Fifty years ago, the last American helicopters lifted off from Saigon rooftops, ending a war that took the lives of 58,000 Americans and several million Vietnamese. Photographs and videos spread the horrific proceedings with a vividness unknown to the cataclysmic abandonments of ages past. The ensuing debates over culpability and lessons, however, differed little from the recrimination among Judeans and Egyptians after the Babylonian conquest.
The South Vietnamese blamed their fate on the United States, which had become their main ally in 1954, overthrowing their first leader in 1963, and gradually withdrawing from 1969 onward. American Anti-war journalists, historians, and many American politicians blamed the defeat on the corruption and ineptitude of South Vietnamese leaders. The passage of 50 years and the death of statesmen have cooled the passions, but the debates persist, and they continue to inform the policy and politics of the present.
