American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity (59 page)

“raw material”
:
Michael Lind, “Niall Ferguson and the Brain-Dead American Right,”
Salon
, May 24, 2011.

“empire of bases”
:
Chalmers Johnson,
Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2010), pp. 30–35, 109–119.

CIA-supplied cash and weapons
:
Coll,
Ghost Wars
; Johnson,
Dismantling the Empire
, pp. 11–28.

“I wish I had stood with them”
:
Appy,
Patriots
, p. 424.

the Powell Doctrine
:
Mann,
Rise of the Vulcans
, pp. 43–44, 119–20, 350–51.

“We don’t do body counts”
:
John M. Broder, “A Nation at War: The Casualties; U.S. Military Has No Count of Iraqi Dead in Fighting,”
New York Times
, April 2, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/02/world/nation-war-casualties-us-military-has-no-count-iraqi-dead-fighting.html.

“I don’t do quagmires”
:
Department of Defense news briefing, July 24, 2003, http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2894.

fell back on body counts
:
Tom Engelhardt,
The American Way of War
(Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010), p. 122.

“God has apparently seen fit”
:
Jeffrey Bell, “The Petraeus Promotion,”
Weekly Standard
, May 5, 2008, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/038lzirr.asp.

counterinsurgency as a career killer
:
Fred Kaplan,
The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013).

“chastening effect”
:
David H. Petraeus, “Lessons of History and Lessons of Vietnam,”
Parameters
, Autumn 1986.

“Real men don’t do
moot
-wah!”
:
Kaplan,
The Insurgents
, p. 45.

“What Have You Done”
:
Ibid., p. 73.

the number of insurgent attacks climbed
:
Gareth Porter, “How Petraeus Created the Myth of His Success,” Truthout.org, November 27, 2012, part 1 of a 4-part series, http://truth-out.org/news/item/12997-how-petraeus-created-the-myth-of-his-success.

Counterinsurgency Field Manual
:
The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), p. xxi.

“unity of effort”
:
Counterinsurgency Field Manual
. See, for example, pp. 1–2, 29, 48, 137–138.

“the body count”
:
Ibid., p. 190.

“Genuine compassion and empathy”
:
Ibid., p. 239

“war of perceptions”
:
Ibid., pp. 163–165.

“Sixty percent of this thing is information”
:
Gareth Porter, “Petraeus Rising: Managing the ‘War of Perceptions’ in Iraq,” part 3 of a 4-part series,
Truthout.org,
December 14, 2012, http://truth-out.org/news/item/13310-petraeus-rising-managing-the-war-of-perceptions-in-iraq; Thomas E. Ricks,
The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in
Iraq
(New York: Penguin, 2010).

Sunni Awakening
:
Gareth Porter, “Petraeus Rising,” Ibid.

only 24 percent of Americans
:
Cited in Dominic Tierney,
How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War
(New York: Little, Brown, 2010), p. 236.

departed a catastrophe
:
One of the best sources of information for the costs and consequences of our recent wars is http://costsofwar.org; see also “U.S. Withdrawal Led to Al Qaida’s ‘Remarkable Resurgence’ in Iraq,” WorldTribune.com, August 7, 2013, http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/08/07/report-u-s-withdrawal-led-to-al-qaidas-remarkable-resurgence-in-iraq/.

“Obama’s Vietnam”
:
John Barry, “Could Afghanistan Be Obama’s Vietnam?”
Newsweek
, January 30, 2009.

Obama surge in Afghanistan
:
Gareth Porter, “True Believer: Petraeus and the Mythology of Afghanistan,” Truthout.org, December 20, 2012, part 4 of a 4-part series, http://truth-out.org/news/item/13442-believing-his-own-myth-petraeus-in-afghanistan.

“persistent, targeted efforts”
:
http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/05/global-war-terror-any-other-name-just-endless/65550/; Nick Turse, “Drone Disasters,” TomDispatch.com, January 15, 2012, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175489/nick_turse_drone_disasters.

struck a funeral procession
:
Johnson,
Dismantling the Empire
, p. 189; see also Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt,
Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001–2050
(CreateSpace, 2012).

