human costs in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and the peace movement’s denials of subsequent genocide, oppression and hunger. Three major themes are: 1. The active collaboration of Hanoi and the peace movement. 2. The influence of the antiwar forces on the decisions of Congress. 3. The human consequences of the fall and how the American Left continues to deny or justify the consequences.

The Communists and the American Peace Movement—1962-1975

Tom Wells declares in The War Within, “No evidence has ever been produced for foreign communist involvement in the anti-Vietnam War Movement.” Wrong. Among many sources, Viet Cong Circular No. 33/VP/TD states, “The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and guidance from the friendly [Viet Cong/North Vietnamese] delegations at the Paris Peace Talks…The PCPJ [People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice]…maintains relations with us…”[1]. Bernardine Dohrn: “The Vietnamese called the meeting [in Cuba] …to get us moving against the war again…giving us a kick in the ass….[2] Jane Fonda: “We have a common enemy—U.S. imperialism.”
The Strategic Value of the Peace Movement—An illegal, Immoral War of Imperialism
The antiwar movement, dich van, American politics, was critical to the military victory of communists in Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, says in How We Won the War, “[Our party] combined military struggle (dau tranh vu trang) with political struggle (dau tranh chinh tri)…to completely defeat the U.S.-Thieu neo-colonialist war of aggression.”[3] Le Thi Xuyen of the Vietnamese Women’s Union wrote to Arlene Eisen Bergman of SDS, “This great victory is inseparable from your militant solidarity…We always remember your…rallies, demonstrations, petitions, leaflets, cables, letters in protest…. We think that our victory is also yours.”[4]
Locked at the hips and lips with Hanoi, the top leadership of the U.S. peace movement asserted the Vietnam War was a uniquely illegal and immoral war—imperialism. The communists represented “justice, peace, democracy.” Allied military actions were “terror, repression or war crime.” Politics was the critical struggle in nullifying the superior military power of the allies[5] and religious front groups provided, as we shall see, moral cover for pro-Hanoi activists. Hanoi recognized the contributions of the peace movement.
Official Recognition of Value of Peace Protesters
Throughout the war the Communists praised leaders of the peace movement as “comrades in arms,” gave many rings made from downed American aircraft and honored some with their top military award the Ho Chi Minh Order.  The Ho Chi Minh Order for “great meritorious services” included shooting down American aircraft and performing political duties[6] equivalent to the Order of Lenin, Hero of the Soviet Union or perhaps equal to Presidential Medal of Freedom or the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Antiwar leaders coordinated demonstrations and propaganda themes with Hanoi. Throughout the war, they met the Vietnamese Communists in Hanoi, Bratislava, and Paris. Also Hiroshima, Vancouver, Montreal, Havana, Toronto, Windsor, Havana, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Geneva, Munich, East Berlin, Moscow, Budapest, Helsinki, Sofia, Tokyo, Jakarta, Peking, Phnom Penn, and Vientiane. Some of the Americans were John Kerry, William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Joan Baez, David Dellinger, Cora Rubin Weiss, Daniel Berrigan, Tom Harkin, John Conyers, Ron Dellums and hundreds others. Vietnamese Communists meeting Americans were: Ho Chi Minh, Pham Van Dong, Nguyen Van Hieu, Nguyen Khac Vien, Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, Nguyen Thi Dinh, Col. Ha Van Lau, Le Duan, Le Duc Tho, Xuan Thuy, Nguyen Minh Vy, Huyn Van Ba, Do Xuan Oanh, Hoang Tung, Hoang Minh Giam, Mai Van Bo and scores others….
…Fast forward.

Aftermath of Paris Peace Accords-1973-1974.

After the January 1973 peace accord in Paris and US withdrawal the antiwar movement, dissatisfied with peace, worked for a communist victory on April 30, 1975. On the American battlefront, the most critical of many joint strategy meetings were in Paris and Germantown, Ohio in late October 1973.
Germantown Brings “clarity and…coordinated strategy” October 26-28, 1973
At a Methodist chapel in Germantown outside Dayton, Ohio some 200 representatives from 15 organizations formed a coalition under the leadership of Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda’s Indochina Peace Campaign, IPC and the Indochina Resource Center, IRC,  the Coalition to Stop Funding the War, later the United Campaign for Peace, the United Campaign to End the War and the United Campaign to Honor the Peace Treaty and after the war the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy.[7] Hereafter the Coalition, IPC, IRC.
After meetings with Vietnamese and the Kymer Rouge in Paris in mid October 1973, SDS founder and frequent Hanoi visitor Tom Hayden brought back a strategic political plan for Hanoi’s victory.[8] The Germantown coalition sought “to clarity and to develop a coordinated strategy”.[9] Max Friedman says the conference had been “delayed for a week for Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda and others to meet with VC/VN in Paris for their marching orders. Hayden actually said this [in Germantown]”[10] In Paris Tom Hayden met PRG and DRV officials who instructed him that political “action should be pursued” to cut aid to Thieu and Lon Nol, free 200,000 political prisoners and to implement the Paris Peace Treaty, i.e. overturn the Thieu regime.[11]
This Paris meeting scrapped a preconference hodgepodge of IPC antiwar goals. Instead it focused with “clarity” upon a single overriding issue, political prisoners, and a single target, members of Congress in selected states to cut off aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia. Geoffrey Pope of Atlanta said, they’d “gotten down to the nitty gritty of how realistically to accomplish that goal.”[12] It was a classical grassroots ground game, a political campaign to influence Congress to cut aid. Major political campaigns are expensive.
Who Financed the Coalition to Stop Funding the War?
The tax exempted United Methodist Church, Board of Social Concern, United Church of Christ, and the United Presbyterian Church funded the tax-exempt Indochina Resource Center, IRC,[13] which illegally lobbied Congress.[14] Stewart Mott, General Motors heir, used the Methodists to launder $90, 000 to the Coalition.[15] The tax exempt Methodists funded Indochina Resource Center and Hayden-Fonda’s IPC produced pamphlets and letters for all groups. American Friends Service Committee, AFSC, / National Action/Research on the Military/Industrial Complex, NARMIC and IPC shared the events, staff, and research of the Indochina Resource Center[16]–Don Luce, David Marr, Gareth Porter, Mike Klare, and Fred Branfman.[17]
Political operatives staffing the national effort[18] included IPC lobbyist, Larry Levin, using the offices of Rep. Ron Dellums (D-CA). During the fall of 1973 and spring of 1974 Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda and entourage toured 40 cities in 10-12 states before visiting Hanoi and “liberated” parts of South Vietnam.
IPC claimed South Vietnam had 200,000 political prisoners, kept them in inhumane tiger cages, and had created six millions refugees. If believed this story would reduce the legitimacy of the southern regime and persuade a credulous post-Watergate Congress to cut off all aid. The alleged horrific treatment of political prisoners was a powerful moral issue among Americans, which if left unchallenged, was indefensible[19]
The Conquest of Indochina and the Role of the Peace Movement
In late 1974 the well-armed North Vietnamese were confident that a new veto-proof, post-Watergate U.S. Congress, assisted by the “peace” movement, would stop President Gerald Ford from intervening.[20]
As a test of American will, on January 1, 1975 North Vietnamese regular military forces attacked Phuoc Long. While there was no US military action, Hanoi’s experienced “peace” Coalition sprang into action in the United States blaming the South Vietnamese troops for “continually attacking the P.R.G. administered areas” and violating freedom of the press. The invading Hanoi had no free press and executed political dissenters.[21]
Besides providing effective cover and legitimacy to the Communist invasion, the Coalition proved early on that it cared very little about the human consequences.
Shelling of Son Be City (Phuoc Binh), Capital of Phuoc Long province
The courageous Army of the Republic of Viet Nam’s, ARVN, suffered 84 percent troop casualties (850 of 5,400 survived, 16 percent) and lost 20,000 innocent civilians. The shelling of the civilians of Son Be City,[22] killed all but 3,000 women and children. About this massacre, the Coalition claimed Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was attempting to “manipulate opinion by distorting and over dramatizing the fighting.” Joining the chorus, the Washington Post wrote, “They are displaying Phuocbinh as a grim example of the fate that awaits” South Vietnam[23] Day by day, battle by battle, Hanoi had strong support on the American political battlefield.
Two weeks into the invasion, the new “Watergate” Congress convened on January 14, 1975 to confront the issue of aid to America’s allies. Two years earlier, the Paris Peace Accord had allowed “unlimited military replacement aid,” to the South Vietnamese. Moreover, President Nixon had promised Thieu that U.S. forces would rescue Saigon as it had in Hanoi’s failed 1972 Easter Offensive. In August 1974 Watergate drove Nixon out of office, made prior treaties and promises worthless and in November 1974 elected a new Congress with no interest in aid.
Gareth Porter, George Kahin, Tom Hayden and others testified before Congress. Kissinger soon admitted, “There would have been no (North Vietnamese) offensive if it wasn’t for Congressional debates on help to our allies.”[24] Hanoi’s agent in the peace movement provided Hanoi’s debating points to Congress.

