Kissinger’s Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War

The current travails of Americans—here at home and overseas—arose from the failure of our effort to make good on our promise to the people of South Vietnam to defend them from Communist aggression.The loss of the Vietnam War brought us the shame of dishonor and a loss of self-confidence.Defeat broke our morale, unnerved us, and caused us to turn against our traditions, ideals, and our trust in ourselves and in each other.Our veterans were ostracized, which caused them a vicious kind of posttraumatic stress
disorder, one not experienced in combat but only after they returned home to rejection and stigma.Many then self-victimized, blaming their government for exposing them to Agent Orange
herbicides or not seeking the return of our prisoners of war.The unwritten foundational contract of America to honor those citizens who served in its wars was abandoned after our loss in Vietnam. It was a contract that began with the Revolution and was honored through the Civil War, two World Wars, and the Korean War.
To this day, the greeting of one Vietnam veteran to another has been “Welcome home!” Yet it rings hollow.Filling the cultural vacuum left by the collapse of confidence in ourselves, our leaders, and our cause was the narrative of those opposed to the war in Vietnam—a divisive repudiation of America as a moral exemplar, the “city upon a hill.”This was the first time that the professoriat, supported by journalists and other intellectuals, came up with its own narrative about what America was doing wrong in a foreign war, a false story about the Vietnamese and the origins of the war. Then they imposed it upon the American people through control of critical elite cultural institutions. It would not be the last time that this would happen.