Gelb and Betts.Lessons of Vietnam

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TheLessons o f V ie tnam



348 T~E IRONY OF VIETNAM

<riventhe luxury of learning lessons. As the VIetnamese are rebuild'o~ thi k i h' In gtheir ravaged country, Americans are re In ng t elf country's role'

the world and retouching their institutions ~oprevent another Vietna~~

The lessons of the Vietnam War for the Uruted States-they are few'

number, but of critical importance-are the subject of this chapter. In

Coming to terms with what happened and deciding what to do about

it will go on in the United States, explicitly or implicitly and intuitivel

b V · , . '1 b Y ,for decades. This is ecause ietnam s ClVl war ecame America's civi]

convulsion. The more the United States did to preserve an independent

identity for South Vietnam, the more America's own identity changed.

The events and battles of the Vietnamese civil war seemed then and now

inextricably bound to the Americans' own turmoils and grief: the assassi-

nations of President Kennedy and President Diem less than a month

apart in 1963; the massive American troop buildup in Vietnam in thesummer of 1965 and the beginning of frank congressional inquiries and

frontal questioning of twenty years of American foreign policy; the

Communist Tet offensive in February 1968 and the bloodied heads o f

the March on Washington in 1969; President Nixon's Cambodian "incur-

sion" in 1970and the victims of Kent State; the struggle to keep Presi-

dent Thieu afloat as American troops withdrew; and President Nixon's

"enemies list" and use of the federal police and intelligence apparatus

to harass war critics, leading to the final spasm known simply as Water-

gate. The downward slide toward defeat in Vietnam was a centralingredient in the process that led to the impeachment of a president.

The White House became the ultimate domino.

N imJl's an d F ord', P o lic ies



. . . . . . .,

OF VIETNAMLESSONS hi d cc 349

f)l~ .. 'ords as IS pre ecessors : We seek the opport it fth e s~l.lneY " urn y or

c i s e 1 y t h Vietnamese people to detennme their own political future

t h e 5 0 1 1 'de interference,"l This seemed to suggest that if the N rth

t but outSI 0

w i 0 .. ,ould withdraw from the South and allow the Vietcong a d

, t l l S w e s e . . th b nl / 1 e , Dimeto slug it out on e attlefield or in the ballot box th

t hS : u g o n reb" di ' e

e 't e dStateswould ac~ept the ver. ct whoever the victor might be. In-

O I l l ' veD the decimation of the VIetcong over the years, this would not

d e e d ~ e e n a very risky course for Nixon and his then national security

ha"~ Henry A . Kissinger, to adopt. But it seems fair to assume thatadVIser, . dil

. l y because this nsk was rea y acceptable to them it was clearlyp r e c l s e . ' • 'acceptableto Hanoi. HanOI would not agree to withdraw its troops

: m t h e South, and the Nixon administration did not insist that Hanoi

doS O when the Paris cease-fire accords were signed in 1973.2Thus to

state n objective the adversary was certain to reject in negotiations was

toindicatethat the objective would be imposed on the adversary by

forcemajeur.T h i s apparently was the goal of the policy of Vietnamization of the

w a r . Thestrategy of Vietnamization was to phase out American forces

s l o w l y enough not to jeopardize the battlefield situation but fast

e n o u g h to assuage American political opinion. The idea was that if

Hanoiwouldnot agree to a negotiated settlement that allowed the South

Vietnameseo settle their own affairs, its leaders would be faced with a

Saigonegime armed to the teeth and able to defend itself without com-

promise.Anotherinterpretation of Vietnamization is that Nixon and Kissinger

intendedonlyto ensure that Saigon's defeat was delayed long enough to

p l a c e t h e responsibility solely on Saigon's shoulders. This "fig leaf" inter-

~re~tion,however, cannot be made consistent with the total record.

~dent ~ixon, in the four years preceding the Paris accords, did 1"8-

d e a t h sA m e n c a n forces in Vietnam from 550,000 to ~,ooo. A m e r i c a n

. and casualties fell from h un dreds each week toUDde r .t5. S~

t n g o n t h e war declined from about $25 b i l l i o n a yeat' to a. p r o j - - - -~A . d c l r e . a to th e Nation on ViotDem. Mw J4 'flJl~;~" 1 9 '1 1 tf ) th e United S tatet. ~ A I . I T tr I H I a jd

'" 'P·371.- ~ - . . . .



350

TIlE IRONy OF

billion. This vast reduction did entail some risk of losing th VIJ!:1'NAJ..r

point is that it was a policy of reductions, not a policy of e War,b u t t h e

drawal. The Nixon administration never pledged total Wi~~rnplete W i th .

