The Shadow of Vietnam

In any debate over America’s role in the world, one recurring theme is the notion that the United States is the Planetary Saviour, the restorer of righteousness. This “rhetoric of redemption”[i] had its defining moment when President Woodrow Wilson pledged in 1917 to “make the world safe for democracy.”[ii] This glorious ambition was a defining principle in American political life for decades. It was the rationale behind the ambitious dream of an “American Century.”[iii] It ended in the jungles of Vietnam. Why the United States risked so much for so little possible gain is a matter for serious historical debate. Even today the spectre of Vietnam still haunts the American psyche. As Henry Kissinger wrote, “Vietnam is still with us. It has created doubts about American judgement, credibility and power throughout the world.”[iv]

The American experience in Vietnam began earlier than many realise. In 1941, President Roosevelt believed that a possible occupation of Vietnam would give Japan a base in South East Asia, which would threaten rubber supplies, required by the US defence industry. “This led to the freezing of Japanese assets in the U.S which provoked the attack on Pearl Harbour.”[v] It is arguable therefore that Vietnam precipitated American entry into World War Two. Roosevelt believed that following the war Vietnam should be governed by an international Trusteeship, rather than be restored as a French colony. The President felt that “France has had the country for nearly one hundred years and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning.”[vi] On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Having established rulers in Cambodia and Laos, the French reinstated Bao Dai as Head of State in Vietnam in an attempt to re‑assert colonial rule. Confrontation was all but inevitable.

At first America paid scant attention to the fighting in Vietnam. The fall of China in 1949 and the invasion of South Korea in 1950 however created new anxieties about communist expansion in Asia. Communist China quickly recognised the diplomatic status of the Vietminh government in Hanoi, dominated by Ho Chi Minh and his communist followers. They became increasingly dependent upon the Soviet Union and China for aid. With the 195O outbreak of the Korean War, Vietnam began to resemble a Cold War battleground. “The French forces were seen to be holding the southern line against Asian Communism and thus Truman supplied them economically and militarily.”[vii] By the end of 1953, the United States was spending $1 billion a year to keep the French forces in Vietnam.

In 1952, Vietminh General Giap “demonstrated that he could march into Laos with relative impunity. Henceforth the French fastened on to Dien Bien Phu as the crucial barrier where they would bar the Vietminh’s access to Laos.”[viii] French forces were dispatched there in the hope of defeating the Vietminh guerrillas. Giap however had concluded that 50,000 troops would take six weeks to storm the French garrison. “This battle must be won, don't begin unless you are sure of winning,” Ho Chi Minh advised.”[ix] As a result, the French found themselves trapped by a superior force. On May 7, 1954 the massive attacks finally overwhelmed the French troops who then abandoned the fight in Vietnam. Before their beleaguered retreat, the French had pleaded with the United States for direct military assistance. The Joint Chiefs proposed an air strike, the Vice‑President Richard Nixon suggested, “putting our boys in.”[x] When the Congress expressed reservations, President Eisenhower sought British support. Prime Minister Churchill refused; “what we are being asked to do, is to assist in misleading the Congress into approving a military operation which would be ineffective, and might well bring the world to the verge of war.”[xi] Failing to achieve foreign support, Eisenhower retreated from unilateral intervention in Vietnam.

Following the French withdrawal, negotiations in Geneva resulted in the partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel and the independence of Laos and Cambodia. Two months later, in September 1954, “American Secretary of State Dulles organised what he referred to as the Manila Defence Accord, or MANDAC The press however referred to it as SEATO: The South East Asia Treaty organisation.”[xii] It included Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, France, Great Britain and America. South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia soon joined. “The treaty reflected what critics called “Pactomania” which by the end of the Eisenhower Administration contracted the United States to defend 43 other countries.”[xiii]  President Eisenhower soon wrote Vietnamese Prime Minister Diem promising American support “in developing a viable state, capable of resisting subversion through military means.”[xiv] In return Eisenhower expected reform in Vietnam. Reform would mean improvement for the nation and therefore the people. If the people could see that their lives were improved due to American aid, why would the country want to become communist?