National Assembly to Save the Peace-January 25-29, 1975.

As Hanoi’s troops and Soviet tanks were on the move, from January 25-29, 1975, a National Assembly to Save the Peace met in the nation’s capitol. Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda joined I. F. Stone, Bella Abzug, Joan Baez, Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Daniel Ellsberg, George McGovern, Holly Near, Pete Seeger and thousands others.[25] Hayden and Fonda presented their 1974 Haskell Wexler film “Introduction to the Enemy,” about happy warriors, women, and children living in utopian socialism in North Vietnam and in “liberated” South Vietnam. The Assembly workshops displayed all the deceits of the war and the fondest hopes of leftist imagination, promising a third force in Vietnam, reconciliation, neutralization, and reparations.[26] The Coalition demanded, “Congress reject ANY attempt to increase military aid to South Vietnam or Cambodia.”[27] Peace was best achieved by conquest undeterred by opposition.
On January 28 protesting the continued fighting, the South’s refusal to surrender, the Weather Underground, led by Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, bombed the State Department damaging 20 rooms on three floors, threatened four other Washington locations.[28]
A few recognized the peace movement’s importance to Communist victory.
Blame Crazy Ambassador-Graham Martin
CIA officer Frank Snepp writes in Decent Interval that Ambassador Graham Martin condemned American propagandists for Hanoi mentioning “Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda [Indochina Peace Campaign, IPC], Fred Branfman and Don Luce of the … Indochina Resource Center…” Congressional reports as well as Martin said the antiwar movement was coordinating with the Soviet controlled and funded Stockholm Conference on Vietnam as well as Hanoi’s representatives in Paris.[29] No one listened to Ambassador Martin, even when he described the identical North Vietnamese propaganda leading to the capitulation of France.[30] Fedora in Free Republic writes, “US Ambassador to South Vietnam testified…the IRC’s (Indochina Research Center’s) lobbying effort—along with related operations run by IRC codirector Don Luce—had played the pivotal role in Congress’ decision to reject President Ford’s request for emergency financial aid to prevent the fall of Saigon.”[31]
George Webber, president of the New York Theological Seminary refused to ask Communists to stop terrorism. Martin mailed Webber photos of mutilated children. “…But for your decision… these children might still be alive.” The Webber communications were leaked to the press.[32] Martin’s bad manners in a war zone were despicable, but the Communist massacre of fleeing civilians was not.
In March and April the dominos fell on the battlefield accompanied by peace movement cheerleaders.
March 1975

Barbarism in Cambodia

On March 2, 1975 Sydney H. Schanberg of the New York Times, in Phnom Penn, Cambodia, asked why the U.S. stayed there. An embassy official said,  “If the other side took over, they would kill all the educated people, the teachers, the artists, the intellectuals, and that would be…barbarism,” Schanberg said the Khmer Rouge’s barbarism was not “monolithic or countrywide.” Bodies were only “sometimes mutilated,” a sub headline said, “For the People, War Itself is the Enemy.”[33] Meanwhile, Cambodian civilians fled the enemy, the Communists, into the arms of the allies. On March 17 Father Robert Gehring described an enemy attack upon a refugee camp, “They stuck bamboo poles thru the length of …babies bodies and nailed them to…walls…Many mothers went instantly insane.”[34] This did not move Congress to give aid.[35]
“Smell of Freedom”–Jane Fonda and Gabriel Kilko- Moscow and Hanoi Literati
In Moscow in March Jane Fonda said, “It’s not in the Soviet Union where civil liberties are most infringed, but in South Vietnam.”  Fonda told the Soviet Literaturnaya Gazeta, that she “would like to use this opportunity to thank the Soviet people for the assistance they’re rendering to Vietnam.” In March professor Gabriel Kolko traveled to Hanoi “immediately” for consultations on the economy of South Vietnam. Perhaps riding on a Soviet tank of the conquering North Vietnamese Army, Kolko would spend the last days of the war (April 26-30, 1975) in South Vietnam in Hue and Danang.[36]
Civilian Slaughter-a “Hoax”
After South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu ordered a 300-mile retreat, hundreds of thousands fled from both Quang Tri and Hue to Danang. Taking deadly aim, the North Vietnamese rained fleeing civilians and troops alike with mortars, rifles, and Russian Molotova trucks. This “Convoy of Tears”[37] lined Route 7 with piles of corpses, perhaps 50,000 died. The northern liberators again slaughtered women and children in stalled columns fleeing the Central Highlands on Highway 21, another “Trail of Tears,” where as many as half die.[38] In Hanoi Larry Levin, the Coalition lobbyist interviewed Paris negotiator Xuan Thuy who characterized the refugee flight as a “forcible evacuation… [which] (the U.S. Government) …refers to as rescue… This is a mere U.S. hoax.”[39]
On March 31, 1975, Buddhist media manipulator and Saigon coup plotter, Thich Tri Quang, demanded that President Nguyen Van Thieu resign.
US Authorities Paralyzed and Pathetic
Meanwhile. President Ford played golf in Palm Springs; the South Vietnamese begged for B-52 strikes and Kissinger wondered why the Vietnamese do not “die fast … [and not] linger on.” Fearing angry antiwar crowds, Kissinger rejected B-52 strikes. “The American people will take to the streets again.”[40]
Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda gazed over a “large map filled with push pins and inked-in lines to indicate troop movements.”[41]
By the end of March, though unnoticed the South Vietnamese were still fighting resolutely, but the ARVN was low on firepower, ammunition, replacement parts, blood, bandages. This “poor man’s war” with firepower and mobility cut in half was very well known to Hanoi’s commander Gen. Dung.[42]
April 1975
By April 3, only Saigon and the Delta south remained to be conquered. April 5-6, Sylvia Kushner of the communist front organization the Chicago Peace Council convened a National Conference for a Drastic Cutback in Military Spending at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago. Rep. Ron Dellums said, “The… Conference… will [inspire] “resistance to the war in Indochina.”[43]
Hanoi and Hollywood prepared for Final Victory
On April 7th, a little old man, joint nominee for a Nobel Peace Prize for the Paris Accords along with Henry Kissinger, delivered Hanoi’s military orders to the Viet Cong’s COSVN command headquarters.  Hence, Le Duc Tho, Hanoi’s top negotiator, again demonstrated the complete harmony of the political, diplomatic, and armed struggle in a winning grand strategy for revolutionary war.
The next day, Bert Schneider received an Academy Award for “Hearts and Minds,” a film saying America was uniquely racist and militarist. He said, “Vietnam is about to be liberated” and read a congratulatory telegram from the Communists in Paris. The Hollywood audience gave a standing ovation[44] honoring the liberators, the enemy and their American agents.
The Heroic Last Days of South Vietnam
During the honorable last days, until April 13, ARVN was advancing in the Delta,[45] and fought heroically at Go Dau Ha and Xuan Loc. On April 16, Kissinger said, “The South Vietnamese are fighting very well. I think some Senators are more afraid of a South Vietnamese victory than defeat because they have to vote for another appropriation.”[46]
"Just a Pittance"
New York Times reporter Robert Reinhold reported Hayden and Fonda “watched … scenes of refugee flight and death with dismay, but not surprise.” About the refugees, Jane Fonda said, “The suffering and turmoil have been going on for decades — this is just a pittance.”[47]
Kissinger told Ben Bradlee, Editor of the Washington Post,
“…There are hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese toward whom we must make at least a show of trying to save their lives.[48] Even this feigned show ignored the Montagnards[49] and later the Hmong. On April 16th, President Ford said, American pride, “cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned.”[50]
In Hanoi on April 16th Xuan Thuy told Larry Levin, Tom Hayden’s staff director of the Coalition, “the South Vietnamese people…have risen up….”[51] In fact it was entirely a Northern victory, most of the Viet Cong had died in Tet 1968 and southerners fled from their “liberators.”

