Lose Watergate, Win Vietnam?
Sometimes right-wingers can go ludicrously far in their claims. Wait, what am I talking about? “Sometimes”?
The latest example is a string of wingnuts reacting to the news that W. Mark Felt was “Deep Throat.” Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, Ben Stein and Peggy Noonan (and probably more I haven’t found) are all claiming that Felt’s betrayal of the White House felons resulted in the loss of the Vietnam War and the genocide in Cambodia. Felt, Woodward and Bernstein, apparently, are guilty of causing the murders of millions of people.
Let’s set aside the fact that Nixon and his people were the criminals, that what they did was their own fault and responsibility; that Felt was telling the truth, that Woodward and Bernstein were doing their jobs, jobs that most Americans feel is vital (including most Republicans, so long as the president being exposed is a Democrat).
For now, let’s just focus on the one claim: Watergate caused us to lose in Vietnam. Noonan wrote, in support of Stein:
What Mr. Felt helped produce was a weakened president who was a serious president at a serious time. Nixon’s ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events–the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions–millions–killed in his genocide.
Are they serious? We could have won in Vietnam, if only Nixon weren’t distracted and disgraced for crimes he committed? The U.S. had already pulled out of Vietnam by the time that Watergate as a scandal was just getting started. The only argument that could be made is that by weakening Nixon, Watergate prevented him from re-entering Vietnam in full force. As if that was going to happen, Watergate or no Watergate. Vietnam continued to get economic aid from the U.S., but most of that disappeared because of corruption within South Vietnam.
The fact is, American troops left Vietnam by March 1973, two months after the Paris Peace Accords. The famous films we’ve all seen of Saigon in 1975, with the people streaming up to the helicopter on the roof of the U.S. embassy, was the evacuation of U.S. civilians and embassy staff and marine guards–it was not the military pullout. That had happened in early 1973.
Contrast that to the Watergate chronology: in November 1972, Nixon was re-elected in a landslide; it wasn’t until January 30 that Liddy & McCord were convicted, only days after the Paris Peace Accords were signed. Haldeman and Ehrlichman didn’t resign until a month after the last troops left Vietnam. And the televised Senate hearings didn’t start until May.
So by the time Watergate really got going, we were already out of Vietnam. Our people had left. Are we really to believe that if Watergate had not happened, then Nixon, in late 1973 to early 1974 would have brought us back into Vietnam, sending tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops into yet another act of a massively unpopular war? Or that we would have poured troops into Cambodia to fight Pol Pot?
Riiiiiight.
Naturally, none of these wingnuts actually goes so far as to spell out specifically how Watergate remaining secret would have led to our victory in Vietnam and a strong U.S.-led peace in Cambodia. They remain remarkably nebulous in what is the very thesis of their claims.
Look, you can question Felt’s motives, but you can in no way claim that he caused Vietnam and Cambodia to fall. Even for the wingnut crowd, these claims are way, way around the bend.
And that’s saying something.
Actually I posted the following at a different site, but my thoughst on the subject:
I see this as a re-occurring theme among conservatives. Some liberal somewhere was responsible for America’s humiliating loss in Vietnam. In my mind its nothing short than the return of “stab in the back” rhetoric in political discourse. Such discourse does not have a virtuous track record.
Noonan implies that if we had just let the genius of Nixon do its magic, Indochina would have been something closer to a success and would not have emerged as a blemish on America’s history … and Pol Pot would have never been in a position to inflict genocidal policies in Cambodia.
Well for starters, perhaps Nixon should have thought of that before he authorized a break in of the DNC hq even though he was a shoe-in for a landslide in the 72 election.
Furthermore Nixon had plenty of time in office already to do something about Vietnam, but he couldn’t do any more than anyone else. Vietnam was a trap. And an obvious one. Its my position that America got sucked into it because arch Republican’s in the fifties, Joe McCarthy especially, were claiming that Dems were soft on Communism and that they had lost China. That meant that no administration wanted credit for losing Indochina, including Nixon.
Some how Graham Green figured out the future of the next 20 years of history in Vietnam as early as 1952. Especially America’s role there. He published his assesment in a book in the novel form called, ironically enough “The Quiet American.” (the irony doesn’t end there of course. A movie of the same name based onthe novel came out in March 2003 just before Bush lied his way into Iraq – now that’s irony! Almost as much irony as the nuclear option in the Senate occuring just when Star Wars III comes out with Palpatine destroying the republic inside the galatic senate). When it comes to Republican’s the irony is as thick as mud.
Given that failure in Vietnam was so easily predictable as early as 1952, could American failure and ‘humiliation’ there really be Felt’s fault? And after more than 4 years in office, if Nixon had magic available to him, he would have used it already.
Neocon Republicans seem prone to “stab in the back” rhetoric which is never a virtue in politics, it is a vice.
Mr. BlogD,
Why do you think Mr. Felt did what he did?
Do you think he was motivated by politics and wanted to change the presidency?
Why do you think he did not pursue a legal case against the President, as opposed to a compaign to discredit him via the press?
When do you think it is approapriate for fbi agents to “go after” someone via the press?
No one can know for certain, and it has been pointed out that because Mr. Felt’s present physical condition, even he may not know for certain any more. But there are three primary possibilities: (1) Felt was passed over for the position of head of the FBI, and being angry and vindictive, helped Woodward & Bernstein uncover Watergate; (2) Felt believed that Nixon was subverting the FBI into a political weapon–which he was–and believed that it was necessary to stop him, and exposing Watergate served that purpose; and (3) Felt simply felt that what the Nixon White House was doing was wrong, believed that he had no other way to correct it, and so guided Woodward and Bernstein to uncover it.
My own opinion about the matter is that Felt’s motives are relevant only in the judgment of his character, but not relevant to the Watergate scandal itself. Whatever Felt’s motives, he did do the right thing in that the Nixon White House was out of control and breaking laws left and right. Whatever ancillary effects it might have, it is always necessary to know this and act on it, otherwise the presidency will be forever corrupt. Felt’s reasons may have been base or heroic, personally vindictive or objectively patriotic, but the thing that he did was right and was a service to the United States.
Exactly what are you suggesting when you say “legal case”? A public legal case? That would be exposing the scandal publicly, just the same as helping Woodward & Bernstein. A private legal case? Remember, the Attorney General was in on the scandal, complicit in the illegalities. Exact where was he supposed to turn?
The subjective term “go after” presumes personal vindictiveness. But as I said, whatever the motives, when the presidency becomes corrupt in ways that severely affect the nation and threaten our lives and freedoms, it is in my opinion necessary for that fact to become public so we can act on it. But the person who does the “going after” must know that the offenses are against the country and that there is proof that malfeasance indeed took place. Which is why I approve of the investigating and uncovering of scandals such as Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Bush II’s lies about Iraq to start the war, because they directly affect our rights, reputation and lives. But it is why I feel that investigations into Bush’s drunk driving or Clinton’s extramarital affairs are of less relevance, because they are personal offenses and have much less to do with the running of the nation; they are relevant only to your consideration of their character.