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H. W. Brands's avatar

Yes, the lying about Vietnam undermined popular trust in government. Then came Watergate, which delivered a second heavy blow.

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Jack Henneman's avatar

Two thoughts.

1. I have long wondered whether the lack of candor of the Johnson Administration and the Vietnam-era military was the real start of the erosion of trust in American institutions that has accelerated to the point of performative cynicism in the last few years.

2. Mark Moyar's book "Triumph Foresaken" puts the lost opportunity earlier in the 1960s, and the foundational mistake in supporting Diem's coup. I read it when it was published about 17 years ago, so there is no doubt much more to that takeaway, but worth looking into. (It also should be said that his book, though published by Yale and heavily annotated with recently available Vietnamese sources, was derided by most academic reviewers, nearly as I can tell only because it held out the possibility of an American victory in the mid-sixties).

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