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Title: Vain Hopes, False Dreams Author: Noam Chomsky Date: September 1992 Language: en Topics: US foreign interventions, 1960s, Vietnam war Source: Retrieved on 19th June 2021 from https://chomsky.info/199209__/ Notes: Published in Z Magazine.
In the July/August issue of Z, several articles dealt with the
deterioration of conditions of life in American society and the loss of
hope, trust, or even expectations for the political system. Reviewing
some of these all-too-obvious elements of the current scene, I wrote
that “The public is not unaware of what is happening, though with the
success of the policies of isolation and breakdown of organizational
structure, the response is erratic and dangerous: faith in ridiculous
billionaire saviors who are little more than ‘blank slates’ on which one
can write one’s favorite dreams, myths of past innocence and noble
leaders, conspiracy cults…, unfocused skepticism and disillusionment — a
mixture that has not had happy consequences in the past.”
At times of general malaise and social breakdown, it is not uncommon for
millenarian movements to arise to replace lost hopes by idle dreams:
dreams of a savior who will lead us from bondage, or of the return of
the great ships with their bounty, as in the cargo cults of South Sea
islanders. Some may yearn for a lost golden age, or succumb to the
blandishments of the new Messiahs who come to the fore at such moments.
Those more cognizant of the institutional causes of discontent may be
attracted to an image of hope destroyed by dark and powerful forces that
stole from us the leader who sought a better future. The temptation to
seek solace, or salvation, is particularly strong when the means to
become engaged in a constructive way in determining one’s fate have
largely dissolved and disappeared.
The billionaire savior has retreated from the scene. But it is surely
striking that his challenge to the one-party, two-faction system of
business rule, with its broad popular appeal, should have coincided so
closely with the revival of fascination with tales of intrigue about
Camelot lost. The audiences differ, but the JFK-Perot enthusiasms are
similar enough to raise the question whether the imagery of the leader
maliciously stolen from us has more of a claim to reality than the
promise of the figure who suddenly appeared, quickly to fade away. The
question is an important one, particularly to the left (broadly
construed), which has devoted much of its valuable energy and resources
to the Kennedy revival at a time when it has been successfully removed
from the political arena, along with the large majority of the public
that is its natural constituency.
The core issue in the current Kennedy revival is the claim that JFK
intended to withdraw from Vietnam, a fact suppressed by the media; and
was assassinated for that reason, it is prominently charged. Some allege
further that Kennedy was intent on destroying the CIA, dismantling the
military-industrial complex, ending the Cold War, and opening an era of
development and freedom for Latin America, among other forms of class
treachery that led to his downfall. This 1991–2 drama proceeded at
several levels, from cinema to scholarship, engaging some of the
best-known Kennedy intellectuals as well as substantial segments of the
popular movements that in large part grew from opposition to the Vietnam
war. Much as they differ on parts of the picture and other issues, there
is a shared belief across this spectrum that history changed course
dramatically when Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, an event
that casts a grim shadow over all that followed.
It is also striking that the withdrawal thesis, which is at the heart of
the Camelot revival of 1991–2, gained its prominence just on the 30^(th)
anniversary of Kennedy’s steps to escalate the Indochina conflict from
international terrorism to outright aggression. The anniversary of
Kennedy’s war against the rural society of South Vietnam passed
virtually without notice, as the country mused over the evil nature of
the Japanese, who had so signally failed to plead for forgiveness on the
50^(th) anniversary of their attack on a military base in a US colony
that had been stolen from its inhabitants, by force and guile, just 50
years earlier.
There are several sources of evidence that bear on the withdrawal
thesis: (1) The historical facts; (2) the record of public statements;
(3) the internal planning record; (4) the memoirs and other reports of
Kennedy insiders. In each category, the material is substantial. The
record of internal deliberations, in particular, has been available far
beyond the norm since the release of two editions of the Pentagon Papers
(PP). The recent publication of thousands of pages of documents in the
official State Department history provides a wealth of additional
material on the years of the presidential transition, 1963–4, which are
of crucial significance for evaluating the thesis that many have found
so compelling. What follows is an excerpt from a much longer review of
the four categories of evidence in a broader context (Year 501, South
End, forthcoming).
While history never permits anything like definitive conclusions, in
this case, the richness of the record, and its consistency, permit some
unusually confident judgments. In my opinion, the record is inconsistent
with the withdrawal thesis throughout, and supports a different
conclusion. In brief, basic policy towards Indochina developed within a
framework of North-South/East-West relations that Kennedy did not
challenge, and remained constant in essentials: disentanglement from an
unpopular and costly venture as soon as possible, but after victory was
assured (by the end, with increasing doubt that US client regimes could
be sustained). Tactics were modified with changing circumstances and
perceptions. Changes of Administration, including the Kennedy
assassination, had no large-scale effect on policy, and not even any
great effect on tactics, when account is taken of the objective
situation and how it was perceived.
When JFK took over in 1961, the US client regimes faced collapse in both
Laos and Vietnam, for the same reason in both countries: The US-imposed
regimes could not compete politically with the well-organized popular
opposition, a fact recognized on all sides. Kennedy accepted a
diplomatic settlement in Laos (at least on paper), but chose to escalate
in Vietnam, where he ordered the deployment of Air Force and Helicopter
Units, along with napalm, defoliation, and crop destruction. US military
personnel were sharply increased and deployed at battalion level, where
they were “beginning to participate more directly in advising Vietnamese
unit commanders in the planning and execution of military operations
plans” (PP). Kennedy’s war far surpassed the French war at its peak in
helicopters and aerial fire power. As for personnel, France had 20,000
nationals fighting in all of Indochina in 1949 (the US force level
reached 16,700 under JFK), increasing to 57,000 at the peak.
As military operations intensified, concerns arose over the effects of
“indiscriminate firepower” and reports “that indiscriminate bombing in
the countryside is forcing innocent or wavering peasants toward the Viet
Cong” (PP). Kennedy’s more dovish advisers, notably Roger Hilsman,
preferred counterintersurgency operations. The favored method was to
drive several million peasants into concentration camps where,
surrounded by barbed wire and troops, they would have a “free choice”
between the US client regime (GVN) and the Viet Cong. The effort failed,
Hilsman later concluded, because it was never possible to eliminate the
political opposition entirely. Other problems arose when the wrong
village was bombed, or when bombing and defoliation alienated the
peasants whose hearts and minds were to be won from the enemy whom they
supported.
Kennedy’s war was no secret. In March 1962, US officials announced that
US pilots were engaged in combat missions (bombing and strafing). In
October, a front-page story in the New York Times reported that “in 30
percent of all the combat missions flown in Vietnamese Air Force planes,
Americans are at the controls,” though “national insignia have been
erased from many aircraft…to avoid the thorny international problems
involved.” The press reported further that US Army fliers and gunners
were taking the military initiative against southern guerrillas, using
helicopters with more firepower than any World War II fighter plane as
an offensive weapon. Armed helicopters were regularly supporting
operations of the Saigon army (ARVN). The brutal character of Kennedy’s
war was also no secret, from the outset.
The specialist literature, notably province studies, generally agrees
that the US-imposed regime had no legitimacy in the countryside, where
80% of the population lived (and little enough in the urban areas), that
only force could compensate for this lack, and that by 1965 the VC had
won the war in much of the country, with little external support.
At first, JFK’s 1961–2 aggression appeared to be a grand success: by
July 1962, “the prospects looked bright” and “to many the end of the
insurgency seemed in sight.” The US leadership in Vietnam and Washington
“was confident and cautiously optimistic,” and “In some quarters, even a
measure of euphoria obtained” (PP).
