Word: viets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...sense, the formal foreign policy lessons that the U.S. learned from Viet Nam have been easier to absorb than the deeper psychological and personal meanings, which will be years in unfolding. Says Columbia University Historian Henry Graff: "America has learned for the first time that not everything it attempts comes off successfully. What we regarded as decency, honor and pride were not implemented in the world satisfactorily to make others see us as we thought we ought to be seen. That this could have happened to us is what The Deer Hunter is really all about...
...After Viet Nam, John Kennedy's "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship ..." formula rings like the penny-bright, dangerous rhetoric that it was. The old policy of containment is, of course, long dead, as is the corollary view of a Sino-Soviet Communist monolith probing ever outward. It was precisely the containment-monolith-domino view of geopolitics that led the U.S. into Viet Nam. Says Henry Kissinger: "We've learned two somewhat contradictory things. One, that our resources are limited in relation to the total number of problems that exist in the world. We have...
...seems to have become more cautious and considered in international politics as a result of Viet Nam. Allies, especially in Western Europe, have adopted a somewhat schizophrenic line toward the U.S., first condemning its Viet Nam War policies as obnoxiously aggressive, now worrying its policies elsewhere are contemptibly weak. Says former Under Secretary of State George Ball: "Rather than snickering at America's alleged impuissance, our allies should rejoice that we have now achieved the maturity they accused us of lacking during our Viet Nam adventure...
...problematic. Some, of course, believe Americans are an oblivious people, who have simply cruised on and learned nothing. "We have no national memory," Lillian Hellman once told Gloria Emerson. "Maybe it's a mark of a young and vigorous people. I think we've already forgotten Viet Nam." When William Westmoreland, former U.S. commander in Viet Nam, appears on campuses these days, he finds "total change. Crowds are larger, open-minded. Now there's very little criticism, and mostly from professors." Of course, the kids Westmoreland is addressing would have been only about eight years...
...Viet Nam fragmented America into constituencies that even now identify themselves according to their war grievances. The veteran vs. draft resister issue can still stir anger. William Keegan, now 29, a steel-foundry worker in Churchill, Pa., served for a year in Viet Nam as a medic after being drafted. He says bitterly: "The real heroes seem to be the guys who ran away to Canada to dodge the draft. Where will the country be if we ever face a crisis again? We'll have a heck of a time getting people to fight, and other countries know this...