After the Fall: Reactions and Rationales

After the surrender of Saigon, TIME asked a number of Americans who, as planners or participants, critics or casualties, were closely involved with the war in Viet Nam for their reactions to the Communist victory and their reflections on the meaning of the generation-long conflict. The answers:

GENERAL WILLIAM WESTMORELAND, 61, former commander of U.S. forces in South Viet Nam, retired in Charleston, S.C.: "It was heartbreaking, but it was not surprising. I've gone through the anguish of seeing Viet Nam deteriorate bit by bit. I must say the process has been more rapid than I thought would be the case. It was a sad day in the glorious history of our country. But elements in this country have been working for this end. We failed. We let an ally down. But it was inevitable after Congress pulled the rug out from under the President with the War Powers Act. Hanoi was home free at that moment, for our only trump was gone. Other countries in Southeast Asia must be lonely and frightened. People who dismiss the domino theory are all wet."

HUBERT HUMPHREY, 63, Democratic Senator from Minnesota and Lyndon Johnson's Vice President: "There's great sadness when you see the collapse of part of a country, when you see the incredible suffering, turmoil and panic which gripped so many. We shouldn't feel, though, that we've let anyone down. No outside force can save a country that lacks the will or political leadership. What we've learned is that there aren't American answers for every problem in the world. We made judgments about that part of the world based on our experience in Europe. We were a world power with a half-world knowledge. It's clear that there's blame enough for all of us. I include myself."

DEAN RUSK, 65, Secretary of State under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, professor of international law at the University of Georgia's law school: "What we've got to do is look hard at what we mean when we talk about collective security. If it's going to cost us 50,000 dead every decade, we're not very secure and our security isn't collective. One caution for young people: if they reject the mistakes of their fathers--and I'm one of them--they should not endorse the mistakes of their grandfathers [i.e., an isolationist attitude]. I think both the Republicans and the Democrats should suspend politics for the rest of this year. We've got to put our heads together and quietly debate the direction in which we wish to proceed, as we did immediately after World War II."

WILLIAM BUNDY, 57, foreign policy adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, editor of Foreign Affairs: "On balance the war must surely be judged a tragedy with devastating consequences for the people of both Viet Nam and the United States. But the choices still seem to me to have been very hard ones. How much is it worth to give a nation a chance? Because we lost we shouldn't beat our breast. It was a close choice with moral factors on both sides. On a wider view, buying time for the nations of Southeast Asia to stabilize their governments was the major reason for our actions. Thus there is faint consolation in the fact that such countries as Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia are not in all that bad shape."

CLARK CLIFFORD, 68, Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defense, a Washington attorney: "It is the best result as far as the people of South Viet Nam are concerned. The fall of Saigon means a civil war has ended. What I hope it means in the U.S. is intelligent analysis--no recriminations, but a national debate. Asking basic questions like 'How did we get into this?' would imbed Viet Nam in our consciousness so we might never make this kind of mistake again."

J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT, 70, former Senator from Arkansas and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a member of a Washington law firm: "We should put this down to experience, and from here on we should be much more mature, more cautious and more responsible in our approach to these matters. Americans have assumed a certain godliness, a certain feeling that everything we did was just wonderful while everyone else was either bad or questionable. One of our greatest faults has been a contemptuous, supercilious attitude--calling the other side 'gooks' and 'charlies' I think all that's happened should induce a certain period of introspection."

GEORGE BALL, 65, Under Secretary of State in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and now an investment banker in New York City, who opposed the commitment of U.S. forces to Southeast Asia: "It always seemed that this would be the denouement. It was clear when the Paris accords were signed that they would be violated by both sides--and they were. Now we must be careful to read the right lessons for the future. First, we must be critical and cautious where and how we commit American power. In South Viet Nam there was no political structure sufficiently sturdy to bear the weight of our power. Second, we must be certain when forces are committed in support of American interests that our interests are more than marginal, as was not the case in Viet Nam."

DANIEL ELLSBERG, 44, former Rand Corp. consultant who made the Pentagon papers public: "All the commentators seem to have emphasized the tragedy, humiliation and sadness of all this. I think it was somewhat perverse to react only to that aspect of the events at the moment when the war was finally coming gloriously to a conclusion. It was the will of the American people, expressed to Congress, that ended this war now. That's the best possible celebration of the Bicentennial of the American Revolution that I can imagine."

HAROLD HARMON, 57, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was one of the first 17 U.S. advisers sent to Viet Nam in 1954: "If we had pulled out ten years ago, Viet Nam would have fallen then. If we had stayed on another ten years, they still would have collapsed when we pulled out. This is a battle we lost. You can't win them all."

SAM BROWN, 31, a key organizer behind Senator Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential campaign and the 1969 antiwar moratoriums, state treasurer of Colorado: "My first reaction was one of hollowness. The reason, I guess, is that I don't see that the fall of Saigon gives rebirth to any of those things that the war killed, to any new hope or ideal or vision. "It doesn't wash away the hostile divisions of the last 15 years in this country. The group of people who make our foreign policy are the same men who have made the decisions for the last 20 years --and made them badly."

JANE FONDA, 37, actress and antiwar activist: "What happened is what happened to us 200 years ago: a revolution for independence, playing itself out in Viet Nam. To say Saigon has 'fallen' is to say that the 13 colonies 'fell' two centuries ago."

TOM HAYDEN, 35, is Fonda's husband, a founder of the Students for a Democratic Society and a longtime peace-movement leader: "A couple of times I was close to tears thinking of the faces of the people I've seen in Viet Nam over the last ten years, thinking how happy they must be. This is the first time in over 100 years that country hasn't been occupied in one form or another by either French or American troops. Now they're able to try and put their house in order. But ending the war is only half the goal. The other half is learning the lessons of the war so it doesn't happen again."

JOHN FERMIN, 32, a former Army PFC, lost a leg during his five months in Viet Nam. He is now recuperating from a liver operation in Manhattan's VA hospital: "I don't think we had any right over there. I don't mind helping the people, but they should have fought the war themselves. But I figured that if we were there to fight, we should fight to win. We got into it halfway and I came home with half a leg. America is a powerful country. She stands for human rights. She's ashamed. She should be."

THOMAS HYLAND, 30, was seriously wounded by a mortar shell while serving as a military adviser in Viet Nam in December 1968. He is special counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission in the New York region. "I paid with almost two years of my life for something I don't have the answers to. The Government owes us a debt that is signed in blood to explain why Tom Hyland and others like him went there.

When I hear Ford say let's forget about the past, I get more enraged. That's bullshit. My brother-in-law wakes up every day without his legs. How can he forget? I suffered a great deal. I can think of days when I lived from one morphine shot to the next. Is it true that this was a waste?"

DEAN KAHLER, 25, Kent State University student who was wounded by a National Guardsman's bullet in May 1970 and paralyzed for life: "All I could think about is that we are finally out of there. If it had happened five years ago, I might not be sitting here this way today. If nothing else, student dissent and student opinion finally reached the older people, people who run this country."

COMMANDER RICHARD STRATTON, 43, who spent six years and two months in a North Vietnamese prison: "American disengagement from Viet Nam was inevitable, but the manner in which we did it was embarrassing. I certainly thought we owed it to the Vietnamese to show a little more class than that. We led them down the primrose path and left them hanging on the end of the limb. Then we sawed it off. So why should we be surprised when we see them fall? As for me, I did everything I could. I can face myself in the mirror. I don't know how many other Americans like Jane Fonda can say the same thing."

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