In his semi-official history of Kennedy’s presidency, Arthur Schlesinger
observes that by the end of 1961, “The President unquestionably felt
that an American retreat in Asia might upset the whole world balance” (A
Thousand Days, 1965). “The result in 1962 was to place the main emphasis
on the military effort” in South Vietnam. The “encouraging effects” of
the escalation enabled Kennedy to report in his January 1963 State of
the Union message that “The spearpoint of aggression has been blunted in
South Vietnam.” In Schlesinger’s own words: “1962 had not been a bad
year: …aggression checked in Vietnam.”
Recall that Kennedy and his historian-associate are describing the year
1962, when Kennedy escalated from extreme terrorism to outright
aggression.
Turning briefly to the second category of evidence, public statements,
we find that Schlesinger’s report of the President’s feelings is
well-confirmed. JFK regularly stressed the enormous stakes involved,
which made any thought of withdrawal unacceptable. To the end, his
public position was that we must “win the war” and not “just go home and
leave the world to those who are our enemies.” We must ensure that “the
assault from the inside, and which is manipulated from the North, is
ended” (Sept., Nov. 1963). Anything less would lead to the loss of
Southeast Asia, with repercussions extending far beyond. As the
“watchman on the walls of world freedom,” he intended to tell his Dallas
audience on Nov. 22, the US had to undertake tasks that were “painful,
risky and costly, as is true in Southeast Asia today. But we dare not
weary of the task.” The internal record, to which we turn next, shows
that he adopted the same stance in his (limited) involvement in
planning.
The optimistic mid-1962 assessment led Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara, the primary war manager for Kennedy and Johnson, to initiate
planning for the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam, leaving to the
client regime the dirty work of cleaning up the remnants. Kennedy and
McNamara recognized that domestic support for the war was thin, and that
problems might arise if it were to persist too long. Similarly, in
November 1967, General Westmoreland announced that with victory
imminent, US troops could begin to withdraw in 1969 (as happened, though
under circumstances that he did not anticipate); that recommendation
does not show that he was a secret dove. Advocacy of withdrawal after
assurance of victory was not a controversial stand.
In contrast, withdrawal without victory would have been highly
controversial. That position received scant support until well after the
Tet offensive of January 1968, when corporate and political elites
determined that the operation should be liquidated, in large part
because of the social costs of protest.
The question to be considered, then, is whether JFK, despite his 1961–2
escalation and his militant public stand, planned to withdraw without
victory, a plan aborted by the assassination, which cleared the way for
Lyndon Johnson and his fellow-warmongers to bring on a major war. If so,
one may inquire further into whether this was a factor in the
assassination.
The withdrawal decisions were reported at once in the press with fair
accuracy, and the basic facts about the internal deliberations lying
behind them became known 20 years ago when the Pentagon Papers appeared.
In July 1962, the analyst writes, “At the behest of the President, the
Secretary of Defense undertook to reexamine the situation [in Vietnam]
and address himself to its future — with a view to assuring that it be
brought to a successful conclusion within a reasonable time.” McNamara
declared himself impressed with the “tremendous progress” that had been
made, and called for “phasing out major U.S. advisory and logistic
support activities.” General Paul Harkins (commander of the US military
mission) estimated that the VC should be “eliminated as a significant
force” about a year after the Vietnamese forces then being trained and
equipped “became fully operational.” McNamara, however, insisted upon “a
conservative view”: planning should be based on the assumption that “it
would take three years instead of one, that is, by the latter part of
1965.” He also “observed that it might be difficult to retain public
support for U.S. operations in Vietnam indefinitely,” a constant
concern. Therefore, it was necessary “to phase out U.S. military
involvement.” The Joint Chiefs ordered preparation of a plan to
implement these decisions. The operative assumption was that “The
insurgency will be under control” by the end of 1965.
On January 25, 1963, General Harkins’ plan was presented to the Joint
Chiefs, stating that “the phase-out of the US special military
assistance is envisioned as generally occurring during the period July
1965-June 1966,” earlier where feasible. A few days later, the Chiefs
were reassured that this was the right course by a report by a JCS
investigative team headed by Army Chief of Staff Earle Wheeler that
included leading military hawks. Its report was generally upbeat and
optimistic. The anticipated success of current plans to intensify
military operations would allow a “concurrent phase-out of United States
support personnel, leaving a Military Assistance Advisory Group of about
1,600 personnel” by 1965. All of this was considered feasible and
appropriate by the top military command.
Wheeler then reported directly to the President, informing him “that
things were going well in Vietnam militarily, but that ‘Ho Chi Minh was
fighting the war for peanuts and if we ever expected to win that affair
out there, we had to make him bleed a little bit’.” The President “was
quite interested in this,” General Wheeler recalled in oral history
(July 1964). His dovish advisers were also impressed. In April 1963,
Hilsman proposed to “continue the covert, or at least deniable,
operations along the general lines we have been following for some
months” against North Vietnam with the objective of “keeping the threat
of eventual destruction alive in Hanoi’s mind.” But “significant action
against North Vietnam” is unwise on tactical grounds: it should be
delayed until “we have demonstrated success in our counter-insurgency
program.” Such “premature action” might also “so alarm our friends and
allies and a significant segment of domestic opinion that the pressures
for neutralization will become formidable”; as always, the dread threat
of diplomacy must be deflected. With judicious planning, Hilsman said,
“I believe we can win in Viet-Nam.”
Hilsman was not quite as optimistic as the military command. A few days
before the President heard Wheeler’s upbeat report, he received a
memorandum from Hilsman and Forrestal (Jan. 25) that was more qualified.
They condemned the press for undue pessimism and underplaying US
success, and agreed that “The war in South Vietnam is clearly going
better than it was a year ago,” praising ARVN’s “increased
aggressiveness” resulting from the US military escalation, and reporting
that GVN control now extended to over half the rural population (the VC
controlling 8%), a considerable gain through late 1962. But “the
negative side of the ledger is still awesome.” The VC had increased
their regular forces, recruiting locally and supplied locally, and are
“extremely effective.” “Thus the conclusion seems inescapable that the
Viet Cong could continue the war effort at the present level, or perhaps
increase it, even if the infiltration routes were completely closed.”
“Our overall judgment, in sum, is that we are probably winning, but
certainly more slowly than we had hoped.” They made a variety of
technical recommendations to implement the counterinsurgency program
more efficiently, with more direct US involvement; and to improve the
efficiency of the US mission to accelerate the “Progress toward winning
the war.”
We thus learn that in early 1963, in an atmosphere of considerable to
great optimism, the military initiatives for withdrawal went
hand-in-hand with plans for escalation of the war within South Vietnam
and possibly intensified actions against North Vietnam. We learn further
that such “intelligence and sabotage forays” into North Vietnam were
already underway — since mid-1962 according to McGeorge Bundy. On
December 11, 1963, as the new Administration took over, Michael
Forrestal (another leading Kennedy dove) confirmed that “For some time
the Central Intelligence Agency has been engaged in joint clandestine
operations with ARVN against North Vietnam.” Journalist William Pfaff
reports that in the summer of 1962, at a Special Forces encampment north
of Saigon he observed a CIA “patrol loading up in an unmarked C-46 with
a Chinese pilot in civilian clothes,” taking off for a mission in North
Vietnam (“possibly into China itself”), with some “Asians, some
Americans or Europeans.”
The connection between withdrawal and escalation is readily
understandable: successful military actions would enable the GVN to take
over the task from the Americans, who could then withdraw with victory
secured, satisfying the common intent of the extreme hawks, war manager
McNamara, and JFK.
