Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with John James Flynt, Jr., 1982

Well let's talk about 1965 and 1961 has two different focal points of time. My district was somewhat different in 1965 from what it was in my latter years in Congress. The 1965 district was more cohesive more commonality and community of interest than was true in the 70s. After our district was moved north into the urban area and even into the center of the city of Atlanta the make makeup of the district changed rather markedly during that period of time. And make those comparisons about the makeup of the district in the 60s and in the 70s not because I would have voted differently on the Vietnam War

issue and on other issues than than I did because on the matter of that kind a while of course you seek out all of the advice and counsel that you can get from your colleagues from your constituents from your neighbors from your friends and from the so-called experts. But on on so many many matters you must avoid the VIEs of being provincial to try to make a determination not is what the best in the short run alone. But on the vital issue to make decisions which will affect the long time benefits to to our country our constituency in the 60s was much more rural than it was in the 70s. The remnants of

substantial agricultural activities farming activities in our district. Our district has always been a heavy textile manufacturing district but there were many other diversified forms of manufacturing and well there was a cohesiveness in our district which I don't think existed during the seven years in which I do not feel really that now in 1965 I'm inclined to believe that most of the people in the district that I represented at that time all while they may have had some misgivings or some reservations about while we were in Southeast Asia I think that the people of our district overwhelmingly supported the war effort.

They did it for a variety of reasons. Number one they had always been taught that when your government makes a decision particularly in the field of Foreign Relations about the fact that that decision must be supported on the theory that they gave the authorities credit for having the proper information and applying good judgment to that information I would say that in 1965 there was very little dissent as far as the conduct of the Vietnam war was concerned. In our district however I might add that as far as I was personally inside I began to have reservations about the American commitment in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia certainly by February of 1966. I began to carefully examine every thing that I could

about it. And in nineteen sixty five when the Gulf of Tonkin 6 4 0 0. No actually I think 435 members of the House say the pressure brought upon them from the executive in almost 400 different ways. I know that some of my colleagues felt absolutely oh by the powers. As well as bison out of the White House and the executive branch

others were not so concerned about what the White House felt about about anything really. I know that during my first years in Congress. I certainly had a. Feeling of great a feeling of all of all. Not necessarily spech but all fall of the office of the presidency. Then I and then I did later on. However I do know that a large number of my colleagues. Throughout the 25 years of my side in Congress. Was sometimes absolutely all struck. Not only by the power of the president of the president himself but also of of cabinet members. I found that to be taken to protect the truth. In committee hearings. Why is someone representing and speaking while the president would come in. That there was a tendency among some of my. Colleagues in the house.

To take at 100 percent face value. Everything that a representative of the president told us. I think that along with that I stayed there. The. More access. To all types of information classified and otherwise. I. Think by the. Mid-sixties. That I had reached a point where I thought that I can analyze facts. As well as some of the people in the executive branch. I know that in committee hearings. I would frankly engage in either short or long colloquy. When I would find myself holding a different viewpoint. From that expressed by the by the administration. And I enjoyed. Not necessarily disagree. But I enjoyed taking issue when I felt that I might be right and that the patients Fagan's the administration might be wrong on or on a particular

issue. Certainly by the mid 1960s I felt that I could hold my own with almost any spokesman involve the administration whether Democrat or Republican and that I acted intelligently discuss issues with them and listen carefully to what they had to say and I hope some time in vain that they would listen to what I had to say. I'd like to talk a little bit about my reaction to the presentation of the

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. By the administration in 1960 for. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution as I'm sure everyone had a way of. Did not originate in either the House of Representatives of the Senate. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution originated in the administration. It was brought to the Congress with a real effort. To persuade the Congress to adopt the resolution and it was really what gave the administration virtually unlimited power. In the conduct of the war in Vietnam and throughout Southeast Asia. I remember almost as if it were yesterday. On the day when the House voted. On the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I sat through. Nearly all of the debate. It's possible that I've sat through the entire debate on that resolution. Because I was

