Explain How America Came to fight a War in Vietnam.

Unfortunately, by mid-55 Diem was facing almost certain downfall and so established uncontested control over South Vietnam and with U.S backing refused to participate in what would have been politically inexpedient elections that should have taken place under the terms of the Geneva accords. Diem’s stance on participation in elections killed any possibility of re-unification with the South and the 17th parallel became impenetrable. With the increased permanency of the state of South Vietnam the experiment in nation building took on new significance for the US and further committed them to consolidation of a western ally in South-east Asia.

The experiment in nation building included large-scale support for Diem for the rest of the decade. The battlegrounds of the Cold War had shifted away from Europe into developing nations in Asia and nation building increasingly popular and increasingly aggressive. The International Rescue Committee staged anti-communist plays in villages and sponsored art exhibitions based around the themes of the western democratic ideal.  The US organisation American Friends of Vietnam mobilised popular support for intervention on home soil by distributing propaganda about the harsh ‘realities’ of life in Vietnam. US Navy doctor Tom Dooley peppered his best selling book ‘Deliver Us from Evil’ with unsubstantiated accounts of horrific atrocities perpetrated by the Vietminh and extolling the virtues of American presence.

 

This propaganda campaign was of course supplemented in South Vietnam by massive aid programmes in but with limited success, leaving the people of South Vietnam grateful but suspicious, ‘After 80 years of ruthless exploitation by the French many Vietnamese [wondered] why America [was] suddenly spending so much money in Vietnam.’ This was compounded by the fact that the smaller villages where up to 90% of the population resided were virtually untouched by any economic or medical assistance. Democracy and political reform were viewed as long-term goals and not seriously considered in Saigon until after the revolution. This revolution had a creeping inevitability about it given Diem’s raging authoritarianism and assault on political opposition. The revolution that would overthrow Diem and ultimately lead to massive military engagement was simmering at the same time as the propaganda exercise. The US would later plead that the second Indochina war was the result of ‘aggression form the North and the determination of North Vietnam to impose communism on its Southern neighbour.’ Though the truth is more likely to be that the insurgency was a ‘genuine revolt based in the South but organised and directed from the North’.

Though aggression from the North was of course cited at the times as the key reason for US involvement in Vietnam. However, the North were at most cautious regarding the issue of re-unification. Certainly key US enemies, China and the Soviet Union would not offer support for acts of aggression towards the South. This highlights the fact that insurgencies in South East Asia were largely of indigenous origin and had never really been, as the US feared, controlled by Moscow. Hanoi, like Saigon continued to face massive problems of post-war re-construction, the economic climate did not lend itself to acts of aggression. Hanoi was, divided over whether the liberation of the South would be feasible, the preferred option being to consolidate the North as a stable state. The consensus was that the North should take priority but violence was sanctioned for Southern insurgents as a means of self-defence.

Regardless of the reticence of the North, by 1959 Diem’s oppressiveness and resistance to political reform had created a fertile breeding ground for insurgents. Diem, as ever, was incapable of distinguishing between Communist and non-Communist dissenters. The peasants were a ‘mound of straw to be ignited.’ So by the time the National Liberation Front, a counter-insurgency force has been organised the so-called Vietcong has established their presence throughout the villages of South Vietnam. Disregarding US pleas to relax controls on civil liberties Diem continued with his hard-line response to the insurgency. This only increased popular support for the insurgents. It may be that had the American’s used their economic leverage to compel Diem to institute political reforms in the South the insurgency may never have occurred and the US would not have been drawn in to a long and costly war. However, with cold war tensions heightening in Europe and the emergence of a socialist government in Cuba, Vietnam was very much a fringe concern until the inauguration of newly elected JFK.

A blend of ‘ignorance and confidence bred an illusion of success that trapped Eisenhower and subsequent US presidents in frustrating and futile efforts of define and defend US interests in Vietnam’ It was the limited partnership between Kennedy and Diem that would finally define the role of the US in Vietnam. This is perhaps unsurprising with the world in 1961 appearing to enter the most perilous and precarious stage in its history. Past concerns seemed to be amplified with an increasing number of states seeking independence form their colonial masters and Soviet-American power relations at their most fragile.   Kennedy’s solution to the global instability was to consolidate American survival by staunchly defending nations deemed to be ‘free’. This policy may have been based on a misconception that the threat from global Communism came from a monolithic communist bloc.

