Webb's Poll Update
Reader mrs panstreppon found it! According to the New York Times on September 12, 1972, a Harris poll found that 74% of Americans supported President Nixon's contention that "it is important the South Vietnam not fall into the control of the Communists." 11% opposed it.
"Important." OK. This is the sort of thing that gives polling a bad name. I might well declare it important that the Vietnamese be permitted to vote for their leaders without implying that the U. S. Army, in pursuit of that goal, fight a war that kills two to three million of them and 58,000 Americans besides.
In the meantime, cherry-picking polls is a bad idea, no better than cherry-picking anything else besides cherries.
I raked through all the 1972 polls touching on Vietnam in the University of Connecticut Roper Center for Public Opinion's database. I find none there like the above, and many quite different.
Here's a typical finding, from Harris, in May 1972:
Considering the fact that the North Vietnamese now occupy much of the northern part of South Vietnam, would you favor or oppose... An agreement to end the war but to let North Vietnam keep the territory it now occupies?
44% Favor
38 Oppose
18 Not sure
As the eagle-eyed mrs panstreppon also noted, something of the climate of public opinion that year is conveyed by a Gallup Poll in April 1972 (reported in the NYT, April 26, but also strangely missing from the Roper Center's database) that found 71 percent of those polled favoring a cutoff of all funds as of Dec. 31, 1972, as opposed to 23 percent opposed, on the condition that all US prisoners were released.
Of all the polls in the Roper Center database, the one that comes closest to the 74% Harris figure is an Opinion Research Corporation poll commissioned by Nixon in late April of 1972 and, typically, rigged. The question quotes Nixon as saying: "We refuse to accede to the enemy's demand to overthrow the lawfully constituted government of South Vietnam and to impose a communist dictatorship in its place," and then asks: "Do you agree or disagree with the President's position?" 67% agreed; 25% disagreed; 8 had no opinion.
But what did "refuse to accede" mean? At what cost? Fight at the loss of 10,000 more American lives? 50,000? What?
As for general American feelings about the war in Vietnam as a "mistake " Michael Tomasky pointed out in the September 2004 American Prospect that "Gallup began asking a version of the 'mistake' question in 1965. The first majority calling the war a mistake appeared in August 1968...After the war’s 1975 conclusion, Gallup has asked the question five times, in 1985, 1990, 1993, 1995, and 2000. And all five times...respondents were consistent in calling the war a mistake by a margin of more than 2 to 1."
I've always thought that James Miller's *Democracy is in the Streets* is the definitive account of SDS, and he emphasizes that the Port Huron Conference, when organized by SLID, was intended not only not to be "revolutionary" but one might say anti-revolutionary insofar as it was intended to be a clear alternative to Communism and various forms of fellow traveling. Anyway, I've always liked that book a lot.
January 28, 2007 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good catch Mr. Gitlin:
From your previous post:
Maybe ... by contacting the Honorable Senator directly will help to get an answer to what poll he used as a reference. And while you're at it, maybe you can invite him to speak with us fine folks here at the Cafe:
If Todd doesn't have the time nor inclination in contacting Sen Webb, maybe a few of us here at the Cafe can take the dive. I have.
~OGD~
January 28, 2007 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have also been unable to locate the poll Webb is talking about. But unlike Mr. Gitlin, who found "nothing even remotely resembling" the poll results claimed by Webb, I did find this, also taken in 1972:
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,879069,00.
(Not a primary source, I admit.) The "crisis" rationale advanced by Harris in the Time piece may also explain the results as described by Webb, if indeed they exist, because in the spring and early summer of 1972, after the war had been almost fully "Vietnamized," the North Vietnamese had attacked fiercely in the north, sending the ARVN reeling, requiring a US reaction. The harbor was mined in May, 1972, in the middle of all this.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,879294,00.html (good article about Bill Walton)
http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index3.html
January 28, 2007 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks to Mrs. Panstreppon, a golden "Enter" key for you.
In light of your update, let me say I am relieved that Webb is, at least, not shown up as a confabulator.
BTW, I will not bash him for his views on Vietnam. If he cannot now agree that Vietnam was a mistake piled upon lies, then he may be hanging on a bit too much to what he experienced, or he may just intellectually believe things coulda woulda shoulda come out differently.
So, even if Webb was and is wrong about Vietnam, that does not mean that he wrong about the issues that confront us today.
January 28, 2007 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yay Jody-er Mrs P! Jan Knaus
January 28, 2007 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know it is REAL confusing to have your diary and your update as separate articles.