In the following months, the withdrawal plans were carried forward under
the same optimistic assumptions, with the agreement of the military,
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and General Maxwell Taylor, JFK’s most
trusted military adviser. The “fundamental objective” remained
unchanged, Michael Forrestal advised the President on August 27: the US
must “give wholehearted support to the prosecution of the war against
the Viet Cong terrorists,” and “continue assistance to any government in
South Vietnam which shows itself capable of sustaining this effort.”
The reference to “any government” relates to increasing Administration
concerns over the Diem regime. One factor was that its repression was
evoking internal resistance, which was interfering with the war effort.
Another was that Diem and his brother Nhu were pressing their demands
for US withdrawal with increasing urgency, sometimes in public,
including a front-page interview in the Washington Post in May in which
Nhu called for withdrawal of half the American military. Administration
planners feared that GVN pressures for withdrawal of US forces would
become difficult to resist, a danger enhanced by exploratory GVN efforts
to reach a diplomatic settlement with the North. The skimpy political
base for Kennedy’s war would then erode, and the US would be compelled
to withdraw without victory. That option being unacceptable, the Saigon
regime had to get on board, or be dismissed.
By the end of August, JFK and his most dovish advisers (Averell
Harriman, Roger Hilsman, George Ball) agreed that the client government
should be overthrown. On August 28, the President “asked the Defense
Department to come up with ways of building up the anti-Diem forces in
Saigon,” and called on his advisers to devise actions in Washington or
“in the field which would maximize the chances of the rebel generals.”
Harriman said that without a coup, “we cannot win the war” and “must
withdraw.” Hilsman “agreed that we cannot win the war unless Diem is
removed,” as did Ball, while Robert Kennedy also called for efforts to
strengthen the rebel generals. Secretary Rusk warned JFK that “Nhu might
call on the North Vietnamese to help him throw out the Americans.”
Hilsman urged that if Diem and Nhu make any “Political move toward the
DRV (such as opening of neutralization negotiations),” or even hint at
such moves, we should “Encourage the generals to move promptly with a
coup,” and be prepared to “hit the DRV with all that is necessary” if
they try to counter our actions, introducing US combat forces to ensure
victory for the coup group if necessary. “The important thing is to win
the war,” Hilsman advised; and that meant getting rid of the Saigon
regime, which was dragging its feet and looking for ways out. The
President concurred that “our primary objective remains winning war,”
Rusk cabled to the Saigon Embassy.
The basic principle, unquestioned, is that we must “focus on winning the
war” (Hilsman). On September 14, Harriman wrote to Lodge that: “from the
President on down everybody is determined to support you and the country
team in winning the war against the Viet Cong…there are no quitters
here.”
In particular, JFK is no quitter. There is not a phrase in the internal
record to suggest that this judgment by a high-level Kennedy adviser, at
the dovish extreme, should be qualified in any way.
On September 17, President Kennedy instructed Ambassador Lodge to
pressure Diem to “get everyone back to work and get them to focus on
winning the war,” repeating his regular emphasis on victory. It was
particularly important to show military progress because “of need to
make effective case with Congress for continued prosecution of the
effort,” the President added, expressing his constant concern that
domestic support for his commitment to military victory was weak. “To
meet these needs,” he informed Lodge, he was sending his top aides
McNamara and Taylor to Vietnam. He emphasized to them that the goal
remains “winning the war,” adding that “The way to confound the press is
to win the war.” Like Congress, the press was an enemy because of its
lack of enthusiasm for a war to victory and its occasional calls for
diplomacy.
McNamara and Taylor were encouraged by what they found. On October 2,
they informed the President that “The military campaign has made great
progress and continues to progress.” They presented a series of
recommendations, three of which were later authorized (watered down a
bit) in NSAM 263: (1) “An increase in the military tempo” throughout the
country so that the military campaign in the Northern and Central areas
will be over by the end of 1964, and in the South (the Delta) by the end
of 1965; (2) Vietnamese should be trained to take over “essential
functions now performed by U.S. military personnel” by the end of 1965,
so that “It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by
that time”; (3) “the Defense Department should announce in the very near
future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1000 U.S. military personnel
by the end of 1963” as “an initial step in a long-term program to
replace U.S. personnel with trained Vietnamese without impairment of the
war effort.”
Their report stressed again that the “overriding objective” is victory,
a matter “vital to United States security,” but that withdrawal could
not be too long delayed: “any significant slowing in the rate of
progress would surely have a serious effect on U.S. popular support for
the U.S. effort.” They anticipated victory by the end of 1965. The
withdrawal plans were crucially qualified in the usual way: “No further
reductions should be made until the requirements of the 1964 campaign
become firm,” that is, until battlefield success is assured.
Note that lack of popular support for the war was not perceived by JFK
and his advisers as providing an opportunity for withdrawal, but rather
as a threat to victory.
The NSC met the same day to consider these proposals. The President’s
role was, as usual, marginal. He repeated that “the major problem was
with U.S. public opinion” and, as he had before, balked at the time
scale. He opposed a commitment to withdraw some forces in 1963 because
“if we were not able to take this action by the end of this year, we
would be accused of being over optimistic.” McNamara, in contrast, “saw
great value in this sentence in order to meet the view of Senator
Fulbright and others that we are bogged down forever in Vietnam.” The
phrase was left as “a part of the McNamara-Taylor report rather than as
predictions of the President,” who thus remained uncommitted to
withdrawal, at his insistence.
A public statement was released to the press, and prominently published,
presenting the essence of the McNamara-Taylor recommendations. The
statement repeated the standard position that the US will work with the
GVN “to deny this country to Communism and to suppress the externally
stimulated and supported insurgency of the Viet Cong as promptly as
possible,” continuing with “Major U.S. assistance in support of this
military effort,” which is needed only until the insurgency has been
suppressed or until the national security forces of the Government of
South Viet-Nam are capable of suppressing it.”
These decisions were encapsulated in NSAM 263 (Oct. 11), a brief
statement in which “The President approved the military recommendations”
1–3 cited above, weakened by one change: that “no formal announcement be
made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military
personnel by the end of 1963.” The final provision of NSAM 263 is JFK’s
personal instruction to Ambassador Lodge to step up the military effort
along with training and arming of new forces, so as to enhance the
prospects for victory, on which withdrawal was conditioned.
Note that read literally, NSAM 263 says very little. It approves the
McNamara-Taylor recommendations to intensify the war and military
training so that “It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S.
personnel” by the end of 1965, and includes JFK’s personal instructions
to Lodge to intensify military action. It does not call for implementing
a 1,000 man withdrawal, but rather endorses the third point of the
McNamara-Taylor proposal concerning plans for such withdrawal “as an
initial step in a long-term program” to be conducted “without impairment
of the war effort,” deleting their call for formal announcement of these
plans.
Presumably, the intent was to implement the withdrawal plans if military
conditions allow, but that intent is unstated. The fact might be borne
in mind in the light of elaborate later efforts to read great
significance into nuances of phrasing so as to demonstrate a dramatic
change in policy with the Kennedy-Johnson transition. Adopting these
interpretive techniques, we would conclude that NSAM 263 is almost
vacuous. I stress that that is not my interpretation; I assume the
obvious unstated intention, only suggesting that other documents be
treated in the same reasonable manner — in which case, widely-held
beliefs will quickly evaporate.
The picture presented in public at the time requires no significant
modification in the light of the huge mass of documents now available,
though these make much more clear the President’s unwillingness to
commit himself to the withdrawal advocated by his war managers for fear
that the victory might not be achieved in time, his concerns that
domestic opinion might not stay the course, his insistence that
withdrawal be conditioned on military victory, and his orders to step up
the military effort and to replace the Diem regime by one that will
“focus on winning” and not entertain thoughts of US withdrawal and
peaceful settlement.
