Americans learnt nothing from mistakes in Vietnam 50 years ago: Michael Kazin

Michael Kazin is an award-winning professor of history at Georgetown University and the former co-editor of Dissent. A respected political commentator, his insights into American policy and its global impact are widely regarded. An expert on US politics and social movements, his most recent book is What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party. Kazin took time out to speak with Open about the legacy of the Vietnam War, which ended 50 years ago with the retreat of the United States and the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese forces. “The idea that the government is run by a well-educated elite that has no concern for the well-being of the ‘average’ citizen became more popular as a result of the Vietnam debacle,” he tells Open in an interview. Kazin discusses populism, the erosion of trust among ordinary Americans in the federal government, American arrogance, Iran and more. The trust of Americans in the federal government declined quite a bit during the war in Vietnam, avers the New York-born historian, an alumnus of Harvard and Stanford universities and whose books include The Populist Persuasion; America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (co-authored with Maurice Isserman); American Dreamers; and War Against War.

 Can we trace the rise of Donald Trump to the credibility gap that you talk about that enveloped the US during and after the Vietnam War? Americans had looked up to their political leadership and even bureaucrats with awe before the Vietnam War (1955-1975), which saw the leaders lying to their citizens and at the same time putting the lives of their young men in extreme danger. Which means this betrayal meant Americans, especially middle-class white Americans, suddenly lost their innocence. What are your thoughts?

The trust of Americans in the federal government did decline quite a bit during the war and, with few exceptions (just after the attacks of 9/11, for example) has never recovered. I don’t think middle-class white Americans were “innocent” before though.

As a young man in the late 1960s and 1970s, you had protested against the Vietnam War, which ended 50 years ago on April 30 when the North Vietnamese troops overran South Vietnam completely, resulting in the fall of Saigon. This period saw an abundant use of populism, another subject right up your alley, meaning domestic compulsions (besides the fear of communism) saw various Presidents from LBJ to Nixon allowing the war to continue. Can you connect the developments, or policy blunders, of this period to the rise of populism in the following decades?

If you’ve read my writings about “populism,” you know I think it has a long rhetorical tradition in the US – on the right as well as the left. But the idea that the government is run by a well-educated elite that has no concern for the well-being of the “average” citizen did become more popular as a result of the Vietnam debacle…. And both Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016 and 2024 ran as anti-war candidates.

As a professional historian, how do you look back at the social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries in terms of their positive and negative contributions to American democracy?

This would take an entire lecture to answer!

Who among the American Presidents and top defence bureaucrats do you blame the most for the grave mistakes and senseless optimism in Vietnam and why?

I blame the five presidents – from Harry Truman to Richard Nixon – most of all since they had the power to change the policy and did not.

A commentator recently called the USA the United States of Amnesia, for having done what they have done in multiple countries, later, including Iraq and Afghanistan. What do you think are the common mistakes in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Lack of knowledge about the history and culture of those nations – and an arrogant attitude about what the US can accomplish – Might alone seldom makes right.

Do you fear that the American politicians are going to make the same mistakes all over again in Iran, too?

It’s hard to believe that the US would blunder into a ground war in Iran – but I do fear that Trump will agree to bomb the nuclear facilities as Benjamin Netayanhu has asked him to.

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