“Indochina Without Americans: For Most a Better Life,” New York Times.

In March Anthony Lake, former aide to Robert McNamara and Kissinger, had written, “Extending Aid Will Only Prolong the Killing.” And on April 13, Sidney Schanberg echoed saying, “it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone.” Headline:”Indochina without Americans: for most, a better life.” Noam Chomsky said the Khmer Rouge “may actually have saved lives.”

Killing Fields: Day One, Year Zero

On April 17th, the Cambodian capital fell; the Hanoi funded and equipped Khmer Rouge declared “Year Zero” and force-marched the entire population, including hospital patients, out of the city.  As many as a third of the entire population would die in the “Killing Fields.” This was the bloodbath had not been prevented by a cut-off of aid. Many other peace movement leaders became apologists and deniers of the holocaust in Cambodia and the later Hmong genocide in Laos and the executions, reeducation camps and forced relocations in South Vietnam.

“Indochina Has Not Fallen”

Tom Hayden declared, “Indochina has not fallen — it has risen. What has fallen is the whole cold war establishment.” He said, “Communism is one of the options that improve people’s lives.”[52] Later, “It is a high irony that the new government of Cambodia came to power on a day exactly 200 years after Paul Revere’s ride, but now the shots heard around the world are coming from Indochina.”[53]
The Indecent Interval
On April 21, 1975, an angry President of South Vietnam, Nguyen Thieu, declared, “The United States has not respected its promises. It is inhumane. It is untrustworthy. It is irresponsible.” Avoiding execution, Thieu flew off to safety. On April 22, Kissinger told ABC’s Ted Koppel, “We’re also trying to save some South Vietnamese. You can’t just leave everyone there.” Yet California Gov. Jerry Brown, a close of friend of Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, objected to “dump[ing] Vietnamese” on California which had high unemployment.[54]
Orders to Betray
The lights went out, the rains came down, but American betrayal and shame did not wash away.
On April 29, at 1:01 am Zulu, Henry Kissinger cabled Ambassador Graham Martin precise instructions for the final betrayal. “If the airport is open…continue the evacuation of high risk Vietnamese…If the airport is unusable …resort to helicopter evacuation of all, repeat, all Americans…suppressive fire will be used [against South Vietnamese refugees] as necessary…. Warm Regards, 0208.”[55]
On the last night in Saigon, the rich took to barges. At 6:30 P.M. on April 29, “A power cut had blacked out the city … it cloaked the shame.”[56] The lights went out, the rains came down, but American betrayal and the shame did not wash away.
On the morning of the April 30 1975, the sun came up to reveal hundreds of small boats off the coast[57] 1.4 million people followed for a decade on small boats, rafts, driftwood, and baskets. The sun also shined upon Marine guards tossing canisters spewing pink smoke to fend off the last desperate Vietnamese clawing to get aboard the last helicopter flying off the roof of an American building, a CIA safe house falsely described forevermore as the Embassy of United States of America.[58]

Hanoi’s General Celebrates, and Vultures Gather

7:30 A.M. on April 30, 1975 was “Good Morning Vietnam” for the top field commander of the victorious army.  Gen. Van Tien Dung said, “There had been no morning so fresh and beautiful, so radiant, so clear and cool, so sweet-scented as this morning of total victory.”
As Ambassador Graham Martin left Saigon, John McAuliff, a leader of Hanoi’s loyal Quaker cadre, American Friends Services Committee, AFSC, arrived in victorious Hanoi as part of a three-week “peace delegation.” McAuliff met Do Xuan Oanh of the Vietnam-U.S.A. Society, an English speaking and well-practiced greeter of American collaborators.[59] The day after the fall of Saigon, Huynh Tan Mam, another practiced greeter of American peace delegations, titular author of the People’s Peace Treaty signed by South and North Vietnamese and American students revealed himself at last standing before a portrait of Ho Chi Minh praising the North.[60] Envoy to the American peace movement, Doan Van Toai, a Viet Cong spy, got his first assignment “a plan for confiscating all the private property in South Vietnam.”[61] Nghia M. Vo wrote, “The South Vietnamese…witnessed the greedy and voracious northerners descend on the South like swarms of locust, hauling almost everything back to the North from watches, bicycles to gold bars.”[62]
The “Peace” Movement Celebrates Communist Conquest
“How Happy They Must Be”
Fugitive Weather Underground terrorists, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, rejoiced, “We were overjoyed. …We spent several days celebrating, laughing and crying.”[63]
According to Howard Zinn, Marxist professor, author of required history textbooks, and organizer of academic fellow travelers against the war, “Everyone stood up and cheered” when a message was read at Brandeis University: “The Saigon Government has surrendered. The war is over.” Besides being a public agent of influence for Hanoi, FBI records released in 2010 proved Zinn was a secret member of the Communist Party-USA.
Tom Hayden was close to tears “thinking of the faces of the people in Vietnam over the last ten years, thinking how happy they must be.”
A letter of John Kerry’s Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Vietnam Veterans Against the War/ Winter Soldier Organization VVAW/WSO said, “The Vietnamese and Cambodians have won great victories …aided by progressive people … such as IPC and VVAW/WSO. …We too will one day celebrate our victory over imperialism.”[64]
About 50,000 people gathered to celebrate at Sheep Meadow in New York City’s Central Park on May 9, 1975. David Dellinger, Bella Abzug, and Elizabeth Holtzman spoke. Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, and Phil Ochs sang.
Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, titular spokesman and head of state for Hanoi-commanded Viet Cong, National Liberation Front and Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam, PRG cabled the New York celebration extending, “our warm feelings and profound gratitude to those Americans who for years worked untiringly to end the unjust, criminal war and, most recently, to cut aid to the warlike fascist Nguyen Van Thieu junta. …”[65] Le Thi Xuyen of the Vietnamese Women’s Union demanded the return of Vietnamese orphans.[66]
Saigon’s Streets Are Without Joy
“Liberated” Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City) did not share in the joy. It was not a reprise of the liberation of Paris in 1945. French journalist Brigitte Friang described tanks entering Saigon at noon on April 30th, “They advanced into a dead city, …The rush of the press … not the rush of the population.” There were no indigenous Viet Cong, no black pajama guerrillas, no grateful peasants and no jubilant Buddhists clebrating the conquest.
At 11:30 A.M. the Soviet T-54 tanks of the North Vietnamese 203rd Armored Brigade shattered the brittle iron gate guarding the Presidential Palace of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam. For the foreign news cameras only, Northern soldiers planted the blue, red, and gold flag of the Viet Cong.  Photos of the single Viet Cong flag were carried over the international wire services. Two weeks later in the May 15 Victory Day parade no Viet Cong flags fly.[67] In 2008 resident Vietnamese still called the former southern capitol Saigon rather than Ho Chi Minh City.
In the end, Mark Moyar, author of the definitive work on the Phoenix pacification program, wrote, “The Government of Vietnam had won the struggle for control over rural South Vietnam and the allegiance of its inhabitants, but it lost the war.”[68] In the end the American people, rejecting leftist rants and intellectual delusions, also realized the meaning of Vietnam. In a Harris survey in 1980 some 73 percent agree, “The trouble in Vietnam was that our troops were asked to fight in a war which our political leaders in Washington would not let them win.”[69] The American people never really gave up on the idea that the war ought to be fought to win. The war was lost in the hearts and minds of a very few, the press and politicians on the Second Front in America.

