America's post‐Vietnam stress disorder

The year 1995 was a good year for the war buffs, marked as it was by the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II and the 20th anniversary of the “fall of Saigon” that ended the Vietnam war. The mass media were flooded with war retrospectives, celebrating the triumphal victory of the Allies in 1945 and agonizing once again over the “lessons” of the American war that won't die. Seemingly timed to coincide with the latter, the publication of Robert McNamara's In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam unleashed a firestorm of controversy about the war and this pivotal figure's role in shaping U.S. policy. McNamara's confession that “we were wrong, terribly wrong” about Vietnam seemed to rip the scabs from America's war wounds and ignite all the old arguments about the war. Within mainstream culture, McNamara was vehemently denounced by Vietnam vets, journalists like David Halberstam and the New York Times’ editors, as well as those on the right who sensed that Vietnam “doves” would be vindicated by McNamara's book (as President Clinton claimed). Some Vietnam vets or their families acknowledged that McNamara's confession was “at least a beginning.”

Confession (law · Economic history · Mainstream · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Tragedy (event · Victory · Vietnam War · World War II · Classics · History · Intelligence, Security, War Strategy · Law · Military History and Strategy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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