Word: indochina
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Indochina...
...test case." What happens there tells us nothing very useful about the future anywhere else. Moreover, the consequences of Communist success there must therefore be examined with special care and precision; and such examination indicates that it would not have ramifications of real significance beyond the three Indochina states already affected--except, of course, for the commonplace of a "ripple" effect which is a far cry from the vision of falling dominoes...
...CONVINCED, HOWEVER, that "dominoism" does contain one important kernel of reality. For as I review the record of our Indochina involvement. I detect--as Daniel Ellsberg has put it--one crucial domino that seems to have obsessed each American President since Mr. Truman: namely, the Administration in power in Washington. By this I mean that each President has sensed a "lesson" from the Democrats' so-called "loss of China" in 1949 and their defeat at the polls in 1952--and has concluded that the "loss" of South Vietnam to communism will bring about his own Administration's downfall...
...blue-ribbon bipartisan national commission to reflect upon this quarter-century tragedy and to distill its lessons for the future. I have in mind the creation, by the President or, if necessary, by the Congress, of a National Commission on the Causes, Conduct, and Consequences of the Indochina War. Such a proposal is not new. But it seems to me more imperative than ever that we make every effort to move from recrimination to reflection and understanding. I would hope that such a Commission would be given access to all archives pertaining to the war--not merely the Pentagon study...
...tried before. The conscious invocation of superpower collision has heretofore been carefully avoided by proud but prudent men. But national honor is not what beleaguered presidents define it to be; it is greater and more enduring. And blind support for presidents is at the very taproot of our continuing Indochina calamity. As for conscious invocation of superpower collision, that is a course totally unjustified by the stakes, by the history, and by the issue itself...