From the Archives: May 1975

This article originally appeared in the May 1975 issue of Sojourners. Read the full article in the archives.

THE UGLY agony of Indochina is made all the more tortuous by the delusive refusal of this nation to accept the culpability for decades of a morally indefensible policy whose final failure is now being revealed.

The urge to believe that we have done what was somehow right and honorable leads us to wash our hands of any sin and then search to place on others the responsibility for the failure of American policy. So the administration blames the North Vietnamese for violating a treaty that was never initially respected by the South Vietnamese. Other diehard believers in the possibility of America’s cause blame Congress, as if, after spending $150 billion in Indochina, it came up $300 million short of the price of success. Congress, indignant over any suggestion of contributing to the collapse of a government it regularly enjoyed castigating, simply condemns that government once again, saying our efforts have been wasted on incompetents. ...

We have refused to admit that we have been wrong. And look at the suffering that has resulted from that pride. ... These were the costs of a “peace with honor,” which yielded neither peace for the people of Indochina nor any sort of “honor” for this nation. Indochina has been a malignancy in the heart of this nation. Now, faced with the demise of all our efforts, if we shun from any admission of wrong, our soul will be poisoned by such failure.