Why did South Vietnam succumb?
HK: There will be debate about why South Vietnam succumbed forever and there are so many people on every side of that debate with vested interests in their position, that it seems almost impossible to achieve a reconciliation. So I can only give you my view. Our view was that the ending of the war might bring about a measure of national reconciliation in the United States, in the sense that those who wanted an end to the war had achieved their objectives, and those who wanted honor in the sense of not condemning people who had relied on us to live under communist rule, they had achieved their objective. So we thought it would be possible to achieve levels of assistance to South Vietnam which, together with the military equipment we were leaving behind, would enable them to resist all but a total military invasion; and that if an all-out assault was started in South Vietnam, we would reintroduce American air and sea power. That was our basic view. I believe it is an open question whethe
