April 30 was the 20th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and the reunification of Vietnam. The war has been the subject of much recent media coverage, especially following Robert McNamara's attempt at rewriting history. One view of the war was given by a Victorian headmaster, Neville Clark, in a letter published in the April 27 Melbourne Age. Jim McGarvin, also a teacher, replied with a different view of the realities. The Age, which at the time was a strong campaigner for Australia's involvement in the war, declined to publish McGarvin's letter. Below we reprint both letters.
Facts 1
Veterans are not the only ones confused by Mr McNamara's revisionism. In an effort to clarify the situation for school pupils, I offer the following compendium.
1. The Vietnamese people liberated themselves from French colonial rule in 1954.
2. By a multinational Geneva agreement, the country was divided into a communist North and non-communist South.
3. In 1959, the communist North adopted a plan to overthrow the non-communist Government of the South.
4. In response to this, ANZUS ground troops were deployed from 1965.
5. The Cold War was at its height, North Vietnam was a client of the USSR and Ho Chi Minh had been trained there.
6. Deciding against an invasion of the North, the Americans tried to bomb the sources of the North's military strength â a policy that attracted bad publicity.
7. Although undefeated in battle, the ANZUS troops were withdrawn when it was clear that home support for the conflict had weakened. Without allies, the South succumbed to the North's invasion in 1975.
8. The chief casualties of the war were, first, the inhabitants of South Vietnam; second â though more briefly â the inhabitants of North Vietnam, and, finally, those people in the South who neve wanted communist rule.
On the basis of these facts â whatever else is communicated â I submit that our pupils could be allowed to decide on the politics and the morality themselves.
Neville J. Clark
Headmaster, Mentone Grammar School
Facts 2
In "an effort to clarify the Vietnam War confusion for school pupils" Mr Neville J. Clark, Headmaster of Mentone Grammar School, "offers a compendium of facts".
His 8-point "clarification" needs clarification.
1. To try to stop Vietnam's independence, the Americans paid 78% of the French colonists' military expenditure.
2. The Geneva Agreement arranged for international supervision of national elections for 1956, but the Americans sabotaged them, and supported the South Vietnam fascist government.
3. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese commenced military action after being denied the national election.
4. ANZUS troops were deployed in 1965 on the fraud of the "Tonkin Gulf Incident" â revoked by the United States Senate itself in 1971.
5. The Soviet aid to North Vietnam was only a fraction of the US$165 billion and 543,400 American troops supporting South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh did receive military training in Russia: which he used to assist American troops during WWII.
6. The Americans never had sufficient combat strength to invade North Vietnam. "Bad publicity" resulted not from the bombing of North Vietnam, but from the increasing American casualties.
7. Defeated in battle, the Americans lost 57,605 combat dead and 303,700 combat wounded. 3042 US aircraft were shot down. Support at home weakened after the military defeats. In some years about 100,000 soldiers deserted from the South Vietnamese army.
8. Estimates of troops killed are « million South Vietnamese, and 1« million Viet Cong-North Vietnamese. Probably 2 million civilians were killed throughout Vietnam. Non-communist South Vietnamese have suffered â as yet another chapter of this draconian tragedy of being "all the way with LBJ".
Our pupils should decide for themselves the morality and politics of the Vietnam War. And they should not be limited by the headmaster's directive of his "facts" â regardless of whatever else is communicated.
Jim McGarvin, former senior history master
Kew