January 28, 2007 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Confusing...and it also keeps the diary from being refuted -- or tries to anyway.
Jan Knaus
January 28, 2007 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
We needn't "cherry pick" polls. I wish Dr. Bruce were here, this is HIS field, but please see (Mueller) The Iraq Syndrome Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 2005 for a comprehensive comparison Korea, Vietnam, Iraq with graphs!
The question used in the Vietnam graphic
January 28, 2007 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I don't know about that, if you look in the original diary there is Mrs. Panstreppon's find.
I just think it's another example of one person's laziness leading to another's (or others') confusion, when it could so easily be avoided.
January 28, 2007 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. There was actually a moment, a little over a year ago, when Webb's misguided views on Vietnam were dangerous and needed to be opposed. He's been a believer in the "stab-in-the-back" thesis since the late '70s, and when the idea that the US might have won in Vietnam if not for congressional perfidy in '75 was resurrected (especially in 2005) in order to dismiss critics of the war in Iraq, Webb's views lent support to the enemy - i.e. Krepinovich, Laird and others who were claiming that a redoubled US counterinsurgency effort could win it in Iraq.
But that moment is long gone by now. Webb's views on what happened in Vietnam seem to be partly grounded in a sense of loyalty to his old ARVN fellow-soldiers. Given the polarization of American society in the '60s, this somehow leads him to a radical hostility towards anyone who was part of the New Left. Hopefully, those hatchets are now finally getting buried.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
January 28, 2007 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
While in the process of mocking cherry picking polls and "rigged" polls that don't prove your point, You actually DO imply that the US was responsible for 3 million deaths.
Face it, Vietnam was the most important issue of the day and in November of 1972, the only poll that really counted gave him the biggest Landslide in ages over a candidate who is even today revered on the left as a wizard of strategic foreign policy thinking.
How is it that the US is responsible for the deaths of 3 million people. The deaths on the North Vietnamese side were combatants and aggressors on the South. It is estimated that in the entire war, that is including the time we were not heavily involved, the North lost 400,000. It is estimated by some that the civilian deaths of the North were about 50,000. The portion of those Communist combatants that we killed we can take responsibility for. The 250,000 South Vietnamese combatants and 300,000 civilians that were killed were the people we fought to protect. The subsequent slaughter that occurred afterward shows that these numbers would have been higher had we not been there. How can you lay those on our doorstep? Another 9,000 from other countries like S. Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and the Phillipines who fought along side our soldiers also lost their lives protecting the people you imply we killed.
Whether you think it was a mistake or not, the fact that we made a stand lowered the amount of Deaths that would have occurred during that pre-1975 period.
So being fair, the American military can take reponsibility for the deaths for maybe 300,000 or so NVA/Cong deaths. The US Military is also responsible for preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths. How many?
What else is "America" reponsible for in South East Asia? How about, what is the American peace movement responsible for? After the "Peace" movement advocated and then received a "Redeployment", Southeast Asia became a Killing zone dotted with torture chambers, re-education camps, massive starvation, Refugees dying in droves as they fled. No more US military to "Prevent" those deaths. After the fall of Saigon,, the policy advocated by the Peace movement delivered results:
171,000 killed after the American ceasefire.
One million prisoners were incarcerated for as long as 17 years, according to the U.S. Department of State, with most terms ranging from three to 10 years. 165,000 people died in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's re-education camps, according to published academic studies in the United States and Europe. At least 150 re-education prisons were built after Saigon fell 30 years ago. One in three South Vietnamese families had a relative in a re-education camp.
Thousands were abused or tortured: their hands and legs shackled in painful positions for months, their skin slashed by bamboo canes studded with thorns, their veins injected with poisonous chemicals, their spirits broken with stories about relatives being killed. 15% of Prisoners died in Prison which is a higher rate than Nazi POW camps.
It is very difficult to gauge the loss of life at sea or in the jungles of the Millions of Refugees on the move that sank or starved or were killed as they fled. Over million were accepted by the US, Australia, Canada and others. Tens of Thousands of former prisoners live in Southern California.
What also followed was the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge where 3 million out of a population of 7 million didn't just die, they were tortured first and then died. Genocide.
Then the Third IndoChina war, and another 200,000 deaths caused by Combat Deaths including Chinese and Vietnamese as well as Cambodian deaths as Vietnam set up a puppet state there. Domino. More Died because of the Chinese slash and burn techniques and the starvation that followed the war in the late 70s.
