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| Source:Deborah Gordon- Michigan Governor George Romney, being interviewed by Detroit journalist Lou Gordon about Vietnam, in 1968. |
"George Romney Interview by Lou Gordon on being brainwashed on Vietnam. 1968."
From Deborah Gordon
Governor George Romney not only telling Lou Gordon that he was against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War in 1968, but that he had been brainwashed. Which is a very interesting point and for these reasons. Prior to Watergate and the Vietnam War, Americans tended to trust what their government was telling them until they saw real information that contradicted that. The Silent Generation is probably the last generation that tended to believe what their government was telling them.
The Vietnam War and Watergate, go up to the Iran Contra in the 1980s, and Bill Clinton scandals minor and major, real and fake, from the 1990s and of course that started to change. If Americans were to believe what their government was telling them, they need real hard information and facts first before they believe what their Representative or Senator, or President is saying. Americans today are more inclined to believe that their politicians are lying to them when they’re attempting to sound factual, than they’re simply just wrong or actually telling the truth.
But why do Americans tend to believe their government is lying to them, or at least not telling them the truth? Go back to the mid and late 1960s with President Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War, where President Johnson and his National Security Council were saying how great the Vietnam War was going and that we were winning that the Communist Vietnamese were close to surrendering. When the fact any solider or marine on the ground in Vietnam fighting for America and to free Vietnam from communism, knew the opposite was true. The Americans won the battles but the Communists were winning the war and holding their territory with Americans taking a lot of causalities and injuries.
What Governor Romney was telling journalist Lou Gordon in 1968 about his trip to Vietnam and what he personally saw there as far as the war there, was that America wasn’t wining this war even though that is what the American military and foreign affairs officers were telling Governor Romney is that America was winning. So Romney thought he was being brainwashed by his government officials there which is why he came out against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War after supporting it before.