400–1,000 Pakistani civilians
:
Estimates provided by
Global Research
and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. See http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/.

more than three thousand government and private organizations
:
Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “Top Secret America,”
Washington Post
, July 19, July 20, July 21, December 20, 2010.

According to a report
:
David B. Muhlhausen and Jena Baker McNeill, “Terror Trends: 40 Years’ Data on International and Domestic Terrorism,” Heritage Foundation, May 20, 2011, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/05/terror-trends-40-years-data-on-international-and-domestic-terrorism.

More than 30,000 Americans are killed
:
Engelhardt,
The American Way of War
, pp. 128–29.

“If you want to know who we are”
:
Statement by the president, April 16, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/04/16/statement-president.

“greatest country in the world”
:
Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans See U.S. as Exceptional; 37% Doubt Obama Does,” December 22, 2010, Gallup Politics, Gallup.com, http://www.gallup.com/poll/145358/americans-exceptional-doubt-obama.aspx.

specific questions about the state of the nation
:
See, for example, “NBC News Poll: Pessimism Defines the State of the Union,” January 27, 2014, http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/27/22471530-nbc-news-poll-pessimism-defines-the-state-of-the-union?lite. On education, for example: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1612/education.aspx; on infrastructure: http://cdmsmith.com/en-US/Insights/Funding-Future-Mobility/Exit-4-Changing-Lanes.aspx.

The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable.

Abrams, Creighton, 43, 178–80

Abu Ghraib, 308–11, 330

Acheson, Dean, 83

Adams, Sam, 174–75

Adid, Mohamed Farrah, 302

adoption of Asians, 31–32

advertising, 262–63

Advertising Age,
260

affirmative action, 199–201

Afghanistan, 110, 305–7, 311, 312, 314, 317, 318, 320–22, 330

AFL-CIO, 197

African Americans:

civil rights for, 17, 19, 56, 60, 133, 139, 184, 201, 202

in military, 133, 137–42, 202

Moynihan and, 133

students, killing of, 201–4

workers, 199–201

aggression, 35–37, 45, 57, 63, 71, 310

Communist, 40–41, 46, 57, 63, 153

masculinity and, 78

Agnew, Spiro, 187, 196, 207

AIDS, 283

Albright, Madeleine, 301, 304

Ali, Muhammad, 138, 141

Al Jazeera,
320

Allen, George, 154

Allen, John, 307

All in the Family,
195–96

al-Qaeda, 157, 305, 309, 310, 329–30

America Held Hostage,
233

American exceptionalism, xiv–xv, xvii, xviii, 6–8, 31, 63, 185, 191, 192, 216, 228, 230–31, 258, 260, 265, 273, 285, 304, 309, 319, 322, 333–35

American flag, 265

American Friends of Vietnam, 13–14, 20–22, 39

American imperialism, 319–22

American Legion, 12, 37, 192

American national identity, 7, 12–13, 31, 334

American victimhood, 227–28, 283

Iran hostage crisis and, 233–34

POWs and, 242–50

Vietnam veterans and, 241

America’s Stake in Vietnam, 92–93

Angola, 285

antiwar activism, 19, 87–88, 111–14, 140–42, 157, 183–217, 263–66, 275, 283, 285, 322

