Selling the West

One of the more mind-boggling ironies of the cold war unfolded back in 1972 when Richard Nixon announced the blockade of Haiphong harbor to stop the flow of war materiel to North Vietnam.

In support of Nixon’s action, the Department of Defense released reconnaissance photos showing the Soviet cargo vessel Michurin steaming toward Haiphong, with rows of Soviet trucks filling it to the gunwales. The point of this disclosure was that the trucks would be used to convoy men and supplies from North Vietnam to prosecute the war against the South, and that the military danger thus created required a hard-nosed response by the U.S.

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M. Stanton Evans

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Department of Defense

One of the more mind-boggling ironies of the cold war unfolded back in 1972 when Richard Nixon announced the blockade of Haiphong harbor to stop the flow of war materiel to North Vietnam.

In support of Nixon’s action, the Department of Defense released reconnaissance photos showing the Soviet cargo vessel Michurin steaming toward Haiphong, with rows of Soviet trucks filling it to the gunwales. The point of this disclosure was that the trucks would be used to convoy men and supplies from North Vietnam to prosecute the war against the South, and that the military danger thus created required a hard-nosed response by the U.S.