I was extremely interested. In the content. Because I knew. That it would have found affect. On the conduct of the war. And on the history of this country as it was being made in the 1960s. I. Waste that I had trusted my own instinct and my own feelings about it. Because when I went over to the. Floor of the house. On the day that we considered and voted on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution my inclination at that time was to vote against it. And yet that was based on pure instinct. It was based on a sixth sense feeling more than any facts upon which I had base. I thought that the concept that was behind the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was wrong. At that time of course neither I

nor any of my colleagues. Knew what we later learned. That the events which were given up which were described to us. I. Remember. A feeling that I had. On the way from my office to the Capitol. And in fact during the entire floor debate on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I had on a failing an instinctive feeling. That the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was wrong. And I had no no facts at that time upon which to do sport with which to support that feeling.

I went without feeling that I should vote no when the roll would go on on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I felt very strongly that it was a mistake. To commit this country to the extent that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution did. And as said when we completed the debate and the roll call in began. I am convinced I was convinced then and with hindsight I am convinced that if there had been a single no vote. That I also would have voted no. On that day. I passed on the phone roll call. During the. First call of the role that was not a single. No vote. When it reached my name on the second roll call. There was still no no vote. I voted aye. Although I was not sure.

Of the correctness of that vote tonight cast. Well as it turned out the entire house. Voted unanimously. In favor of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I suppose at the time my feeling was based on the fact that surely. Every other member of the house. Couldn't be wrong. And that alone could be right. I voted I voted with the unanimous opinion. Of the House on record in roll call vote. And yet something just told me then in and instinct the sixth sense told me that it was a bad resolution and should have been defeated. However. Looking back on it with the 2020 vision of hindsight. If I had known then what I know now. I would have voted No if I had stood absolutely alone.

Beginning sometime around nineteen sixty six at least six to seven at the latest. And continuing into the early 70s. I began to see and feel. An attitude among my constituents. In the six GA district that there was an increasing amount of dissatisfaction. Number one with the conduct of the war the way it was being fought. And then with the war in Asia itself. You cannot pinpoint the time that that feeling began to really manifest itself. Now can you definitely describe the changes that took place. Among the community of which I was in and am now appalled. Suffice it to

say that there was. A gradual change of commitment. On the part of the people whom I knew best and who knew me best that maybe this was the wrong war. In the wrong place. At the wrong time and yet all of us supported position of our government of our country. As long as we possibly could. But when it reached the point that we felt we could no longer in good conscience support it. I believe that the people of my district felt exactly the same way I did at the time had come to call a halt to it. Bringing the water close to end of military involvement in Southeast Asia. And to say what phase we could. During that period. During the period from 1965 to 1970.

People in. The entire country as well as in our board of Georgia began to realize that this. War in Southeast Asia. And we thought of it as a war. It was brought home to close to 2 million people in our section the effort to win the war and the determination to win it. Just seem never to have to really exist. In the minds of those who are charged with responsibility of waging the war. And yet among the people the people that I ran in in contact with the people that I knew. There was a feeling that we in the wall were committed to it. We have a responsibility to bring it to a successful time a nation and to do it in the shortest time possible. By the end of the 1960s. Many of us began to realize that we had been involved in a military effort in Southeast Asia for a period of

time greater. Than the combined combat time of World War Two World War 1. And the Korean War. The people that I talked with and the people to whom I listened began to wonder what is going on. It's taken too long. Things in Southeast Asia. According to the reports that we receive are all getting progressively worse. All the news seems to be bad. There seems to be nothing good to report. About what's going on over there. I think that people began to make a a shift whether it was gradual or whether it was rather perceptive. But there was a shift over a failing to from when the war. To win the war get out. And eventually to get out of Southeast Asia again the wrong war the wrong place wrong time. On the question of how our constituents viewed the.

