The New American Grandeur

For a while it seemed as if it would take less than a decade to put Vietnam behind us. It was not just that we had finally signed a peace treaty with North Vietnam, but that debate over the war had ceased to be divisive. One might, if one’s political leanings were conservative rather than liberal, call the war a tragedy instead of a mistake, but the upshot of both views, especially in the late 1970s, was the same. No one wanted a new war in Asia or a renewal of the draft.

<...