A Virtual Conference
on Today
and its Roots in the Last Fifty Years
sponsored by The RADIX Foundation

Bruce Kesler, the “Yoda” of Vietnam Veteran activism, in an article for Democracy Project, differentiates between “rants” and “discourse” by stating that the former “appeal to those most already engaged but fail to bridge gaps of understanding,” and are “not the basis for unifying a majority or preserving individual and collective sanity and safety.”

As difficult as it may be to always follow such sound advice, we will endeavor to keep it in mind in operating this website and we hope that our correspondents will do so as well. Our reasons for establishing this web-site may appear, given the tenor of the times, to be a bit of a rant in itself: We believe the Vietnam war was mis-reported at the time, mis-recorded by the historians, mis-taught in our schools, mis-portrayed in the media, and so-called “lessons” of that war are being mis-used to bolster partisan policies today. As a result, there has been a schism in our society since the Vietnam War that has affected all aspects of our life, but is particular evident in the main-stream media, the entertainment industry, academia and politics. We invite rational discourse from all points of view, not only to further our own arguments, but also to present opposing points of view and to point out errors in our [and others] thinking. We would like to see a debate on this website that would give a future reader the arguments from multiple points of view, presented in sufficiently factual terms so that he or she may be persuaded or dissuaded of the merits of those arguments.

We have already presented our views of the Vietnam War at www.Viet-Myths.net . A contrasting summarization may be taken from the recent conference “Vietnam and the Presidency” presented by NARA at the JFK Library. We have posted the transcripts of this conference together with our commentary on this website. Another section of this website will be devoted to a “virtual conference”/discussion/debate on specific topics in regard to the Vietnam War and we are open at this time to the premises for such debate and the “hosts” or debate opponents for each selected topic. We will invite the presentation of all points of view within an atmosphere of reasoned discussion. In-depth records of such discussions will be maintained in an easily accessible format to serve as a resource for the future.

This is not merely an academic debate of relevance only to specialized historians. Every major American use-of-force situation in the past thirty years has been colored by perceptions of the “lessons” and “mistakes” of “Vietnam”; and if we are correct in our critique then our country has continued to blunder, good people have died unnecessarily, and others have had their freedom put in jeopardy because too many Americans have learned the wrong “lessons” from that war. If our view is right, correcting this record could have a tremendous effect on the willingness and ability of the American people to make the right decisions in the war on terror. Providing a venue for a serious public dialogue on our perspective could help the nation understand the debate and ultimately contribute to national unity. Either way, the public interest is well served.

Four additional subsections of this website will deal with the impact of the Vietnam War on the main-stream media, the entertainment industry, academia and politics. The format of these sections has yet to be determined.

Two more subsections are also in development. One is to examine those young men and women who, despite the influences of the media, the entertainment and the education industries, are willing to stand up for traditional concepts of service and responsibility. Who are these people? What are their economic, social and philosophic origins? Why is the soldier not, with very few exceptions, among the protesters and conversely why aren’t the protesters with the soldier? We believe that such study will teach us much about our society, and about ourselves? The final subsection is to illustrate, with one or more case studies, how realities are being twisted beyond any reasonable level of “intellectual misunderstanding.”

Ultimately, our government and political system are premised upon the Jeffersonian idea that, if given access to information and an intellectual marketplace in which competing viewpoints are available, the people will be able to make the right decisions. But sadly, the public discourse -- at least in the mainstream media during the past three decades -- has been dominated by one particular point of view.  On our college and university campuses, a single orthodoxy tends to prevail and to be propagated by a professorship dominated by veterans of the Vietnam protest movement, few of whom have ever seriously questioned the assertions they accepted in the 1960s about the Vietnam war. We believe that their perceptions of Vietnam are profoundly in error. Using the opportunity afforded by this website, we are prepared to set forth a competing version of that history that will challenge the conventional wisdom and show that it seeks to implement historical lessons attributed to that conflict that have no basis in fact. If we are correct in this concern, then America is drawing invalid conclusions that may affect the lives and freedom of countless people not only in Iraq but also around the world. Obviously, on some issues we may be mistaken. But even if that is the case, the public good is served by setting forth our contentions and to subject them to free and open debate in the marketplace of ideas. If we are wrong, our critics will point that out and the American people will be free to draw their own conclusions. If we are right, there is a chance that we will prevail and that current policies will not be thrown off the tracks by old thinking and mythology. And the very existence of a serious debate on these issues will help focus public attention on the dispute and increase both knowledge and interest in these historical issues. Such a discourse will provide benefits that extend far beyond the issues of the conflict in Vietnam.