Barbara Tuchman’s analysis of the Vietnam War in her book The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam is the inspiration behind this series of posts. All of the previous posts in the series can be found at the bottom of this post.
In case you missed any of the previous blogs, here they are:
The Vietnam War Revisited
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part II – It Did Not Have to Be That Way
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part III – Misgovernment
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part IV – Was It Worth It?
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part V – What If’s
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part VI – Ignoring Expert Advice
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part VII -A War of Attrition
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part VIII – Backing A Losing Horse?
In my last blog, I recounted how JFK committed the U.S. to the Vietnam War in 1961 based on the prevailing doctrine of the time, the “Domino Theory.”
First off, we became involved in a strictly advisory role (MAAG) to the ARVN with no power to co-op operations. That turned out not to be a good idea. But it took a year to recognize the folly of that decision. The ARVN lacked disciple, initiative, and a strong commitment to fight as the Ap Bac debacle in the Mekong Delta demonstrated. I recount that battle in my historical narrative, RECALL. It was the first of our military SNAFU’s with the ARVN advisory plan, prompting a reassessment of our role.
JFK’s administration decided in 1962 to change course and become proactive by forming MACV, command units with operational authority as well as advisory. “Mac-Vee” changed the complexion of the war as we took a “hands -on” command position while still pretending it was South Vietnam’s war. In retrospect, disinformation for public consumption.
Tuchman notes the political reality at the time was Diem’s preoccupation with protecting himself from a coup d’ etat rather than protecting the country from the VC. Two dissident Vietnamese Air Force pilots bombed the palace in an unsuccessful assassination attempt. I like the way Tuchman described the situation- “Discontent was rising around Diem like mist from a marsh.” She was not only an accomplished historian, but possessed had a wonderful command of prose.
That bombing circumstance did not go down well in Washington, D.C., but JFK remained reluctant to commit combat troops since they might be perceived as a “colonial force, like the French.” He waffled. JFK recognized early on, “We are married to failure,” referring to Diem’s government, and unpopular actions like defoliation and “strategic hamlets.” He felt trapped.
JFK looked for a way out. He asked Ambassador Harriman to approach Hanoi with the offer to withdraw our troops, if North Vietnam called off the Viet Cong. The Joint Chiefs of Staff objected as the act would renege on our commitment to take a stand against Communism’s threat in Southeast Asia. Therefore, the offer never happened.
JFK was in a box. So, he sent an envoy to Saigon. That’s what politicians do, exercise that option or appoint a commission to buy time.
JFK dispatched Senator Mansfield to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission in December, 1962 to assess the situation first hand, a trip like the Senator took in 1955. Bluntly the Senator reported upon his return, “Seven years and two billion of U.S. aid later… South Vietnam appears less, not more stable that it was at the outset.” Mansfield counseled JFK “infusion of American troops would come to dominate a civil war that was not our affair, taking it over would hurt American prestige in Asia and would not help the South Vietnamese to stand on their own feet either.”
Truer words may never have been spoken… But they were not what JFK wanted to hear.
This report’s unexpected disagreement angered JFK who wanted his policy supported, not refuted. But later it’s said he confessed to an aide, “I’m angry at myself because I found myself agreeing with him.”
Nothing changed.
Like a good politician JFK sent other envoys, Forrestal and Hilsman, seeking a more positive assessment, one affirming his policy. From Tuchman’s research, their subsequent reports did not dispute his policy, but warned, “The negative side of the ledger is still awesome.” They cautioned the war would last longer, cost more money than projected, and lose more lives than anticipated.
Policy still did not change. Adjustment, once committed is painful. Acknowledging a mistake, humiliating. Tuchman makes the cogent point- “For the ruler it is easier, once he has entered the policy box, to stay inside. Psychologists call the process “cognitive dissonance”, the process of screening out discordant information.”
In common parlance, “Don’t confuse me with the facts.”
Alternative actions were “deselected” since they conflicted with accepted dictum to defeat Communism’s spread in SE Asia. The overriding group think promoted “an unconscious alteration in the estimate of probabilities.”
JFK was well aware of the negatives as were his closest advisors, but no one in the Executive branch advocated withdrawal despite the writing on the wall. Was it the fear of encouraging Communism? Damage to American prestige? Fear of domestic reprisals?
Or, as Tuchman notes, for another reason, the most enduring in the history of folly: “Personal advantage, in this case a second term. Kennedy read the signs of failure, and sensed Vietnam an ongoing disaster. He was annoyed by it, angered to be trapped in it, anxious that his second term not be spoiled by it. He would have liked to win, or to find a reasonable facsimile of winning, to cut losses and get out.”
I think she might have nailed it. JFK could not give up Vietnam to the Communists and expect American voters to re-elect him a year and a half away. The prevailing Cold War mindset in the Sixties would not allow it.
In Tuchman’s viewpoint, JFK’s position was “Realistic, if not a profile in courage. To continue for that time to invest American resources and inevitably lives in a cause in which he no longer had must faith, rather than risk his own second term, was a decision in his own interests, not the country’s. Only an exceedingly rare ruler reverses that order.”
Do you agree with her insightful assessment? Was it a case of intellectual dishonesty? Personal ambition? Failure of leadership?
Please feel free to comment, if civil.
I hope you find my blogs educational. CIA Intelligence Estimates of the Vietnam War era were declassified in the early Eighties. I read many of them along with over three dozen documentaries about the Vietnam War. The CIA got it right more often than not. I devote six chapters in my historical narrative, RECALL, to relay this information in CINCPAC intel conferences dramatizations.
The historian, Barbara Tuchman, must have read the CIA notes also. She gets it. I highly recommend her documentary.
The Kennedy people felt they had to win in Vietnam to make up for the Cuba debacle. They picked the wrong country to go “all in”. But who knows, we won the Cold War.