Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Unmaking of a President
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Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Unmaking of a President
440Hardcover
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Overview
Originally published in 1977.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691641065 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/19/2016 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #586 |
| Pages: | 440 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam
The Unmaking of a President
By Herbert Y. Schandler
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1977 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-02222-2
CHAPTER 1
The Decision to Intervene, 1964–1965
"It was almost imperceptible, the way we got in. There was no one move that you could call decisive, or irreversible, not even very many actions that you could argue against in isolation. Yet when you put it all together, there we were in a war on the Asian mainland, with nobody really putting up much of a squawk while we were doing it."
The year 1965 saw major and historic decisions concerning the level of U.S. effort in South Vietnam that transformed the character of the war and the U.S. role in it. These decisions foreshadowed a dramatic increase in the U.S. commitment and led eventually to a virtual American takeover of the war. From 1965 on, U.S. involvement grew in slow stages, with each step preceded by an agonizing policy review at the highest levels of government. Throughout the course of this involvement, however, none of the policy makers involved in these reviews and decisions seemed capable of looking ahead to the long term, of developing an overall, coherent, long-range strategy for the achievement of specific U.S. objectives.
From the time of the overthrow of the Diem government in November 1963, to the end of the winter in February and March of 1964, it became increasingly clear to the American leadership, as it had not been clear before, that the situation in Vietnam was deteriorating so badly that the kind of American effort invested thus far could not reverse the trend. It also became clear during this period that previous optimistic reports of progress in the war had been overstated and that, despite significant American aid, the South Vietnamese had not been able to achieve political stability. Concern in Washington grew over American inability to arrest the imminent collapse of the government of South Vietnam. As the realization grew that an ally on whose behalf the United States had steadily increased its commitment was in a state of political and military collapse, the president undertook a determined policy reassessment of the future American role in the war.
On March 8, 1964, President Johnson sent Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor to Vietnam for a firsthand assessment of the situation there. Their report was presented to the president on March 16, 1964, and was approved the following day. The program contained in this document, labeled NSAM (National Security Action Memorandum) 288, called for enlarging the U.S. commitment of aid to South Vietnam considerably. The major emphases of the program were on strengthening the South Vietnamese armed forces by providing them with increased quantities of new equipment so that they could add 50,000 men to the armed forces, and providing American budgetary and political support to the South Vietnamese government.
The McNamara-Taylor report of March 1964, however, specifically rejected the following options: (1) accepting a neutralized South Vietnam by withholding additional support; (2) placing military pressure on North Vietnam; (3) furnishing troops to secure Saigon; and (4) fully taking over the South Vietnamese military command. McNamara did, however, recommend that plans be developed to allow the initiation of graduated U.S. military pressure against North Vietnam should this prove necessary in the future.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (other than General Taylor) expressed doubt that these rather limited measures of support would be adequate to reverse the situation and recommended to the president immediate U.S. military measures against North Vietnam. In rejecting the advice of his military leaders, President Johnson specified his two principal objections to such a course: (1) the political and military base in the South was too fragile to invite increased enemy action by direct U.S. participation, and (2) striking the North might lead to retaliation by the Soviets, the Chinese, or both.
From the beginning, however, it seemed evident that this limited program would not be enough. Almost uninterrupted political upheaval in Saigon was reflected in progressive military demoralization in the countryside. Throughout the late spring and into July, as the U.S. program was put into effect, the Buddhist-Catholic quarrel intensified. The civil administration in South Vietnam continued in a state of disarray and ineffectiveness. Military forces were becoming more and more defensive and demoralized. Desertions increased, and combat operations ground to a near standstill. At the same time, the Communists were visibly strengthening their support base in Laos, stepping up their infiltration of men and supplies into South Vietnam, and initiating larger, more frequent, and more aggressive attacks against government outposts. Outside the urban population centers and areas of traditional local religious power, the country was slipping, to a great extent by default, to the Viet Cong.
The controversial Tonkin Gulf incident on August 4-5, 1964, precipitated the first U.S. reprisal against North Vietnam and provided the president with a broad congressional resolution of support. The swift reprisal and the nearly unanimous congressional support demonstrated in dramatic fashion the U.S. commitment to South Vietnam, a commitment undertaken with little domestic criticism or questioning. In addition, the precedent for U.S. military action against North Vietnam had been established.
Encouraged by this reprisal and dismayed by the continued political turmoil in South Vietnam and the apparent ineffectiveness of U.S. programs, several officials and agencies within the administration argued that continued military action against the North would have to be conducted at an increasingly faster tempo to have any lasting effect in arresting the deteriorating situation. The president and the secretary of state, however, continued to feel that such moves were not worth the risk of Chinese or Soviet retaliation and that they could not be effective without a degree of government stability in the South.