Anti-war protests of the 1960s. The general attitude was that they were not in sympathy. With the anti-war protest for a long time. They felt that the protesters. Were undermining. The national position the national policy of this country. I know that I certainly share that feeling and I believe that that feeling was shared by. Most of the people that I knew and to whom I left. In our congressional district. The. People of our district have always been a highly patriotic people. And rightly or wrongly they view the anti-war protesters as being unpatriotic. That is not to say that they were wrong or that they were right but saying that the vast majority of the people of our district were not in sympathy with the anti-war protests of the 1960s. The

later on the people of our district I think began to want the war to wind down. They wanted war to stop. So they wound up with the same objectives that some of the anti-war protesters of the 60s I had but for entirely different reasons. They were never in support of the open anti American fading that many of them we felt that many of the anti-war protesters exhibited. When Humphrey. I was selected as a delegate to the 1968 Democratic National

Convention in Chicago. My wife and I both made our plans to go. We bought our plane tickets on the chartered flight. We paid our reservations on our hotel. I paid our deposit on our hotel reservation and both of us fully intended. To attend the. 1968 Democratic National Convention. At the time of the. Convention drew close. My wife decided not to go. But I still intended to go. On the Saturday afternoon. And it was right around noon on the Saturday before the convention began. The plane chartered plane which carried the GA delegates to Chicago. Was boarding. There was one missing delegate. I was at one missing Delta.

I immediately drove to North Georgia to visit members of my wife's family. In fact we we went together. And efforts were made beginning about two o'clock on. Saturday afternoon to find me and to find out why I miss the plane. Well they did not find me but the answer was very simple. I didn't miss the plane. I deliberately stayed away. Started the night all day Sunday and Monday. The telephone rang incessantly. All. All Saturday night and Sunday various individuals both in the

delegation and in the media tried to find me to find out. Why I didn't show up for the plane and why I hadn't gone. Go and all calls coming in. So I was told although I took down from Atlanta and Griffin from Washington. And from Chicago. To try to find out where I was and why I going to Chicago. On Monday morning I finally accepted one of the calls. And talked with. A friend who. As well had been and why I didn't go to Chicago. I called him by his first name and I said Well it's very simple. And I said I'm not going to answer your question. I said anything that I tell you. Today would be wrong. By tomorrow night everybody will know why I didn't go to Chicago. And I think most of them will agree with me that I made the right

decision. And so I knew that's why it turned out after the convention voted. They did vote to seat half of us in our regular selected delegation or at least they technically say all of us but they also ceded the contesting delegation from Georgia. Which had the effect of diluting our voting strength by 50 percent. The protest goes well. I'm beginning to take place. The convention hall was raised with the protesters. I think I'm correct in my recollection that a lot of the protesters actually went into the convention hall itself. The. The the the the the things that took place at the Chicago Convention in 1968 in my opinion not only bad for the Democrats who were in convention assembled there but they will they were bad for the

for the country as a whole although my recollection is that my congressional district did vote for the Democratic nominee. The vote was closer than usual and in presidential elections the part of it was what had happened at the convention. And part of it was the overall atmosphere of protest. That took place up there. And those are some of the things that contributed to the vote in Georgia being very close. And I think in large measure contributed to the election of Richard Nixon in 1960. In Charlotte. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 was a disaster from the opening to the closing gavel. Many factors contributed to the change in the attitude of our people in Georgia.

Toward the Vietnam War. It's hard to enumerate them and certainly hard to delineate them. But nevertheless those factors came into play. More in the last two years of the 1960s and the first two years of the end of the 1970s the attitude had been for a long time that it's our country we don't support our country right or wrong. But when everything seemed to be consistently wrong. People didn't lose faith they didn't lose hope they didn't lose confidence. In our own government and our politics but they began to question. And I know that many many people that I talked to and in our district when I would be home on weekends and when I would hold a telephone conversation with a lot of people at home when I would be in Washington they were concerned about the.

