Word: vietnam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Walker: I really hoped we had gotten away from the domino theory in the last decade since Vietnam. What we are witnessing in southeast Asia is a series of very nationalistic movements, the most recent one being the Vietnamese reunited since the American pull-out in 1973. Granted the present situation has some Soviet support, and is a very exacerbating one for the Chinese; I think the American-chinese rapprochement may very well serve to slow down Chinese reaction to it, although the Chinese are massing troops along the Soviet border. I think it's hard to predict what will...
Bernstein: From the Chinese point of view, the Soviets are engaged in an effort to establish a ring of non-friendly states around China. Some time ago they proposed an Asian security system; they have now signed treaties with a military component with Afghanistan, India, and now with Vietnam. The Chinese see this a very threatening development, and I think it is worth nothing that the invasion of Cambodia showed the Chinese up with clay feet: they weren't able to help their Cambodian ally. This put the Chinese in a very difficult position, and they may feel they need...
Bernstein: One of the questions that I have here is whether what has happened in Indochina recently--the conclusion of the friendship and military treaty between Vietnam and the Soviet Union--might not have been avoidable if the United States had taken a somewhat more positive attitude toward Vietnam. One has the sense the Vietnamese have now pushed themselves or rather thrown themselves, into the arms of the Soviets...
...back to the beginning of the Carter administration when Assistant Secretary of State Holbrook made a number of initiatives toward recognition of Vietnam and the difficulty then was that the Vietnamese were holding back; they wanted to be paid a price for it. Subsequently, events changed. We were less willing to pay a price and we also saw some costs to recognition of Vietnam, one of which was the effects that it might have had on the developing relationship between us and China. But I think to read history of the last two years fairly, we did take certain steps...
...audience is like the helpless group trapped in the diner, and is treated with equal contempt. Messages are pounded into us without letup--the Vietnam generation turning its violence back on America, the helplessness of women (who do nothing but tremble and bawl, and like Cheryl repeat 90 times, "I'm scared"), the arrogance of power, the sadism built into our society. We are supposed to sit there mesmerized and say, "Gee, I never thought of that," as if we haven't been thinking all these things for a long time. It is no longer enough merely to throw such...