Mark Moyar On The Truth About The Vietnam War

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Tell us what happened. What was the Vietnam War? How did it happen? When did it happen? Why did it happen? Well, that's a great question. And I think if you want to understand the roots of this war, you have to go back at least to 1949. And that's when the Chinese communists won the Chinese Civil War, which is an aspect of our history that most people really don't know very well, but it's a, you know, one of the most important events of the 20th century.

[00:00:24]And up until that time, you had the Truman administration, a lot of other people claiming that communism isn't really a big deal in Asia. We shouldn't be too worried about it. And, you know, for a while, a lot of people thought Mao was just this nice, sort of nationalist who said he was going to be democratic.

[00:00:41]But finally, when he takes over, suddenly reality sets in that these communists are actually pretty bad folks who are going to kill lots of people and try to take over the world. And so, you see then in 1950, the US starts aiding the French in uh Indochina, Vietnam. And then the US also goes into Korea to fight the Korean War. And so, you know, a lot of people second-guessing kind of forget about these underlying sources, but you know, I think it's you've got to fundamentally understand that this is a war against communism, and this is an ideology that killed 100 million people in the 20th century, which again relevant today because you now have young people who don't really know the history saying, "Oh, socialism, communism aren't, you know, really not that big a deal." Uh but Vietnam clearly is aimed at preventing the spread of communism uh and particularly Chinese-led communism in Southeast Asia. And so, when the French War ends in 1954, and the French just decide they're sick of this, the United States decides it's going to help a new government in South Vietnam and as part of the effort to contain communism. Because what almost all the Americans at this time thought was that this so-called domino theory meant that if you lose a place like South Vietnam, the other countries in the region are going to fall, and that will be actually the guiding principle for for most of the war.

[00:02:08]And so we've got we've got the domino theory, but what people probably don't know as well, Mark, is that America was financing and helping to support the French financially. I mean, they were they were paying billions of dollars even back then, which was a lot of money. It's a lot of money now, but back then it was even more money. Mhm. Yes, and you know, initially the United States was not very keen on this French effort because it was in Roosevelt and then Truman kind of thought European colonialism is kind of passe and we're not going to support it, but then when they saw this communist threat, they agreed to help the French, and the French also made promises to the Vietnamese that they could have a greater degree of independence. It's also interesting when you get to 1954 and the French are surrounded at Dien Bien Phu, they come to the Americans and say, "Can you bomb the the communists who have surrounded us?" And Eisenhower actually goes to the British and says, "We'd like you to join us in anti-communist coalition." Uh and the British say, "Well, you know, you didn't help us out in India, um so we're not really that keen on helping save the French in Indochina."

[00:03:16]And so for that reason, the United States holds its hand out. It creates an interesting uh what if. I do think had we bombed actually, we could have perhaps saved the French, but uh we didn't really know that at the time. We didn't realize the Viet Minh, the communists as they called themselves, had committed almost their entire army to Dien Bien Phu and were very vulnerable. But again, we didn't know that at the time, so we the US then decides, "We're just going to hold on to the southern half. French leave, and so we support this new government in South Vietnam." Well, the French surrender once again, what a shocker. So, uh how do we get from this situation? The communists have the north, the American backed non anti-communists have the south. How do you get from that to American boots on the ground?

[00:04:02]Yeah, so at the beginning the new president of South Vietnam is Ngo Dinh Diem, a very religious Catholic Vietnamese, and a lot of people don't think he's going to succeed cuz there's a lot of chaos in the south, but he is able to consolidate power and the communists initially think they can beat him with just political agitation, but that turns out not to be the case. And so as his regime gets stronger, the communists decide 1960 to launch an armed insurrection basically using the techniques of Mao for mobilizing the peasants. And so you have that begins in 1960.

[00:04:41]Uh, Diem regime struggles at first. They start to get their act together in 1962.

[00:04:46]President Kennedy helps puts a lot of aid there. Uh, things are going pretty well in 1963 and then all of a sudden you have what we call the Buddhist crisis, which is a hugely complicated and convoluted story where supposedly some Buddhists in the population were dissatisfied with the government and uh, this was all really ginned up and we know in fact communists were helping uh, give the propaganda behind this, but they duped some of the American press into believing them and so ultimately the US government supports a coup to overthrow President Diem in 1963. And to me that is a watershed moment in the war because the war effort suddenly goes off a cliff.

[00:05:29]Now, a lot of historians have overlooked some of this, but I think it's quite clear. We now know from North Vietnamese sources this is a huge moment. So the South Vietnamese government goes into a tailspin and then we have Lyndon Johnson come in.

[00:05:43]He's Kennedy's assassinated just a few weeks after President Diem. And Lyndon Johnson in 1964 is focusing on getting reelected in the '64 election. So, everything to him has to be looked at that lens. And so, you get to the Tonkin Gulf incidents of August in 1964.