President Eisenhower justified American involvement in Vietnam by invoking 'The Domino Theory'. “If you have a row of dominoes” he explained, and you knock over the first one, what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.”[xv] This premise was based on the notion that if Vietnam were to become communist, the whole of South East Asia would follow. This was accepted even though China had fallen five years previously and had failed to produce such a chain reaction. Instead of introducing reform, Diem tightened his grip on power and declared himself President. By 1957 Viet Cong guerrillas were attacking the government and fighting rapidly spread. Soon Eisenhower's administration was helpless to do anything but “sink or swim with Ngo Dinh Diem.”[xvi]

SEATO would be used to justify all that occurred in Vietnam. However any notion that SEATO would parallel NATO were false. A suggestion that SEATO committed America to military intervention was an “exercise in historical and legal distortion.”[xvii]  SEATO was not a warrant for military intervention and the possibility that the treaty could have such implications was not advanced until 1966. In 1964, Secretary of State Dean Rusk had stated clearly “We are not acting in Vietnam under SEATO.”[xviii] Before Johnson no President had ever interpreted the SEATO treaty as compelling American military intervention, “and no other signatory has ever interpreted the treaty as such.”[xix]

However, America had drawn a political line. No vital national interest required that it be drawn where it was, but it was drawn in South Vietnam and America thus created for herself a vital interest where none had existed before. “Having drawn it, it could not lightly abandon it.”[xx] If lines of interest were constant however, loyalty to individuals was something different. By December of 1960, American Ambassador Durbrow wrote, “We may well be forced to undertake the task of supporting alternative leadership.”[xxi] 

A month later, the responsibilities of Vietnam passed to President John F. Kennedy. As a Congressman, Kennedy had visited Vietnam in 1951, reporting that America was “allied to the desperate effort of a French regime to hang on to the remnants of Empire. Without the support of the natives there is no hope of success in South East Asia.”[xxii] As President, Kennedy continued Eisenhower's policy of sending military advisers to South Vietnam, increasing the aid during 1961 and 1962. After the Bay of Pigs disaster of March 1961, Kennedy apparently remarked “We have a problem making our power credible, the place to do so is Vietnam.”[xxiii] Despite assuring the world that “America would pay any price to ensure the survival and the success of liberty,”[xxiv] the President steadfastly refused to commit combat units to Vietnam, despite the over‑whelming pressure to do so from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The troops will march in, crowds will cheer, and four days later everyone will have forgotten.” Kennedy quipped. “Then we'll be told we have to send in more troops.”[xxv]

The President realised that if the war became a white mans' affair, America would lose as surely as the French had. Kennedy was aware that America had drawn a line in Vietnam, and that he could not abandon it lightly. The President was in the position of being apparently unable to withdraw from the conflict, whilst refusing to adopt a policy of total war. Under Secretary of State George Ball predicted there could soon be 300,000 troops in Vietnam. Kennedy replied, “You're crazier than hell, that will never happen.”[xxvi]  Having convinced the Soviets of American credibility in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, Kennedy began to reassess the American position in Asia. Defence Secretary Robert S. McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor reported back from Vietnam that None thousand troops could be withdrawn by the end of 1963, and that the United States would be able to withdraw all military personnel by the end of 1965.[xxvii]

This plan was outlined in the Top Secret national Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, dated October 11, 1963. This was the order to start the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. “It's their war,” President Kennedy stated “they're the ones who have to win it or lose it.”[xxviii] This stance was a serious deviation from the cold war policies of the past, and many speculated that it would be indicative of Kennedy's second term. The President realised that he would be labelled as being “soft on communism.''[xxix] He described his policy thus;  “If the American people do not want to use troops in Cuba how can I ask them to remove a Communist regime 9,000 miles away?”[xxx] His sentiment was strengthened by the murder of Diem on November 1,1963. “A high level meeting in Honolulu on November 20, 1963 apparently adopted an 'accelerated plan' for reducing troop commitments.”[xxxi] A political end to the war now appeared possible.

This new policy was to be short lived however. Within weeks President Kennedy was assassinated and the American responsibility in Vietnam fell to Lyndon Johnson. John F. Kennedy had never been an advocate of fighting a land war in Asia, Agreeing with general Douglas McArthur that to do so would be futile.[xxxii] Lyndon Johnson however saw the situation in a different light. As Vice President he had visited Vietnam and had given Diem his word that America would fight to defend his country, referring to the corrupt leader as “the Winston S. Churchill of South East Asia.”[xxxiii] This was contrary to American policy at the time, but Johnson saw that he had given his word, and he intended to keep it. To Kennedy, Vietnam had been a distant war, and one to be avoided. To Lyndon Johnson, it was almost personal.