Sounds like maybe 5-6 Million Dead as a result of the Opposition to the Vietnam War. The "Peace" movement is responsible for as many deaths as the Holocaust.
So when you start calling polls cherry picking and rigged and placing blame on the US Military for 3 Million deaths, remember "Peace" killed a lot more than the American GI.
So when the Communists that marched with Hanoi Jane yesterday start feeling all puffed up and self righteous about undercutting the War on Terrorism abroad, Let's see how they scramble and back pedal and rationalize when the Middle East produces Millions of deaths and it spills over into Europe. We hear everyday how its a civil war, its spinning out of control, eject eject! OK, then what?
The "Peace" that they sought was a peace of mind through denial. They seek it gain today.
Never Again.
January 28, 2007 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Show the folks the links Seixon ... er pardon me, TJ...
~OGD~
January 28, 2007 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
hoosiertransplant Two things to remember, TJ. The Paris Peace Accords allowed the North Vietnamese army to retain control of large tracts of the South. That is what doomed the South Vietnamese government. Second, the treaty was signed by Henry Kissinger under the direction of Richard Nixon, not "Hanoi Jane" under the direction of George McGovern.
January 29, 2007 5:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let me see if I can summarize your treatise, Mr. King. I think you are claiming that some 10 years of intervention in Vietnam caused the death of 55,000 Americans and resulted in the same situation that would have occurred if the US had ignored it completely, is that correct?
Is it also correct that you are cheering for a similar effect in Iraq? Or do you really believe we will see a peaceful, unified, democratic Iraq where Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds live in harmony? Do you expect this to happen within the lifetimes of our great-grandchildren? And how many American deaths are acceptable to you in this patriotic endeavor?
But you and I have some unfinished business, don't we? You still have not responded to my questions from a previous thread. Since I am weary from repeating the same five questions over and over again, I'll just narrow it down to one:
Certainly one with a "Never Again" philosophy feels compelled to do much more than just bloviate about the problem, no? Or are you blogging about it over here so that you don't have to blog about it over there?
January 29, 2007 5:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
TJKING,
Just in case no one has ever had the courage to tell you, I , in the hopes of helping you achieve the peace of mind you so desperately need, will cut the crap and tell it to you straight.
You are nuts.
Get help.
January 29, 2007 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, you're both (King and Gitlin) throwing numbers around that are misleading.
The 3million deaths cited by Gitlin include all combatants and civilians from 1960-1975.
The years of the U.S.'s most intense involvement resulted in a death toll for all combatants and civilians 1965-1973 of 1.7million.
The post U.S. conflict era, 1975-1987 resulted in 430k deaths in Vietnam. The 430k estimate (and ALL these numbers are estimated) includes executions, incarcarations and boat/refugee people.
To claim that the peace movement "killed" anyone is a tenuous claim - you could easily make the case that if Nixon hadn't bombed Cambodia and Laos, and involved Laotians in the conflict, none of these deaths would have occurred. You could claim that the Cambodian civil war was a direct result of this involvement in the Viet Nam civil war.
Frankly, no one can claim how many lives were lost or saved because of an action not done or done - it's an unknown variable.
January 29, 2007 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Madam or Sir, there is a universe of difference between a person who is "nuts" and one who is simply wrong -- and possibly evil (:^)}. I suggest you learn that difference. It can completely change the way you view the world in general and politics in particular.
January 29, 2007 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid your post war numbers are just unrealistic. there were 170,000 combat deaths alone in what is called the "ceasefire war", that is the lead up to the fall of saigon. the most absolute consevative numbers of the third indochina war, has 70k for the chinese and about 80k for the Vietnamese, that is not including the ethnic chinese fleeing from Vietnam and the civilian deaths in that war. Thats a conservative estimate of 320k. Thats a third of a million right there alone in combatants of two Communist armies. We did not make them kill each other. That leaves only 100,000 other deaths. The most conservative estimates of deaths in the concentration camps is 165,000, thats not even including all of the other deaths outside of the camps. Your numbers are just radically unreal.
The 1.7 mill number is often quoted and is generally accepted as including the entire war outside of Americas significant participation and again,...includes deaths on our side and theirs. Our military was reponsible for protecting those lives not killing them.
The case regarding Cambodia can not as you say, be "easily made". The conflict had been in varying degrees of intensity going on since the early 50s. Pol Pot himself was a member of the Cercle Marxiste in 1951. He and his cronies worked in concert with the Vietnamese and the Chinese for decades before the conclusion of the Cambodian civil war. This was the basis of the domino theory so roundly criticized by the American left, which is now considered by historians to be self evident.
