(Buttinger 1981: 281)
When the Vietnamese Nationalist (and communist led) Vietminh army defeated the French, they were compelled to accede to the Accords established in Geneva later that year in which, importantly, it was decided that the divide along the 17th parallel would be one of a geographical rather than political entity. The great political powers also decided that indo-china be divided into the independent states of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Vietnam was divided into north and south along the 17th parallel, and the conference decreed that all foreign troops were to leave the country. Free elections were to be held in 1956 with the view to reuniting Vietnam, however in the North of the country where Ho – Chi Minh had created the communist government, in the south, Diem created the Republic of Vietnam under his ‘puppet’ leadership.
This was to be a nationalist, catholic and anti-communist government poorly ruled by Diem and aided by various family members.
Diem was supported by the US as, at the time they saw no better alternative, but his government was far from satisfactory.
Diem failed to suppress rebellions, would not share power, and refused to enact much needed economic reforms. Support was dying for Diem in the south and the Americans, as sole aid contributors were not over joyous.
The US task force, stationed in Vietnam at the time, wrote
‘United States efforts have been directed toward persuading Diem to adopt political, social and economic changes designed to correct this serious defect… our success has been only partial’
(Deputy Secretary of Defence Gilpatric - Presidential Task Force 1961)
On May 11th, eleven days after the submission of this report, Kennedy approved National Security Action Memorandum 52, setting the contours of upcoming US policy towards South Vietnam,
‘to prevent communist domination…. and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of military, political, economic, psychological and covert character designed to achieve this objective’
(NSAM-52 – May 1961)
In Washington, incoming president Kennedy (one of Diems earliest and strongest supporters) was warned by Eisenhower of the dangers inherent in south east Asia becoming a communist area; it was now assumed that Vietnam had the potential to become another ‘domino’ which could lead to the fall of all the other countries in the area possibly India, thus threatening Europe.
It is interesting to note that although Kennedy’s expansionist fears lie almost entirely within the realms of South East Asia, China was and had already proved itself as an equivocal and potent threat, giving rise to the possibility of Chinese inclusion within the ‘domino’ theory.
It would appear that the United States became involved in the war for a number of considerations, and these evolved and shifted over time.
Primarily, every American President regarded the enemy in Vietnam – the Vietminh, its successor, the National Liberation Front (NLF), and the government of North Vietnam (led by Ho Chi Minh) as agents of global communism. US policy makers, and most Americans regarded communism as the absolute antithesis of all they held dear. Communist’s scorned democracy, violated human rights, pursued military aggression and created closed state economies that barely traded with capitalist countries.
Some politicians compared the spread of communism with ‘a contagious disease’ – that could spread between countries.
In the meantime, Ho Chi Minh’s authoritarian state was reforming the land owning structure in the north in an attempt to build up support for the communist government in the forthcoming free elections. Landlords were pillored, executed and imprisoned, and their land distributed to the peasantry. This worried the US, as did the training of guerrilla troops known as the ‘Viet Cong’ form 1960 onwards. By now, the North Vietnamese, ruled by Ho Chi Minh, aborted upcoming elections, subsequently adopting a policy of insurrection, promoting militia warfare.
The US saw these activities as a direct threat to the free world, yet the regime was undecided and divided on how best to cope with the rise of communism in the area. President Kennedy refused to send US combat forces to South East Asia, preferring instead, military advisors to train the South Vietnamese in counterinsurgency. During 1962 the situation worsened and by the end of that year, the numbers of US personnel rose to 11,500.
Kennedy confessed, regarding the detiorating situation in Vietnam,
‘I can’t give up a piece of territory like that to the communists and get the American people to re-elect me’ (President John F. Kennedy 1962)
Both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson (superseding Kennedy after his assassination) worried that the loss of South Vietnam to communism would ignite a political firestorm in the US that would paralyse the country – and destroy their respective presidencies.
With the likelihood of out and out war ever increasing, Lyndon B Johnson announced his decision not to be the president that allowed South East Asia go ‘communist’; the US would stand by its ‘friends’ and as South Vietnam was an ally under the South-east Asia treaty (SEATO), he proceeded to escalate US military presence in Vietnam.
Unarguably the ‘spark’ which gave significant consideration to armed and large scale US intervention arose in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964.
US naval vessels conducting surveillance in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin were fired upon by North Vietnamese patrol boats whilst attempting to ascertain information about Soviet built Anti-aircraft bases and radar stations along the Gulf.
The US lied as to their intentions there, and was in fact not within international waters and 15-20 miles of the coast as alleged, but in fact approximately three miles within North Vietnamese domestic waters.
The USS Maddox, an American Destroyer witnessed and recorded attacks initiated by South Vietnamese attack boats on the afore mentioned installations, and was consequently involved in a skirmish, which resulted in a sunken US torpedo boat.
Two days later further ‘attacks’ were reported (which were later found to be false message interceptions caused by a tropical storm) and the US government reacted with outrage at this ‘unprovoked’ aggression. President Johnson, anxious to revitalize the presidential election campaign, immediately ordered the first bombing of North Vietnamese bases in retaliation.
