US MILITARY

STEVEN JONAS—In the view of the US leadership of the time, everything had to be done that could be done to prevent the democratic process from introducing socialism to a country and then possibly succeeding in a peaceful setting.  The peaceful establishment of socialism in Viet Nam was prevented.  Its spread by example and peaceful means to neighboring countries was prevented.  Vietnam today has a sort of market socialist economy, becoming more “market” and less “socialist” by the year. But the country was ravaged by almost 20 years of war and two to three million of the best and the brightest of its people were killed.  It is hardly the economic or social engine of the development of democratically-installed socialism that it might have become had it been left alone.  In terms of the original American goals for the intervention, this was thus a win, a palpable win.