Hanoi would agree to American settlement tenus, Even aftrawalunless

er the P ,ease-fire accords were signed, it never promised to remov th . a11.s, d h' e e~~~earners from In oc ina waters or not to Use American aircraft st .

in Thailand and Taiwan in further military action It WasCo atlOned

hibit d f rth Am' 'lit " ngress thatpro 1 e any u er encan nu ary action in and OVerInd h i. oc naafter the accords were completed. The NIxon administration I

a W a y sought to keep these hedges against losing,

Vietnamization, in practice, was a strategy designed to do two thin s:

to decrease American forces in Vietnam to a level that would be tol!r~

ated by American politics and to use the prospect of endless American

presence or assistance to persuade Hanoi to accept the proferred nego-tiating terms, To repeat, these terms were tantamount to a North Viet-

namese surrender. But the discussion of the ultimate intentions of Nixon

and Kissinger is so complicated and convoluted that it cannot end hereeither.

The fact was that when Secretary of State William Rogers and Viet-

namese Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh put their signatures to th e

Paris cease-fire accords on January 27, 1973, the Nixon administration

did take real risks. The essence of this agreement was that all American

forces were to be withdrawn in return for the release of American pris-oners, and Hanoi's forces could stay in the South. Further, th e accords

called for a cease-fire in place leading to free elections conducted b r a

National Council of Reconciliation and Concord. The risk was allowing

North Vietnamese forces to remain in the South. The answer to th e

puzzle about Nixon's ultimate intentions, then, turns on how much of arisk h e actually b eliev ed h e was running.

T h e secret H ies h ave not been made public, b ut alm ost all contempo-dministra-'Iq'J l eWS accounts recorded that the leaders of the Nixon a o f

-~tbat Seigon'. forces stood a better than e v en

= - . :~ Oft aga iDst the North Vietnamese if.T h ere w e re ts of

~"~-"".-' ' '141*.'11e to approve substantiall l lOUn c u t

to ,_ regime. In 1 9 1 5 c~eta«" if _

_ . _ _ . . . . ~ 1 I d 1 tW Y . .



oN'S OF VIETNAM~ LESS

tIl '0 In 1974 Congress legislated a ban 0 11 351e ag al . n a futur A

o D e , volvement. e n1erican'litarYreIn

1 1 1 l h t changed from the time of the Truman adm' ,wad ., , lUlstration t th

£ the Ford a ministration was not the goal f. 0 eadvent0 I ISO presldents but th

d S 1'0 Congress. near y 1975, a new congres' I e

t t i t u e siona ma'o't h

a d that was prepared to use legislative power t d A J ~ Y ademerge. The rnoti . a en n1encan in-

1 m ent In the war. e motives withm this majo it .vo ve . h i n y Were mixed

believed that It was istorically just for the Co . .Some mmuUlsts to take

South Vietnam. Others became convinced that endi th idover . . ng e al and

d""pingPreSIdent Thieu would lead to a truly neutral and ti 1Ul" , .' na ona gov-

e n u n ent in SaIgon, sun others did not pretend to be able to divine who

wouldrule Saigon, and did not care; they simply wanted the United

Statesto wash its hands of the whole affair. That this majority was able

tolegislateits will without any evident political backlash indicated that

t h e Americanpeople also had had enough.

The Ford administration clearly tried to develop that backlash with

its public rhetoric. Down to the last days of the Phnom Penh regime in

Cambodiaand the Saigon regime, some of the strongest rhetoric ever

emanatedfrom the White House and the State Department. In his mes-

s a g e to Congress in January 1975 requesting emergency aid for Cam-

bodiaand South Vietnam, President Ford stated: "U.S. unwillingness to

provideadequate assistance to allies fighting for their lives would seri-

ouslyaffect our credibility throughout the world as an ally, And this

credibilityis essential to our national security."! To those who thought

t h e administration had finally abandoned the domino theory, Secretary

o f State Kissinger made clear that quite the opposite was true. He said,

"W e mustunderstand that peace is indivisible. The United States cannot

d fri c i s 'nonepursuea policy of selective reliability, We cannot ahan on nen 1

part of th e world without jeopardizing the security of friends e:;ry-

w h e r e , " He added that if the Saigon regime were allowed to fall, en

w~are likely to find a massive shift in the foreign policies of m ~ Y : U :t r i e s a n d a fundamental threat over a period o f tiIne t o th e secuntyUnitedStates"". __.-.u-.nt. 1 1 a i t II

T h e United States, they were all sayipg , bed a ~

~~""getothe~~

~ I ef V i e t a a m aud CUtbodia. "...... ...~'(oPo.lm).p. 11". , . ~ = = . . . . .w.-4.,...