In fact, the third indochina war was a result of a power struggle between the Chinese and Vietnamese over who's version of communism had won in Cambodia. Vietnam attacked Cambodia and China had considered them as their personal pet for the last two decades. Arguing that Cambodia was some quiet garden spot or that the Vietnamese use of Laos as an extension of their territory and then the American's came and the killing fields occurred is like claiming that Aushwitz would not have occured if we just gave Hitler what he wanted.
Your remark about "tenuous claims" assigning responsibility to the peace movement. Claiming Nixon is to blame for doing the bidding of the peace movement is a "dodge" of monumental proportions. For thirty years, the peace movement has proudly taken reponsibility and pride over "forcing" the government to get out of Vietnam. They can't have it both ways.
The Peace movement Acted, Millions died! If you are arguing that the peace movement is only reponsible for 430,000 deaths, then whats your point?
Fact is they are not facing real questions over what will happen in the middle east if we follow what the Peace movement is arguing today. If they can't admit how many millions of people they let die in South East Asia, why should we even listen to a word they say regarding compassion for human life.
January 29, 2007 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
ARVN ("Army of the Republic of Vietnam") fellow soldiers, no. Marines, yes.
January 29, 2007 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Knee Jerk, You have told me in the past you don't beleive in Evil. Are you sprouting a values system?
January 29, 2007 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I have said above, The Peace movement for 30 years has taken reponsibility and pride for "forcing" our government to "Redeploy" out of Vietnam. You can't have it both ways. The peace movement is responsible for the deaths of millions and if they can't handle that their actions have consequences, stay out of foreign policy discussions.
January 29, 2007 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Deleted
January 29, 2007 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
(This comment is mis-parented. It is intended as a reply to TJKING's comment directed to me, above.)
I guess you ignored the smiley after the word "evil" just the way you continue to ignor my question:
-- What was the highest rank you achieved in the American Armed Forces.
As for a value system, mine "sprouted" and bloomed back in the '50s. It's still in full flower.
How's yours? Have you enlisted in any effort to actually do something in support of the carnage you so passionately believe in? Or does your value system leave you content to merely talk a good war?
Let's see, there would be a word for that kind of attitude. This old memory of mine can't come up with the word, but I have a vision of a hybrid of two avians. Can you help me with the word I'm groping for, Mr. King?
Or perhaps it's time for you to rate my comment with a 1 and surrender again?
January 29, 2007 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't see the smiley, thats true. I will reinterpret your remark in that context. Thanks for the clarification.
BTW, Can't help you with your request regarding your habit of groping. Let me know if you ever want to get back to discussing matters. Happy groping.
January 29, 2007 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, your numbers are incorrect, and if I might add, cherry picked. You're choosing statistics from the high end to lay out your argument that the "peace movement killed 6M." The MEDIAN number of deaths for the Vietnam conflict is 3.5 mil from 1960-1975, the median number of deaths in the American phase is 1.7mil.
From 1975-1987 the median number of estimated deaths is 430k. The numbers break down, accordingly, 65K executions, 165K camp deaths and 200K boat people. You're adding the numbers in the cease-fire war 1973-1975 which again includes all combatants and civilians as all the numbers do) but the consolidation phase of the Vietnam war is 1975-1987, 1975 being the year the Americans left.
As to what my point is, my point is that the peace movement isn't responsible for any deaths. If you want to extrapolate numbers in "if" scenarios, how many would have been killed if the conflict had continued for another 15 years? The median estimate would be 3.1 million. However, if the war had escalated in Vietnam using the same surge percentage of increasing troop numbers by 7% as we are in Iraq, the number would have been 5.mil. total number of casualties of all combatants. Without any escalation of the number of troops in Vietnam, the number extrapolated from available data would be a median of 2.5mil. Anyone could then claim that if we had prolonged the conflict another 15 years, the total number of casualties would be estimated at 6mil.
Now I can play this game all day if you want to - how many lives would have been saved if the German Peace Movement of the 1930s had prevailed? How many lives would have been saved if the Americans had joined the allies in 1939? Frankly, I don't know, you don't know and no one else knows either because the variables are changable and most of them are unknown. The best anyone can do is give a median estimate based on data available at the time the estimate was made.
So how many deaths are the Americans responsible for? As many as they killed, just as the Vietnamese are responsible for the numbers of people they killed.
January 29, 2007 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
For thirty years, the peace movement has proudly taken reponsibility and pride over "forcing" the government to get out of Vietnam. They can't have it both ways.