Through October 1963, problems with the GVN continued to mount. Nhu
called openly for the Americans to get out completely, only providing
aid. Another problem was the lack of “effectiveness of GVN in its
relation to its own people.” Asked about this, Ambassador Lodge
responded in an “Eyes only for the President” communication that
“Viet-Nam is not a thoroughly strong police state…because, unlike
Hitler’s Germany, it is not efficient” and is thus unable to suppress
the “large and well-organized underground opponent strongly and
ever-freshly motivated by vigorous hatred.” The Vietnamese “appear to be
more than ever anxious to be left alone,” and though they “are said to
be capable of great violence on occasion,” “there is no sight of it at
the present time,” another impediment to US efforts.
Small wonder that JFK was unwilling to commit himself to the
McNamara-Taylor withdrawal proposal. Note that the same defects of the
US clients underlie the critique of the strategic hamlet program by
Kennedy doves.
Washington’s coup plans continued, with Ambassador Lodge in operational
command. The only hesitation was fear of failure. When the coup finally
took place on November 1, replacing Diem and Nhu (who were killed) by a
military regime, the President praised Lodge effusively for his “fine
job” and “leadership,” an “achievement…of the greatest importance.” With
the generals now in power, “our primary emphasis should be on
effectiveness rather than upon external appearances,” the President
added. We must help the coup regime to confront “the real problems of
winning the contest against the Communists and holding the confidence of
its own people.” The “ineffectiveness, loss of popular confidence, and
the prospect of defeat that were decisive in shaping our relations to
the Diem regime” are now a thing of the past, the President hoped,
thanks to Lodge’s inspired leadership and coup-management, with its
gratifying outcome (Nov. 6).
Two weeks before Kennedy’s assassination, there is not a phrase in the
voluminous internal record that even hints at withdrawal without
victory. JFK urges that everyone “focus on winning the war”; withdrawal
is conditioned on victory, and motivated by domestic discontent with
Kennedy’s war. The stakes are considered enormous. Nothing substantial
changes as the mantle passes to LBJ.
The post-coup situation had positive and negative aspects from the point
of view of the President and his advisers. On the positive side, they
hoped that the ruling generals would now at last focus on victory as the
President had demanded, gain popular support, and end the irritating
calls for US withdrawal and moves towards a peaceful settlement. On the
other hand, there was disarray at all levels, while at home, advocacy of
diplomacy was not stilled. Furthermore, evidence that undermined the
optimistic assessments was becoming harder to ignore. The new government
confirmed that the GVN “had been losing the war against the VC in the
Delta for some time because it had been losing the population.” A
top-level meeting was planned for Honolulu on November 20 to consider
the next steps. The US mission in Vietnam recommended that the
withdrawal plans be maintained, the new government being “warmly
disposed toward the U.S.” and offering “opportunities to exploit that we
never had before.” Kennedy’s plans to escalate the assault against the
southern resistance could now be implemented, with a stable regime
finally in place. McNamara, ever cautious, was concerned by a sharp
increase in VC incidents and urged that “We must be prepared to devote
enough resources to this job of winning the war.”
At the Honolulu meeting, a draft was written by McGeorge Bundy for what
became NSAM 273, adopted after the assassination but prepared for JFK
with the expectation that he would approve it in essentials, as was the
norm. Top advisers agreed; Hilsman made only “minor changes.” The State
Department history states correctly that the draft “was almost identical
to the final paper,” differing only in paragraph 7.
Both documents reiterate the basic wording of the early October
documents. On withdrawal, the version approved by Johnson is identical
with the draft prepared for Kennedy. It reads: “The objectives of the
United States with respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel
remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963,”
referring to the statement of US policy formalized without essential
change as NSAM 263. As for paragraph 7, the draft and final version are,
respectively, as follows:
Draft:
With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a detailed
plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam resources,
especially for sea-going activity, and such planning should indicate the
time and investment necessary to achieve a wholly new level of
effectiveness in this field of action.
NSAM 273:
Planning should include different levels of possible increased activity,
and in each instance there should be estimates of such factors as: A.
Resulting damage to North Vietnam; B. The plausibility of denial; C.
Possible North Vietnamese retaliation; D. Other international reaction.
Plans should be submitted promptly for approval by higher authority.
There is no relevant difference between the two documents, except that
the LBJ version is weaker and more evasive, dropping the call for “a
wholly new level of effectiveness in this field of action”; further
actions are reduced to “possible.” The reason why paragraph 7 refers to
“additional” or “possible increased” activity we have already seen: such
operations had been underway since the Kennedy offensive of 1962,
apparently with direct participation of US personnel and foreign
mercenaries.
No direct US government involvement is proposed in NSAM 273 beyond what
was already underway under JFK. The plans later developed by the DOD and
CIA called for “Intensified sabotage operations in North Vietnam by
Vietnamese personnel,” with the US involved only in intelligence
collection (U-2, electronics) and “psychological operations” (leaflet
drops, “phantom covert operations,” “black and white radio broadcasts”).
These two NSAMs (263 in October, 273 on Nov. 26 with a Nov. 20 draft
written for Kennedy) are the centerpiece of the thesis that Kennedy
planned to withdraw without victory, a decision at once reversed by LBJ
(and perhaps the cause of the assassination). They have been the subject
of many claims and charges. Typical is Oliver Stone’s Address to the
National Press Club alleging that a “ten-year study” by John Newman (JFK
and Vietnam) “makes it very clear President Kennedy signaled his
intention to withdraw from Vietnam in a variety of ways and put that
intention firmly on the record with National Security Action Memorandum
263 in October of 1963,” while LBJ “reverse[d] the NSAM” with NSAM 273;
Kennedy was assassinated for that reason, Stone suggests. Zachary Sklar,
the co-author (with Stone) of the screenplay JFK, also citing Newman’s
book, claims further that the draft prepared for Kennedy “says that the
U.S. will train South Vietnamese to carry out covert military operations
against North Vietnam” while “In the final document, signed by Johnson,
it states that U.S. forces themselves will carry out these covert
military operations,” leading to the Tonkin Gulf incident, which “was an
example of precisely that kind of covert operation carried out by U.S.
forces” (his emphasis). Arthur Schlesinger claims that after the
assassination, “President Johnson, listening to President Kennedy’s more
hawkish advisers…, issued National Security Action Memorandum 273
calling for the maintenance of American military programs in Vietnam ‘at
levels as high’ as before — reversing the Kennedy withdrawal policy.” As
further proof he cites a paragraph from NSAM 273: “It remains the
central objective of the United States in South Vietnam to win their
contest against the externally directed and supported communist
conspiracy.” He highlights these words to show that LBJ was undertaking
“both the total commitment Kennedy had always refused and the diagnosis
of the conflict” that Kennedy had “never quite accepted.”
These alleged facts are held to establish the historic change at the
assassination.
