Title: U.S. Spent $141‐Billion In Vietnam in 14 Years - The New York Times
Headings: U.S. Spent $141‐Billion In Vietnam in 14 Years
U.S. Spent $141‐Billion In Vietnam in 14 Years
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Million Battle Deaths
Hanoi Received $7‐Billion

Content: WASHINGTON, April 30 (AP) —From 1961 until the surrender of the Saigon Government, the United States spent more than $141‐billion in South Vietnam, or more than $7,000 for each of South Vietnam's 120 million people. By the time the Paris peace accords were signed in January, 1973, more than 56,000 American servicemen had died in Vietnam, 46,000 of them in combat. Measuring the full cost of Vietnam fighting to the United States inevitably goes far beyond the statistics. For example many economists link the rapid inflationary spiral of the late nineteen‐sixties directly to large Federal deficits that resulted from United States spending in Vietnam. Critics of the late President Lyndon B. Johnson maintain that he tried to finance his Great Society domestic programs and an expensive war simultaneously without a corresponding increase in Federal taxes. When huge Federal deficits appeared, the purchasing power of the dollar fell, a decline that continues eating into the pocketbooks of American consumers today. Million Battle Deaths
Although America's involvement in the war was costly in both casualties and dollars spent, it set no U.S. record for either category. In the Civil War 498,332 Americans died, and combat deaths were higher in both World Wars 1 and II than they were in Vietnam. Casualties and combat deaths among the South Vietnamese and Communist forces went far beyond American losses. The Pentagon estimates that there were over 241,000 South Vietnamese combat deaths and more than one million combined Vietcong and North Vietnamese combat deaths.