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The Great Silent Majority: Section 2: We've Got No Choice but to Be Pro-Vietnam War Summary

I Could Just Pull Our Troops out of Vietnam, But…

  • According to Nixon, the reality of the situation is that the United States is stuck in Vietnam, so what's to be done?
  • Nixon wants to be clear here: withdrawing from Vietnam would result in disaster. Like total zombie apocalypse kind of disaster.
  • First, he says that communists committed all kinds of horrible atrocities before the Americans showed up, and if the United States leaves, those acts of violence will just start up again.
  • Nixon also thinks that the United States would suffer humiliation and be generally bummed out about a decision to leave.

The Other Presidents Got It, Why Can't You?

  • As a little history lesson, Nixon reminds his listeners that the three presidents who came before him understood the importance of not pulling out of Vietnam.
  • Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson were all pro-Vietnam War.
  • Plus, Nixon wants to remind America that you can't just turn your back on your friends. And America doesn't betray its allies.
  • Nixon then paints a picture of global catastrophe. If the United States leaves the South Vietnamese to fight on their own, it would create more war (not the end of it), it would cause violence to erupt all over the Middle East and the Western world, and it would just encourage the USSR to go and invade every country it wants.
  • It is for these reasons, according to Nixon, that the United States must remain at war in Vietnam.