Vietnam War

U.S. policy and combat involvement

See also: Vietnamization

See also: Air operations against North Vietnam

See also: Air campaigns against Cambodia and Laos

See also: Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968

See also: Vietnamization

This section focuses on those parts of the U.S. political system, which either set an overall U.S. foreign policy, or were principally directed at another audience than in the U.S. It also covers the period when U.S. forces were involved in combat. George Kennan, considered a consummate diplomat and diplomatic theorist, observed that American leaders, starting with the 1899-1900 "Open Door" policy to China, have a

neurotic self-consciousness and introversion, the tendency to make statements and take actions with regard not to their effect on the international scene byt rather to their effect on those echelons of American opinion, congressional opinion first and foremost, to which the respect statesmen are anxious to appeal. The question became not: How effective is what I am doing in terms of the impact it makes on our world environment? but rather: how do I look, in the mirror of American domestic opinon, as I do it?

Even when leaders' goals are sincere, the need to be seen as doing the popular thing can become counterproductive. There were many times, in the seemingly inexorable advance of decades of American involvement in Southeast Asia, where reflection might have led to caution. Instead, the need to be seen as active, as well as the clashes of strong egos, separate the needs of policy from the dictates of politics.

The line is sometimes hard to draw, but the pure U.S. political, as much as possible, is in Vietnam, war, and the United States, and the policy in the main article and its Vietnam-specific subaricles. Sometimes, an issue needs to be in both: for example, a possible peace offer through Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) is at least summarized in the main Vietnam War article, but the personal dynamics between RFK and Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) are in the Vietnam, war, and the United States.

The greatest U.S. involvement was from mid-1964 through 1972, with some activity on both ends. So, much of the detailed U.S. political action with other countries will be in Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968, Vietnamization, and air operations against North Vietnam. It is not practical to draw a hard-and-fast line. Many, but by no means all, of the key political decisions were under Johnson, but Presidents from Truman through Ford all had roles.

Although the combination of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the political authority granted to Lyndon Johnson by being elected to the presidency rather than succeeding to it gave him more influence, and there was certainly an immense infusion of U.S. and allied forces into the theater of operations, never forget the chief participants in the war were Vietnamese.

Truman and Eisenhower legacy

When Harry S. Truman succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt as President of the U.S.A. in April 1945, he said he felt "as if the moon and stars had landed on him", and one can be sympathetic. He had not been in the inner circles of the Roosevelt administration, but immediately was faced with immense decisions. As soon as the war ended, he was under great pressure to return the country to normal civilian conditions, and he demobilised rapidly to release funds for domestic spending. There were no such pressures to demobilize, however, on Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. Truman has been blamed for "losing" Eastern Europe and China, but it is less clear what could have been done to stop it. The decision to cut military commitment came home to roost in the Korean War, when Truman had few forces to dispatch.

When Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded Truman as President in 1952, after a campaign that had attacked Truman's "weaknesses" against communism and in Korea, he formulated a strong policy of containing Communism. John Foster Dulles was its most visible advocate, supported by his brother Allen Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Eisenhower's background generally gave him confidence in dealing with military hard-liners such as Admiral Arthur Radford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who wanted to intervene at Dien Bien Phu. Eisenhower would listen to the Chiefs, and be decisive.

John F. Kennedy (JFK) administration

JFK and his key staff, came from a different elite than that which had spawned John Foster Dulles, but, while the form was different, a militant anti-Communism was underneath many of the Kennedy Administration policies. Its rougher operatives had a different style than Joe McCarthy, but it is sometimes forgotten that Robert Kennedy (RFK) had been on McCarthy's staff.

Where Republicans during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations blamed Democrats who had "lost China", the Kennedy Administration was not out to lose anything.

Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy (RFK) despised one another, which began in the JFK administration and grew worse over time. In February 1967, Kennedy had positioned himself as the 1968 Democratic Party peace candidate, portraying Johnson as a warmonger.

Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) administration

Johnson's motives were different from Kennedy's, just as Nixon's motivations would be different from Johnson's. Of the three, Johnson was most concerned with U.S. domestic policy, with protecting his 'domestic legacy'. Karnow quotes his comment to his biographer, Doris Kearns, as

"I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved — the Great Society — in order to get invoved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then i would lose everything at home. All my programs. All my hopes to feed the hungry and shelter the homeess. All my dreams to provide education and medical care to the browns and the blacks and the lame and the poor. But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, I would be seen as a coward and my nation seen as an apeaser, and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe."