Johnson approached congress with filtered intelligence to seek a resolution which would give him the power to take all steps necessary to defend US forces and to prevent further aggression.
Absolute power was given to Johnson in matters concerning the deteriorating situation in Vietnam, and on August 7th after minimal debate from the senate and the House of Representatives the resolution was passed.
When assessing the considerations which led the US to massive intervention in Vietnam, one cannot escape the underlying reasons behind Washington’s fateful decision to invade, which lay almost entirely within cold war fears.
In the broadest sense, US intervention derived from a determination to contain both China and to prove simultaneously, for the sake of allies and adversaries, the integrity and sanctity of US commitments.
It is difficult to disagree with historian George C. Herring’s overall assessment that;
‘US involvement in Vietnam was a logical, if not inevitable, outgrowth of a world view and a policy – the policy of containment – that Americans in and out of government accepted without serious question for more than two decades’
(Herring 1985)
That policy it is worth bearing, sought not only to contain China and the USSR – but any Third World revolutionary movements, especially those of an anti-western stance, that would likely align with one or both of the leading communist states.
By the early 1960’s China had in many respects replaced the Soviet Union as America’s most feared adversary. Of the two communist giants, it appeared the far more militant, hostile and belligerent. The post –Cuban missile crisis period, produced a thaw in US- Soviet relations, but the same couldn’t be said between the US and the Chinese.
Kennedy’s security advisors where convinced that the increasingly virulent Sino – Soviet split had just emboldened Beijing’s leaders, making them more rather than less aggressive and unpredictable. American leaders made explicit on numerous occasions, the connection between China’s presumed expansionist tendencies and the need for US intervention in Vietnam. (Fishel 1993)
‘Over this war – and all Asia – is another reality,’ declared Johnson in an important political speech: ‘the deepening shadow of communist China. The contest in Vietnam is part of a wider pattern of [Chinese] aggressive purposes’
(President Lyndon B Johnson April 1965)
Defence secretary McNamara, in a session with the press, remarked that the alternative to fighting in Vietnam was a Chinese- Dominated Southeast Asia, which would mean a ‘Red Asia’. If the US withdrew from Vietnam, he warned, there would be a complete shift in the world balance of power.
With hindsight an ill fitting and embarrassing statement – considering it was Defence Secretary McNamara himself which stated five years later ‘There was no chance of us really winning in Vietnam’
However, the Determination of the United States to demonstrate its credibility as a power that met aggression with ‘steely resolve’ and honoured its commitments to allies merged seamlessly with the anti-china strand in US policy.
Security advisor George McBundy emphasized his conviction regarding US credibility and the need for its preservation at almost any cost. It is this which seemed to be the indispensable glue holding together America’s entire cold war alliance system as well as the principal deterrent to communist aggression.
So, it can be seen that the project undertaken by the US to build a separate, viable nation for one half of Vietnam – proved impossible.
Yet, such nation building was the task a series of US officials set for themselves for nearly two decades. For the US, the issues involved in Participation and intervention into Vietnamese affairs were complicated, conflicted and ambiguous. The war it seems was never strictly about Vietnam for the Americans who directed, fought, or opposed it. The US became involved in Vietnamese politics and eventually fought in Vietnam because of the Cold War. For more than forty years after 1947, US advanced containment of the Soviet Union as the central principle of US foreign relations. Had US leaders not thought that all international events were connected to the cold war, it is highly unlikely that there would have been a war in Vietnam initially. (Hodgkin 1975)
In contrasting the different attitudes and leadership styles of the various presidents – it would seem that Eisenhower and Kennedy’s main focus centred upon ‘avoiding defeat’ which opposed to Lyndon B. Johnson’s views which were centralized upon the notion of ‘winning’. This more aggressive stance was potentially dangerous, especially in the challenge to win Vietnamese nationals hearts and minds. It appears strange that Johnson sought a ‘win’ in Vietnam considering that the US intentions and purposes there were not to invade the North, but rather protect the South from invasion.
But the cold war alone does not explain the US intervention in Vietnam. As briefly described earlier in the essay, domestic politics played a significant and influential part in the intervention decision making process. (Schulzinger 1999)
All wars have a domestic element, but the Vietnam War more than most. Domestic politics, the timetable of presidential electoral cycles, and what American citizens thought of their public institutions eventually came to dominate the way the Americans entered and fought the war.
We have established therefore that a large part of the US sway into full scale intervention lay within the realms of Cold War and expansionist fears- but does the attempted re-unification of a country (albeit it with brutal and oppressive mechanisms) necessarily constitute actively conscious and aggressive communist expansionism in action? Taking into consideration the strong Nationalist views of many Vietnamese citizens, it is in my view the struggle of two sides with colonialism, oppression and reunification (a united Vietnam) rather than a blatant communist drive – directed by heads of leading communist nations.