These continuing pressures for further action, however, culminated in a series of strategy meetings of administration officials in Washington early in September 1964. Proposals by the Air Force and Navy chiefs for an immediate bombing campaign against the North were rejected by the president. He did approve, however, preparations for retaliatory action against North Vietnam on a tit-for-tat basis in the event of any further attacks on U.S. forces or installations. The consensus seemed to be that emphasis at this time should be placed on further strengthening the structure of the South Vietnamese government.
But there was rather general agreement among these close advisors to the president that after the political stability of the South Vietnamese government improved, it would be necessary to subject North Vietnam to overt U.S. military pressure, that without direct pressure it would not be possible to stop North Vietnamese sponsorship of the insurgency in the South. This anticipation of the eventual need to use American force was reinforced during the remainder of 1964 by the continued deterioration of the political structure in South Vietnam, by evidence of increased levels of North Vietnamese troop infiltration into South Vietnam, and by the actions of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in the South.
However, the United States refrained from direct military action for the time being. President Johnson was engaged in an election campaign in which he was presenting himself as the candidate of reason and restraint as opposed to the warlike, unpredictable, and irresponsible Barry Goldwater. Throughout the campaign, Johnson had made plain his disinclination to lead the United States into a wider war on the Asian continent. Speaking in Manchester, New Hampshire in late September, he had reiterated, "I have not thought that we were ready for American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. What I have been trying to do was to get the boys in Vietnam to do their own fighting — we are not going north and drop bombs at this stage of the game." Thus, hard decisions on subsequent American actions in Vietnam were not allowed to intrude upon the campaign.
Twice before the year 1964 was over, recommendations were made to begin retaliatory raids against North Vietnam. On November 1, the American air base at Bien Hoa was attacked by the Viet Cong. There were numerous American casualties and widespread destruction of aircraft. This singling out of the major American air base in South Vietnam as the target for a damaging attack was the most spectacular and deliberate anti-American incident in the conflict to date. The Joint Chiefs of Staff along with General Maxwell Taylor, now United States ambassador to South Vietnam, felt that this attack warranted the immediate retaliation against North Vietnam that had been contemplated at the September conference, and they so recommended. But this attack was an unwelcome reality on the very eve of the presidential election, and the recommendations were rejected.
Similarly, the bombing of an American billet in Saigon on Christmas eve evoked the same recommendation and the same response from the president. Even though the idea of increasing military pressure against North Vietnam had been generally agreed to in September, the president was still reluctant to order the war to be extended in this manner without some greater degree of political stability in South Vietnam. In addition, President Johnson, as was his custom, was not going to make this difficult decision until all available alternatives could be carefully and thoroughly reexamined.
Therefore, subsequent to the Bien Hoa bombing but before the election, the president appointed a working group to conduct another thorough review of U.S. Vietnam policy and to present him with alternatives and recommendations for future action in Vietnam. After almost a full month of deliberation, the advisors failed to come up with promising alternatives, and at a December 1 meeting with the president, could only repeat old recommendations, now divided into two phases. Phase I would merely comprise a continuation of current actions, tit-for-tat reprisals against North Vietnam for attacks on U.S. forces in the South, and increased efforts to reform and strengthen the South Vietnamese government. When this had been accomplished or was well underway, Phase II, a campaign of gradually increasing air strikes against North Vietnam to dissuade it from further support of the war in the South would be undertaken. These were not new proposals, and no prospect was held out for speedy results. Again, the president emphasized the need to strengthen the Saigon government before beginning any military action against the North. He approved Phase I and gave assent, at least in principle, to Phase II. It is clear, however, that the president did not make any commitment at that point to expand the war through future military operations against North Vietnam.
The alternative of, withdrawing American support from a Saigon government demonstrably incapable of pulling itself together and organizing a stable government in its own defense was briefly considered in this policy review. However, the Joint Staff representatives objected forcefully to this alternative, and their objections were effective in downgrading it, so that it was not presented to the president. Johnson had previously considered this alternative, however, and at the September policy review had asked whether any of his advisors doubted that "Vietnam was worth all this effort." All had agreed that the loss of South Vietnam would be followed, in time, by the loss of all of Southeast Asia. And Ambassador Taylor admits that it never crossed his mind to recommend withdrawal, rather disingenuously placing the blame on Congress for the American commitment to South Vietnam: "Had not the Congress declared with only two dissenting votes that 'The U.S. regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia?' With this authoritative confirmation of the essentiality of our mission, no senior officer could in conscience harbor thoughts of retreat."