The Human Costs of Communist Conquest.

In a scant three days, on May 2nd, the Joint Chiefs of Staff terminated American “refugee operations.” Most of 980,000 South Vietnamese serving in ARVN units were abandoned of whom, 800, 000, would be sent to reeducation camps.[70] Some 56,000 died there of thirst, hunger, disease and suicide and 250,000 were imprisoned for over six years.[71] While John McAuliff formed the U.S. Indochina Reconciliation Project to acquire reparations, Hanoi ordered the disbanding of provincial chapters of the National Reconciliation Force in South Vietnam and began the imprisonment, torture and killing of useful idiots such as third force neutralists, Buddhists, Dai Viet.[72]
“Night of the long knives” Within ninety days of the fall of Saigon as Viet Cong expert Doug Pike had predicted, it was the “night of the long knives.” At night and in lonely places the “liberators” quietly took away and executed 70,000-85,000 South Vietnamese[73] among them the 30,000 Phoenix cadre who the Communists easily identified in abandoned CIA files, according to the French Ambassador.[74] Gen. Dung wrote that the files of the General Staff and the Directorate-General of Police were also captured in whole.[75] The diminishing Saigon press corps caught little of this, perhaps still hanging out at the Grival coffee shop, the terrace café of the Hotel Continental, the “Continental Shelf,” or the rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel.
Betrayal Everywhere and by Any and All Means
Hmong: Abandoned to Genocide and Political Prosecution–The Hmong of Laos were abandoned and left subject to a campaign of extermination for their wartime collaboration with Americans. Continuing to resist the ongoing genocide, the Hmong fell prey in 2008 to an ATFE sting offering them munitions and mercenary soldiers. The case against the legendary Lao patriarch Gen. Vang Pao was dismissed, but carried on against eight others for allegedly attempting to overthrow the Communist Government of Laos. [76]
Apologists for Communist Corruption–Karen Nussbaum, a former employee of People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice, PCPJ, and Indochina Peace Campaign, IPC was appointed by President Clinton to the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor. Nussbaum organized a symposium on Forced Labor: The Prostitution of Children, which identified Vietnam as a major source of child prostitutes, but wrongly credited Vietnam with working to stop sexual slavery.[77]
Forced Repatriation and Reparations?–Less than a week of the fall, on May 5, 1975, Hayden asked, “Why are they so frightened? They are a privileged class we created.” The “outpouring of emotion for Vietnamese orphans and refugees” was “misdirected.” Per Hayden’s advise, the Center for Constitutional Rights, many Hanoi travelers as members of Lawyers Committee on American Policy Towards Vietnam sued to return Vietnamese orphans. Nayan Chandra wrote, “The Vietnamese (communists) hoped that thousands of peace marchers and dozens of Congressional leaders…” would push reparations.  Along with Tom Hayden and AFL-CIO leader Leonard Woodcock others supporting reparations were Bishop James Armstrong, Sam Brown, Ramsey Clark, Don Luce, Pete Seeger and Cora Weiss.[78] Yet by a vote of 266-13 Rep. John M. Ashbrook (R-Ohio) passed a resolution opposing any aid to Hanoi.[79]
The loyalty of the American left to Communist Vietnam and its antipathy to America everywhere was not a temporary fixation with the War in Vietnam.

