April 10, 1974

Vietnam: One Year After Blessing In Disguise

Any U.S. Senators and Representatives who thought they were done with the Vietnam War were brought up short by disclosure that the very halls of Congress were being used by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, communist fellow travelers, as class rooms to propagandize staff members.

A bi-partisan uproar is in progress on Capitol Hill over the use of House meeting rooms by Mr. and Mrs. Hayden to conduct "seminars" for their pro-communist "Indo-China Peace Campaign."

Incredibly, the rooms were obtained for them last February by Congressman Ronald Dellums, a California Democrat who opposes U.S. aid to South Vietnam.

Six "seminars" were designed to teach Congressional staff members about "U.S. Involvement in Vietnam" and the "History of Vietnam."

Putting these two in charge of such instruction is like asking the Devil to explain the Bible.

Dellums defends his privilege of reserving the rooms on the basis of current House rules which permit members to determine solely the propriety.

Isn't it interesting how protestors can always find a forum and permissive regulations for their disruptive activities, yet loyal citizens are harassed for legitimate pursuits?

Can you imagine, for example, permission being granted for even one seminar in Congress by the National Rifle Association, the American Medical Association, or the National Association of Manufacturers?

Even if some flimsy pretext could be established for an anti-aid office, the Haydens should be the last to be accorded a hearing.

It was she, you will remember, who went to Hanoi at a time Americans and South Vietnamese were dying at the hands of communist aggressors and giggled at being allowed to point an anti-aircraft gun at U.S. planes.

It was she who made anti-American broadcasts on Radio Hanoi and denounced American POWs as "liars and hypocrites" for saying they had been maltreated.

It was Hayden who made repeated trips to North Vietnam so he could come home and lecture college students on the superior morality of communists.

It was he who told a Congressional Committee in 1968, "In a war you can only decide one side is right and the other side is wrong.  My government, which I don't think represents me, is wrong in Vietnam."

These are traitorous statements and acts I am willing to tolerate when made privately.

But to give them a facade of legitimacy by a Congressman's approval and free use of Congressional facilities turns my stomach.

We have come a long way on the road to stupidity by inviting anarchists to insult us.

Though many Americans have put the Vietnam War behind them, mentally, the killing goes on in Indochina.  During the year the South Vietnamese have been on their own, 15,000 of them have died on their home soil as a result of the continuing campaign of murder and terror.

They must want freedom desperately to resist so bravely.

Some 1,000 American soldiers are still listed as Missing In Action (MIA).  The communists not only refuse to account for them in accordance with their signed truce agreement, but actually kill truce-team members assigned to investigate.  Consequently, field searches have been discontinued.

Now, a year later, the historians begin the endless task of assessing the conflict.  Who won?

Who lost?

What changed?

In addition, the American citizen asks: "Was it worth it?"

These are difficult questions to answer with certainty on the first anniversary of an unpopular war.

The Vietnam war cost us 60,000 precious lives and $30 billion dollars treasure.

This bought time for the communist movement to split apart from the weight of oppression and the pressures of human desire for something better.

It bought opportunity for the free world on the periphery of the struggle - India, Japan, Korea to build a stable economy.

It bought freedom, at a terrible price, for developing Asian nations such as South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Taiwan.

Five U.S. presidents judged that the interests of this nation, and the free world everywhere, required the sacrifices.

So, I believe those who died in the cause of liberty contributed immeasurably to our future.  We owe a great debt to them, and to those veterans who came home unheralded and largely unappreciated.

It is sad to note that the Vietnam veteran is the first in the history of this nation to come home in a taxicab.  No bands.  No ticker tape.  No dancing in the streets.

We conscripted him against his will, put him in a perilous situation, let the cowards, and carpers rob him of conviction, and then brought him home with little recognition.

We have treated the Vietnam veteran shabbily because we treated the Fondas and Haydens considerately.

Somewhere we got our values reversed, and the first lesson to draw from this first anniversary is the need to get our heads screwed on straight.

Author: Lindsey Williams