12-06-2015, 03:29 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-06-2015, 06:06 AM by Joseph McBride.)
In 1972, while a reporter for The Wisconsin State
Journal in Madison, I covered a speech at the University of Wisconsin by
William H. Sullivan, not the FBI Sullivan but then the top advisor
to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Sullivan had been a diplomat in Vietnam
and ambassador to Laos and would go on to become ambassador to Iran. Sullivan
was asked by someone in that 1972 Madison audience why we were still
fighting in Vietnam (even after Nixon had promised
to end the war with his "secret plan," which proved
to be widening it while ending the draft).
Sullivan candidly replied that the reason we were still
fighting in Vietnam was that we wanted
to control the oil in the South China Sea.
When I wrote my story, the AP picked it up. Sullivan had also
revealed that peace talks were underway with North Vietnam, which
made big news around the world.
During the resulting media firestorm, Sullivan tried to claim
the speech had been off the record. I produced a letter on
the letterhead of the inviting university organization that had
asked the State Journal to cover the speech. It was not off the record.
The only book on Vietnam I've seen that mentions the
oil in the South China Sea as a motive for the war is Noam Chomsky's largely intemperate
and scurrilous book, and inaccurate, attacking Oliver Stone and JFK by calling JFK a war criminal, etc. In this instance
Chomsky may have been right, or partly right about the motives for the war. The war, like most wars,
was largely about money, making money for the backers of
LBJ (including Halliburton and its subsidiary
Brown & Root, which owned and operated
LBJ since the 1930s) and Nixon. Stone's JFK points out how other Texas defense
contractors also particularly benefited from the war. Then there was the
massive increase in heroin trafficking related to the
Pepsi-Cola plant in Southeast Asia that fronted for opium processing.
Pepsi's Donald Kendall was one of Nixon's primary backers.
Kendall helped fund the coup in Chile. Nixon was in Dallas
on 11-22-63 representing Pepsi at the soft drink bottlers'
convention. As William Goldman (in a line he wrote
for "Deep Throat" in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN) put it,
"Follow the money."
Journal in Madison, I covered a speech at the University of Wisconsin by
William H. Sullivan, not the FBI Sullivan but then the top advisor
to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Sullivan had been a diplomat in Vietnam
and ambassador to Laos and would go on to become ambassador to Iran. Sullivan
was asked by someone in that 1972 Madison audience why we were still
fighting in Vietnam (even after Nixon had promised
to end the war with his "secret plan," which proved
to be widening it while ending the draft).
Sullivan candidly replied that the reason we were still
fighting in Vietnam was that we wanted
to control the oil in the South China Sea.
When I wrote my story, the AP picked it up. Sullivan had also
revealed that peace talks were underway with North Vietnam, which
made big news around the world.
During the resulting media firestorm, Sullivan tried to claim
the speech had been off the record. I produced a letter on
the letterhead of the inviting university organization that had
asked the State Journal to cover the speech. It was not off the record.
The only book on Vietnam I've seen that mentions the
oil in the South China Sea as a motive for the war is Noam Chomsky's largely intemperate
and scurrilous book, and inaccurate, attacking Oliver Stone and JFK by calling JFK a war criminal, etc. In this instance
Chomsky may have been right, or partly right about the motives for the war. The war, like most wars,
was largely about money, making money for the backers of
LBJ (including Halliburton and its subsidiary
Brown & Root, which owned and operated
LBJ since the 1930s) and Nixon. Stone's JFK points out how other Texas defense
contractors also particularly benefited from the war. Then there was the
massive increase in heroin trafficking related to the
Pepsi-Cola plant in Southeast Asia that fronted for opium processing.
Pepsi's Donald Kendall was one of Nixon's primary backers.
Kendall helped fund the coup in Chile. Nixon was in Dallas
on 11-22-63 representing Pepsi at the soft drink bottlers'
convention. As William Goldman (in a line he wrote
for "Deep Throat" in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN) put it,
"Follow the money."