American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity (57 page)

“If we ignore the malignancy of Nicaragua”
:
Jonathan Power, “This Time, Stay Out of Nicaragua’s Affairs,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 2, 2001; Christian Smith,
Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
,
pp. 23, 262.

“just two days’ driving time”
:
see http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=36939&st=&st1=, March 3, 1986, “Remarks at White House Meeting.”

a broadly popular revolution
:
Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade,
Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle
(Boulder: Westview Press, 2011); Stephen Kinzer,
Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991).

no more than 40 percent of the public ever agreed
:
David Thelen,
Becoming Citizens in the Age of Television: How Americans Challenged the Media and Seized Political Initiative During the Iran-Contra Debate
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 39.

“If the American people could have talked”
:
Cited in Roger Peace,
A Call to Conscience: The Anti-Contra War Campaign
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), p. 2.

An estimated 100,000 U.S. citizens
:
Ibid., p. 3; Smith,
Resisting Reagan
, p. 158.

“this is just like Vietnam”
:
Willson,
Blood on the Tracks
, p. 156.

“teetotaling fundamentalist”
:
Ibid., p. 8.

“He was the first Eagle Scout I had known”
:
Ibid., pp. 24–25.

“criminal and immoral beyond comprehension”
:
Ibid., pp. 47–49.

immolated themselves
:
Zaroulis and Sullivan,
Who Spoke Up?
, pp. 1–5; Robert J. Topmiller,
The Lotus Unleashed: The Buddhist Peace Movement in South Vietnam, 1964–1966
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006); Willson,
Blood on the Tracks
, p. 381n67.

Charlie Liteky
:
The Medal of Honor was officially awarded to Angelo J. Liteky, the ordination name of Charles James Liteky. When Liteky left the priesthood in 1975, he reassumed his birth name.

“I pray for your conversion”
:
Willson,
Blood on the Tracks
, p. 173; http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/8/congressional_medal_of_honor_winner_reagan.

“Central America
is
another Vietnam”
:
“Veteran Gives Up Medal of Honor in Nicaragua Protest,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 29, 1986; Hagopian,
The Vietnam War in American Memory
, p. 369.

twenty-one soldiers killed
 . . . in El Salvador:
“Public Honors for Secret Combat,”
Washington Post
, May 6, 1996.

Assassination Manual
:
“Excerpts From Primer for Insurgents,”
New York Times
, October 17, 1984, p. A12; “CIA Said to Produce Manual for Anti-Sandinistas,”
New York Times
, October 15, 1984, p. A7; “Reagan Now Says Manual Was Mistranslated,”
New York Times
, November 4, 1984, p. 22.

World Court suit against the United States
:
Peace,
A Call to Conscience
, pp. 44–45, 160–61, 189.

five hundred demonstrations in support
:
For example, on the fortieth day of the fast, a group of veterans went to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to participate in a medal renunciation ceremony. They had collected more than eighty-five military medals from veterans around the country who wanted them returned to the Wall in protest of Central American policy. See Carl M. Cannon, “Veterans Leave Medals at Memorial in Protest of Central America Policy,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, October 10, 1986.

the four men ended their fast
:
Joel Brinkley, “Four Veterans Ending Fast on Policy in Nicaragua,”
New York Times
, October 17, 1986.

the train accelerated
:
Willson,
Blood on the Tracks
, p. 221; “Weapons Train That Maimed Pacifist Was Under Navy Orders Not to Stop: Reports Revealing Order Not Shared With Congressional Investigators,”
National Catholic Reporter
, January 29, 1988.

the crew claimed it had orders
 . . . not to stop:
David Humiston, the engineer, reported to investigators “he was told by his supervisor, when going on duty that morning, not to stop outside the base area. This was to prevent anyone from boarding the locomotive or the cars it was pulling.” Ralph Dawson, one of the two spotters, confirmed the order. Willson,
Blood on the Tracks
, p. 221. For further documentation, see “Weapons Train That Maimed Pacifist Was Under Navy Orders Not to Stop.”

“domestic terrorist suspects”
:
FBI, Chicago Office, “Domestic Security/Terrorism Sabotage,” Memorandum to the Director and All Offices of the FBI, October 31, 1986. Cited in Willson,
Blood on the Tracks
, p. 397.

“totally non-violent”
:
Anthony Schmitz, “The Spy Who Said No,”
Mother Jones
, April 1988, pp. 16–19; Wes Smith, “Act of Conscience Ends Career of ‘Peacemaker’ FBI Agent,”
Chicago Tribune
, February 1, 1988.

a permanent occupation
:
Willson,
Blood on the Tracks
, p. 241.

persistence of dissent
:
See, for example, Bradford Martin,
The Other Eighties: A Secret History of America in the Age of Reagan
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2012); Donald R. Culverson,
Contesting Apartheid: U.S. Activism, 1960–1987
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1999); Robert Surbrug Jr.,
Beyond Vietnam: The Politics of Protest in Massachusetts, 1974–1990
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009); Fred Pelka,
What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012).

“the Vietnam syndrome”
:
Arnold R. Isaacs,
Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts, and Its Legacy
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1997), pp. 65–102; Hagopian,
The Vietnam War in American Memory
, pp. 23–48.

“post-Vietnam syndrome”
:
Boyce Rensberger, “Delayed Trauma in Veterans Cited,”
New York Times
, May 3, 1972, p. 19.

“The Decline of U.S. Power”
:
Business Week
, March 12, 1979. Also cited and discussed by Michael T. Klare,
Beyond the “Vietnam Syndrome
”
: U.S. Interventionism in the 1980s
(Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, 1981), pp. 4–8.

a “national crusade to make America great again”
:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25970.