Someone called this statement tenuous. It is no such thing. It is laughably insupportable. It is built on multiple levels of factual and logical fallacy. Let's have fun with just a couple of them:
The peace movement has taken responsiblity
There must have been twenty million people, twenty large organizations, and a thousand small organizations involved in "the peace movement." Their agendas, their backgrounds, their actions, their motivations, their philosophies were as heterogeneous as the shapes of snowflakes. To say that "the peace movement" was focused on anything other than getting us out of Vietnam, to say that "the peace movement" did anything in a unified way is ludicrous. To say that "the peace movement" did anything at all for 30 years is even more so.
"forcing" the government to get out of Vietnam
The quotes here seem to imply that someone is actually being quoted, but I find this to be unlikely. Don't bother posting a link even if you have one. Anyone who said it is just as foolish or disingenuous as you are for making the claim.
The thing that "forced" Mr. Nixon to cave in to the Communists in Vietnam was public opinion, which was running almost as high against the war as it is now.
They can't have it both ways.
Another claim that melts like thin frost on a window the moment it is touched by the merest warmth of truth.
The peace movement raised the awareness, the conscience, and the consciousness of the American public. The American public created a politically untenable situation for a man who was a political coward. It was he who owns the responsibility for the abandonment of Vietnam; public opinion simply made it impossible for him to do anything else.
January 29, 2007 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you even re-read what you spew before you hit enter. I would like to email this to the Logic department at some College.
A)Nixon alone holds all responsibility
B)Peace Movement is an undefineable entity
C)This Undefineable entity can not be known other than it "raised awareness".
D) The American Public after apparently having its awareness raised by some unknown entity, as a whole did not FORCE Nixon to do anything...instead it "simply made it impossible for him to do anything else".
"B", the unknown entity is never responsible for anything.
"B" effects "D" which effects "A", but "C" proves that "B" is null.
Repeat "A" over and over till you hallucinate.
January 29, 2007 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone who is still interested in the numbers should look at "American Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam" William L. Lunch; Peter W. Sperlich The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 32, No. 1 (Mar., 1979), pp. 21-44. I found it behind a firewall at JSTOR.
I'm not saying it outright refutes Webb, but if Webb looked at this article, he should have been reluctant to claim anything suggesting public support for the US policy position in Vietnam in 1972.
Incidentally, this article also suggests that being at risk of being drafted may not be the largest factor in opposing the war (based on some age data reported).
January 29, 2007 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for repeating my argument, much more succinctly than I did, too. There is hope for your political soul.
January 30, 2007 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think that it is equally possible to reverse the interpretation, or at least to consider this proposition.
aMike
January 30, 2007 6:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have said the same thing many times, as proof that the whole enterprise was a fool's errand and all those people died for nothing. Just want to ask -- did you happen to hear our "fearful leader's" remarks when he actually went to Vietnam (don't worry; it was a month or so ago, so he didn't have to worry about getting shot at).
He had the nerve to tell these prosperous, hard-working people that what we learned from our Vietnam experience is not to give up! I can only hope that no one got a translation of his insulting and clueless statement. [Of course they probably spoke English anyway, so too late!]
Right, George, the Vietnamese really want to hear that we should have kept the war going another 5 years and then stayed there as occupiers! That's the way to make friends and influence people!
How did this embarrassment get where he is? TWICE?
Jan Knaus
January 30, 2007 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then you have made my point that a previous contributor reiterated and that is that the radical left is a secular religion and in your eyes the Peace activists that marched under the UFPJ banner this past week are a priestly class that like the Inquisitors proceed on orthodoxy and a self perpetuating lust for political power alone with out any consideration of responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
If the Antiwar movement can never accept that their actions have consequences in the realm of world affairs, because their motives are beyond reproach, then they are as dangerous as the Inquisition.
Millions died. The blood is on your hands. Never again.
January 30, 2007 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Slogans and chickenhawk rhetoric. Zero substance even to refute.
Give it up, Mr. King.
January 31, 2007 4:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, now I know who you are trying to be. Cal Thomas just wrote almost the exact same words in the newspaper today.
Your hypocrisy is manifest right here:
"Millions died. The blood is on your hands. Never again."
OH, yes, "again." As long as there are sociopathic people in power like we have in our country today there will always be an "again."
Jan Knaus
January 31, 2007 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bump to the top -- to move up over the Friday night spam dumper....
~OGD~
February 1, 2007 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink