JM,

Ambi=left? Oh brother (cut to shot of Ambi rolling his eyes).

I don’t believe the press was sitting around cafes in Saigon plotting the North Vietnamese victory. In my opinion that is verging on tinfoil hat territory.

I think you give reporters too much credit for wide ranging knowledge. Reporters are not soldiers, or tacticians, or strategans, or military historians — they’re journalist majors. Their job is to report what they think is going on around them (and yes, I know all reporters have their own built in bias). These reporters relied in getting accurate information from the military. Bad information reflected on their abilities as journalists.

In looking at what I wrote I implied too much that the rosey picture painted by MACV, and pushed by Johnson as you pointed out, was a deliberate deception. They probably believed a lot of it. None the less, when Tet broke it undermined their credibility.

It is disingenious to blame reporters for for the miscalculations of MACV and Johnson. When the reporters saw something that the military had said was not possible, then the trust was broken. Considering the resounding victory that Tet was, the confluence of events was tragic, but it was not premeditated treason. Unintended consequences.

The Secret Bombings were STUPID. Millions of American voters sat on their couches and asked themselves, “who are they keeping this secret from — the folks they’re dropping the bombs on or me?” The obvious answer to that question threw the country strongly into the anti-war camp. Today we are still cynical about the motives of our elected leaders. Unintended consequences.

Finally, declaring victory and skeedaddling is not victory. It is defeat. To believe it is victory is to onscure the lessons that can be drawn from it. Thankfully, our military has studied hard how to both fight unconventional wars and how to handle our press. The embedded reporters scheme was brilliant, and only went to pieces when the press isolated itself in Bahgdad Hotels during the peace. Another lesson to pinder.

As for your remarks about Kerry, on that we agree. However, being an old sailor, I would add a whole bunch of unkind cuss words to your description of him. Frankly, I doubt he’ll be able to keep the smoke and mirrors going, but one never knows.