Solidarity Forever: Leaders of the Antiwar Movement Remain Loyal to Viet Cong

1975–On May 17, 1975 SDSer Arlene Eisen Bergman hosted a meeting of two representatives of the soon defunct Provisional Revolutionary Government, PRG, two representatives of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and 250 west coast activists in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.[80] On September 6, 1975 IPC, VVAW/WSO, the Maoist Revolutionary Union, and the CPUSA sponsored a reception at John C. Bennett’s Union Theological Seminary to receive thanks from two Kampuchea (Cambodian) generals and Vice Prime Minister Ieng Sary for the American left’s support against “U.S. imperialist forces.”[81] Ieng Sary was an active participant in the Cambodian genocide.
In Saigon in November 1975 Hanoi’s hard-line party theoretician Truong Chinh led a reunification meeting. Among the “southern” delegates were: Nguyen Hu Tho; chairman of the Women’s Union, Nguyen Thi Dinh and Foreign Minister, Nguyen Thi Binh.[82] Tho had served hardcore antiwar efforts for Bertram Russell’s War Crimes Tribunal and Institute for Policy Studies. Dinh met peace visitors, as a representative of women, but was the military commander of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. Other noteworthy southerners were: Ngo Ba Thanh and Father Tin Chan.[83] Ngo Ba Thanh:  always a willing agent of Hanoi greeting antiwar visitors to Saigon and carrying Hanoi’s current propaganda themes. After liberation in 1975 Ngo Ba Thanh received 99.9 percent of the vote to hold a puppet’s seat in the rubberstamp Assembly.[84] Father Chan Tin had persuaded many in Congress that Thieu had 202,000 political prisoners. Fr. Chan Tin would become a political prisoner of the communists.
On December 15, 1975 Friends of the Indochina Organizing Committee and Indochina Resource Center, IRC, presenting a softer side of Vietnamese Communism praising plans for reconciliation and reunification, glamorizing reeducation camps, and softening forced resettlements. Plans were underway to identify millions for reeducation camps and forced resettlement. Friends and IRC described the noble intentions of brutal reeducation camps for a million as “training” soldiers, police, drug addicts and prostitutes “for productive work” Reminds one of “Arbeit Macht Frei,” over the gates of Nazi death camps. As for the forced resettlement of millions they were “resettled in the countryside” and 800,000 …resumed rice farming.”[85]
FRIENDSHIPMENT sought to aid the Communists in Vietnam with cash and goods. It was composed of 40 organizations including the United Methodists, National Council of Churches, Church World Service, AFSC, and Mennonite Central Committee. Checks were tax deductible.[86]
1976–, “for most a better life” Sidney Schanbeg won the Pultitzer prize for his wartime reporting in Cambodia, the functional equivalent of the Ho Chi Minh Order received by other peace activists.
In 1976 the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy, riled against the “brutal [anti-communist] dictatorships of S. Korea, the Philippines, Indonesian, Thailand and Taiwan.”[87] Checks for the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy were made out to United Methodists Board of Church and Society.[88]
In January 1976, a serial denier of communist massacres, Gareth Porter, now as a congressional staff consultant on MIAs in Paris and Hanoi, supported Hanoi’s demand for U.S. paid reconstruction of Vietnam.[89]
In April 30, 1976, the first year anniversary of the Communist conquest of South Vietnam, the Clergy and Laity Concerned sponsored a “celebration of peace” at All Soul’s Church.[90] In July 1976 Doug Hostetter, representing the United Methodists Office to the UN, petitioned demanding U.S. recognition of Socialist Republic of Vietnam.[91]
In early July 1976, the Association of Vietnamese Patriots in the United States and the Communist Party-USA greeted Dinh Ba Thi, UN observer for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Doug Hostetter, representing Friendshipment and United Methodist Office of the UN, announced his petition for recognition and reparations for the SRV.[92]
1977–On January 30, 1977 an ad ran in the New York Times praised “the present government of Vietnam…for its moderation and its extraordinary efforts to achieve reconciliation among its people.” There were a mere 40,000 in reeducation camps, hence Hanoi deserved recognition and reparations and American deserters deserved presidential pardons. Those signing included Doug Hostetter’s boss James Armstrong, United Methodist Church; Richard Barnet, Institute for Policy Studies, IPS; Norma Becker, War Resisters League; David Dellinger, Seven Days Magazine; Richard A. Falk, Princeton University; Rev. Stephen Fritchman, Unitarian Minister; Don Luce, Clergy and Laity Concerned; John McAuliff, Appeal for Reconciliation; Paul F. McCleary, National Council of Churches; Grace Paley, author; Paul Sweezy, Monthly Review; George W. Webber, New York Theological Seminary; Cora Weiss, Friendshipment and Communist Corliss Lamont, author.[93]
On September 25, 1977 at the Beacon Theatre in New York, some 2,500 honored the admission of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the UN, among them Cora Weiss, David Dellinger, Bishop James Armstrong, Sam Brown, Ramsay Clark, Don Luce, Pete Seeger, Denise Levertov and Grace Paley.[94] The crowd “applauded, cheered and wept for joy.” Cora Weiss gave a welcome “on behalf of the American people.” Sam Brown of Moratorium said he was “deeply moved.”[95]
1985-Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary
In April 1985 arriving in a Soviet plane, five Americans traveled to Hanoi to honor the Tenth Anniversary of the Communist victory and received the Ho Chi Minh Order.[96] They were David Dellinger,[97] George Wald [98] John McAuliff,[99] Douglas Hostetter,[100] and one other. Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda declined the offer.
Left Loyal to the End
Years after the antiwar movement remained active in the Soviet-controlled World Peace Council and its many campaigns to unilaterally disarm the West during the Cold War.[101] With the Soviet Union breakup the old faithful of the “peace” movement, continuing to oppose U.S. imperialism and capitalism, gathered at Riverside Church in New York City where Cora Weiss ran its peace programs. Led by Leslie Cagan and Jack O’Dell, the old gang was all there to plan nationwide demonstrations on October 20, 1990: the AFSC, Communist Party USA, Mobilization for Survival, SANE/Freeze, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, U.S. Peace Council, War Resisters League, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.[102]
From the very beginning Hanoi’s American political cadre was an integral part of its strategy for victory.  Today they and their progeny continue their assault on America.[103]
[1] Also: Viet Cong Directive No. 31 OT/TV[1] instructed its cadre, “Back the struggle movement of the American people…Step up …the anti-Vietnam War movement of the Americans. …Emphasize the upsurge of the American’s struggle campaign.”
[2] Bernardine Dohrn, notes, captured at a Chicago bomb factory cited in FBI, FOIA, Weather Underground. The primary source is Acting SAC Chicago to Director, memo, “Foreign Influence-Weather Underground Organization,” August 20, 1976, 106; Also: AP, “Chicago Officials Drop Charge in ‘Bomb Factory,” June 17, 1970.
[3] General Vo Nguyen Giap, How We Won the War, Philadelphia: RECON Publications, 1976, 28 originally in Nhan Dan and Quan Doi Nhan, June 31, July 1, 1975 and as “A New Development of the Art of Leading a Revolutionary War, Vietnam Courier, August and September 1975.[1] Arlene Eisen Bergman, Women of Vietnam, San
Francisco: People’s Press, 1975. See: Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of
Vietnam. Presidio Press, Novato, California, 1986, 239-40.
[4] Arlene Eisen Bergman, Women of Vietnam, San Francisco: People’s Press, 1975. See: Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Presidio Press, Novato, California, 1986, 239-40.