Kennedy proposed a more aggressive stratergy than before believing America must now ‘move forward to meet communism, rather than waiting for it to come to us and then reacting to it’ It was said that in the patriotic fervour of the Kennedy years it was asked ‘What can we do for our country’ and the country answered ‘Kill V.C’.   It was recognised that new forms of warfare would be required in order to obtain influence in emerging nations which could easily be seduced by Communist ideals. It was evident that such nations would be the ‘principal battleground in which the forces of freedom and communism [would] compete’ for this reason South Vietnam was no longer merely strategically desirable but an acid test for America’s ability to perform in a guerrilla war and so to combat Communist forces in emerging nations. This was to increase in importance during the summer of ’61 as the cold war intensified with the construction of the Berlin wall and more significantly affirmation by Khrushchev of Soviet commitment to wars of liberation.  Unlike his predecessor Kennedy wanted to be able to respond to communist aggression at any level and set out to built a counterinsurgency force that could ‘stamp out insurrection or revolution in the jungles of Asia or the mountains of South America’.

At this point the economist and White house adviser Walt W. Rostow made a compelling comparison of the summer of 1961 to 1942 when allies had suffered defeats across the globe. He insisted that in order to tip the balance of power in favour of the US they must be seen to ‘win’ in Vietnam, not only securing surrounding states of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia but signalling that the primarily Communist technique of guerrilla warfare would be dealt with.  Although there were warnings that any association with Diem’s repressive and dictatorial regime would be counter-productive the risk seemed preferable to more charges of Kennedy’s ‘weakness’. After perceived weakness in Cuba, Laos and Berlin, fears of complete erosion of America’s status as a world power or the threat of nuclear war overrode concerns regarding the despotism of Diem. At this point the Us stopped short of sending troops recognising that this would only spiral out of control, it was said ‘the troops will march in, the band will play; the crowds will cheer and in four days everyone will have forgotten….it’s like taking a drink. The effects wear off and you have to take another.’ This was undoubtedly true and if it was recognised it begs the question why the US seemed to believe it was possible to have partial or low-cost involvement in Vietnam.

Kennedy was sent o take the moderate road by supporting the counterinsurgency by sending ‘advisers’ in what was known as ‘Project Beef up’. The number of American advisers numbered more than 9000 by the end of 1962. However, these so-called ‘advisers’ soon became de facto combat troops. Though great lengths were taken to mask their involvement in combat, low ranking Vietnamese enlisted men were sent out with US pilots in order that US combat casualties might be defined as training injuries.

At the same time tensions with Diem were growing, he could not be persuaded to institute any democratic reforms and his overtly anti-Buddhist policies provoked an attempted coup. In the midst of this some South Vietnamese began to feel as if US attempts to bypass central government was arrogant and presumptuous, having just emerged from Western rule many were understandably suspicious about Western powers who purported to know what was best for Vietnam. These suspicions were justified to some extend as when the Americans learnt that a coup was planned they did nothing to stop it, and in-fact encouraged it by omission. However, as relations with Diem became increasingly untenable ‘selective pressures’ were implemented, including cuts in aid to the regime. Although it was forcefully denied that such measures were designed to stimulate a coup it was later conceded that ‘some of the things we did encouraged the coup, some we intended as pressure on Diem, although we knew it would encourage a coup.’ This was seen as permissible given previous US promises not to intervene with any change of government.

Despite Kennedy’s tacit support for the change of government he had not anticipated the bloody nature of the coup, or the gruesome murder of Diem. This might very well have been a turning point for US involvement in Vietnam; Kennedy’s ‘cautious’ approach had actually massively increased US involvement through the number of  ‘advisers’ participating in the conflict. However, it is impossible to say for certain what action Kennedy would have taken given that he was assassinated just three weeks later. His presumption that he knew what was best for Vietnam and silent commitment in terms of aid and personnel meant that he bequeathed to his successor a problem eminently more dangerous and potentially explosive than the one he had inherited.

Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency would inevitably be a difficult one as the successor to such a revered president. Johnson had to be seen to follow Kennedy’s plan to ‘move forward to meet communism’ whilst seeing that domestic plans were also implemented. Between November ’63 and July ’65 LBJ had up-graded a limited commitment to assist the South Vietnamese government into ‘an open-ended commitment to preserve an independent non-communist South Vietnam.’ Although Johnson resisted large-scale involvement immediately fearing it would affect his chances for re-election in ’64, by early 1965 the survival of South Vietnam looked increasingly uncertain. During the ensuing months he committed the US to a sustained air offensive against North Vietnam and by July ’65 the US was engaged in a major war on the Asian mainland.

