It was not truly Conein’s fault. He was just following orders. But there was much to ask forgiveness for. As Lansdale wrote decades later, “It was morally wrong and strategically stupid to divide our political base in Vietnam when that political base, small as it was, was facing an energetic and exploitive enemy. Napoleon had a maxim about not dividing your forces in the face of the enemy.”44 Because the Kennedy administration had violated this “truism,” the anti-Communist forces were left demoralized, disarrayed, and divided. America would have no choice but to send its own sons to fight if
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