The claims, however, have no known basis in fact, indeed are refuted by
the internal record, which gives no hint of any intention by JFK to
withdraw without victory — quite the contrary — and reveals no
“reversal” in NSAM 273. Newman’s book adds nothing relevant. The call
for maintenance of aid is in the draft of NSAM 273 prepared for Kennedy,
and was also at the core of his tentative withdrawal plans, conditioned
on victory and “Major U.S. assistance” to assure it. Furthermore,
Kennedy’s more dovish advisers approved and continued to urge LBJ to
follow what they understood to be JFK’s policy, rejecting any thought of
withdrawal without victory. The final version of NSAM 273 does not state
that US forces would carry out covert operations in any new way; nor did
they, in the following months. There were covert attacks on North
Vietnamese installations just prior to the Tonkin Gulf incident, but
they were carried out by South Vietnamese forces, according to the
internal record. Schlesinger’s highlighted words appear regularly in
both the public and private Kennedy record, as does the diagnosis, along
with JFK’s insistent demand that everyone must “focus on winning the
war.” The hidden meanings are in the eye of the beholder.
The two versions of NSAM 273 differ in no relevant way, apart from the
weakening of paragraph 7 in the final version. Furthermore, the
departure from NSAM 263 is slight, and readily explained in terms of
changing assessments. Efforts to detect nuances and devious implications
have no basis in fact, and if pursued, could easily be turned into a
(meaningless) “proof” that LBJ toned down Kennedy aggressiveness.
The call in NSAM 273 (both the draft and the weakened LBJ version) for
consideration of further ARVN operations against the North is readily
explained in terms of the two basic features of the post-coup situation:
the feeling among Kennedy’s war planners that with the Diem regime gone,
the US at last had a stable base for Kennedy’s war in the South, with
new “opportunities to exploit”; and the increasing concern about the
military situation in the South, undermining earlier optimism. The
former factor made it possible to consider extension of ARVN operations;
the latter made it more important to extend them. In subsequent months,
Kennedy’s planners (now directing Johnson’s war) increasingly inclined
towards operations against the North as a way to overcome their
inability to win the war in the South, leading finally to the escalation
of 1965, undertaken largely to “drive the DRV out of its reinforcing
role and obtain its cooperation in bringing an end to the Viet Cong
insurgency,” using “its directive powers to make the Viet Cong desist”
(Taylor, Nov. 27, 1964).
Kennedy’s more dovish advisers recommended the policies that Johnson
pursued, and generally approved of them until the 1965 escalation, often
beyond. They lost no time in making clear that JFK’s commitment to
victory would not be abandoned. On December 10, Forrestal, Ball,
Harriman and Hilsman, reiterating JFK’s consistent stand, assured Lodge
that “we are against neutralism and want to win the war.” The same
unwavering commitment was reiterated by Ball, who informed Lodge on Dec.
16 that “Nothing is further from USG mind than ‘neutral solution for
Vietnam.’ We intend to win.” A year later (Nov. 1964), Ball held that
the Saigon regime must continue to receive US aid until the Viet Cong is
defeated and that “the struggle would be a long one, even with the DRV
out of it.” Ball and other doves continued to support Johnson’s
policies, which they regarded as a continuation of Kennedy’s. On May 31,
1964, Ball praised “the President’s wise caution” and refusal to “act
hastily.”
Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, later portrayed as an advocate of
withdrawal, had raised only tactical objections to JFK’s escalation. He
advised JFK to abandon “rhetorical flourishes” about the great stakes
(advice that the President rejected, as noted). And recognizing that
Diem was not fighting the war effectively, he advised withdrawal of some
advisors “as a symbolic gesture, to make clear that we mean business
when we say that there are some circumstances in which this commitment
will be discontinued.” Mansfield generally supported Johnson’s policies.
At an NSC meeting on April 3, 1964, LBJ rejected Senator Morse’s
proposal for “using SEATO and the UN to achieve a peaceful settlement”
in favor of McNamara’s view that withdrawal or neutralization would lead
to a Communist takeover and therefore remain unacceptable options.
Mansfield agreed, urging “that the President’s policy toward Vietnam was
the only one we could follow.” He firmly rejected the withdrawal option
and the diplomatic moves counselled by Morse. In January 1965, Mansfield
publicly supported “the President’s desire neither to withdraw nor carry
the war to North Vietnam” (PP). Later, he bitterly condemned critics of
Johnson’s escalation.
Quite generally, Kennedy’s most dovish advisers sensed no change at the
transition and lent their support to Johnson. Some praised his “wise
caution,” while others called for more aggressive action. By mid-1964,
Forrestal was coming to support escalation of actions against the North.
Hilsman’s position was similar. In a March 14 memorandum he stressed the
need “to take whatever measures are necessary in Southeast Asia to
protect those who oppose the Communists and to maintain our power and
influence in the area,” including “whatever military steps may be
necessary to halt Communist aggression in the area” (crucially, VC
“aggression”). We should station a Marine battalion in Saigon on the
pretext of protecting American dependents. Attacks against the North
might be “a useful supplement to an effective counterinsurgency
program,” but not “an effective substitute” for it. We must “continue
the covert, or at least deniable, operations” against the North in order
to keep “the threat of eventual destruction alive in Hanoi’s mind.”
Recall that he had made the same recommendations in April 1963, in
virtually the same words, including the advice to “continue” the ongoing
covert operations against the North with their implicit threat of
destruction.
The support for LBJ among the Kennedy doves comes as no surprise, given
their familiarity with the internal record, which shows no deviation on
the President’s part from Harriman’s judgment that “there are no
quitters here.” As the optimistic predictions of 1962–3 collapsed after
the coup that overthrew Diem, undermining the precondition for
withdrawal, they advocated a change of tactics to achieve the
“fundamental objective” always sought.
We might note, at this point, that the military leadership was divided
over the war. General Douglas MacArthur and his successor as Army Chief
of Staff, Matthew Ridgway, were strongly opposed to the use of combat
troops. The top US military commander in Vietnam, MAAG Chief General
Lionel McGarr, informed JFK on February 22, 1962 that “in providing the
GVN the tools to do the job,” the US “must not offer so much that they
forget that the job of saving the country is theirs — only they can do
it.” General Taylor and Pacific Commander Admiral Henry Felt shared
these qualms about combat troops. As plans to overthrow the Diem-Nhu
regime were underway in September 1963, Taylor expressed his “reluctance
to contemplate the use of U.S. troops in combat in Vietnam,” while
agreeing with the President and his other top advisers that “our sole
objective was to win the war.” A year after the assassination, agreeing
with McGarr, Taylor continued to urge that the US keep to the “principle
that the Vietnamese fight their own war in SVN” (Nov. 3, 1964). He
therefore opposed sending logistical forces for flood relief because
that would require dispatch of “US combat troops in some numbers to
provide close protection.” Two weeks later, he informed President
Johnson directly that he was now “quite certain [US combat troops] were
not needed…as the estimates of the flood damage diminish.” In September
1964, Taylor had explained that the military command “did not
contemplate” committing combat forces because Commanding General
Westmoreland, also echoing McGarr, felt that use of American troops
“would be a mistake, that it is the Vietnamese’ war.”
In later years, great import has been attributed to JFK’s public
reiteration of the McGarr-Westmoreland-Taylor “principle” in his Sept.
1963 statement that “In the final analysis it is their war. They have to
win it or lose it.” It is, therefore, worth stressing that the
“principle” was standard throughout in internal and public discussion,
through 1964, including LBJ’s public statements.
General David Shoup, Marine Commandant through the Kennedy years,
reports that when the Joint Chiefs considered troop deployment, “in
every case…every senior officer that I knew…said we should never send
ground combat forces into Southeast Asia.” Shoup’s public opposition to
the war from 1966 was particularly strong, far beyond anything said by
the civilian leadership, media doves, or others who later presented
themselves as war critics.
These observations add further weight to the conclusion based on the
record of internal deliberations, in which JFK insists upon victory and
considers withdrawal only on this condition. Had he intended to
withdraw, he would have been able to enlist respected military
commanders to back him, so it appears, including the most revered
figures of the right. He made no effort to do so, preferring instead to
whip up pro-war sentiment with inflammatory rhetoric about the awesome
consequences of withdrawal.