One of Johnson's first acts as President was to sign National Security Action Memorandum 273, reversing Kennedy's withdrawal policy, “I’m not going to let Vietnam go the way China did” he told the Joint Chiefs “You just get me elected, and I'll give you your war.”[xxxiv] The Joint Chiefs of Staff, so long in favour of strong military intervention in Vietnam, finally had a President who would fight in Asia. Having been elected in his own right in 1964, President Johnson began the build up of troops in Vietnam with military landings at Danang in March 1965. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution granted President Johnson the capacity to wage undeclared war in Vietnam though few in Congress could have predicted Johnson's escalation. Operation Rolling Thunder, the American air strikes against the north, went on daily from March 1965 until November 1968, dropping a million tons of bombs. The objective was to destroy the moral of the Hanoi leaders. But as Robert S McNamara wrote in Newsweek, “short of genocide, it is unlikely that you can break a nation’s will by bombing.”[xxxv] The military was restricted however, with their calls to “destroy Hanoi and possibly use nuclear weapons,”[xxxvi] going unheeded. The refusal to employ nuclear weapons was the only sign of restraint by the Americans in Vietnam.

Attempts at ceasefires and U.N. deals for peace in Vietnam were rejected by the United States. “The war went on, tearing at the country. There was, Americans were finding, no light at the end of tunnel, only greater darkness.”[xxxvii] After the Tet Offensive, the Cabinet met to discuss the war. The possibility of an imminent military victory was described as begin impossible “under the present circumstances.”[xxxviii]  Asked for suggestions, some members of the Cabinet replied bluntly “Stop the bombing and negotiate.”[xxxix]

The President was shocked. His advisers had changed their advice. “Someone has poisoned the well,” LBJ claimed”[xl] The war would cost Johnson the Presidency, it had cost many more their lives. But the war did not end there. President Nixon dragged the war on for another five years, costing another 19,000 American lives. Ultimately, “The real domino to fall was American public opinion.”[xli]

America is a great nation and a proud nation. Twice this century it has heeded the call to defend freedom in the “hour of maximum danger”[xlii] Yet America suffers from hubris; a feeling of satisfaction in achievements which can induce a sense of virtue and mission which rises above realty, tempts fate and induces disaster.”[xliii] Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in Vietnam. The American sense of mission led to a complete misjudgement of the nature of the conflict. The power of Vietnamese nationalism was also overlooked. America made the mistake of acting unilaterally despite the lack of danger to her own national security. Robert Kennedy wrote, “If America is to be successful, we will need friends and supporters, we will need respect.”[xliv] It was this respect and friendship that America forfeited during the Vietnam War. One of President Kennedy’s concerns during the Missile Crisis was the wrath of history. “He did not want anyone to say that America had not done all ft could to preserve the peace. We we’re not going to misjudge, or miscalculate.”[xlv]  It was the complete lack of judgement and calculation that best defined American policies in Vietnam.

The American sense of mission, a paranoid fear of communism and McCarthy Red Scares prompted American action in Vietnam, which escalated to fill the void left by the French withdrawal. The assassination of President Kennedy prevented a 1965 American withdrawal, and President Johnson, having gambled his presidency upon military victory could not be seen to accept a negotiated settlement. Fear of being the first U.S. President to lose a war prevented Lyndon Johnson from accepting the 1968 verdict of his Cabinet that the war was now un­-winnable. The same dread permeated the sole of President Nixon, who spread the fighting into the state of Cambodia. Political fear cost the lives of thousands of young American troops, and countless more Vietnamese. Ultimately however, the “names on the Vietnam memorial bear witness to the end of American manifest Destiny. They are the price, paid in blood for the recognition of American limitations. With the young men who died in Vietnam died the dream of an American Century.”[xlvi] It is becoming clear that without a radical rethink of current American military and political planning, yet another memorial will soon need to be added to the Washington Mall.