Fonda and, 263–64

at Jackson State, 202–4

at Kent State, 183, 186–93, 197, 198, 201, 308

Latinos killed at, 204–6

Nixon and, 186–89, 191, 196–99, 206

self-immolation, 23, 267, 269, 277, 278, 308

by soldiers and veterans, 62–63, 140–42, 190, 215–16, 266

and spitting on veterans, 237

Arbenz, Jacobo, 39–40

Armed Forces Journal,
214

Arnett, Peter, 30

Arredondo, Alexander, 313–14

Arredondo, Brian, 313, 314

Arredondo, Carlos, 313–15, 333

Arrogance of Power, The
(Fulbright), 53

Asian Americans, 261–62

A-Team, The,
272, 273

Atlantic,
102

Atwater, Lee, 293

B-52s, 151–58, 179

Bacevich, Andrew, 321, 322

Baer, Russell, 312

Baker, James, III, 295–97, 300

Baker, Norman, 27

Baldwin, Hanson, 49

Balfour, Bernice, 149

Balkans, 300

Ball, George, 47, 65–66, 81, 141

“Ballad of the Green Berets, The,” 123–26

Bank of America, 112–14

Barker, Frank, Jr., 145

“Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley, The,” 148

Beatles, 122–24, 209

Bedell, Berkley, 276

Beirut, 287–90

Berlin, 77, 96, 293

Berrigan, Daniel and Philip, 30

Bible, 11

Bigart, Homer, 193–94

bin Laden, Osama, 305–6, 318, 322

Bird, Kai, 81

Bissell, Richard, 75

Bloody Friday, 193–95

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
(Johnson), 321

body counts, 169–71, 173, 179–81, 270, 323, 324

bombing, 56, 64, 73, 101, 104–7, 151–69, 177

B-52s and, 151–58, 179

of Cambodia, 87, 89, 113, 154, 178, 227

of civilians and civilian property, 162, 164, 167–69, 170, 277

cluster, 153–54

napalm, 43, 49, 53–59, 153, 267, 269, 278, 308

in North vs. South Vietnam, 158, 164, 165

nuclear,
see
nuclear weapons

pauses in, 158, 163–64

rules of engagement and, 167–69

sustained reprisal and, 71–73

targets of, 160–63

Viet Cong and, 167–69, 171

see also
warfare

books, Vietnam War, 268–69

Boot, Max, 320

“Born in the U.S.A.,” 252–55, 259

Born on the Fourth of July
(film), 191, 266

Born on the Fourth of July
(Kovic), 144, 191

Bosch, Juan, 50

Bosnia, 300–302

Boston Marathon bombings, 314, 333

Bradley, Ed, 229

Brennan, Peter J., 200

Britain, 94, 320

Brokaw, Tom, 299

brothels, 109

Brown, Glide, 138

Brown, Herman and George, 110

Brown & Root, 110–11

Browne, Malcolm, 23, 268–69

Buchanan, Patrick, 196

Buck, Pearl, 17

Buckley, Kevin, 180

Buddhism, 23, 27

Buddhist monks, self-immolation of, 23, 267, 269, 278, 308

Bunche, Ralph, 17

Bundy, McGeorge, 64–68, 70–74, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 86, 141, 162, 239, 266

Bundy, William, 80–81

Burke, Arleigh, 27–28

Burrows, Larry, 43

Bush, George H. W., 264, 265, 292–99, 301

Bush, George W., xviii–xix, 228, 242, 305, 306, 309, 310, 323

Iraq and, 311, 312, 314–17, 324

Business Executives for Vietnam Peace, 112

Business Week,
114, 284–85

Buttinger, Joseph, 21

Calley, William, 146–50

Cambodia, 87–90, 113, 128, 154, 178, 186, 187, 190, 197, 198, 200, 226, 227, 261

Cambodian Communists, 225–27

Camp Holloway, Pleiku, 64–67, 70–71

Camp Pendleton, 140–41

Canfora, Alan, 187–88

Canterbury, Robert, 189, 192

capitalism, 94–96, 100

Carmichael, Stokely, 138

Caro, Robert, 110

Carter, Jimmy, 147, 229–32, 285, 322

hostage crisis and, 234–35

Castillo Armas, Carlos, 40

Castro, Fidel, 50, 74–77

Catholicism, 11–12, 30

in Vietnam, 3, 5, 12–14, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26–27, 225