The final source of evidence on JFK’s plans is the memoirs and other
comments of his advisers. These come in two versions: before and after
the Tet offensive. We review these in the next two sections, then
turning to the 1991–2 revival and revisions. This survey only adds
conviction to what we have already found.
Kennedy’s commitment to stay the course was clear to those closest to
him. As noted, Arthur Schlesinger shared JFK’s perception of the
enormous stakes and his optimism that the military escalation had
reversed the “aggression” of the indigenous guerrillas in 1962. There is
not a word in Schlesinger’s chronicle of the Kennedy years (1965,
reprinted 1967) that hints of any intention to withdraw without victory.
In fact, Schlesinger gives no indication that JFK thought about
withdrawal at all. The withdrawal plans receive one sentence in his
voluminous text, attributed to McNamara in the context of the debate
over pressuring the Diem regime. There is nothing else in this 940-page
virtual day-by-day record of the Kennedy Administration by its
quasi-official historian. Far more detail had appeared in the press in
October-December 1963.
These facts leave only three possible conclusions: (1) the historian was
keeping the President’s intentions secret; (2) this close JFK confidant
had no inkling of his intentions; (3) there were no such intentions.
By 1966, it was becoming clear that things were not going well in
Vietnam. In his Bitter Heritage (1966), Arthur Schlesinger expressed
concern that the US military effort had dubious prospects, though “we
may all be saluting the wisdom and statesmanship of the American
government” if it succeeds. Referring to Joseph Alsop’s predictions of
victory, Schlesinger writes that “we all pray that Mr. Alsop will be
right,” though he doubts it. The only qualms are tactical: what will be
the cost to us? Schlesinger describes himself as holding high the spirit
of JFK. He flatly opposes withdrawal, which “would have ominous
reverberations throughout Asia,” and again gives no hint that Kennedy
ever considered such a possibility.
Another close associate, Theodore Sorenson, also published a history of
the Administration in 1965. Sorenson was Kennedy’s first appointed
official, served as his special counsel and attended all NSC meetings.
He makes no mention of withdrawal plans. Quite the contrary. Kennedy’s
“essential contribution,” he writes, was to avoid the extremes advocated
“by those impatient to win or withdraw. His strategy essentially was to
avoid escalation, retreat or a choice limited to these two, while
seeking to buy time….” He opposed withdrawal or “bargain[ing] away
Vietnam’s security at the conference table.” Sorenson’s conclusion is
that JFK “was simply going to weather it out, a nasty, untidy mess to
which there was no other acceptable solution. Talk of abandoning so
unstable an ally and so costly a commitment ‘only makes it easy for the
Communists,’ said the President. ‘I think we should stay’.” So his
account ends. Again, we may choose among the same three conclusions.
No one was closer to JFK than his brother Robert. He had expressed his
position in 1962: “The solution lies in our winning it. This is what the
President intends to do…. We will remain here [in Saigon] until we do.”
In 1964 oral history, RFK said that the Administration had never faced
the possibilities of either withdrawal or escalation. Asked what JFK
would have done if the South Vietnamese appeared doomed, he said: “We’d
face that when we came to it.” “Robert’s own understanding of his
brother’s position,” his biographer Arthur Schlesinger reports, was that
“we should win the war” because of the domino effect. The problem with
Diem, RFK added, was that we need “somebody that can win the war,” and
he wasn’t the man for it. Accordingly, it is no surprise that RFK fully
supported Johnson’s continuation of what he understood to be his
brother’s policies through the 1965 escalation.
The last of the early accounts of the Kennedy Administration was written
by Roger Hilsman in late 1967, shortly before the Tet offensive and well
after severe doubts about the war were raised at the highest levels. He
takes it for granted that the goal throughout was “to defeat the
Communist guerrillas.” He writes that had JFK lived, “he might well have
introduced United States ground forces into South Vietnam — though I
believe he would not have ordered them to take over the war effort from
the Vietnamese but would have limited their mission to the task of
occupying ports, airfields, and military bases to demonstrate to the
North Vietnamese that they could not win the struggle by escalation
either” — the enclave strategy that had been advocated by Ball and
Taylor in early 1965, then by others. The question of how to respond to
a collapse of the Saigon regime was delayed, he writes, in the hope that
it would not arise. Hilsman feels that LBJ “sincerely even desperately
wanted to make the existing policy work,” without US combat forces,
citing his statement of Sept. 25, 1964 that “We don’t want our American
boys to do the fighting for Asian boys.” He cites the White House
statement announcing the adoption of the McNamara-Taylor October 1963
recommendations, adding nothing of substance to what was published in
the press at the time. His only comment is that the optimistic
predictions on which withdrawal was predicated would come “to haunt
Secretary McNamara and the whole history of American involvement in
Vietnam.”
The internal record of 1964 shows that Kennedy doves saw matters much as
described in the 1964–67 memoirs, and therefore continued to support
Johnson’s policies, some pressing for further escalation, others (Ball,
Mansfield) praising Johnson for choosing the middle course between
escalation and withdrawal.
We have now reviewed all the crucial evidence: the events themselves,
the public statements, the record of internal deliberations and
planning, the opinions of the military, the attitudes of the Kennedy
doves, and the pre-Tet memoirs and commentary. The conclusions are
unambiguous, surprisingly so on a matter of current history: President
Kennedy was firmly committed to the policy of victory that he inherited
and transmitted to his successor, and to the doctrinal framework that
assigned enormous significance to that outcome; he had no plan or
intention to withdraw without victory; he had apparently given little
thought to the matter altogether, and it was regarded as of marginal
interest by those closest to him. Furthermore, the basic facts were
prominently published at the time, with more detail than is provided by
the early memoirs.
After the Tet Offensive, major domestic power sectors concluded that the
enterprise was becoming too costly to them and called for it to be
terminated. President Johnson was, in effect, dismissed from office, and
policy was set towards disengagement. The effect on the ideological
system was dramatic. The liberal intelligentsia felt the “need to
insulate JFK from the disastrous consequences of the American venture in
Southeast Asia,” Thomas Brown observes in his study of Camelot imagery.
“Kennedy’s role in the Vietnam war is unsurprisingly…the aspect [of his
public image and record] that has been subjected to the greatest number
of revisions by Kennedy’s admirers…. The important thing was that JFK be
absolved of responsibility for the Vietnam debacle; when the need for
exculpation is so urgent, no obstacles — including morality and the
truth — should stand in the way” (JFK: History of an Image, 1988).
The latter comment relates specifically to one of the earliest post-Tet
efforts to revise the image, the 1972 memoir by White House aide Kenneth
O’Donnell, whose stories have assumed center stage in the post-Tet
reconstruction. He writes that Kennedy had informed Senator Mansfield
that he agreed with him “on the need for a complete military withdrawal
from Vietnam,” adding that he had to delay announcement of “a withdrawal
of American military personnel” until after the November 1964 election
to avoid “another Joe McCarthy scare.” In 1975, Mansfield told columnist
Jack Anderson that Kennedy “was going to order a gradual withdrawal” but
“never had the chance to put the plan into effect,” though he had
“definitely and unequivocally” made that decision; in 1978, Mansfield
said further that Kennedy had informed him that troop withdrawal would
begin in January 1964 (which does not fit smoothly with the O’Donnell
story).
