Indochina War Quotes & Sayings

To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina. — George McGovern

Even in a largely depoliticized society such as the United States, with no political parties or opposition press beyond the narrow spectrum of the business-dominated consensus, it is possible for populate action to have a significant impact on policy, though indirectly. That was an important lesson for the Indochina Wars. — Noam Chomsky

There are people who cannot forget, as neither do I, the lesson of the years of the Indochina War. Which was, first, that the state is capable of being a murderer. A mass murderer, and a conspirator and a liar. — Christopher Hitchens

But the Viet-Minh had had about ten months in which to establish their administration, train their forces with Japanese and American weapons (and Japanese and Chinese instructors), and kill or terrorize into submission the genuine Vietnamese nationalists who wanted a Viet-Nam independent from France but equally free of Communist rule. The first round of the war for Indochina already had been lost for the West before it had even begun. — Bernard B. Fall

Until we go through it ourselves, until our people cower in the shelters of New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere while the buildings collapse overhead and burst into flames, and dead bodies hurtle about and, when it is over for the day or the night, emerge in the rubble to find some of their dear ones mangled, their homes gone, their hospitals, churches, schools demolished - only after that gruesome experience will we realize what we are inflicting on the people of Indochina. — William L. Shirer

They don't believe in anything either. You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren't interested."
"They don't want communism."
"They want enough rice," I said. "They don't want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another. They don't want our white skins around telling them what they want."
"If Indochina goes
"
"I know that record. Siam goes. Malaya goes. Indonesia goes. What does 'go' mean? If I believed in your God and another life, I'd bet my future harp against your golden crown that in five hundred years there may be no New York or London, but they'll be growing paddy in these fields, they'll be carrying their produce to market on long poles, wearing their pointed hats. The small boys will be sitting on the buffaloes. I like the buffaloes, they don't like our smell, the smell of Europeans. — Graham Greene

Laos is saddled with the distinction of one superlative: it is the most heavily bombed country on earth. During the nine-year secret war against the Communists, during the Vietnam War, the U. S. dropped 6,300,000 tons of bombs on Indochina, about 1/3 of which fell on Laos. It was the heaviest aerial bombardment in the history of warfare. During the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. rained more bombs on Laos than were dropped on Nazi Germany during World War II -- three times the tonnage dropped during the Korean War -- the equivalent of a plane load of bombs every 8 minutes around the clock for 9 years. — Sy Montgomery

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation. — Edward R. Murrow

The 1968 bugging issue revolved around a Republican initiative to undermine Johnson's Paris peace talks that could have ended the Vietnam War and brought home 500,000 American soldiers then fighting in Indochina. The Nixon-Agnew campaign, however, feared that this 'October Surprise' would catapult Vice President Hubert Humphrey to victory and again deny Nixon the White House. — Robert Parry