[00:06:03]What happens is that couple of American destroyers are out on the high seas and the North Vietnamese attack them.

[00:06:10]And President Johnson then is confronted with decision what to do. You know, Johnson doesn't want this in the newspaper. This is not something he was hoping for, but now he's confronted with this fact. And so, decides he needs to do something.

[00:06:23]And here we hear him listening to the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who is really the architect of the war for for both Kennedy and Johnson.

[00:06:32]What McNamara says is, we need to convey a a signal of of our intent to the North Vietnamese. And here he's drawing on academic theories about conflict, which are not based in history, which is really kind of remarkable to how influential these um especially economists are. But he buys into this theory that we'll use force to communicate.

[00:06:57]And so, they undertake a very limited raid on the North Vietnamese naval base nearby.

[00:07:05]Now, the North Vietnamese see this and they take away the very opposite message that the Americans are trying to send.

[00:07:10]They see, Americans just did a little pinprick strike. That means mean they actually are not serious because if you were serious, you'd hit them really hard. Um so, this leads them to believe that Johnson is going to throw in the towel on Vietnam or not make a big fuss. And then in the election, uh Lyndon Johnson portrays himself as the peace candidate and says, I'm not going to send American boys to to fight wars uh that Asian boys can fight. And so, the North Vietnamese see this and they say, "Yeah, you know, South Vietnam is now ripe for the taking. It's in big trouble since this coup, and now Lyndon Johnson's saying he's not going to send American troops. So, soon as Johnson wins the election in November '64, the North Vietnamese launch an invasion with for the first time sending entire North Vietnamese army divisions. Up until this time, they've sent smaller forces recruiting in the South. So, their plan is >> so, sorry to interrupt. Can I pause you for 1 second and just come back to the Gulf of Tonkin incident because uh our friend Joe Rogan he brings this this this up as like I think when I asked him what his favorite conspiracy is, he said, "Well, the Gulf of Tonkin is one of them because it was a pretext for war that was false." What's your reading of of the some of the narratives around that Yes, well, it is a complicated situation. So, there are two reported attacks, and one of those attacks clearly took place because there were you know, bullet uh fragments found on the American ships. The second one is still kind of a mystery. Uh the Americans at the time though did think there was a second attack based on communications intercepts. Now, some of those intercepts maybe referred to the first one. Um now, what is misleading, and I think maybe what feeds into conspiracy theories, is McNamara deliberately deceives Congress about what's going on. He says, "This was an unprovoked attack." Now, we know, and this was not known at the time, but time US is actually conducting covert operations against North Vietnam, and probably that has something to do with the fact that they attack the American uh ships. And so, uh yeah, McNamara, you know, he comes out as one of the most uh disreputable people out of all of this, I think. Uh this is a case where he misled the American people. Do we know why he did it?

[00:09:35]Uh I think he uh just felt that it might get a little too messy if people knew that there was some gray areas in here, that maybe this was not purely unprovoked aggression. And again, it also wouldn't probably look great with the election coming up. Uh, but we do know Lyndon Johnson and McNamara, they were already talking about bombing North Vietnam in 1965, even when publicly they were trying to claim that they're not going to, uh, send American boys. So, there is a great amount of deceit. In fact, Johnson's advisers come to him several times in 1964 and say, you know, we've actually got a pretty bad rap Democrats cuz we had Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, uh, promised they were going to keep us out of war and then they get us into war. And we could be heading down that road this way. So, we may be fighting a war, so you might not want to talk about being the peace guy. But he ignores them and keeps going on this. So, uh, it it is a, you know, a rather sorry uh, aspect of the conflict and, um, Do you think there's any truth to the idea that actually there was some forces that really did want this war to escalate within the American administration at the time?

[00:10:47]There are some who see that it's probably going to happen and there's a big debate within between the ones who are in the McNamara camp, um, who buy into these academic theories and they think they can kind of keep this as a limited war, um, and then it's going to continue. Now, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others in the military say, you know, that doesn't make any sense.

[00:11:13]If we either need to fight this war hard or we need to get out. Um, and so that undercurrent was running for the next several years. And for the most part, you know, McNamara is the number one guy, so he largely prevails. And so he pushes this idea that we're going to fight a limited conflict rather than, you know, going all out or getting out.

[00:11:33]So, 1965, when was the moment American boots hit Vietnamese soil?

[00:11:40]So, the first American troops come ashore in March of 1965.

[00:11:45]And at that point, the situation is continuing to get worse in the South.

[00:11:49]And the American they said Johnson's already thinking about doing some bombing, but he thinks that they can bomb the North, but it's going to kind of keep on a somewhat modest pace. They don't know that this big invasion is coming. So, they send these first troops thinking that they're just there to guard American bases. They're not there to actually get into the fighting. But what happens then is May of '65, the North Vietnamese uh these divisions that have coming from the north, they launch a big offensive.

