In the Cold War chat, Daniel Ellsberg claimed that the US’s support to the French in Vietnam was primarily motivated by securing the US’s Cold War policy in Europe “…because we (the USA) wanted French support for the rearmament of West Germany, and that was the motives in supporting their imperial actions in Asia”.
In 1954, when the Vietminh was obviously winning the war, Eisenhower, seeing to it that the French cannot uphold the situation in Vietnam anymore, had considered dropping nuclear bombs on the Vietminh forces.
From 1954 to 1963, the USA supported the South Vietnamese government of President Ngo Dinh Diem and sent in massive financial aids to help the South Vietnamese army in the war against the Vietcong. Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime was corrupted and repressive. Diem ruled the South as a dictator; nepotism was a common feature of his government. Repression of religious sects and unfair land reforms led to increasing opposition and unrests among the civilians. When opinions showed that the Vietminh would win 80% of the vote for the government of the re-united Vietnam, Diem cancelled the elections with the US support.
In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson took decisive actions in Vietnam by increasing the numbers of military advisers and troops sent to Vietnam. The number of US troops reached 385,000 in 1966 and 535,000 in 1968, all of whom were under the command of US General Westmoreland. He employed a range of strategies in order to root out the Vietcong, which in fact resulted devastatingly for the civilians and their farming, such as the “Search and Destroy”, air attacks, helicopters and Operation Ranch Hand. During the war, over 7 million tons of bombs were dropped by the US on North Vietnam, which were three times of that were dropped during WWII.
Facing international and domestic anti-war movements President Nixon agreed to Vietnamisation. However, “Nixon’s image as a “peace maker” was dented by his decision to substitute air power for ground power in a vain attempt to bomb the Vietcong into submission.”
On the other hand, there are accounts of the Vietcong’s atrocities that breached their commitment to the “Mao’s Army Code”. In 1960, some 1,500 South Vietnamese civilians were killed and 700 abducted. In 1965, the communists’ Radio Hanoi and Radio Liberation announced that the Vietcong had destroyed 7,559 South Vietnamese hamlets. By the end of 1965, 15,138 South Vietnamese civilians had been killed, 45,929 kidnaped. These victims were considered future opposition and were forced to “confess” to “errors of thought.”
Ho Chi Minh’s economic policy was not popular. His land reform caused discontent and resulted in a massacre where 15,000 communist cadres are falsely accused and executed.
- Evaluation of sources:
An extract from the Cold War Chat conducted on Sunday, January 10, 1999, with Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the media in 1971 is a report on Daniel Ellsberg’s viewpoint about the motivation of the American involvement in Vietnam. The Cold War Chat was carried out for Ellsberg to reveal his viewpoint on the legitimacy of the American involvement in the Vietnam War and his process of leaking the Pentagon Papers to the media.
The value of this evidence, as it was given by an important figure of the US government, is the provision of a first-hand account of how the US government would react to the leaking of the Pentagon Papers and how they would try to suppress the secret information about the war, even though they had been justifying the US involvement in the war. Its limitations is that it was done solely according to the viewpoint of a person who was put on trial by the US government for the leaking of the governmental documents and who was disillusioned by the war then joined the anti-war movements, therefore the evidence might just reveal facts that are bias towards Daniel Ellsberg’s viewpoint.
Secretary Dean Rusk’s address, “The stake in Vietnam”, before the Economic club of New York, at New York, April 22, 1963, is a speech delivered by the Secretary of State Dean Rusk to justify the USA’s involvement in Vietnam at the time when there was increasing criticisms about the war expenses among the US public. This speech aimed at suppressing the public concern about the heavy expense being spent on the Vietnam War.
This evidence’s value is that it reveals how the US government represented by its Secretary would legitimise their involvement in the conflict as they were facing increasing criticisms about victory being unachievable and the US’s aid being “subject to waste and mismanagement”. The evidence’s limitation is that it was delivered by an US secretary who was in favour of escalating the war as well was representing a government that was seeking public support to escalate the war. Therefore, the evidence might be bias in order to win the public support for escalating the war.
- Analysis:
Much as the US believed that it is vital that the USA must prevent “the expansion and extension of Communist domination by the use of force against the weaker nations on the perimeter of Communist power”, the USA’s motivations to get involved in the Vietnam war had very little to do with “…helping the Republic of Vietnam to protect its own people and to preserve its independence.”