[6] Huan Chuong Huy Chuong, Institute of Orders, Hanoi; Laws of Vietnam, “Law of Emulation and Commendation, the State President, Order No. 25/2003/L-CTN of December 10, 2003 on the Promulgation of Law, Vietnam News Agency, November 9, 2004 news at VNAnet.vn/vietnamlaw/Service.asp?CATEGORY_ID=2&subcategory_ID…
[7] IPC, Organizers Guide For the United Campaign to Honor the Peace Agreement, 9 February 1974; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1660323/posts. Organizations. America Friends Service Committee, Clergy And Laity Concerned, Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, War Resisters League, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice, Fellowship of Reconciliation, SANE, Episcopal Peace Fellowship. Church groups were in the majority. Some others: Medical Aid to Indochina, Indochina Resource Center, Indochina Mobile [tiger cage] Education Project, International Committee to Free South Vietnamese Prisoners from Detention, Torture and Death and Union of Vietnamese in the U.S.A.
[8] Max Friedman, Council for Inter-American Security, study in lieu of testimony to Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee, Lobbying and Political Activities of Tax-Exempt Organizations, Hearings, Committee on Oversight, March 12-13, 1987, 403.
[9]Emphasis in original, IPC, “Indochina: A National Planning Conference, October 26-28, in a camp near Dayton, Ohio, initiated by the Indochina Peace Campaign,” n.d., [October 1973] provided by Max Friedman; Also in the papers of Jan Waggoner Suter, 1954-1985, MSS-059 at the Ward M. Canaday Center, University of Toledo. Suter, an activist in Toledo Area Council of Churches, 1969-1973.
[10] Max Friedman to Canfield, June 5, 2008.
[11] Ly Van Sau was a Viet Cong spokesman in Paris Vietnam’s Ambassador to Cuba. Politics in Brief, “Cuban hero’s birthday celebrated,” June 13, 2008.  Http://english.vietnamnet.vn/politics/2008/06/788292/
[12] IPC, “Peace Groups Unite on ’74 Plan,” Indochina Focal Point, November 16-30, 1973 provided by Max Friedman.
[13] Max Friedman, Council, 403.
[14] Max Friedman to Canfield, November 26, 2008; Max Friedman, Council, 403
[15] Fortune, March 1974; cited in Max Friedman, Council, 405.
[16] Wells, The War Within 567-8N102-3 cite “Notes from IPC National Meeting, Feb 16-18, 1973 (IPC papers SHSW); Santa Barbara IPC, “IPC’s Original, Continuing and Current Goals,” early 1973; Hirsch, “Notes on Congressional Pressure,” July 31, 1973; IPC Boston/Cambridge Resource Center to IPC state offices, December 15, 1972b; Tom Hayden, “Cutting Off Funding for War: the 1973 Indochina Case, Huffington Post, March 20, 2007.
[17] SDS and NACLA (No. American Committee on Latin America. From an old red family. Max Friedman to author, February 25, 2008. Wells, 567-8N102-3 cite “Notes from IPC; Santa Barbara IPC; Hirsch, “Notes; Tom Hayden, “Cutting Off; Other Individuals represented at twenty workshop groups on the 27th[17] were; WSP, Trudi Young; IPC, Tom Hayden, Susan Wind, Marianne Schneller, Steve Cagan[17], Ira Arlook, Nina Mohit, Sokum Hing[17]and Allen Imbarrato; Chicago Seven, John Froines; NARMIC, Merlin Rainwater; Indochina Resource Center, Fred Branfman, G.C. Hildebrand, Bill Goodfellow; AFSC John McAuliff, Gail Pressberg, Jack Malinoski, Lo Anh Tu; WILPF, Roland and Paula Westerlund, Beatrice Pearson, Rosalie Riechman; Medical Aid to Indochina, Bill Zimmerman; [17] Union of Vietnamese in the U.S.A, Tran Quoc Hung.[17]
[18] National liaison with local groups were Karen Nussbaum (Boston), Ira Arlook (Cleveland) and out of the IPC Resource Center Tom Hayden and Carol Kurtz. IPC national travelers were “nationally funded” to targeted locations where they would be most effective. IPC states and contacts were: New York, Suzanne Ross; New Jersey, Eldridge; Pennsylvania, David Hughes; Ohio, Jay Westbrook; Michigan, John R, Illinois, Gardels-Culran; Texas, Dan Thibodeau; Arizona, Nina Mohit; Oregon, Brunner and Willens; and California, Ren Mabey and Shari Whitehead. In Washington,
[19] IPC, “Indochina.
[20] Gen. Van Tien Dung (Trans. John Spragens, Jr.) Our Great Spring Victory, Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 2005, Cora Weiss, Copyright, English translation, 1977, 18-19, 20, 21, 25, 223-4, 228, 230.
[21] Coalition to Stop Funding the War, “1975: Will Peace Come to Indochina?” Legislative Update, January 14, 1975.
[22] John M. Del Vecchio, “Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam? The Importance of Story Individual and Cultural Effects of Skewing the Realities of American Involvement in
Southeast Asia for Social, Political and/or Economic Ends,” 1996 Vietnam Symposium “After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam,” 18-20 April 1996.
[23] Coalition to Stop.
[24] Kissinger taped telephone conversations, TELCON April 14, 1975, 9:47 p.m. Connolly/The Secretary.
[25] The Assembly program workshops at Georgetown most notably included Bishop James Armstrong, Nguyen Huu An (Union of Vietnamese), Fred Branfman (Indochina Resource Center), Thich Thien Chau (Viet-Nam Resource Center), Bob Chenoweth (IPC POW), Tom Cornell (FOR), Rep. Ron Dellums, Rep. Robert Drinan, Ngo Cong Duc (Indochina Resource Center), Daniel Ellsberg, Jim Forest (AFSC), Morton Halpern (Center for National Security Studies), Rep. Tom Harkin, Sokhom Hing (Group of Khmer Residents), Ngo Vinh Long (Indochina Resource Center), Don Luce (CALC), Doug Hostetter (United Methodists), Ed Miller (IPC, POW), Gary Porter (Indochina Resource Center), Le Anh Tu (NARMIC/AFSC), Cora Weiss (Medical Aid to Indochina) and Ron Young (AFSC).
[26] Assembly to Save the Peace, “Peace Convocation” flyer for January 26, 1975; Assembly to Save the Peace, “Workshops” for Saturday, January 25, 1975; Assembly to Save the Peace, “Revised Agenda,” January 25-29, 1975. All copies of originals from Max Friedman.
[27] Coalition to Stop Funding the War, “1975: Will Peace Come to Indochina?” Legislative Update, January 14, 1975.
[28] David Binder, New York Times Jan. 30, 1975; Wallace Turner, New York Times Jan. 30, 1975; FBI, FOIA, Weather Underground, 185.
[29] “Envoy Blasts the New York Times For Misleading Reporting on Vietnam,” AIM REPORT, Accuracy in Media, Vol. III, No. 4, April 1974, 1.
[30] Canfield, Roger New American, April 1985; Bui Tin, Wall Street Journal, 1995
[31] Fedora to author, December 13, 2010.
[32] Nguyen Cao Ky, How We Lost… 207-208; George Webber and Graham Martin, 1974, Catholic Peace Fellowship Records, University of Notre Dame Archives, CCPF 10/05 Folder.
[33] Sydney Schanberg, “For the People, War Itself Is the Enemy: The ‘Enemy’ Is Red, Cruel and after 5 Years, Little Known,” New York Times, March 2, 1975.
[34] Ronald Yates, “Priest won’t leave refugees despite Khmer Rouge threat,” Chicago Tribune, Mar 17, 1975, 14.
[35] Leslie Gelb, “Fear of Cambodian Bloodbath Seen Key to Senate Vote on Aid,” New York Times, Mar 13, 1975, 18.
[36] Gabriel Kolko, Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace, London: Rutledge, 1997, 16-17.
[37] Denis Warner, Certain Victory, 60-63 cited in James Banerian and the Vietnamese Community Action Committee, Losers Are Pirates: A Close Look at the PBS Series “Vietnam: A Television History,” Phoenix: Tieng Me Publications, 1984, 260
[38] Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (USA Ret.) and Joseph Galloway, We Are Soldiers Still, New York: Harper Collins, 2008,148.
[39] Xuan Thuy Interview With (Larry) Levin (IPC), Hanoi VNA in English 1544 GMT 16 Apr 75 BK; See also “U.S. Dispatch of Ships Violates Paris Agreement,” Liberation Radio (Clandestine)in Vietnamese to South Vietnam 0300 GMT 20 Apr 75 SG; See also Hung, Palace File, 304.
[40] Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography, Simon and Schuster, 2005, 641.
[41] Peter Collier, The Fondas: A Hollywood Dynasty (New York:  Putnam, 1991) as cited in K. L. Billingsley, “All in the Family,” California Political Review (Winter, 1991), 27.
[42] Dung, 18-19.
[43] Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, Hearings, The Nationwide Drive Against Law Enforcement Intelligence Operations, part 2, July 14, 1975, 179.
