On the Right

New York, May 18—I wrote ten days back when the North Vietnamese blitzkrieg was juggernauting south with apparently ineffectual resistance that the United States Government has a lot to answer for. For instance our highly deficient intelligence and military estimates, which persuaded most Americans to believe that Vietnamization was working. I have been swamped with commentary, the common denominator of which is I-told-you-so. The critics bear watching, because it is one thing to say that our intelligence estimates and the White House reassurances have been delinquent, something else to arrive at grand conclusions that would appear retroactively to justify the doves.

For instance there is Miss Gloria Emerson, the prominent, talented and beautiful correspondent for the New York Times. She spent two years in South Vietnam deploring every human misadventure, trivial and tragic—except those caused by the North Vietnamese; which I confess struck me all along in a class with deploring corruption among political prisoners at Ravensbrück. She has cabled me from London, “i’ve just read your column ASKING WHY WE’VE KNOWN SO LITTLE AND WHY WE’VE MISJUDGED SO GRAVELY IN VIETNAM. THERE WERE IN THE LAST SEVEN YEARS REPORTERS WHO AT RISK THEIR OWN CAREERS LET ALONE THEIR LIVES TRIED TO TELL THE TRUTH NOT WHAT WASHINGTON OR SAIGON WANTED THEM TO SAY. THEY WERE TALKING TO THE DEAF. YOU AMONG THEM AND PERHAPS TWOULD BE WISE ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU FOR SO LONG preferred to be.” I was not aware that the correspondents in question had risked their careers, indeed they took quite early to picking up Pulitzer prizes. But let that go. Another correspondent put it more directly, more personally. “What happened in Vietnam, you’re asking? That’s gall. One thing that happened was that a VIP editor went out there, got his head stuffed full of glowing reports, and relayed these back to his constituency in just glowing enough terms to keep alive the tyranny of the majority for just one more round of back-into-the-breach, men. Another thing that happened was that this same editor helped to elect a pompous bastard who was bound to take the wrong advice from the start. Others knew it. Why didn’t this editor? Why didn’t we know; anticipate; warn against? Some of us did. And some had to wait for disaster to strike before they woke up.”

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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New York, May 18—I wrote ten days back when the North Vietnamese blitzkrieg was juggernauting south with apparently ineffectual resistance that the United States Government has a lot to answer for. For instance our highly deficient intelligence and military estimates, which persuaded most Americans to believe that Vietnamization was working. I have been swamped with commentary, the common denominator of which is I-told-you-so. The critics bear watching, because it is one thing to say that our intelligence estimates and the White House reassurances have been delinquent, something else to arrive at grand conclusions that would appear retroactively to justify the doves.

For instance there is Miss Gloria Emerson, the prominent, talented and beautiful correspondent for the New York Times. She spent two years in South Vietnam deploring every human misadventure, trivial and tragic—except those caused by the North Vietnamese; which I confess struck me all along in a class with deploring corruption among political prisoners at Ravensbrück. She has cabled me from London, “i’ve just read your column ASKING WHY WE’VE KNOWN SO LITTLE AND WHY WE’VE MISJUDGED SO GRAVELY IN VIETNAM. THERE WERE IN THE LAST SEVEN YEARS REPORTERS WHO AT RISK THEIR OWN CAREERS LET ALONE THEIR LIVES TRIED TO TELL THE TRUTH NOT WHAT WASHINGTON OR SAIGON WANTED THEM TO SAY. THEY WERE TALKING TO THE DEAF. YOU AMONG THEM AND PERHAPS TWOULD BE WISE ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU FOR SO LONG preferred to be.” I was not aware that the correspondents in question had risked their careers, indeed they took quite early to picking up Pulitzer prizes. But let that go. Another correspondent put it more directly, more personally. “What happened in Vietnam, you’re asking? That’s gall. One thing that happened was that a VIP editor went out there, got his head stuffed full of glowing reports, and relayed these back to his constituency in just glowing enough terms to keep alive the tyranny of the majority for just one more round of back-into-the-breach, men. Another thing that happened was that this same editor helped to elect a pompous bastard who was bound to take the wrong advice from the start. Others knew it. Why didn’t this editor? Why didn’t we know; anticipate; warn against? Some of us did. And some had to wait for disaster to strike before they woke up.”