19. Myth: The United States always intended to limit the war to supporting the South Vietnamese
In a famous interview with respected news anchor Walter Cronkite shortly before he was assassinated, President Kennedy discussed the war in Vietnam, indicating to the newsman that in the long run it was the South Vietnamese’ war to win or lose. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford all at some time or other took that view, at least publicly. The impression delivered to the American people was that the United States was in Vietnam at the behest of the South Vietnamese, who were determined to resist the encroachment of the communists from the North, who were themselves mere puppets of the Chinese or the Soviets, depending upon which theory one subscribed to.
