My life, from age 5 through 15:
“The training, transportation and logistical support we are providing in Vietnam has succeeded in turning the tide against the Vietcong.”
–General Barksdale Hamlett (US. Army Vice Chief of Staff), October 10, 1962
“The spearhead of aggression has been blunted in Vietnam.”
–John F. Kennedy, January 14, 1963
“Victory is in sight.”
–General Paul D. Harkins, March 5, 1963
“The Vietcong is going to collapse within weeks. Not months but weeks.”
–Walt Whitman Rostow (Chairman of the Policy Planning Council of the US. Department of State), July 1965
“Its silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.”
–Ronald Reagan, October 10, 1965
“We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam is lost. . . the right of free speech will be extinguished throughout the world.”
–Richard M. Nixon,, October 27, 1965
“Hold on a little longer and pretty soon we will have them on their knees at the bargaining table.”
–Sen. Everett Dirksen, January 9, 1966
“The North Vietnamese cannot take the punishment anymore in the South. I think we can bring the war to a conclusion within the next year, possibly within the next six months.”
–General S.L.A. Marshall, September 12, 1966
“I believe there is a light at the end of what has been a long and lonely tunnel.”
–Lyndon B. Johnson, September 21, 1966
“The military picture is favorable.”
–Gen. William C. Westmoreland, April 24, 1967
“We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view.”
–Gen. William C. Westmoreland, November 21, 1967
“The troops will be brought home in 18 months.”
–General Harold K. Johnson, August 12, 1967
“If I’m elected we’ll end this war in six months.”
–Richard M. Nixon, 1968
“The enemy is about to run out of steam.”
–Gen. William C. Westmoreland, February 2, 1968
“We have the enemy licked now.”
–Admiral John S. McClain, February 1969
“I think we’ve certainly turned the corner.”
–Melvin Laird (US Secretary of Defense), July 15, 1969
“The enemy is reeling from successive disasters. . . . We are, in fact. . . winning the war.”
–William Buckley, December 20, 1969
“We’re on our way up . . . the pendulum is beginning to swing.”
–Gen. William C. Westmoreland, April 16, 1972
“Militarily and politically, Hanoi is losing.”
–Richard M. Nixon, June 26, 1972
I picked this up over at Eschaton and it seemed worth repeating.