How big an issues would the 'loss' of South Vietnam be in 1968

President Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey, or McCormack decides not to send large scale assistance to the South Vietnamese governnment and by the Spring of 1968 Ho Chi MInh has all of the country.

How big of an issue do the Republicans make of it?

How well would it play with voters?

I didn't want to say what I think about this in the thread where I went nuts with cites, because trying to predict this means extrapolating a lot; but I'll extrapolate here.

My feeling is this--America losing South Vietnam because POTUS won't take over the entire war effort in 1965, that's not something that's necessarily going to have a direct baring on the 1968 elections.

What will have a direct baring for the presidential is (a.) the size of an increased swing towards the Republicans in the midterms of '66 that's come from such a FP humiliation, or (b.) the simple effect of the rise of 'committee for the present danger'-type thinking on the popular opinion of an OTL-sized swing to the GOP and Wallace Dems.

I'm certain such a midterm election either further rebuilds the Southern Dem/GOP alliance, or it throws up an actual House Republican majority, regardless of how many extra votes the liberals lose.

(Disclaimer: This is a hard thing to consider, what with the fact there was a backlash effect at our timeline's '66 midterms, fueled mainly by white unease at racial- and antiwar-violence. But a 'committee for the present danger' vibe in an era when there's inner-city riots but little or no anti-war stuff, that's going to be different. I'm not certain how. 1968 becomes a hyped version of 1980, only without stagflation?)

Eisenhower looks better for one change.

Derek Jackson said:

President Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey, or McCormack decides not to send large scale assistance to the South Vietnamese governnment and by the Spring of 1968 Ho Chi MInh has all of the country.

How big of an issue do the Republicans make of it?

How well would it play with voters?

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With no Kennedy build up of advisers - 700 to 12,000 during his Presidency - you have their numbers limited to what Eisenhower set it to. My understanding - and it is only from one source, so can I get a confirm or deny from someone - is that Ike deliberately kept the number of advisers down to what would fit into the evacuation ship that he kept in Saigon harbor fueled, provisioned and ready to go on twenty four hours notice at all times.

If this understanding is correct than Ike clearly understood that this was always likely, and the US President of the time could sell the idea that 'well we were never committed to fight for the place were we?' and go on to try to rally the non-communist neighbours. It would not be seen as an American defeat, which would limit interest from much of the press and politicians from countries outside south-east Asia.

Maybe a million Vietnamese, 60,000 Americans, as well as many South Korean, Australian and New Zealand men get to grow up and live lives and that will have some kind of unpredictable effect. The Counter-culture youth movement loses one of the drivers for it's rebellious attitude, how much this would take the edge off is anyone's guess. Possibly not too much, the baby boom generation is still going to be rejecting their parents.

Without so many veterans coming home with drug habits and the CIA funding its war in Laos with the stuff does the drug culture stay the smaller problem of the 50's? What effect does that have, what will the people who otherwise got involved in that do with their lives instead?

Of course the fall of the Republic of Vietnam could go unnoticed because Kennedy decided to send all those advisors somewhere else. The big US war of the 60's then happens in Lebanon or something, there is actually a good David Drake novel with that background. It ends with a Lebanon war veteran retaking the orbiting US nuclear missile base from Nazi's who stormed the place with Kurdish shock troops. At a guess that is probably not going to be happening...

A 1968 fall of Saigon would be after Suharto destroyed the Communists in Indonesia, so the domino theory might be debunked.

Riain said:

A 1968 fall of Saigon would be after Suharto destroyed the Communists in Indonesia, so the domino theory might be debunked.

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What about Thailand? Thailand had a vibrant Communist movement as well, so if South Vietnam collapses a lot easier, what's to stop the Vietnamese from assisting in overthrowing the Thai government like Laos and Cambodia?

I don't think the Domino Theory would be repudiated by that, you'd have a vocal group demanding that a stand be taken somewhere. Of course, it would probably highlight the factionalism among the Communist states, since I doubt Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam would all agree with each other (the three didn't OTL).

At least the 1975 fall of South Vietnam did not result in a second Joe McCarthy Red Scare. That would have been tragic. Who would have launched such a second Red Scare after the fall of Saigon?

I was thinking that the loss of China was not an important part of the 1952 elections but then I remembered it was overshadowed by the Korean War.
So I am sure the Republicans use it, but it would not rise to be all that much of an issue.

If the US hadn't been sending soldiers to fight and die in Vietnam, chances are that most Americans would scarcely be aware of the place. The fall of the south in 1968 would likely cause little more than comparisons to Korea, and how lucky it was for SK that the UN backed them up against northern aggression and how the whole of Korea might have turned out to be just like the poor poor people of Vietnam. One affect on US population: no mass fleeing of south Viets to the US, and no subsequent population of them here, which strikes me as a sad thing...

Maybe there is a clearer understanding in the tension between the Mao and Ho Chin Min. If the Suth Vietnamese president kept up screwing around with American interests the Americans might be able to come up with a deal so long as Vietnam doesn't try spreading communism too far and sticks with their own form of Titoism.

M. Adolphe Thiers said:

What about Thailand? Thailand had a vibrant Communist movement as well, so if South Vietnam collapses a lot easier, what's to stop the Vietnamese from assisting in overthrowing the Thai government like Laos and Cambodia?

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The Thai communist movement was a lot smaller than any of theirs and, lacking the shared history as a colony of France, they'll have a harder time exerting their influence there. I think Thailand could easily crush theirs with a little aid.

Dave Howery said:

If the US hadn't been sending soldiers to fight and die in Vietnam, chances are that most Americans would scarcely be aware of the place.

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Barry Goldwater campaigned in '64 on taking a hardline in Vietnam; if a living JFK or alt-LBJ or Humphrey decides on an FP ultra-realist approach, cuts their lossses, and gets out, I can't believe there isn't some hell to pay from the GOP going around and alleging "the Democrats lied, our boys died."

"Our boys died?" What does that mean? Well, Americans did die in Vietnam before 1965. Several hundred something.

So, yeah, assuming our alt-Dem WH negotiates a way out of Vietnam in 1965 that leads to a communist victory, then Republicans must get some mileage out of a U.S. death toll that was puny compared to what eventuated in OTL.

After all, Alger Hiss was every bit as important for Republican political gains in the early fifties as any genuine FP controversy. That guy's story created Nixon's career, not China or Korea or the Soviets getting the bomb.

Because American politics, man.

Magniac said:

Barry Goldwater campaigned in '64 on taking a hardline in Vietnam; if a living JFK or alt-LBJ or Humphrey decides on an FP ultra-realist approach, cuts their lossses, and gets out, I can't believe there isn't some hell to pay from the GOP going around and alleging "the Democrats lied, our boys died."

"Our boys died?" What does that mean? Well, Americans did die in Vietnam before 1965. Several hundred something.

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I was assuming the POD goes back to Kennedy, and the US never really gets involved in the first place, other than a handful of advisers. Basically, a death toll in the single digits, if any...

Dave Howery said:

I was assuming the POD goes back to Kennedy, and the US never really gets involved in the first place, other than a handful of advisers. Basically, a death toll in the single digits, if any...

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Okay, good point.

Though this raises the prospect of South Vietnam falling in his first term, which is a totally different kettle of fish than a post-'65 Saigon fall (Thurmond and Reagan are still in the process of cutting their ties to the Democratic Party at this time!)

It would actually be easier for South Vietnam to fall in 1965...