The history of the Viet Nam war is a really tragic example of how leftist academics can distort the perception of succeeding generations. Combined with a uniformly leftist press, they have given young people of today the idea that Americans never supported the effort against Communism, and that it was a misguided policy. I personally knew not one person who wanted the United States to scram from Viet Nam. Not one. No one likes war, but outside of left-wing academia, Communist-front organizations, and the tiny number of dirty hippies, support for American action in Southeast Asia was nearly universal, at least in my experience. Nixon did not win on an anti-war platform. He won by saying that after four or five years of bloody conflict, he had a plan for victory.