COMMENTARY - SESSION 4
Comments on an Interview with President Jimmy Carter
by Steve Sherman

Brian Williams began by saying America has "'no wound as raw and as wide and shared by so many American families in our day and generation as the Vietnam War.' And today, we are going to talk about it. And we are going to deconstruct it. And we are going to debate it and we are going to ask and answer questions about it."

If this was a debate, it was truly genteel.

President Carter, in the interview, said "I signed a directive that gave a pardon to all those who had defected from the military in order to avoid service in Vietnam. I didn’t pardon deserters from the military, but those who did defect and went to Canada, I gave a blanket pardon to them." He was not asked if he had considered the distress his actions caused those of us who served honorably. We considered the protesters to be antithetical to our well-being. To have them forgiven in this manner was akin to saying they were right and we were wrong. And I believe that the country at large saw it the same way. Protest -- Good. Service -- Bad. If this was Carter's effort to "heal our nation," it was as mis-directed as many other acts of his Presidency.

On the POW issue, President Carter said "I’m satisfied that I did everything I could. As you know, there were a number of Americans who erroneously believed that their loved ones who were missing in action were still alive, and were moving around somehow in Northern Vietnam, either under restraint or voluntarily. And this was an exacerbating factor during the time that I was President. All the information that I had showed that these reports were non-subjective, that there weren’t any appreciable number of those missing in action who were still alive in Vietnam." [italics added] What was the inappreciable number and why have you never admitted this before?

According to President Carter, "I think the Vietnam War turned out so badly for the United States, with ostentatious and clear defeat, our withdrawing troops from the tops of buildings and helicopters at the last minute, our opponents in Vietnam completely prevailing politically and militarily. . . I think it was the first time in history that the United States had committed an entire nation to achieve a political and military combined mission, in which we failed. And this was a sobering blow to our self-esteem, and maybe a pretty severe blow to our world-wide esteem as judged by outsiders." For the guy who gave us the fall of the Shah, the Hostage crisis, Desert One, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a "national malaise" and a host of other failures, his view of Vietnam set a precedent for his Presidency and his post-Presidential conduct.

President Carter demonstrates, if nothing else, just because he once wore a military uniform, this is no special reason for him to be elected to high public office.