One of the most informative, well documented, but depressing books ever written, John Stormer’s “None Dare Call It Treason … 25 Years Later,” was originally published in 1964 with just the first part of the title. Seven million copies were sold. Even so, I wasn’t aware of this book until recently when out of curiousity I did a web search for the phrase “none dare call it treason.” Up popped a review by Daniel Pipes of the 1989 update to the original. Upon receiving my hastily-ordered, used paperback copy I found, on the page facing the start of the introduction, from whence cometh Mr. Stormer’s title:
Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
— Sir John Harrington, 1561-1612
That struck a chord.
Since 2001, when the event of that year triggered an epiphany regarding my apparent ignorance of how the world operates, I have labored to gain an understanding of the politics of both domestic and world affairs that would offer some explanation as to how we got into this “fine mess.” Over the course of this effort I have come to the conclusion that America’s current travails are neither entirely accidental nor unintended. Call me a conspiracy theory monger if you will. However, when puzzle pieces I’ve independently come across fit with what Mr. Stormer has had to say, I am convinced.
Chapter 18 
of Treason is titled “Military Aid to Communists — The Tragic Story of Vietnam.” Therein is described the crippling restrictions placed upon the U.S. Military during the war and the perfidy of the media when they portrayed the Tet Offensive of 1968 as a military disaster for the U.S. and South Vietnam.
On page 363 you’ll find the following statement:
Because the Communists got official word from Washington on which targets would be attacked — and which would be safe — they were able to concentrate their air defenses at the vulnerable sites. As a result air losses from ground fire in Vietnam were extraordinarily high. Good men died. Others spent years in brutal North Vietnamese torture camps after being shot down. Good evidence exists that some of the POW’s from Vietnam, like those in Korea, have never been returned.
Be as skeptical as you wish regarding that assertion. However, in February of 2007 I received a copy of the following email from retired Air Force general officer:
Even worse for the guys flying Thuds and Phantom IIs up in Route Pack 6, I heard the Secretary of State Dean Rusk answer a question after the war about letting NV know what targets were going to be struck the following day. I expected a denial, but the response was, “Yes we notified the NV government through the Swiss Embassy the targets to be struck the following day”. When asked why the U.S. government would do such a thing? Dean Rusk’s response was, “Well we didn’t want to hurt the North Vietnamese people, we just wanted to demonstrate that we could strike key targets anywhere in the country, so we gave them the target list so they could keep the workers home.”
Of course they didn’t seem to comprehend the NVs moved their mobile guns to defend the targets and alerted the SAM Batteries where the planes were going. I can remember intel briefings that informed us that NV only had a few thousand 37 and 57 mm guns, but it always seemed like all those guns were defending the targets we were attacking. When I heard the Sec State make these remarks, I understood why that was the case.
When I wrote back and asked him how he had learned of this, he said:
Dennis,
I cannot give you a source that you can go to other than one of the three major TV networks produced a program on the Vietnam War called something like the “Eleven Thousand Day War”a few years after the war ended. Dean Rusk, former Secretary of State appeared on the Program when I happened to be watching it on TV. The moderator noted that there were rumors about the U.S. providing warnings about targets that were going to be struck the following day. I saw Dean Rusk’s lips moving and heard his voice say something like, Oh yes those stories are true. We didn’t want to hurt the NVN people, we just wanted to show that we could attack whatever we wanted to with impunity.” or words to that effect.
I googled up “10,000 Day War” and found that it was a CBS Mini Series produced in 1980, in which Dean Rusk appeared along with a number of political notables. If you can run this down you’ll have the proof you seek. It was interesting to note that Clark Clifford was SecDef during part of this period–get the picture.
All the best, General P.
So, Mr. Stormer is absolutely correct. And we have it directly from the mouth of Dean Rusk.
In 2008 David Warren wrote the following in “Forty Years of the Tet Offensive” for the Ottawa Citizen:
Breaking the negotiated annual truce, for surprise, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars launched the Tet Offensive, in the night of 30/31 January 1968, named for the Vietnamese lunar new year. This campaign continued in various forms through September of that year, ending in total military defeat, for the aggressors. And a brilliant propaganda victory, for the same.
[snip]
The Tet Offensive was a desperate ploy by the Communist enemy in Vietnam. Tens of thousands of his troops were flung simultaneously at more than 100 South Vietnamese towns, and into the heart of Saigon. The Communists announced a general uprising, but that did not occur. The tide was actually turned within a few days by the U.S. and South Vietnamese armies. As they re-took town after town, they discovered massacres the Communists had committed while in possession. The enemy’s real object had been to decapitate a whole society.
My friend, Uwe Siemon-Netto, a German Lutheran pastor and also life-long journalist, was there as a reporter. Entering Hué as the smoke was clearing:
“I made my way to university apartments to obtain news about friends of mine, German professors at the medical school. I learned that their names had been on lists containing some 1,800 Hué residents singled out for liquidation.
“Six weeks later the bodies of doctors Alois Altekoester, Raimund Discher, Horst-Guenther Krainick, and Krainick’s wife, Elisabeth, were found in shallow graves they had been made to dig for themselves.
“Then, enormous mass graves of women and children were found. Most had been clubbed to death, some buried alive; you could tell from the beautifully manicured hands of women who had tried to claw out of their burial place.
“As we stood at one such site, Washington Post correspondent Peter Braestrup asked an American TV cameraman, ‘Why don’t you film this?’ He answered, ‘I am not here to spread anti-communist propaganda’.”
More eyewitness testimony.
Read all of Chapter 18 which includes more on how “News Media Aid Red Cause” changed the course of history. Get the book and you’ll never again think about American politics, Communism and the Cold War in the same way.
And you’ll understand why RINOs are more of a problem than Obama is.
Ciao,
Dennis
Update: This is from a close Air Force buddy of mine who in ’71/’72 flew F-4s over North Vietnam:
I think we had a previous discussion about the notification of next days targets by the U.S. government during the Vietnam War. There were many other instances of truly stupid policies and woe to the base commander who somehow “over looked” these policies in order to run a war like it is supposed to be run. For example…for quite some time there was an invisible barrier marking the border of N. Vietnam and Laos. It was fine to do your thing in Laos (you know, the country that was not at war…the “Unseen War” of SEA), but you could never, never go across the key passes to do interdiction missions in N. Vietnam. This was despite the fact that at night all the trucks, tanks, and other equipment came slinking through the passes using the Laotian Ho Chi Minh trail to move supplies to S. Vietnam.
You say, okay, a few trucks and like…maybe…right? No, I am talking about lined up supply convoys, bumper to bumper on the open trails/roads in N. Vietnam that extended for dozens of miles. Dozens? Yes, dozens! There they were, in plain sight, and all we could do was report them in our post mission debrief!
One Navy pilot wrote that during one of his missions near Hanoi he happened to see a train lined up and ready to head south with…his estimation…about 100 SAMs on railroad cars. He radioed it all in and asked for permission to strike, but it was denied because it was a “no strike” zone. His comment, “There they were. Lined up like ducks in a row and we couldn’t hit them. We wound up having to try to take them out one at a time when they were finally installed at their destinations.”
I was a completely naive believer for years and years that our highest leaders in Washington would never do anything to deliberately put our military (or civilians for that matter) in harms way…period! I now am convinced that Washington does it routinely as their daily order of business. I can only imagine Clifford Clark being confronted by the policy of revealing to the enemy the next day targets in the Vietnam War replying, “Well, that is why we give our pilots and soldiers combat pay of $225 per month!”
It’s not going to get any better I’m afraid!
More eyewitness testimony for ya.