[44] James Webb, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” theAmericanEnterprise.org, April 30, 2003, 2-3. Also Webb, “Peace? Defeat? What Did the Vietnam Protesters Want?” speech at American Enterprise Institute, jameswebb.com/articles/variouspubs/aeiprotesterswant.htm
[45] David Schiaccitano, “The River,” in Santoli, To Bear Any Burden, 15.
[46] Kissinger taped telephone conversations, TELCON April 17, 1975 6:35 p.m. Chairman Mahon/The Secretary.
[47] Canfield, Roger New American, April 1985
[48] Kissinger taped telephone conversations, TELCON Ben Bradlee/Kissinger, April 9, 1975, 2:40 p.m.
[49] Mike Benge, “Ethnonationalist Movements,” July 8, 2009.
[50] “Former President Gerald Ford dies at 93,” By Jeff Wilson AP December 26, 2006 and Barry Schweid, “Ford Remembered As a Realist,” AP, Dec 28, 2006.
[51] Xuan Thuy Interview With (Larry) Levin; Pham Van Dong Interview With Dutch TV, Hanoi in English 1558 GMT 16 Apr 75 BK.
[52] New York Times, April 18, 1975
[53] Rolling Stone , May 8, 1975.
[54] Kissinger taped telephone conversations, TELCON April 26, 1975 10:15 a.m. Ambassador Dean Brown/The Secretary.
[55] Henry A. Kissinger to Graham Martin, flash DE (illegible) WTE #2378 1190107 Z (illegible) 290101Z APR 75, FM: White House. At Ford Library and www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/record.php?id=568.
[56] Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War After The War. New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich Publishers, 1986. 1.
[57] Ken Moorefield, “The Fall  of  Saigon,” in Santoli, To Bear…, 237.
[58] Hubert Van Es, “Thirty Years at 300 Millimeters,” New York Times, April 29, 2005.
[59] Kitty Thermer, “Vietnam Reconciled: A small band of teachers studies John McAuliff’s Vietnam,” World Review Magazine, Volume 18, Number 3.
[60] Palace Files, 255.
[61] Doan Van Toai, “A Lament for Vietnam,” New York Times Magazine, March 29, 1981, 3 of 13.
[62] Nghia M. Vo, “The War Viewed From All Sides,” in Nghia M. Vo, Chat V. Dang, Hien V. Ho (eds.), War and Remembrance, SACEI Forum #6, Denver: Outskirts Press, Inc, 2009, 16; On the gold Nghia cites Bui Tin, Following Ho Chi Minh, Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 1995, 89, 100-1.
[63] Ayers, Fugitive Days, 2001.
[64] National Office Collective of VVAW/WSO to Dear IPC members, June 3, 1975.
[65] Guardian, May 21, 1975, 3.
[66] Bergman, Women…, 251.
[67] Truong Nhu Tang, “The Victory Parade,” in Santoli, To Bear Any Burden, 19.
[68] Mark Moyar, “VILLAGER ATTITUDES DURING THE FINAL DECADE
OF THE VIETNAM WAR, 1996 Vietnam Symposium, “After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam,” 18-20 April 1996, http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/moyar.htm
[69] James Webb, “Sleeping.
[70] Nguyễn Cao Quyền, “Post-1975 Vietnamese Communist System of ‘Reeducation’ Camps,” ARVN: Reflections and Reassessments After 30 Years, at March 2006 Vietnam Center’s 2006 Annual Conference, 17/03/2006 at http://www.huongduong.com.au/article_692.html
[71] James Webb, “Sleeping.
[72] Nguyen Cong Hoan, “Promises,” in Santoli, To Bear…, 286.
[73] John M. Del Vecchio, “Cambodia, cites Saigon, Sagan, Ginetta and Denney, Stephen. Violations of Human Rights in The Socialist Republic of Vietnam: April 30, 1975- April 30, 1983, The Aurora Foundation, Atherton, California. 1983.
[74] Le Thi Anh, “Second Anniversary: the New Vietnam,” National Review, April 29, 1977, 487; Frank Snepp.
[75] Dung, 286.
[76] Mike Benge, “The Two Faces of Communist Laos (Hidden Genocide),” FrontPageMagazine.com, February 28, 2008; Stephen Magagnini, “Some call Gen. Vang Pao ‘King of the Hmong”, Sacramento Bee, July 18, 2009.
[77] http://departments.bloomu.edu/crimjust/pages/articles/Child_Labor.pdf
[78] The Pink Sheet, # 169, November 7, 1977.
[79] Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy, 147-149.
[80] FBI, FOIA, Weather Underground, 239; FBI, San Francisco, SF 100-71012, VVAW/WSO, fragment, n.d. 17.
[81] FBI, VVAW/WSO, fragment, October 8, 1975.
[82] “North and South Hold Talks: Viet Nam Plans Reunification,” US/Indochina Report, Volume I, Number I, Friends of Indochina Organizing Committee and Indochina Resource Center, December 15, 1975, 1.
[83] “North and South Hold Talks.
[84] Nguyen Cong Hoan, testimony, Human Rights in Vietnam, Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives, 95th Cong, 1st Sess., July 26, 1977,149.
[85] “North and South Hold Talks, 5-6.
[86] “FRIENDSHIPMENT campaign builds: Americans Join Reconstruction Effort,” US/Indochina Report, Volume I, Number I, Friends of Indochina Organizing Committee and Indochina Resource Center, December 15, 1975, 3-4.
[87] “A New Foreign Policy Agenda,” n.d.; Ad Hoc Coalition for a New Foreign Policy,” Legislative Update, A special issue on military spending, Spring 1976.
[88] Ad Hoc Coalition for a New Foreign Policy, ”Join the Network,” Legislative Update, A special issue on military spending, Spring 1976.
[89] Gareth Porter, “Congressional Visit,” US/Indochina report, January 15, 1976.
[90] “Church Events Listed,” Washington Post, April 30, 1976.
[91] Amadeo Richardson, “N.Y. welcome given envoy of Vietnam Socialist Republic, Daily World, July 13, 1976.
[92] Amadeo Richardson, 3.
[93] “To the American People, the Carter Administration and the Congress, “Vietnam: A Time for Healing and Compassion,” The New York Times, January 30, 1977.
[94] “N.Y. meeting Sunday to welcome Vietnamese,” Daily World, September 23, 1977.
[95] Pat Buchanan, “All of Hanoi’s Little Helpers Gather for Huge Gala Anti-American Party,” placed in Congressional Record of House, E 6262, October 13, 1977 by Rep. Robert Dornan.
[96] James W. Clinton, The Loyal Opposition: Americans in North Vietnam, 1965-1972, Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1995,244-5.
[97]Liz Trotta, CBS Evening News for Tuesday, Apr 30, 1985, Abstract and Metadata, Vanderbilt University, 1985; “One of ‘Chicago Seven’ on Hand Jets Roar, Thousands March to Mark North Vietnamese Victory,” Los Angeles Times, Apr 30, 1985, 2; Nora Bonosky, “1,000 Pledge ‘No more Wars,” Daily World May 7, 1985, 2D.
[98] POWs well-fed, South Vietnamese political prisoners, etc.
[99]“One of ‘Chicago Seven’ on Hand Jets Roar, Thousands March to Mark North Vietnamese  Victory,” Los Angeles Times, Apr 30, 1985, 2;  James W. Clinton,53.
[100] Materials on the celebration are in Hostetter’s files: “Vietnam-Tenth Anniversary Celebration, 1985,” Mennonite Church USA Historical Committee and Archives, Hist. Mss. 1-179 Doug Hostetter Records, 1967-2001, Box 6, 6-15. Box 9 contains, Doug Hostetter, “Vietnam and the U.S.: Ten Years After the War, Where is Reconciliation?”
[101] Among the most notable were Ralph Abernathy, Richard Barnet, Anne Braden, Norman Becker, Carl Bloice, Leslie Cagan, Kay Camp, William Sloan Coffin, Rep. John Conyers, David Cortright, Dave Dellinger, Angie Dickerson, Stanley Faulkner, Abe Feinglass, Carlton B. Goodlett, Jerry Gordon, Lennox Hines, John P. Holdren, Henry Kendall, Mel King, Michael Klare, Arthur Kinoy, Sidney Lens, Robert Jay Lifton, David McReynolds, Michael Myerson, Holly Near, Martin Niemoller, Jack O’Dell, Linus Pauling, Sandy Pollack, Terry Provance, Pauline Rosen, Pete Seeger, Benjamin Spock, George Wald, Cora Weiss, Ron Young.[101]  Many were admitted or identified CPUSA members. With the tutelage of Yuri Kapralov of the Soviet Embassy, organizations active in the Vietnam peace movement and their successor entities joined Soviet financed and organized campaigns to unilaterally disarm the United States: American Friends Service Committee, Catholic Peace Fellowship, Clergy and Laity Concerned, Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, Coalition for a Non-Nuclear World, Fellowship for Reconciliation, Mobilization for Survival, Presbyterian, [Weather Underground’s] Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, Riverside Church Disarmament Program, Institute for Policy Studies, United Church of Christ, War Resisters League, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Women Strike for Peace.[101]
[102] “New coalition projects campaign for Gulf peace; October 20 actions are set,” People’s Daily World, September 22, 1990.
Categories
Cambodia Comrades in Arms Vietnam

