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    "localId": "7367501",
    "label": "State Department Paper Regarding the Lessons of Vietnam",
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    "id": "7367501",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "State Department Paper Regarding the Lessons of Vietnam",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7367501",
    "identifierLocal": "032400090-001",
    "collections": [
        "Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific (Ford Administration)",
        "East Asia and Pacific Country Files"
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 9,
            "logicalDate": "1975-05-09",
            "month": 5,
            "year": 1975
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    "seq": 7,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "Digitized from Box 20 of the NSA. Presidential Country Files: East Asia and the Pacific at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library\nCONPIDENTIAL\n- 2 -\n-- It follows, therefore, that we should commit our-\nselves only selectively to undertakings likely to involve\nthe expenditure of lives or of massive resources. (Im-\nportant note: having made commitments, we cannot be\nselectively reliable in fulfilling them.)\n-- Recognizing that constancy in our commitments is\nimportant, we should nevertheless avoid confusing constancy\nwith inertia. When circumstances change dramatically, or\na commitment clearly becomes unsustainable, we should\ndraw the right conclusions and change our policy accordingly.\n1968 was probably a better time to try for a comprehensive\npolitical settlement in Viet-Nam than was 1972. 1973\nwas a better time to press the GVN for further realistic\npolitical negotiations--particularly since we were in that\nyear deprived by the Congress of the ability to enforce\nFORD\nthe Paris Agreement-- than was 1974 or 1975.\nThe Nature of Allies\nones) 8. (BEARD)\n-- Foremost among the criteria we might henceforth\nemploy in making judgments about our commitments is the\nindigenous strength and will of our prospective ally--its\nability to help itself. Although the Vietnamese government\nwe supported was far more humane than its adversary, it\nwas, in the final analysis, unable to mobilize effectively\nthe support of its people in the face of an implacable, dis-\nciplined enemy. Without such support, ultimate defeat was\nprobably inevitable. On our desire to stem North Vietnamese\ncommunist expansion, we underestimated this critical factor.\n-- In effect, we allowed saving South Viet-Nam to\nbecome more important to us than it was for the South\nVietnamese themselves, In the future, we should gauge\nour support to our allies' efforts, and their successes.\nIf they cannot do the job, we will be unable to do it for\nthem.\n-- We should be fully aware of the fragility of govern-\nments which rest, to a significant degree, on the support\nof the military. This was not the chief cause of South\nViet-Nam's downfall--indeed the GVN retained a considerable\naura of legitimacy within Viet-Nam--but the inflexibility\nand narrowness of judgment of an increasingly isolated\nleadership in the face of unyielding North Vietnamese\npressure played a role in the nation's ultimate collapse.\nCONPIDENTIAL"
}