Noting Mansfield’s (partial) confirmation of O’Donnell’s report, Brown
points out that “one need not reject this story out of hand…to doubt
that it was a firm statement of Kennedy’s intentions in Vietnam. Like
many politicians, JFK was inclined to tell people what they wanted to
hear.” Every authentic historian discounts such reports for the same
reason: “Kennedy probably told [Mansfield] what he wanted to hear,”
Thomas Paterson observes. The same holds for other recollections,
authentic or not, by political figures and journalists.
Whatever else he may have been, Kennedy was a political animal, and knew
enough to tell the Senate Majority Leader and other influential people
what they wanted to hear. He was also keenly sensitive to the opposition
to his policies among powerful Senators, who saw them as harmful to US
interests. He also was aware that public support for the war was thin,
as was McNamara and others. But JFK never saw the general discontent
among the public, press, and Congress as an opportunity to construct a
popular base for withdrawal; rather, he sought to counter it with
extremist rhetoric about the grand stakes. He hoped to bring the war to
a successful end before discontent interfered with this plan. Had he
intended to withdraw, he would also have leaped at the opportunity
provided by the GVN call for reduction of forces (even outright
withdrawal), and its moves toward political settlement. As for the
right-wing, a President intent on withdrawal would have called upon the
most highly-respected military figures for support, as already noted.
There is no indication that this reasonable course was ever considered,
again confirming that withdrawal was never an option.
The O’Donnell-Mansfield story is hardly credible on other grounds.
Nothing would have been better calculated to fan right-wing hysteria
than inflammatory rhetoric about the cosmic issues at stake, public
commitment to stay the course, election on the solemn promise to stand
firm come what may, and then withdrawal and betrayal. Furthermore,
Mansfield’s actual positions differed from the retrospective version, as
noted. Far more credible, if one takes such reconstructions seriously,
is General Wheeler’s recollection in 1964 (not years later) that Kennedy
was interested in extending the war to North Vietnam.
Despite such obvious flaws as these, the O’Donnell-Mansfield stories are
taken very seriously by Kennedy hagiographers.
The Camelot memoirists proceeded to revise their earlier versions after
Tet, separating JFK (and by implication, themselves) from what had
happened. Sorenson was the first. In the earlier version, Kennedy was
preparing for the introduction of combat troops if necessary and
intended to “weather it out” come what may, not abandoning his ally, who
would have collapsed without large-scale US intervention. Withdrawal is
not discussed. Diplomacy is considered a threat, successfully overcome
by the overthrow of the Diem government. But post-Tet, Sorenson is
“convinced” that JFK would have sought diplomatic alternatives in 1965 —
with the client regime in still worse straits, as he notes. The October
1963 withdrawal plan, unmentioned in the old version, assumes great
significance in the post-Tet revision, with significant omissions:
notably, the precondition of military success.
Arthur Schlesinger entered the lists in 1978 with his biography of
Robert Kennedy. Unlike Sorenson, he does not confine himself to
speculation about JFK’s intent. Rather, he constructs a new history,
radically revising his earlier account. Thus, while the pre-Tet versions
gave no hint of any intent to withdraw without victory, in the post-Tet
biography of Robert Kennedy, JFK’s alleged withdrawal plans merit a full
chapter, though RFK’s “involvement in Vietnam had been strictly limited
before Dallas,” Schlesinger observes. This startling difference between
the pre- and Post-Tet versions is not attributed to any significant new
information, indeed is not mentioned at all. In 1992, in a review of
Newman’s book, Schlesinger went a step further, claiming that he had put
forth the JFK withdrawal thesis all along.
Post-Tet, the October 1963 decisions, emerging from their earlier
obscurity, become “the first application of Kennedy’s phased withdrawal
plan.” Unmentioned before, this plan now serves as prime evidence that
Kennedy had separated himself from the two main “schools”: the advocates
of counterinsurgency and of military victory. The plan shows that JFK
was opposed to “both win-the-war factions, …vaguely searching for a
nonmilitary solution.” His public call for winning the war is apparently
to be understood as a ploy to deflect the right-wing.
Pre-Tet, it was JFK and Arthur Schlesinger who rejoiced over the defeat
of “aggression” in Vietnam in 1962. Post-Tet, it is the New York Times
that absurdly denounces “Communist ‘aggression’ in Vietnam,” while
“Kennedy was determined to stall.” And though RFK did call for victory
over the aggressors in 1962, he was deluded by “the party line as
imparted to him by McNamara and Taylor,” failing to understand the huge
gap between the President’s views and the McNamara-Taylor party line —
which Schlesinger had attributed to the President, with his own
endorsement, in the pre-Tet version. In the post-Tet version, the Joint
Chiefs join the New York Times, McNamara, and Taylor as extremists
undermining the President’s moderate policies. Commenting on JCS
Chairman General Lyman Lemnitzer’s invocation of the “well-known
commitment to take a forthright stand against Communism in Southeast
Asia,” Schlesinger writes sardonically that it may have been
“well-known” to the Chiefs, but they “failed in their effort to force it
on the President” — who regularly voiced it in still more strident
terms, including several cases that Schlesinger had cited, pre-Tet:
e.g., JFK’s fears of upsetting “the whole world balance” if the US were
to retreat in Vietnam. Or, we may add his summer 1963 statement that
“for us to withdraw from that effort [to secure the GVN] would mean a
collapse not only of South Vietnam but Southeast Asia,” which
Schlesinger quoted and praised as “temperate,” pre-Tet (902–3).
This book and later Schlesinger efforts are so replete with
misrepresentation and error as to defy brief comment. I will return to
them elsewhere. They illustrate the seriousness of the post-Tet
endeavor, and its dim prospects.
The third early Kennedy memoirist, Roger Hilsman, has written letters to
the press responding to critics of the withdrawal thesis in which he
takes a stronger stand on JFK’s intent to withdraw than in his highly
qualified 1967 comments. His factual references are misleading, but a
close reading shows that Hilsman is careful to evade the crucial
questions: in particular, the precondition of victory. He cites
Kennedy’s statement that “it is their war” to win or lose as proof of
his plan to withdraw, claiming without evidence that Johnson at once
reversed that intent. He had said nothing of the sort pre-Tet; quite the
contrary, as we have seen (including the internal record). Furthermore,
if JFK’s statement demonstrates his intent to withdraw, we would have to
draw the same conclusions about McGarr, Taylor, Westmoreland, and LBJ.
That, of course, is precisely why Hilsman makes no such claim in his
1967 memoir, in which he emphasizes LBJ’s statement that “We don’t want
our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys” to show his
“sincere” and “desperate” effort to carry out JFK’s plans. The same
holds of efforts by Schlesinger and others to read great significance
into JFK statements that were conventional and mean little.
However informative they may be with regard to the duties and
responsibilities of cultural management, the post-Tet revisions by
leading Kennedy intellectuals have no value as history. Rather, they
constitute a chapter of cultural history, one that is of no slight
interest, I believe.
The withdrawal-without-victory thesis is typically understood to subsume
a second one: that LBJ was responsible for an immediate reversal of
policy from withdrawal to escalation. The major effort to establish the
dual thesis is Newman’s book, which has received much attention and
praise over a broad spectrum. It was the basis for the influential
Oliver Stone film JFK, and is taken by much of the left to be a
definitive demonstration of the twin theses. The book was strongly
endorsed by Arthur Schlesinger, who describes it as a “solid
contribution,” with its “straightforward and workmanlike, rather
military…organization, tone and style” and “meticulous and exhaustive
examination of documents.” Former CIA Director William Colby, who headed
the Far East division of the CIA in 1963–64, hailed Newman’s study of
these years as a “brilliant, meticulously researched and fascinating
account of the decision-making which led to America’s long agony in
Vietnam”; America’s agony, in accordance with approved doctrine.
