Word: vietnam
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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BLOODS: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE VIETNAM WAR BY BLACK VETERANS by Wallace Terry; Random House; 311 pages...
...more conservative--or at least moderate--than he would otherwise. He notes that most criticism of his PBS series has come from the left end of the political spectrum. But his pitch is basically non-ideological. He demands that we know more than a superficial history of Vietnam--his book traces Western involvement in the region back five centuries--but also that we know when and when not to use that knowledge...
Karnow added, "He carried that same memory into the fifties and the sixties, and Nazi aggression and Nazi expansionism in Europe in the thirties had nothing to do with the Vietnam War. It was a totally different situation...
...history really does "cut both ways," as Karnow says, then we must find a foreign policy that winds a middle road between those who are continuously refighting the second World War and those who are forever refighting Vietnam. It has been exactly our reliance on historical precedents--be they proper or improper--that makes us see what is not there or become blind to the real threats...
Says Karnow, "What is important in dealing with any area, whether you're dealing with Vietnam, or Central America, or the Middle East, or Western Europe, is take it all case-by-case. Try to understand the realities of each area you are going to get involved in, and don't come out of it with cockeyed analogies...