Ford’s veto?
Yesterday’s post of mine was linked at Dean Esmay, and my old friend mikeca wrote a critique in the comments section there.
I’ve already debated mikeca’s viewpoint about whether or not the South Vietnamese ARVN might have held off against the North if our support had continued, here, so there’s no need to take that question up again. But I was intrigued by his assertion that Ford did not veto the late-1974 bill that pulled the financial plug on the ARVN.
It’s an interesting question, although not an especially important one, because I’m actually in agreement with mikeca’s contention that it was not only the Democrats who were for abandoning Vietnam; some Republican members of Congress were in favor of it, as well. Ford, only a few months into his unelected Presidency, most definitely didn’t have the stomach necessary for the fight, either. He saw his mission as a healing, uniting one, although he himself would have preferred the funding continue.
I went to the links mikeca gives on the subject, as well as doing a number of new searches of my own, and it’s still not clear what actually happened. There’s no question the funding was cut substantially, and that what was appropriated was woefully inadequate, and that this led to the unraveling of the morale and the fighting ability of the ARVN, as well as the opposite for the North–a conviction, quite correct, that they would now be able to achieve their goal of conquering the South, which occurred in short order.
But the rest of the details are murky. I got my original information that Ford had vetoed the bill from Wikipedia (see under the heading “South Vietnam Stand Alone, 1974-1975”), but no source was given there, nor could I find one.
Vietnam timelines state that the fund cuttoff occurred in Congress in September of 1974, which would have been a month after Nixon’s Watergate-inspired resignation. And yet Ford’s signing statement for the bill, which mikeca links to, occurred on December 30, 1974.
If I were more familiar with how long it ordinarily takes bills to go from passage to signing, I’d be more able to analyze what the four-month delay might have meant. One possibility, however, is that the bill was indeed initially vetoed by Ford and then overridden, and that he signed it after the override. That’s mere speculation, however; I could find nothing else on the subject other than assertions such as that in Wikipedia that there had been a veto, without citations or sources.
We do have the evidence of what Ford thought about the cutoff, however, in his words in the signing statement:
In South Vietnam, we have consistently sought to assure the right of the Vietnamese people to determine their own futures free from enemy interference. It would be tragic indeed if we endangered, or even lost, the progress we have achieved by failing to provide the relatively modest but crucial aid which is so badly needed there. Our objective is to help South Vietnam to develop a viable, self-sufficient economy and the climate of security which will make that development possible. To this end, the economic aid requested represented the amount needed to support crucial capital development and agricultural productivity efforts. The lower amount finally approved makes less likely the achievement of our objectives and will significantly prolong the period needed for essential development.
The understatement of the century.
So the President did not veto one particular bill. Therefore, all else is wrong I tell ya!
Truthiness in action.
I applaud you for giving an honest attempt at answering mikeca. It would be nice if he answered you with anything other than flat contradiction.
Hey, let us face the truth:
No President ever reluctantly signed a bill he didn’t believe in.
It therefore follows that the South Vietnamese were never betrayed. It means that Ho Chi Minh’s brutal murder of hundreds of thousands didn’t happen, and that millions didn’t flee for their very lives in front of the communist menace that invaded South Vietnam.
Also Ho was never a KGB stooge, and the communists never meant to murder all those people.
It just shows to go ya.
On January 8, 1815, a monumental American victory was achieved here — the Battle of New Orleans. Louisiana had been a State for less than three years, but outnumbered Americans innovated, outnumbered Americans used the tactics of the frontier to defeat a veteran British force trained in the strategy of the Napoleonic wars.
We as a nation had suffered humiliation and a measure of defeat in the War of 1812. Our National Capital in Washington had been captured and burned. So, the illustrious victory in the Battle of New Orleans was a powerful restorative to our national pride.
Yet, the victory at New Orleans actually took place two weeks after the signing of the armistice in Europe. Thousands died although a peace had been negotiated. The combatants had not gotten the word. Yet, the epic struggle nevertheless restored America’s pride.
Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned. As I see it, the time has come to look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the Nation’s wounds, and to restore its health and its optimistic self-confidence.
– President Gerald Ford, April 23, 1975 speaking at Tulane University.
On April 30, 1975 the last helicopter left the US embassy in Saigon, and the city fell to the North Vietnamese.
More than 30 years later some are still trying to refight the Vietnam War. They have not learned the lessons of Vietnam, and they still insist we could of won, if only…
More than 30 years later some are still trying to refight the Vietnam War. They have not learned the lessons of Vietnam, and they still insist we could of won, if only…
No, I think what they’re trying to do is avoid having us repeat history, precisely by learning the lessons of Vietnam. Defeatists are a continual problem for any nation that finds itself in a struggle — but the only way we’ll finally be able to put Vietnam behind us will be by learning to overcome this persistent claim that we can never win…
I concur with Sally- It’s the defeatists that are still using the VN playbook.
I find this especially revealing:
“They have not learned the lessons of Vietnam, and they still insist we could of won, if only…”
Implied is that defeat was inevitable. An impossibility. Now, I’m not one to predict the unknown, so I’ll give my opinion that it could’ve been won, after all, we were (and still are) the most powerful nation on earth. We could’ve gone Japan on them. I figure that would’ve achieved victory, but at a rather high cost. Yet people like mikeca are convinced that there was never a chance for victory. Wonder why that is.
Yet people like mikeca are convinced that there was never a chance for victory. Wonder why that is.
You probably have not read my comments on Deans World on this topic.
I have several times stated my believe that there are several ways we could have “won” the Vietnam war.
1) We could have created a strong government in South Vietnam that could have resisted the North Vietnamese with US military arms and perhaps some assistance. We failed to do that. When the North Vietnamese attacked the South in 1975, the South Vietnamese government collapsed like a house of cards. The South Vietnamese people were simply not willing to fight hard for their own government.
2) We could have invaded North Vietnam and occupied it. We were afraid to do that because we thought millions of Chinese troops would then invade Vietnam as had happened in Korea.
We simply failed to do the first and we (both Johnson and Nixon) were afraid to do the second.
One of the important lessons of Vietnam is that the US is not a colonial power. The American people will not stand for endless foreign wars of occupation. The North Vietnamese did not have to win any battles. They only had to keep inflicting casualties. You may wish that the US was a colonial power and would be willing to fight endless wars of occupation, but it is not in the character of the American people. That was one of the lessons of Vietnam that our enemies have learned, but some people seemed to have failed to grasp.
Although we “lost” the Vietnam war, Intel is now building plants in Ho Chi Minh City, so in the end, who will really win?
“We simply failed to do the first and we (both Johnson and Nixon) were afraid to do the second. ”
My point exactly. If we had the resolve we had to win WWII, we could’ve dealt with North Vietnam without worry of the Chinese. The problem is we don’t understand the value of respect (in the biblical sense) that is brought with exercise of power. That does not mean one need be a tyrant or inhumane, but if we always insist on gentlemans wars, many more than necessary will die, as happened in Southeast Asia.
You’re right, I haven’t read your posts wherever else. I guess when you said “More than 30 years later some are still trying to refight the Vietnam War. They have not learned the lessons of Vietnam,…” I understood it as meaning the US is still fighting the Viet Nam war, which I believe incorrect, and a defeatist attitude to take. Apparently a reasonable reading of your comment, since others commented as well.
End point: We must win, and we must do whatever it takes to do so.
In January of 1973 Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam with a unilateral withdrawal of the remaining U.S. forces. His Nixon Doctrine was to built up the armed forces of Vietnam so that they could take responsibility for their own defense. (Bush’s surge and happy talk about Iraq’s standing tall to the task makes this sound a bit familiar).
In 1973, two year before Ford took office The Paris Peace Accords had already been signed by the governments of North Vietnam (DVR), South Vietnam, and the United States, and Nixon said we have achieved the victory we sought. All that was left was for the DVR to take their time in moving into Saigon. When they got there we got people out from atop our embassy.