The book is not without interest. It contains some new documentary
evidence, which further undermines the Newman-Schlesinger thesis when
extricated from the chaotic jumble of materials interlarded with
highlighted phrases that demonstrate nothing, confident interpretations
of private intentions and beliefs, tales of intrigue and deception of
extraordinary scale and complexity, so well-concealed as to leave no
trace in the record, and conclusions that become more strident as the
case collapses before the author’s eyes. By the end, he claims that the
National Security Council meetings of 1961 “more than resolve the
question” of whether Kennedy would have sent combat troops under the
radically different circumstances faced by his advisers in 1965, a
conclusion that captures accurately the level of argument.
Newman’s basic contention seems to be that JFK was surrounded by evil
advisers who were trying to thwart his secret plan to withdraw without
victory, though unaccountably, he kept giving them more authority and
promoting them to higher positions, perhaps because he didn’t understand
them. Thus JFK thought that Taylor was “the one general who shared his
own views and that he could, therefore, trust to carry out his bidding.”
Shamelessly deceived, JFK therefore promoted him to Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs and relied on him until the end, though Taylor was
undermining him at every turn; Taylor became “the second most powerful
person in the White House,” Newman observes (180), with no attempt to
resolve the paradox. There are a few “good guys,” but in the chaos, it
is hard to be sure who they are: perhaps Harriman, Forrestal, Hilsman,
and McNamara, though even they joined the malefactors who beset our hero
on every side (Harriman and Hilsman “mired Kennedy in a plot to
overthrow Diem,” etc.).
The withdrawal-without-victory thesis rests on the assumption that
Kennedy realized that the optimistic military reports were incorrect.
Newman agrees that through 1962 JFK accepted the optimistic reports, but
asserts that by March 1963, he had “figured out…that the success story
was a deception.” There is “hard evidence” for this, he claims,
referring to an NBC documentary on the Diem assassination in November
1963 that questioned the optimistic intelligence reports. The remainder
of the evidence is that “in his heart he must have known” that the
military program was a failure. Unlike his advisers (at least, those not
in on the various “deceptions”), he “had to notice when the military
myth was shaken by Bowles and Mendenhall in late 1962,” and by
Mansfield’s pessimism. “When the drama of the Wheeler versus
Hilsman-Forrestal match ended up in his office in February 1963, the
implication that the story of success was untrue could no longer be
overlooked” (by Kennedy, uniquely); the “drama” is the difference of
judgment as to the time scale for victory, already reviewed.
Not a trace of supporting evidence appears in the internal record, or is
suggested here. Furthermore, the reports by Bowles and Mendenhall date
from before the time when JFK was still deceived, according to Newman’s
account, and Mendenhall’s at least never even reached him, he notes. As
for Bowles, who had been cut out of policymaking sectors much earlier,
Newman does not mention that after visiting Vietnam in July 1963, he
sent a highly confidential report to McGeorge Bundy (which, in this
case, the President may have seen), in which he wrote that “the military
situation is steadily improving” although “the political situation is
rapidly deteriorating,” repeating the standard view of military success,
political failure, recommending various escalatory steps, and expressing
his hope that with “a bit of luck,” we may “turn the tide” and “lay the
basis for a far more favorable situation in Southeast Asia.”
On this basis, we are to believe that JFK alone understood that official
optimism was unwarranted.
Curiously, there is one bit of evidence that does support the
conclusion, but Newman and other advocates of the thesis do not make use
of it. Recall that at the NSC meeting considering the McNamara-Taylor
recommendations that were partially endorsed in NSAM 263, Kennedy
insisted on dissociating himself even from the plan to withdraw 1000
personnel because he did not want to be “accused of being over
optimistic” in case the military situation did not make it feasible. He
allowed the sentence on withdrawal to remain only if attributed to
McNamara and Taylor, without his acquiescence. In public too he was more
hesitant about the withdrawal plan than the military command. One might
argue, then, that JFK did not share the optimism of his advisers, and
was therefore unwilling to commit himself to withdrawal. This conclusion
has two merits not shared by the thesis we are examining: (1) it has
some evidence to support it; (2) it conforms to the general picture of
Kennedy’s commitment to military victory provided by the internal
record.
Newman’s efforts to demonstrate the “far-reaching and profound nature of
this reversal” that changed the course of history when the iniquitous
LBJ took over are no more impressive. Thus he cites an alleged comment
reported by Stanley Karnow, in which LBJ privately told the Joint
Chiefs: “Just get me elected and then you can have your war.” Putting
aside the reliability of the source (which, elsewhere, Newman dismisses
as unreliable when Karnow questioned the withdrawal thesis), the full
context reveals that Karnow attributes to Johnson very much what
O’Donnell attributes to Kennedy; assuage the right, get elected, and
then do what you choose. What LBJ chose was to drag his feet much as JFK
had done.
Newman concedes that as of October 2, 1963, when the McNamara-Taylor
withdrawal recommendations were presented, “So far, it had been couched
in terms of battlefield success.” But there was a “sudden turnabout of
reporting in early November.” “As the Honolulu meeting approached the
tide turned toward pessimism as suddenly and as swiftly as the
optimistic interlude had begun in early 1962,” Newman writes. The
participants in the Nov. 20 meeting received “shocking military news.”
“The upshot of the Honolulu meeting,” he continues, “was that the
shocking deterioration of the war effort was presented in detail to
those assembled, along with a plan to widen the war, while the 1,000-man
withdrawal was turned into a meaningless paper drill.” The three
components of the “upshot” are of course related. The fact that prior to
the “sudden turn toward pessimism” the entire discussion of withdrawal
had been “couched in terms of battlefield success” thoroughly undermines
Newman’s thesis, as becomes only more clear if we introduce the internal
record that he ignores.
In the end, Newman relies almost exclusively on the virtually
meaningless O’Donnell-Mansfield post-Tet reconstructions, while ignoring
the internal record, briefly reviewed, which conforms closely to JFK’s
public stance. His tale is woven from dark hints and “intrigue,” with
“webs of deception” at every level. The military were deceiving
Kennedy’s associates who were deceiving Kennedy, while he in turn was
deceiving the public and his advisers, and many were deceiving
themselves. At least, I think that is what the story is supposed to be;
it is not easy to tell in this labyrinth of fancy. We are invited to
view the “unforgettable image of a President pitted against his own
advisers and the bureaucracy that served under him” from the very
outset, without a hint of evidence and no explanation as to why he chose
to rely on them in preference to others. Newman concedes that JFK’s
public statements refute his thesis, but that’s easily handled: JFK was
cleverly feinting to delude the right-wing by preaching about the high
stakes to the general public — who largely didn’t care or were uneasy
about the war, as JFK and his advisers knew, and could only be aroused
to oppose withdrawal by this inflammatory rhetoric.
By the end, we are wandering along paths “shrouded in mystery and
intrigue,” guided by confident assertions about what various
participants “knew,” “pretended,” “felt,” “intended,” etc. The facts,
whatever they may be, are interpreted so as to conform to the central
dogma, taken to have been established. Given the rules of the game
(deceit, hidden intent, etc.), there can be no counter-argument:
evidence refuting the thesis merely shows the depths of the mystery and
intrigue. I will put aside further discussion here, returning to a
fuller examination elsewhere.
Whatever genre this may be, any pretense of unearthing the facts has
been left far behind. As in the case of the post-Tet memoirs, the Newman
study and its reception are of considerable interest, but not as a
contribution to history: rather, as an interesting chapter of cultural
history in the late 20^(th) century.