He probably did want to see improvements in the life of the Vietnamese, but the opinions of his electorate were most important. His chief goal was implementing the set of domestic programs that he called the "Great Society". He judged actions in Vietnam not only on their own merits, but how they would be perceived in the U.S. political system. To Johnson, Vietnam was a "political war" only in the sense of U.S. domestic politics, not a political settlement for the Vietnamese. He also saw it political in the sense of both his personal, and the U.S., position vis-a-vis the reso of the world.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who had been appointed by Kennedy, became Johnson's principal adviser, and continued to push an economic and signaling grand strategy. Johnson and McNamara, although it would be hard to find two men of more different personality, formed a quick bond. McNamara appeared more impressed by economics and Schelling's compellence theory than by Johnson's liberalism or Senate-style deal-making, but they agreed in broad policy.

They directed a plan for South Vietnam that they believed would end the war quickly. Note that the initiative was coming from Washington; the unstable South Vietnamese government was not part of defining their national destiny. The plan selected was from GEN William Westmoreland, the field commander in Vietnam. By 1968, and perhaps in 1967, Johnson's chief adviser on the war, McNamara, had increasingly less faith in the Johnson-Westmoreland model. McNamara quotes GEN William DuPuy, Westmoreland's chief planner, as recognizing that as long as the enemy could fight from the sanctuaries of Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam, it was impossible to bring adequate destruction on the enemy, and the model was inherently flawed.

Opposition against him peaked in 1968; see Tet Offensive. On March 31, 1968, Johnson said on national television,

"I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president"

In March, Johnson had also announced a bombing halt, in the interests of starting talks. The first discussions were limited to starting broader talks, as a quid-pro-quo for a bombing halt.:

Richard M. Nixon (RMN) administration

During the Presidential campaign, a random wire service story headlined that Nixon had a "secret plan for ending the war, but, in reality, Nixon was only considering alternatives at this point. He remembered how Eisenhower had deliberately leaked, to the Communist side in the Korean War, that he might be considering using nuclear weapons to break the deadlock. Nixon adapted this into what he termed the "Madman Strategy".

He told H.R. Haldeman, one of his closest aides,

"I call it the madman theory, Bob.I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I've reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry, and he has his hand on the nuclear button, and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace."

After the election of Richard M. Nixon, a review of U.S. policy in Vietnam was the first item on the national security agenda. Henry Kissinger, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, asked all relevant agencies to respond with their assessment, which they did on March 14, 1969.

While Nixon hesitated to authorize a military request to bomb Cambodian sanctuaries, which civilian analysts considered less important than Laos, he authorized, in March, bombing of Cambodia as a signal to the North Vietnamese. While direct attack against North Vietnam, as was later done in Operation LINEBACKER I, might be more effective, he authorized the Operation MENU bombing of Cambodia, starting on March 17. These bombings were kept secret from the U.S. leadership and electorate; the North Vietnamese clearly knew hey were being bombed. It first leaked to the press in May, and Nixon ordered warrantless surveillance of key staff.

Nixon also directed Cyrus Vance to to to Moscow in March, to encourage the Soviets to put pressure on the North Vietnamese to open negotiations with the U.S. The Soviets, however, either did not want to get in the middle, or had insufficient leverage on the North Vietnamese.

U.S. policy changed to one of turning ground combat over to South Vietnam, a process called Vietnamization, a term coined in Janaury 1969. Nixon, in contrast, saw resolution not just in Indochina, in a wider scope. He sought Soviet support, saying that if the Soviet Union helped bring the war to an honorable conclusion, the U.S. would "do something dramatic" to improve U.S.-Soviet relations. In worldwide terms, Vietnamization replaced the earlier containment policy with detente.

In October 1969, Nixon began to explore nuclear options, with the intent of pressuring North Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

Gerald R. Ford administration

While Ford, Nixon's final vice-president, succeeded Nixon, most major policies had been set by the time he took office. He was under a firm Congressional and public mandate to withdraw.