[00:12:18]And by June, it's clear that South Vietnam is probably going to fall unless the Americans get in. So, in June and July, Lyndon Johnson decides, thinks this over, and will ultimately uh in late July say, "Okay, you know what?

[00:12:33]Yeah, maybe I said we weren't going to send boys, but actually we need to send our boys because otherwise Vietnam's going to fall and the consequences of that are things that we just don't want to accept. It's too too damaging. Again, going back to the domino theory, this is going to lead to uh the fall of other countries in Asia." Because when we look at the American armed forces at that point, you go, "This is the most technologically advanced armed force armed forces in the world. This is the richest country in the world. They were up against a Let's be fair, a technologically limited Viet Cong.

[00:13:09]That should be an easy win, shouldn't it?

[00:13:12]Yeah, you might think so. And the first battles are very lopsided. Uh the first big one is Operation Starlite in August of '65.

[00:13:20]And yes, I mean the Americans have tanks and amphibious uh vehicles. They have air power, artillery. The North Vietnamese don't have these things and so, it is very one-sided. In fact, that would be the general pattern, but uh, what happens is that the North Vietnamese are able to withdraw when they don't want to fight or when they uh, taking it uh, then when they're taking too much damage, so they can either go into remote jungles and mountains and hide out or then go into Laos and Cambodia. And this is one of the problems that actually begins before 1965. There's a big debate in the US over the country of Laos, which is where the Ho Chi Minh Trail will come into existence. And and Kennedy, when he's president, he thinks about um, sending American troops into Laos because, you know, between North and South Vietnam, you have this narrow demilitarized zone and the North Vietnamese can't easily sneak things across. They tried it and they were stopped. So, they decide they're going to go through Laos and build this Ho Chi Minh Trail and then some of the US military says, "Let's go into Laos, cut that Ho Chi Minh Trail." But, Kennedy listens to his civilian State Department and they decide to negotiate neutralization, which means North Vietnamese are supposed to leave and the Americans but the North Vietnamese, being good communists, violate the agreement and they keep going in and so, you have an unending supply of uh, equipment and men manpower. Um, so, the North Vietnamese will take very heavy losses, but they can keep sending stuff down through the Ho Chi Minh Trail and and uh, keep things up indefinitely.

[00:14:54]I read Mark and correct me if I'm wrong that part of the problem for the American forces is that they were very good when it came to offensive maneuvers.

[00:15:02]Defensive maneuvers, they weren't so good at and they really didn't know, you know, they weren't very good strategically at the at that particular point.

[00:15:12]Well, the and this is also a point of a lot of debate. You know, General Westmoreland, who's the commander at the time, argues that he the American forces should concentrate on what he calls search and destroy. So, go look for big enemy units no matter where they are, even if they're in the furthest reaches of the country, in the mountains and jungles.

[00:15:32]And the South Vietnamese are partners. They will focus on securing the villages and towns where the people most of the people live. And this does have the advantage of keeping Americans for the most part away from the population because Americans don't speak Vietnamese, they don't understand the customs.

[00:15:51]Um one of the problems is the Vietnamese government this time is in disarray. So, they're not very good at this kind of stuff. But the Americans the search and destroy is also a very interesting topic cuz most of these operations they don't find the enemy. So, a lot of people say, "Well, this was kind of wasteful." But we now know, especially from looking at the North Vietnamese side, that uh you know, for one thing they still inflict very heavy losses on the North Vietnamese uh cuz sometimes they do catch them. And then this really keeps the North Vietnamese off balance. And if you were just to let the North Vietnamese run free, they would be able to mount massive attacks, you know, concentrate in overwhelming numbers at a city or base.

[00:16:30]And when they are able to do that, the only way you stop them is destroy the city essentially, which occasionally happens, but for the most part doesn't.

[00:16:36]>> One thing we haven't talked about yet is is I think it's quite an important part of this is of course this is a proxy war.

[00:16:42]And the the North Vietnamese are not fighting by themselves. They're getting support from China and also the Soviet Union, right? That's correct. Yes, and and in the early years China is the main partner. And you know, there's a a myth that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh really were not on good terms with the Chinese, they didn't really like them. That is actually not the case. We do know they were quite close, um especially Mao and Ho Chi Minh themselves. Now, there'll be a falling out later, but uh initially the two of them are are quite close to one another and uh it goes back to Jim being food. We know the Chinese sent a thousand trucks to help the Vietminh win there. And so the Chinese do see this as a major front in dominating Asia, pushing the United States out as a as a major power. But the Soviets are also there and Americans know the Soviets and the Chinese aren't on board but this American intervention actually sort of widens the Soviet Sino-Soviet split because um what happens when the Americans come in, the Vietnamese turn to the Soviets for anti-aircraft weapons because there's there's so much American uh air power. And so when they start getting more from the Soviets, the Chinese start getting jealous and you start to see um a falling out and then you have the cultural revolution in China. And so eventually the Soviets will become the principal benefactor of the North Vietnamese. YouTube wants you to leave.

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