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The growing perceived ineffectiveness and illegitimacy of America’s role in Vietnam was the product of what was viewed as little more than an anti-communist crusade in which neither logistical concerns nor the nationalist motivations of a people who had yearned for sovereignty over centuries carried significant weight. Less and less Americans were willing to bankroll, much less have their sons paying “any price” or bearing “any burden” for what was becoming a quagmire. Bodybag after bodybag was being filled with American boys on a daily basis, not to mention that every dollar of damage incurred by the Communist enemy in Hanoi cost the United States ten dollars , helping to quickly bring an end to an era of unprecedented American prosperity. …show more content…

Here Isserman and Kazin acknowledge that the military’s hands were tied, as they were, not only by popular discontent, but because Johnson did not want to risk making the Cold War hot. Insomuch as success in the conflict was measured by enemy body count in lieu of territorial gains, there would be no direct bombing of Hanoi. As much as the consummate Texan and his inherited Alamo mythology made him believe he was fighting for freedom, there was a line he would not cross, and the North Vietnamese took advantage of this. Americans who opposed the war by 1968 did so because they believed that it could not be won. Once the Pentagon Papers were released in 1971, this purloined collection of documents related to the escalation of American involvement in Southeast Asia, spanning presidencies from Eisenhower to Johnson, further deteriorated the credibility of the American government, and helped to lead the majority of Americans to believe that the war in Vietnam was wrong

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