Although the president's advisors had reached the consensus by the end of 1964 that increased military pressure against North Vietnam would be necessary, this consensus reflected neither a precisely defined strategy as to the subsequent course of American military action in Vietnam nor any commonly held expectation as to the result to be gained by military pressure. Generally speaking, the military leaders favored strong action, a dramatic and forceful application of military power, as the only means to apply significant pressure on North Vietnam. This military action, it was stated, would interdict infiltration routes to the South, destroy the overall capacity of the North to provide support to the insurgency there, destroy North Vietnam's will to continue support of the Viet Cong guerrillas, encourage the South Vietnamese government and people, and, finally, punish the North Vietnamese government for its actions in the South.
State Department officials and many of the civilian officials of the Defense Department favored a more gradual, restrained approach, "progressively mounting in scope and intensity," in which the prospect of greater pressure to come would be at least as important as the actual damage inflicted. The State Department, as would be expected, was also concerned with the international political implications of these military measures. These officials saw increased military pressure against North Vietnam as providing the United States with bargaining points in subsequent negotiations and as signalling to the North Vietnamese, to other Communist countries, and to our allies, U.S. resolve to meet its commitments in combatting externally supported aggression. It was this "signal" of American resolve, as opposed to any damage actually to be inflicted on North Vietnam, that was stressed by the civilian leaders.
In any case, there was no dearth of reasons, once the U.S. commitment to South Vietnam was affirmed, for striking North Vietnam. The decision to use military power against the North, in the end, seems to have resulted as much from a lack of alternative proposals as from any compelling logic advanced in its favor. Getting North Vietnam to remove its support and direction of the insurgency in the South was the basic objective, but there was no general agreement as to the likelihood of that result or of a strategy to attain it. And the president's reluctance to approve these actions was based upon a hope that the South Vietnamese government would be able to make itself more effective and thus preclude the need for additional American military commitment and action.
But the hoped for improvement in South Vietnamese governmental stability failed to materialize. The continuing struggle for political power in Saigon clearly was impeding military operations, as large elements of the best units of the South Vietnamese army were maintained on constant "coup alert" in or near Saigon. A highly visible setback occurred during the period of December 26, 1964–January 2, 1965 when the Viet Cong virtually destroyed two South Vietnamese battalions at Binh Gia. This was the first time that enemy forces had chosen to remain on the battlefield and meet government forces in sustained combat.
As the new year began, the administration was beset by frustration and considerable anguish over the threat of the imminent collapse of the government of South Vietnam. The debate continued in Washington over ways and means of generating more intensive military measures against the enemy — and most notably over the desirability and likely effectiveness of Phase II reprisal strikes against the North. But enthusiasm for these operations, although increasing, was far from boundless. The intelligence community continued to express little confidence that these military pressures would have much impact on Hanoi's policies or actions.
The long months of planning, hesitation, and agonized study and debate reached a sudden climax at 2:00 A.M. on February 7, 1965, when the Viet Cong conducted well-coordinated and highly destructive raids upon U.S. advisors' barracks and an American helicopter base near Pleiku in South Vietnam. Eight American soldiers died in the two attacks, and losses of equipment were characterized as severe. This was the heaviest Communist attack up to that time against American military installations in South Vietnam, and the attack had come at the very beginning of a visit to Hanoi by Soviet Premier Kosygin, a visit that the administration felt presaged increased Soviet aid to Hanoi.
Presidential Assistant McGeorge Bundy was in South Vietnam at this time. Telephoning from General Westmoreland's command post in Saigon, he recommended to the president, through Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance who answered the phone in the Situation Room, that, in addition to immediate retaliatory strikes against the North, the United States should initiate Phase II of the previously planned military measures against North Vietnam.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam by Herbert Y. Schandler. Copyright © 1977 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- FrontMatter, pg. i
- Contents, pg. vii
- Introduction, pg. ix
- One. The Decision to Intervene, 1964-1965, pg. 1
- Two. The Search for a Strategic Concept, 1965-1967, pg. 33
- Three. The Eve of Tet, pg. 64
- Four. The Tet Offensive and United States Reaction, pg. 74
- Five. Emergency Augmentation, pg. 92
- Six. The Troop Request, pg. 105
- Seven. The Clifford Task Force: A-to-Z Reassessment, pg. 121
- Eight. The President Ponders, pg. 177
- Nine. The Climate of Opinion, pg. 194
- Ten. Politics and Economics, pg. 218
- Eleven. End of a Strategy, pg. 229
- Twelve. The Bombing Pause, pg. 237
- Thirteen. Search for a Strategy, pg. 241
- Fourteen. The Wise Men, pg. 256
- Fifteen. The President Makes a Decision, pg. 266
- Sixteen. Continuity or Change?, pg. 290
- Seventeen. Explaining the Decision-Making Process, pg. 320
- Appendixes, pg. 351
- Bibliography, pg. 355
- Index, pg. 403