Trial of Lieutenant William Calley. A lot of them thought that while he might have done things that he shouldn't have done. And might have left undone things that he he should have done. Most of them gave Bill Kelly the credit for being a soldier. And most of them I think thought he was a good soldier. I think that the while not the overriding reason. I think that one thing that goes out people in my part of Georgia to begin to have changed views on the war and the conduct of the war. Was a valid trial. The. Protesters anti-war protesters in 1970 in 1971 I think began to be joined by a lot of

people who had therefore. Supported the war. Publicly and privately and as strong as they could. They they watched with an increasing feeling of frustration. A major national effort of our country. Bogging down. And in an indeterminate chaos chaotic condition and a morass. And so far as combat operations well consigned. The feeling was I think much more widespread. By now that the war was a mistake and really had been a mistake from the from the very beginning. And people were beginning to feel that it ought to be wound down. That military operation ought to be brought to a close.

And if necessary it admitted we had made a mistake. I remember a few years before that I had been in bilateral conflicts between some in which some Americans and some British individuals does. But one of the subjects at this conference was the subject of American military involvement in Southeast Asia. And one of the British despots. Whom I had great respect. And whose mind joined the. Battle back and forth. During our conversation he turned to me one day and he said flat. He said When are you Americans going to realize that you made a mistake. In your war policy and in Southeast Asia. Said you've gotten yourself in a hopeless situation. One that you cannot possibly win and one that way in England of course hope you don't lose but said you are

going to wind up in a situation that could go on for five ten fifteen twenty four years and it's all in so far as. Of achieving what you have went into it seeking to achieve you you might as well give it up as a bad job and get out with as much as you can salvage from it. And then he turned on a broad smile and said Take it from one who knows. We learned that lesson the hard way ourselves. And I suppose all of those things on. Plato played a role. Not only in my own to say. In 1971 that the war was a mistake and it ought to be stopped as soon as we could get out and save face we could. I think that many people throughout the United States who had previous supported war as strongly as

I. Began to feel the same way. We saw a feeling of division in our country. A manifestation of divisiveness the lack of which this country hadn't seen since over a hundred years ago in the war between the states. In April 1971. I made one of the hardest decisions that I've ever been called on to make in my entire life. It was on the day that I spoke in the House of Representatives and announced my rejection of the war policy of our country as it applied in Southeast Asia. I made that decision consciously and I did it without any regard for the political consequences.

And frankly when I make it when I made that decision and when I spoke as I did on the floor of the House of Representatives I didn't know whether that decision that I made would be supported by the people of the 6th Congressional District of Georgia or not. In fact I was a little bit doubtful that day that they would support it. And I made that speech and I think it was cited in one of the major speeches that I made during my congressional service. I did not know how it would be received by my colleagues. I did not know how my other representatives from Georgia would feel about it nor did I know how the people back home would feel about it. But I had made the decision that I felt had to be made. All. Five of the. 10 member Georgia delegation. Voted right down the middle. Five of

us voted the way I did the other five voted the other way and evidently the people back home did not disapprove. Because in the next election following that decision that I made. I was reelected by what I believe was the largest vote. That I ever received and in 13 times the decision that I made was not an agent one but it was one that I felt had to be made. No one single factor TREGONING. Or a combination of many. The division the divisiveness that had become widespread through our country was certainly a fact. I know that the kind of trial the trial of Lieutenant Bill Calley was a a factor in my to say. Because I like so many other people and felt that he was made a scapegoat. For something that many of us felt

that he had not done alone. All other factors combining together. In my opinion fully justified the decision that I made on that day in April 1971 to break with the Vietnam war policy and once having made that decision I never regretted it. In fact the only regret that I've ever had about it was that I didn't make that decision soon. By that would have had the effect that it may have had in 1971 that made the decision early. I don't know. But I like to feel. That. The result of the House action that day. Although the House passed a bill which was under consideration. And really it was not. The bill was not a good vehicle to announce the break on the my break with the Vietnam war policy. The House

passed a bill which was on consideration. And I with a lot of my colleagues who had never voted against the war policy before. Well in the minority but we were all increasing in numbers on from from then on on nearly every road going that took place. Finally the majority of the house and I believe the majority of the Senate became disenchanted with the Vietnam War as I had become disenchanted with and gradually it was brought to an end. One right interesting thing is that on the day that I made that speech neither one of the Atlanta newspapers gave it any coverage whatsoever. On the other hand the New York Times and other national newspapers throughout the country gave it front page coverage and it's right.