Cedar Falls, 29

Central America, 276, 278–80, 282–83, 291, 294

Chamberlain, Neville, 36, 83, 199

Cheech and Chong, 260

Cheney, Dick, 294, 296, 309, 316, 323

Cherne, Leo, 20, 21, 92–93

Chiang Kai-shek, 69

Chicago Democratic Convention, 185

Chin, Vincent, 261–62

China, 4, 9, 14, 38, 44, 53, 65, 81, 163, 169

lost to Communism, 69–70, 74, 83, 94

Chomsky, Noam, 312

Chrysler, 256–60

Churchill, Winston, 35–37

CIA, 8, 26, 47–48, 50, 73, 154, 174, 190, 206, 279, 280, 288, 300, 309, 321, 331

Cuba and, 74–76

Dooley and, 27, 28

Guatemala and, 39, 40

Mossadegh and, 233

Nicaragua and, 280

9/11 and, 321–22

Noriega and, 294

Phoenix Program of, 178–79

Thieu and, 224–25

civil rights, 17, 19, 56, 60, 133, 139, 184, 201, 202

Civil War, xii, 7, 183, 243, 258

Cleveland Plain Dealer,
145, 197

Clinton, Bill, 300, 301–4

Clinton, Hillary, 306–7

Clodfelter, Mark, 164

Clubb, O. Edmund, 69–70

Cold War, xiii, xv, xvi, 4, 6, 9, 13–16, 35, 40–41, 48, 51–52, 62, 70, 74, 77, 310, 320, 321, 332

