Poll: Most Americans say US should have stayed out of Vietnam
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A picture taken on April 30, 1975, in Saigon shows tanks of the North Vietnamese Army forces taking over the South Vietnamese presidential palace, marking the end of the Vietnam War. Photo: Phan Khac Duong and Phan Thank Gian/VNA/AFP via Getty Images
A majority of American adults, including most Vietnam War veterans, think the United States should have stayed out of Vietnam, according to a new poll released Wednesday on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
Why it matters: The survey by Nexstar Media and Emerson College Polling illustrated the regret most Americans feel about Vietnam half a century following the nation's worst military defeat and the divisions it caused.
The big picture: For much of the last few decades, the Vietnam War has split Americans across ideological and racial lines, with those divisions around the U.S. role in the world still remaining today.
- This latest poll, however, shows how unpopular the Vietnam War is now as the Baby Boomer Generation retires and later generations see it as unnecessary for the wounds it inflicted on the national psyche.
By the numbers: A majority of adults (62%) think the U.S. should have stayed out of Vietnam, while 38% think the nation did the right thing in getting into the war, the poll found.
- Meanwhile, 59% of Vietnam War veterans say the U.S. should have stayed out of the conflict, compared to 41%.
- A plurality of U.S. adults (44%) think the war in Vietnam was not justified, while 29% believe the war was justified.
- The survey found that this is the lowest perceived justification for war by the U.S. public from World War II to the Iraq War.
What they're saying: "Notably, 46% of Vietnam veterans think the Vietnam War was not justified, while 41% think it was justified," Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.
- "A majority of veterans think the U.S. should have stayed out of Vietnam, and veterans do not think the U.S. is more cautious as a result of the war."
Flashback: President John Kennedy got the U.S. involved in a civil war in Vietnam amid the Cold War and fears of spreading Communism.
- After his assassination, President Lyndon Johnson escalated U.S. involvement, sparking anti-Vietnam War protests on college campuses across the nation.
- President Nixon continued the war, even expanded it to nearby Cambodia, until agreeing to a peace accord. Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese fighters on April 30, 1975.
- Juan José Valdez of San Antonio, Texas, was the last of the 11 U.S. Marines out of Vietnam before the fall of Saigon.
Between the lines: Thousands of returning Vietnam War veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and were shunned by anti-war protesters and war supporters for the defeat.
- Some Vietnam War veterans, like the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. John Kerry, ran for office, but none were ever elected president.
The intrigue: Among those who lived during the Vietnam War, 56% think President Johnson often misled the public about the war, while 11% think Johnson was almost always truthful.
- Nearly 3 in 4 (74%) Vietnam veterans say Johnson misled people, while 10% say he was truthful.
- A plurality of Americans (49%) think political divisions today are bigger than they were during the Vietnam War; 16% believe they are smaller now, and 19% think they are about the same.
- 7 in 10 adults say Vietnam veterans have not been treated well by the U.S. government in the years since the Vietnam War.
Methodology: The Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey of U.S. adults was conducted from April 8 to 11, 2025. It was based on a representative sample of 1,000 adults weighted by gender, education, race, age, party registration, and region, using U.S. Census parameters.
- The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample.
