Vindication for Vietnam Protests

* Re “Clinton Sees Vindication for Vietnam Protesters” (April 15):

I am a Vietnam veteran: 1967-1968, Tet offensive; Khe Sahn, etc.; a citizen serviceman. Let Bill Clinton stand before the Wall and express his vindication to the 50,000-plus who accepted and carried out their responsibility of citizenship. Let him explain to those on the Wall, some of whom died as a direct result of the actions of himself and the Jane Fonda ilk, that after all, he was right.

No, Mr. Clinton, the war was not lost militarily. It was lost politically. Those of us who accepted our responsibility of citizenship were betrayed by our government and by people such as you. And some of my comrades-in-arms’ names are on the Wall as a direct result of your actions.

May God forgive you for your misguided actions against me and my comrades-in-arms. I cannot.

JIM MCDANIEL

Torrance

* I know President Clinton’s heart is in the right place but, I don’t need anyone’s vindication for my participation in the anti-war movement. Vietnam was an ugly, illegal, immoral war. I knew it then and obviously the people in power knew it then, too, but opted to remain silent. The people I admire and respect are the ones who went against the mainstream, choosing not to be involved in something they knew in their hearts to be terribly wrong, even if it meant expatriation. These individuals were, in my estimation, just as heroic as anyone who served.

JON CAVANAUGH

Pasadena

* Re “Sorry, Mac--You’re Not Forgiven” by Robert Scheer (Column Left, April 16):

As a Vietnam veteran, I agree that Robert McNamara cannot so easily be forgiven for his part in any mistakes the U.S. may have made in its global policies and Vietnam War strategies. But Scheer’s extrapolation from what McNamara did not do to what Jane Fonda and Daniel Ellsberg did do is a bit of a stretch. From where I sit, Fonda and the others do not look “pretty good these days” and they surely do not deserve Medals of Freedom.

McNamara made decisions in full view of the military and political information available to him at the time, with due regard to his sense of allegiance to his superiors. Right or wrong, he had the facts and acted within his authority. The protesters had opinions and emotions, unbalanced by a sense of reason or law. Fonda’s visit to North Vietnam did nothing but give aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States during a time of war.

CHARLES E. GRUBBS

Newport Beach

* If McNamara is right that the U.S. war in Vietnam was a mistake and former President Jimmy Carter was right in granting amnesty to deserters and President Clinton was right in vindicating war protesters and draft dodgers, then what is to be the legacy of those who served?

BARRY LEVIN

Los Angeles

* In the massive media coverage triggered by McNamara’s candid mea culpa, your April 14 editorial is the only place I’ve been able to find reference to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

By 1967 McNamara could see the Vietnam venture as a costly, mistaken conflict. In 1968 Nixon was elected and, with Kissinger as his foreign policy guru, gave us seven more years of senseless death, destruction and lasting inflationary damage, with serious economic consequences. Will Kissinger ever have the courage--and class--to confess that he was “terribly, terribly wrong?” Don’t bet on it.

In 1971 Republican Rep. Paul (Pete) McCloskey and I returned from South Vietnam with information that could have led to an honorable exit from the Indochina morass. Kissinger refused to meet with us because, in the words of a staff member I happened to know, “He is determined to win the war on his terms and doesn’t intend to be diverted by what he thinks you have to tell him.” Four years later, and many many deaths later, we left Vietnam in total disgrace.

Which explains my deep disappointment over the disgraceful lack of media attention to Kissinger’s role in “McNamara’s War.”

HAROLD WILLENS

Los Angeles

* The editorial castigates Nixon and Kissinger for expressing “no contrition” in regard to their Vietnam decisions, yet inexplicably fails to even mention the names of Presidents John F. Kennedy or Lyndon B. Johnson.

Let’s remember it was Kennedy who first committed 16,000 “military advisers” to South Vietnam prior to his assassination, and it was Johnson who, while running for the presidency in 1964, delivered an Aug. 12 speech before the American Bar Assn. in New York City in which he pledged he would not “enlarge the (Vietnam) conflict” by sending “American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.”

ROBERT FLAXMAN

Beverly Hills