That's the myth that needs to be dispelled and that's a lesson we did not learn in Viet Nam. People will act in their perceived self interest and they will follow their heart -- but they will not let you win that heart. Nor do you need to...

The reason he thinks we didn't learn a thing or enough is 'cause we have foolishly allowed DoD simply because of the money they get and the global presence they have (both of which are necessary but not wisely employed) to assume the de facto lead in our foreign policy. That transcends Viet Nam which was simply a symptom, not the problem.

Congress is mostly to blame; they, after all, are the ones that overfund (for campaign contribution and vote reasons) and micromanage (because they're ignorant) DoD and underfund and do not adequately supervise State (or the Intel community, another story. Both again due to ignorance...).

Gobel, by the way, was slow, took him until '69 to get real. I -- and others -- were saying in '66 that we were going to spend $50B, get 100K US troops killed and give Uncle Ho ten airfields. In the event, we reversed the math, Ho died and the number of airfields rose to 15 or 16...