I think I have a very sound understanding of the Vietnam War. I’ve studied it for over 30 years and have in that time read just about everything there is read on the subject. In fact my personal library on the topic runs to well in excess of 50 volumes including quite a few English translations of text by (North) Vietnamese authors.

In a nutshell I believe that the US’s involvement was a mistake of epic proportions. For instance, there was no potential for a domino effect, because, Ho Chi Min was above all else a nationalist. That is though a communist, having run a successful guerrilla campaign against the Japanese and having booted out the French, the last thing he was going to was hand over control of his country to the Russians or Chinese.

As for Gough, it’s not a case of what he did, but what he didn’t do. Yes the movement was outside of the party and therefore outside of his control, but the party benefited from it. Terefore I believe, as a politician and potential future Prime Minister, when the extremists started targeting service members and their families, he had a clear duty to speak out, but decided it was not in his political interest to do so,

Now it’s late and the debate is becoming circular. I have put my position forward giving reasons why. So I think its time to leave it to reader to determine for themselves as to what they think