Speaking before the Veterans of Foreign Wars
:
Ronald Reagan, “Restoring the Margin of Safety,” Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, August 18, 1980, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/8.18.80.html.

The infrastructure of a global military empire
:
Chalmers Johnson,
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004); Andrew Bacevich,
Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2011).

On October 23, 1983, in Beirut
:
New York Times
, October 24, 1983.

“I haven’t seen carnage like that since Vietnam”
:
Ibid.

“Let terrorists be aware”
:
“Remarks at the Welcoming Ceremony for the Freed American Hostages,” January 27, 1981, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/12781b.htm.

U.S. “neutrality” was compromised
:
Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes
, pp. 388–393; Colin Powell,
My American Journey
(New York: Ballantine, 2003), p. 291.

possible car-bomb attacks
:
Lou Cannon,
President Reagan:
Role of a Lifetime
(New York: Public Affairs, 2000), pp. 339–401 (warnings on p. 383 and embassy attack on pp. 358–59). Cannon gives full and acute coverage to this much overlooked subject.

O’Neill “may be ready to surrender”
: Robert
Timberg,
The Nightingale’s Song
(New York: Touchstone, 1996), p. 342.

another firestorm of three hundred shells
:
Robert Fisk,
Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon
(New York: Nation Books, 2002), p. 533.

“Vietnam Never Again Society”
:
Timberg,
The Nightingale’s Song
, p. 343.

“the Vietnam syndrome in spades”
:
Isaacs,
Vietnam Shadows
, p. 74.

a “Soviet-Cuban colony”
:
Cited in Jon Western’s cogent analysis,
Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 129–30.

“another reason I wanted secrecy”
:
Ibid., p. 122.

support climbed to 63 percent
:
Ibid., p. 130.

there was hardly any resistance
:
Richard A. Gabriel,
Military Incompetence: Why the American Military Doesn’t Win
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1986), pp. 149–86; Stephen Zunes, “The US Invasion of Grenada,”
Foreign Policy in Focus
, October 2003, http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155/25966.html. Richard Harwood, “Tidy U.S. War Ends: ‘We Blew Them Away,’”
Washington Post
, November 6, 1983.

“body and soul”
:
Lawrence E. Walsh,
Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), p. 19; Bunch,
Tear Down This Myth
, pp. 15–20, 94–99, 106–10, 210–14.

“We did not—repeat, did not”
:
Cannon,
President Reagan,
p. 684.

talk of impeachment subsided
:
Ibid., pp. 633–55.

“Where was George?”
:
The taunt was issued by Senator Edward Kennedy. See Michael Oreskes, “Bush Lashes Back at Kennedy Taunt,”
New York Times
, September 3, 1988;
Newsweek
’s cover story for October 19, 1987, was “George Bush: Fighting the ‘Wimp Factor.’”

In a TV ad
 . . . Dukakis in the tank:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRPZQ 3UEN_Q.

the “crack epidemic”
:
The biggest drug story of 1989 was buried in the back pages of just a few newspapers. Lost amid all the talk about Noriega’s misdeeds was a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report showing that the Contras had supported their war, in part, by selling cocaine in the United States with the knowledge and support of the CIA and the State Department; http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB /NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm#1.

Because Noriega allowed the Contras to use Panama
: Stephen Kinzer,
Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change
(New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 250.

the Bush administration took a more aggressive stance
:
Jane Kellett Cramer, “‘Just Cause’ or Just Politics?: U.S. Panama Invasion and Standardizing Qualitative Tests for Diversionary War,”
Armed Forces and Society
, vol. 32, no. 2, 2006, p. 186.

“Big Stick Silences Critics”
:
Christian Science Monitor
, January 8, 1990.

“Even our severest critics”
:
Powell,
My American Journey,
p. 426.

“Have we got Noriega yet?”
:
See Jeff Cohen and Mark Cook, “How Television Sold the Panama Invasion,”
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
, January 1, 1990, http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/how-television-sold-the-panama-invasion/.

at least three thousand people
:
That figure was supported by former attorney general Ramsey Clark’s Independent Commission of Inquiry. See Larry Rohter, “Panama and U.S. Strive to Settle on Death Toll,”
New York Times
, April 1, 1990. Rohter challenges Clark’s figures. For a critique of Rohter and additional support of the higher casualty figures, see Noam Chomsky,
Deterring Democracy
(New York: Verso, 1991), pp. 164–66.

“an emotional predicate”
:
James Mann,
The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet
(New York: Penguin, 2004), p. 180.

When Hussein used
 . . . tepid objections:
Peter W. Galbraith, “The True Iraq Appeasers,”
Boston Globe
, August 31, 2006. Posted here: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0831-23.htm;
New York Times
, July 28, 1990.

“We have no opinion”
:
Elaine Sciolino with Michael R. Gordon, “Confrontation in the Gulf; U.S. Gave Iraq Little Reason Not to Mount Kuwait Assault,”
New York Times
, September 23, 1990. The cable Glaspie sent to the State Department about the meeting, and released by WikiLeaks, has the subject title “Saddam’s Message of Friendship to President Bush.” It indicates a stronger concern about the possibility of conflict than some earlier versions of the meeting, but it remains clear that Glaspie had no instruction to warn Hussein about a U.S. military response should he invade Kuwait. In fact, Glaspie repeatedly emphasizes the desire to build a strong relationship with Iraq: For example, “Ambassador resumed her theme, recalling that the president had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq”; http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/1990/07/90BAGHDAD4237.html.