Reviews–Comrades in Arms: How Americong Won the War in Vietnam Against the Common Enemy–America

Completely SEARCHABLE for any name, date, place or event of the Vietnam War and its antiwar and peace protesters.

“This guy’s stuff is awesome.
Fascinating. Incredible. Every Vietnam vet should have a copy. A great
service for this country and the cause of freedom.”” LT. COL ROBERT K. BROWN,
publisher, Soldier of Fortune, Capt. Army Intelligence, Special Forces, 1st
Infantry, Phoenix Program Vietnam 1968-1971. sofmag.com.

“Very detailed and valuable study…”MARK MOYAR, author of Triumph
Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965, and Phoenix and the Birds of Prey:
Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam.

“Connects America’s left-wingers and the Communist brass of North Viet-Nam” ARMOND NOBLE, Publisher, Military
magazine. Warrant Officer, California State Military Reserve; US Army
Signal Corps, Westinghouse Broadcasting, Time Magazine. Vietnam,
1966-67. milmag.com

“The Filet Mignon” of why
Vietnam is relevant today. Stephen Sherman, 1st
Lt. Civil Affairs Officer, US Army, 5th Special Forces Group
(airborne) 1967-1968. www.viet-myths.net
and www.specialforcesbooks.com

“A major element of the
Vietnam War never before fully explored. …Some met with our enemies to
encourage them…Canfield focuses the spotlight on this conduct so the full
history can be known.” B.G. “JUG” BURKETT, co-author
Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its
History. 1st Lt., US Army, 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Vietnam.

“The ULTIMATE source on
Vietnam and the Left” LT. COL. ROBERT “BUZZ” PATTERSON, US Air Force (Ret) Author of Dereliction of Duty,
Reckless Disregard, War Crimes

“VERY good. Interesting.” PROF. ROBERT TURNER, University of Virginia,
Author Vietnamese Communism: Its Origin and
Development, Editor The Real Lessons of the Vietnam War: Reflections
Twenty-Five Years After the Fall of Saigon. Capt. US Army Vietnam JUSPAO, American Embassy, Saigon.

“Wow! …an invaluable reference…monumental
achievement.” FEDORA, Free Republic.

“Dissects…US fronts for Hanoi,” Bruce Kesler, Sgt., USMC, Intelligence, Vietnam 1969-70, founder of Vietnam Veterans for a
Just Peace, 1971, contributing editor familysecuritymatters.org, blogs on
Maggie’s Farm.

“Great…facts we will never see in the liberal media” DAN NGUYEN, Boat People

“Stunning…could have been
written about what is happening now [in Iraq and Afghanistan].” RODNEY DALE, Texas

“Intriguing…raises
never-before asked questions…” MELODY CONROY, W.W. Norton.

“GREAT…impressive book.
“Comments on Voice of America from Viet Kieu are positive.” NGHIA VO, Saigon Arts, Culture and
Education Institute, Author Bamboo Gulag, The Viet Kieu in
America and The Vietnamese Boat People. SACEI07.org.

“Outstanding…we
are all grateful…Should drive a stake in the heart of the grand myths…a
vital piece of work, necessary to any meaningful comprehension.” BILL LAURIE, Co-author Whitewash Blackwash: Myths of the Vietnam War, 1st Lt. US Army (Ret) and
defense attaché (1971-1975).

“A terrific history of the second front,” PROFESSOR
VICTOR COMERCHERO, Sacramento State Univ., former radical antiwar activist.

“A damn good piece of work” MIKE BENGE, contributor to Washington
Times, History Channel, POW (1968-73), Vietnam: US Marines, 1956-1959,
International Voluntary Services (IVS), 1963-65; Foreign Service Officer,
USAID, 1963-68.

“Wow. Impressive…tour
de force. I have never seen this breadth of information on the anti-war
crowd…A real jewel. Will make research of other Vietnam War scholars much
easier.” LT. COL. JAMES K. BRUTON, US
Army SFT, Counterinsurgency Vietnam 1972.

“A tremendous project.” SCOTT SWETT, co-author To Set the
Record Straight Webmaster, Swift Boats Veterans and POWs for Truth,
wintersoldier.com, tosettherecordstraight.com

“Massive study of the Hanoi Lobby” MAX
FRIEDMAN, National
Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, New Mobilization, Student Mobe, Washington Mobe and
correspondent in So. Vietnam. Co-author The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam, 1972.

“Canfield amply documents a small group of New Left radicals who subverted the efforts of the US
military in Vietnam with pro-Communist propaganda and disinformation campaigns
in America.” JAMES McLEROY, 1st Lt., Army
Special Forces, I Corps, 1967-68.

“I have been waiting for a
book like Canfield’s for 40 years.” JACK J. GOERHRING III, Psychological  War, Capt. US Army, Vietnam 1968-69.

 

“Takes the whole antiwar-activists-as-sincere-liberators myth and trashes it… sets fire to the
pile of pieces.  Wow. A… truly monumental achievement.” R. J. DEL VECCHIO Co-author Whitewash Blackwash: Myths of the Vietnam War, Cpl. Marine combat
photographer, 1st Marine Division, Vietnam (1967-8),

“Amazing…dig so deep and see so far ahead.” THU-MINH
HUYNH, son of Gen. Huynh Cao

“Recorded as the author has written” GEN.
HUYNH VAN CAO, Cdr. ARVN, 7th Division, 1961-63.

“How well the NVA played the
political war…should be known before all the veterans of the war die.” MIKE O’CONNELL, 101st Airmobile
Division, 1969-1970.

Promotes historical truths… and unfolds the ugly, shameful and
mischievous acts of the anti-war liberals and leftists in the USA and all
over the world. Joachim Le