economic goals and, 94, 96

masculinity and, 78

see also
Communism, Communists

Collier’s,
34

Colson, Chuck, 200–201

Coming Home,
266

Commager, Henry Steele, 216–17

Commentary,
232

Commercial Import Program (CIP), 96–97

Committee to Help Unsell the War, 262–63

Communism, Communists, xv, 4, 6, 9, 10, 14, 18, 35, 37, 40–41, 50, 53, 68–70, 74

aggression by, 40–41, 46, 57, 63, 153

Cambodian, 225–27

capitalism and, 94–96, 100

domino theory and, 42, 81, 94, 173

Korean War and, 38

loss of China to, 69–70, 74, 83, 94

religion and, 4, 11–13

Vietnamese,
see
Vietnamese Communists

see also
Cold War

Concord Naval Weapons Station, 275, 281–82

Con Son Island, 111

contractors, private, 110

Contras, 275–78, 280, 292–93

corruption, 97–99

counterinsurgency (COIN), 324–28, 330

Crichton, Michael, 262

Cronkite, Walter, 176

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, 190

Cuba, 50, 51, 74–78

Bay of Pigs, 48, 74–76

Missile Crisis, 74, 76, 77, 152

Daley, Richard, 185

Dallek, Robert, 82

Daniels, George, 141–42

Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), 13, 215

Davies, John Paton, 69

Dean, Robert, 82

Deer Hunter, The,
267

“Defeat of America, The” (Commager), 217

Deliver Us From Evil
(Dooley), 3–6, 8, 9, 12, 18, 26–28

DeLuca, Ron, 257

DeMille, Cecil B., 11

DePuy, William, 169

Detroit, Mich., 140

Díaz, Angel, 205

dictatorships, 96, 229

Diem, Ngo Dinh, 13–14, 20–27, 39, 41, 44, 60, 65, 267

Dinh Tuong, 158

disabled rights, 283

Dog Soldiers
(Stone), xi, xv

Donlon, Roger, 129–30

Donovan, William, 21

Dooley, Thomas A., 3–6, 8–15, 18–20, 25–28, 30, 31, 39, 46, 121, 225

Doolittle, James, 310

Dominican Republic, 50–51, 86

Douglas, William O., 21

drone attacks, 306, 331–32

Dr. Strangelove,
152

drugs, 213–14, 239

Duffy, Dave, 303

Dukakis, Kitty, 265

Dukakis, Michael, 264–65, 293

Duke, Angier Biddle, 21

Dulles, Allen, 75

Dulles, John Foster, 21, 40

Duncan, Donald, 142–43

Duvalier family, 96

Ebens, Ronald, 261

Ebony,
138, 139

Eccles, Marriner, 112

economy, U.S., 230, 231, 285

2008 crisis in, 317

Vietnam and, 91–115, 285

Ed Sullivan Show, The,
122, 123, 125, 209

Ehrhart, W. D., 190

Eisenhower, Dwight D., xv, 5, 10–12, 20–22, 36, 37, 39–41, 91–93, 95, 233, 310

Ellsberg, Daniel, 26, 63

El Salvador, 40, 279, 287, 294

Engelhardt, Tom, 63

England, Lynndie, 309

Evans, George, xi–xii

Ewell, Julian J., 179–80

F-105 Thunderchief, 160

Faas, Horst, 269

Fail-Safe,
152

Fall, Bernard, 164–66

Fascism, xvii, 35, 36

FBI, 50, 190, 205, 206, 282

Ferguson, Niall, 320

Fields of Fire
(Webb), 171

Fishel, Wesley, 21, 23

Fog of War, The,
56

Fonda, Henry, 263

Fonda, Jane, 263–64

Ford, Gerald, 223–24, 226

Foreign Affairs,
104, 162

Forrest Gump,
266

Fortune,
114

Foster, Samuel, 145

France, 4, 14, 20–21, 24, 25, 36–37, 39, 41, 74, 92, 93, 169

Frank, Thomas, 262

Franks, Tommy, 323, 324

Franklin, Bruce, 267

Free Speech Movement, 136–37

FTA, 264

Fulbright, William, 47, 49–53, 69, 112

Galloway, Joseph L., 273–74

gay rights, 283

Gellhorn, Martha, 33–35, 54–56, 58

Geneva Accords, 14, 20, 37, 42–43, 224

Giap, Vo Nguyen, 92

Gibbs, Phillip, 203

Glaspie, April, 296

Goldwater, Barry, 48–49, 69, 83

Good Earth, The
(Buck), 17

Goodwin, Doris Kearns, 82–84

Gorbachev, Mikhail, 293

Graham, Billy, 206–7

Grant, Zalin, 159

Grassley, Charles, 245

Great Society, 49, 68, 133–34, 261, 317

Green, James, 203–4

Green Berets, 120–30, 142–44, 272, 280

Green Berets, The
(film), 143–44

Green Berets, The
(Moore), 126–29, 142

Gregory, Dick, 60

Grenada, 290–91, 293

Gruening, Ernest, 48

Guadalcanal Diary
(Tregaskis), 107

Guam, 153, 155

Guatemala, 39–40, 74, 75, 279, 287

Guevara, Che, 75, 120

Gulf of Tonkin, 46–47, 49–50, 288

Gulf War, 242, 287, 295–300, 308

Hackworth, David, 179

Haeberle, Ronald, 145

Haggard, Merle, 125

Haiphong, 161, 163

Halberstam, David, 25, 74

Haldeman, Bob, 87, 199

Halliburton, 110

Hammond, Ken, 188

Hanoi, 161–63, 263, 264

hard hat demonstrations, 193–95, 198–201

Harkins, Paul, 43

Harvard Crimson,
73–74

Harvey, William, 141–42

Hearst, William Randolph, Jr., 22

Hearts and Minds,
58

Heinl, Robert, 214

helicopters, 155, 158

Helms, Jesse, 245

Hemingway, Ernest, 34

Hepburn, Audrey, 33, 54

Herberg, Will, 12

heroism, 236–37, 254–56, 273, 333

Herr, Michael, 172–73

Herrick, John, 47

Heston, Charlton, 45–46

Hilsman, Roger, 102

Hinckle, Warren, 20

Hitler, Adolf, 35–37, 39, 147, 199, 217, 258, 301

Hussein compared to, 296–97

Munich Agreement and, 36, 37, 39, 62, 74, 78, 83

HIV/AIDS, 283

Ho Chi Minh, 14, 19–20, 24, 26, 44, 73, 74, 87, 92, 163, 318

Ho Chi Minh City, 115

Ho Chi Minh Trail, 156

Hoi, Vu Quang, 115

Holocaust, 301, 302

Honor America Day, 206–9

Hoover, J. Edgar, 50

Hope, Bob, 206–11, 264

Hue, 175–77

Huntington, Samuel, 103–5, 108

Hussein, Saddam, 295–98, 310, 318, 326

Iacocca
(Iacocca), 256

Iacocca, Lee, xviii, 256–59

I. F. Stone’s Weekly,
25, 45

immigrants, 228, 260–61

Indians, 228, 229