Recent revelations by Bob Kerrey about his actions as an army officer during the Vietnam War have caught my attention, to put it mildly. That an attack force, under the command of the future United States Senator from Nebraska, caused the death of as many as twenty unarmed villagers, most of them women and children, shocks me as it has the public at large.

This killing has extra power to shock for at least three reasons. First, the military action itself gained for Kerrey a significant honor, the Bronze Star. Secondly, Kerrey went on to hold high political office, governor of his state as well as senator. Thirdly, he kept this action secret for more than thirty years.

Despite the shock of the secret now revealed, this horrible event seems to me of a piece with much else that happened in that war. It confirms what I felt during that time- – the whole enterprise was a moral, as well as a military, quagmire. From the beginning, American involvement was shaped by basic misconceptions, deliberate misleading of the public, and military actions that violated the rules of war and basic human morality.

A fascinating new book written by a friend, Richard Sobel, provides a case study of American involvement in Vietnam and weighs the influence of what American citizens think on the actions of our government in foreign affairs.

Its title, “The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam,” indicates that the author deals with much more than a single American intervention, but I focused on the section dealing with the Vietnam War because of the part that opposition to the war has played in my life.

In reading about the effect of public opinion on the Vietnam War, I initially feared that research might suggest that the demonstrations in which I took part in the late 1960s and the early 1970s counted for very little.

But Sobel, who teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, establishes clearly that public opinion did exercise a significant influence. “In large part,” he writes, “ public opposition essentially forced the United States to end a decade of war and withdraw from Vietnam.” He also says that both President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger privately acknowledged its impact on their actions.

I wondered also if research might support a charge frequently made by opponents of protest against the war. They often said that the demonstrations were helping the enemy, boosting North Vietnamese hopes of the United States backing out.

In discussion with me, Sobel characterizes this question as “complicated.” He reports scholars who took part in a conference with former North Vietnamese officials feeling that they would have kept fighting for their independence no matter what the United State government or the antiwar movement did.

The author’s conclusions are strengthened by the thoroughness of his approach. In addition to studying formerly secret documents and reading the memoirs of leading political players, he interviewed Dean Rusk, Clark Clifford, Robert McNamara, and Melvin Laird. He uncovers several facts about the motivation of these leaders that still come as a surprise.

In particular Richard Sobel reveals two facts I did not know previously:  1) President Nixon’s people have admitted that his early peace moves were ploys to placate the public; 2) Nixon was going to give a speech saying “there was no way to win the war”  but dropped it after Lyndon Johnson’s announcement that he would not run again.

Those of us opposing the war often guessed the motivation of the politicians but have had to wait many years before having our surmises confirmed. Even now, it comes as a surprise to hear people formerly in leadership positions admitting their deceptions.

The last time I wrote about the Vietnam War, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its end, some readers wrote me angry letters condemning my anti-war activities. I had not planned to discuss this part of my life this soon again, but the revelations by Bob Kerrey and the chapters on the Vietnam War in the book written by my friend Richard Sobel have stirred the waters of memory once more.

It comes as a consolation for me to realize that the instinct of my fellow citizens in ultimately recognizing the Vietnam War as a terrible mistake, militarily and morally, was basically sound. Of course, that does not negate the heroic bravery of many people who fought in Vietnam. They saw service there as a duty and, often at great cost to themselves, followed through for their country. For that, they have my respect and admiration.

But, still, it was a tragically mistaken enterprise, as a great many Americans came to see. And, without the support of public opinion, the war had to be ended. As Sobel says, “The public’s ultimate refusal to support an extension to the U.S. military action in Vietnam was a powerful reminder to policymakers and the military that public support was in the end decisive in determining the duration of military interventionist foreign policy.”

Richard Griffin