Interesting that although the two Atlanta papers made no reference to it. And it right end ration note that the two Atlanta papers completely ignored my speech and my vote. And my announced break with the Vietnam war policy. There was absolutely no mention of it on the on the day of the speech the day after the next day or even the day after that even though many all the wire services and frankly all the major dailies in the United States gave varying degrees of coverage to it. It's interesting to note that on the Sunday following my speech which was made on either Wednesday or Thursday that the Atlanta combined edition of the Atlanta papers carried my speech in its entirety and verbatim in the in the Sunday edition. Just as the

New York Times had almost done. On the morning following the speech in which for the first time the group a large group of Southern conservatives who had previously have been classed as hawks decided that this war was no longer for us and that we had made our decision and we were going to do what we could to wind it down and bring it to a close. The bill which is under consideration that day of all things was the bill to extend the Selective Service Act and now that was not necessarily the best vehicle upon which to make a dramatic speech against the Vietnam War. But it was the only vehicle I had to ride on that occasion. It's like a man looking for

both the game he might not find the game he wants. But if it's only game in town. If he's an inveterate poker player he's going to play in it. So that's where I was with the. Debate on the. Extension of the of the Draft Day. The one thing that has always concerned me about the way the war was being conducted. Was that. YOUNG MAN. Of draft age. With little or no. Military training citing that with inadequate military training. Were being sent to fight in combat. 12000 miles from home. At the same time. Organized reserve units and National Guard units were not being called up. And except for one young company grade officers lieutenants and captains all the reserves as a whole when not being called up. National Guardsmen are not being called up. And one thing we've had in this country has been the fine line of defense the regular active military in this case with say the

Army and the second line of defense all the reserves and the National Guard. The third line of defense of the of the conscript those who enter because of the Selective Service Act. And I have always felt that it was wrong. To resort to conscription. To fill the military manpower requirement unless you simultaneously. Use the Reserves and the National Guard before you use selective service inductees for combat service overseas. So actually maybe it was an inside joke. Bad way to ride after all. Because it certainly had the effect of phoning up with try something that I had talked about for for years prior to that was that if you were going to fight a war nobody ought to be exempt from it citing the National Guard units and your reserve units ought not to be exempt from it.

If you are going to use selective service by mail. Well that's a question you will never know why the policy of the administration was to exempt the National Guard and Reserve units and personnel. However that decision was made I think it was a mistake to examine the National Guard and Reserve units because I feel that when you have your National Guard budget now your reserve is now in the army in combat conditions that they bring into military service these civilian point of view. If those men had been called up for active duty. And had been in active military service. In Southeast Asia. It is quite possible that one of two things would have happened either we would have achieved a military victory quickly. Or else we would realize that the whole war effort was a mistake and have gotten out of it sooner than we did.

I think that the administration made a serious mistake by exempting National Guard and Reserve units and National Guard and Reserve personnel. Prior to my decision in April 1971 to break with the war policy I had always supported the. War. On every major and come up whether it was an authorization bill or whether an appropriation bill. I'd vote for it. During the. Two or three years preceding 1971 I had to cross my fingers. And to bite my tongue. In order to continue to vote for it because I had reached

conclusion that I knew that we had to make a final decision sometime and that I had to make a personal decision to do what I could to bring that war to a close. It was it was not an easy decision. As one of the hardest decisions I ever made and in my in my congressional saves I know that immediately upon giving up the well of the house I went to lunch and in one of the rooms in the Capitol with some of my Southern friends some of whom I thought would absolutely does own me for the position that I taken. But even among a group of former hawks I found pretty widespread support for the position that I had taken just as I found widespread support for it back home. I spoke out against a policy of frustration.

And continuing a war in which there was. An absolute abandonment of any and all will to to win and a determination to achieve a military victory. That didn't get very much. In every town a tiger attack