As evidence show, Vietnam was essentially an independent country after the victory over the Japanese occupation in 1945. What the USA was unprepared to see was an independent Vietnam under the Communist government led by Ho Chi Minh.
Much as the USA claimed to be unapproved of the French imperialism, they did not manage to stay out of the France-Vietnam conflict from 1945 to 1954. The fact that the USA funded 80% of the military expense on the French side indicates that the USA, in order to “help the Republic of Vietnam to protect its own people and to preserve its independence”, would support imperialism to abolish communism. Furthermore, as Daniel Ellsberg revealed, the US’s motivation to get involved in the war was not merely to contain communism in South East Asia hence to protect the freedom of its people but had more to do with the US’s interest in Europe.
During the war, there was little evidence of the USA’s effort to protect the freedom of the Republic of Vietnam and its people. In fact, quite the opposite, in order to eliminate Communism in Vietnam, the US did not hesitate to support the corrupted government of Ngo Dinh Diem, which merely represented coercion, repression and terrorism. Evidently, the US was not prepared to protect the people of the Republic of Vietnam from “repression of religious sects and unfair land reforms”. Diem’s cancellation of the election with the US support proved rather a violation of the freedom of the people in South Vietnam.
Lyndon Johnson’s war policies in Vietnam are strong evidence of how unjustified it is to claim that the US involvement in Vietnam was in any way to help the Vietnamese people. The war tactics carried out by the US commanders led to numerous atrocities and resulted in thousands of casualties on both sides. Strategic bombing was ineffective against North Vietnam because it lacked important military and industrial target. Operation Rolling Thunder, in theory, was limited to strategic targets but in practice it brought heavy civilian casualties and widespread devastation to houses, hospitals and schools. Strategic Hamlet aimed at protecting the villagers from Vietcong terrorism but in fact it increased resentment among the villagers as it was less a military tactic than a forcible moving of peasants from their land and family burial sites.
Whereas the Vietcong won the support of the majority of the people, the US’s acts of atrocities such as the My Lai massacre of 1968 and the devastation caused to the civilians’ life by the Operation Ranch Hand proved that the safety of the Vietnamese people and the independence of Vietnam was certainly not the US’ priority when involved in the Vietnam war.
However, it is evident that the US, to a certain extent, was justified in their assessment of communism in Vietnam. The communist force in Vietnam also committed acts of atrocities, such as the Hue massacre in 1968 and the suppression of the rising against Ho Chi Minh’s land-reform in 1956. These acts heavily violated the freedom of the people and were strongly condemned by the capitalist USA. These atrocities were not revealed to public opinions due to the oppressive rule of censorship of Ho Chi Minh’s government.
Nevertheless, the Vietcong still won the support of the majority of the population due to their popular nationalist cause. In addition, the USA’s involvement in the Vietnam War was condemned due to its aggressive policies which merely did not help to protect the Vietnamese people and Vietnam’s independence.
- Conclusion:
The US’s motivation to be involved in the Vietnam War was merely to prevent a communist takeover in yet another area of the world. It was unjustified to state that their motive was to “help the Republic of Vietnam to protect its own people and to preserve its independence.” Although there were, indeed, discontent among the mass with the Vietnamese communist government, its nationalist cause still won the support of the majority. Moreover, the US’s policies in Vietnam did not protect the Vietnamese people from communist aggression as they had claimed. In fact, the US support for the French regaining their former colony, which violated the independence of Vietnam, and then did not hesitate to implement atrocious military measures against North Vietnam proved that the protection of the Vietnamese people and the benefits of Vietnam were merely excuses for the US to escalate a war to abolish a system that would infringe upon their economic and political interests in South East Asia.
- Bibliography:
Lightbody, Bradley, The Cold War, Routledge, 1999.
Hastings, Paul, The Cold War 1945-1969, Earnest Benn Limited, 1969
Phillips, Steve, The Cold War, Heinemann, 2001
Simkin, John, The Vietnam War, Spartacus, 1988
(2:11 am, 20th February 2009)
(8:00 am 6th June 2008)
(2:27 am 1st April 2009)
2 Lightbody, Bradley, The Cold War, Routledge, 1999.
5 Phillips, Steve, The Cold War, Heinemann, 2001
Lightbody, Bradley, The Cold War, Routledge, 1999.
Simkin, John, The Vietnam War, Spartacus, 1988
9 (2:27 am 1st April 2009)
Hastings, Paul, The Cold War 1945-1969, Earnest Benn Limited, 1969
