An Erosion of Credibility

In the opinion of these media outlets, America’s failure to achieve victory in Southeast Asia was due to an inherent weakness at the foundation of the nation’s foreign policy. Those who wrote for Human Events and National Review argued that the misdirection and uncertainty that plagued the war strategy of the Johnson and Nixon administrations were due to the divisiveness in the country over the ramifications of the civil rights movement and the Great Society. Conservative commentators believed that the disunity among the nation’s citizenry, combined with the failure of the two administrations to do whatever was necessary to win the war, caused the United States’ credibility as a combatant in the Cold War to be questioned around the world.