Vietnam was not only a foreign policy concern, Johnson was sworn to uphold the domestic policies that would lead to ‘the Great Society’. If the US were seen to fail in Vietnam then southern conservatives, suspicious of Johnson’s commitment to racial equality would use it as a political weapon. Once again Vietnam was a calculated risk, Johnson was quoted as saying that ‘if I don’t go in now and they show later that I should have they’ll push Vietnam up my ass every time.’ This was coupled with a desire for wider credibility; the struggle against the forces of Communism was still seen as a fight against one monolithic threat, which was actually becoming increasingly untrue. Johnson believed that given Vietnam was just a contingent part of a wider struggle then Vietnam falling to Communism would mean that its ‘guarantees with regard to Berlin would lose their credibility’ and discourage the trend towards détente.

Victory in the Tonkin Gulf in the summer of ’64 was at best a pyrrhic victory, the US were now committed to responding the North Vietnamese provocations. Another catalyst came later in the year with the ousting of Khrushchev on October 15th leading many to believe that success in Vietnam would crush any further hopes of soviet expansionism. In addition just day later china exploded a nuclear weapon increasing their world standing and influence in South-East Asia. Vietnam was still something of a loose cannon and victory was by no means seen as assured but by the end of January ’65 the instability in Saigon, previously an argument against further US action had become the most compelling reason to take positive action. The increasing instability meant that ‘to take no positive action now [was to] accept defeat in the fairly near future.’ 

Positive action, at this point in the form of air strikes only offered an extremely limited hope of success, but once again it offered the only possible hope of salvaging something from the situation. Officials were even divided as to the purpose of the offensive, whether it was a means of boosting morale in the South, a means of limiting the infiltration from Northern insurgents or a plea for Hanoi to cut off support for Southern insurgents. In February the air strikes intensified, ostensibly as a response the Pleiku raids but it is generally agreed that this was pretext rather than a cause as what was known as ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ was implemented. As soon as the plan was implemented there were calls for it to be expanded; Johnson boasted that US forced ‘[couldn’t even] bomb and outhouse without my permission.’ However once the use of napalm was sanctioned and the military were authorised to employ any measures necessary the air war escalated from a intermittent effort to a carefully orchestrated, determined offensive. Furthermore the expansion of the air strikes provided the pretext for the introduction of the first ground troops being introduced to Vietnam; after this occurred involvement and perceived military responsibility could only escalate and engage the US military in a style of warfare which they were ill-equipped to deal with.

Such policies were not subject to congressional debate, being as they were considered matters of national security that could elicit hostile responses from the Soviets or the Chinese. Once again, Johnson cited domestic policies as a reason for taking matters into his own hand lest ‘that bitch of a war destroy the woman I really loved- the Great Society’ the bombing was justified as a reaction to Northern aggression when in-fact it was a desperate attempt to ease the political upheaval in the South. There was never a public statement to confirm that the military action had shifted from reprisals to all-out war, it wasn’t until a faux pas in a press statement in June that the public were made aware that American servicemen could undertake offensive operations.

 In late July Johnson formally approved a ground war in Vietnam, setting a precedent, which was to involve the US in 8 years of brutal warfare for which US servicemen were ill equipped. The predictions that the US would ‘bleed like France’ proved accurate and perhaps inevitable. As soon as the US became involved in Vietnam, even as far back as the aid provided to France during the first Indochina war, their involvement spiralled out of control. Involvement was consistently seen as important in terms of cold war politics in Europe, the Soviet Union, China and emerging states that could have tipped the balance of world power. In later years JFK and LBJ would consider Vietnam an issue of importance with regard to domestic as well as foreign policy. Involvement in Vietnam was always considered politically risky but given its strategic importance but the benefits were always seen to outweigh the risks, if only slightly. A desire to maintain America’s future as a world power and liberal, progressive state would ultimately lead to involvement in a conflict which has since been judged by many to be costly, futile and unnecessary.

Bibliography

1. Kearns, Johnson, Andre Deutsch, 1976.
2. Johnson, Vantage Point, Henry Holt & Co, 1977
3. B. Van Demark, Into the Quagmire, New York, 1991
4. Hammer, Death in November, Dutton, 1987.
5. A.M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, Boston, 1965
6. Cited in H, Fairlie, the Kennedy Promise, New York, 1973, Pg. 72

7. P. Caputo, Rumour of War, McMillan, 1997.

8. S.E. Ambrose, Rise to Globalisism, Penguin, 1993
9. G. Herring, The Truman Administration and the Restoration of French Sovereignty in Indochina, OUP, 1977
10. W.J. Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, Boulder, 1981

11. W. Colby, Honourable Men, New York, 1978
12. B. Fall, The Two Vietnam’s: A Political and Military Analysis, New York, 1967.

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