352 TRl! IRoNY OF VIET)"

where the story of American involvement in Vietnam ended and b t. r

d,' id weret began. From Truman to For SlX presi ents felt that they had to do

and say what was necessary to prevent a Communist takeover of V '

let-am. While other perceived threats to peace came and went, VietnallJ

was always there-a cockpit of confrontation, a testing place.And there were always two battles going on for those twenty.Rve

years: One out there and one back home. There, it was the Promethean

clash of colOnialism, nationalism, communism, and Americanism. B a c k

home, it Was the clash of imperatives not to lose a country to communism

and not to get embroiled in an endless Asian land war, a struggle to walk

the line between not winning and not getting out. The battle WOuldb e

endless in Vietnam until it was no longer viewed as necessary in Wash.ington.

How the System Worked

Itis inWashington and to the policymaking process, and SPeci6cally

to the process of making commitments, that one must look for th e lessons

of Vietnam. This whole book has been an attempt to explain why Amen-

can leaders felt it was necessary to prevent defeat inVietnam, to 6gbt

the war by gradual escalation, and to persevere despite pessimism about

the final outcome. They saw no acceptable alternatives to what theywere doing. They really believed they had no choice. To deduce lessons

f rom this experience, one must ask what it was about the system of

decisionmaking that took c h o I c 6 away. Again, as Kafka's priest said in

The Trial: "It is not necessary to accept everything as true, one mus tonly accept it.. necessazy. t I ,

1 ' I . t U 4 P l U " O a o J a to th e $Ubject of I.ons sidesteps the moreprofoundquetUoa of ~ th e VfItb uuD War ... crJOO(f' or ,.d.» No Bnal

~ ~ ltwm b e d e b a t e d a s

- - . I taow.tfattbe.,.."

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m o r t t h e

w a e r i s s u



SONS OF VIETNAMIfE LES

1 th e immediate human costs, the war altered th b d 353f r o r n l y imperceptibly for twenty-five years. e roa flow of his-t o r y on

If Vietnam were a story of how the decisionmaki .

. ng system faded

t htis a story of how U.S. leaders did not do What th d'a , ey wante to do

d i d not realize what they were dOing, did not understand w h t h'th . '. II b . a was ap-

pening, or got eir way pnnclpa y y lymg to Congress and the Ameri-

c a n people, it would be easy to package a large and assorted box of

panaceas. There are many examples: f i x the method of reporting from

thef ield to stress incentives for accuracy rather than bureaucratic syco-

phancy;.fix the way progress is measured in a guerrilla war; improve the

analysis of intelligence; concentrate more on the political and economic

dimensions of conflict and less on the military side; tell the American

people more of the truth to prepare them for sacrifices and the long haul;make sure the President sees all the real alternatives; involve Congress

more; and so forth. These are all interesting and some are of conse-

quence, but it is the thesis of this book that improvements in any of these

respects would not have appreciably altered the thrust of the war. A t

most they would have altered tactics. In the end they were all third-

order issues because the U.S . political-bureaucratic system did not fail;

it worked. .

If t hi sica! But it is n oth in g m oreT h e point seems paradoxica , ~o w m d ~ssai1abIe fact: Amel i -

than a direct conclusion from one SImple an th loss o f Vietnam

d th t th had to prevent ecan leaders were convince a ey c i e d indoing just that

to communism, and until May 1975 they s:StMes fought th e w ar

It can be persuasively argued that t h e ! . . . . . As with all wars,

inefficiently with needless costJ-in _~~~ _ th e war was

thiswas to be expected. Itcaa~r~~~ .. __ boeD

an out-and~out mistake .... ,..,..

made. But the

T h e sh ared values -,,"III,th e political aafllMi_1t

to do,andit.,..

At each



35 4 THE IRONy OF V

IErN A . 1 \ {volvement was not a blind slide down a slippery slope; it w

. I ti f th . f as th eesponse to the progressive esca a on 0 e price 0 keeping t h e. . b t i COm.mitment. The mimmum-necessary pnce grew, u It was always aid

id F "t P . In1950 the price was ai to ranee, In 1954 I w~s accepting partition in

exchange for what appeared to be a more easily defensible anti-Com.

munist bastion in the South; in 1961t was a vigorous infusion of A .men·

can materiel and advisers; in 1963 it was dumping Diem, who seemed

the principal obstacle to more productive South Vietnamese effort; and

in 1965 it was using American forces.

At each of these junctures decisionmakers disagreed about exactly

how much action was advisable, or what kinds of action were appropri_

ate, or which aspects of action should receive more emphasis than others.

But they agreed that action was required. The few who questioned the

commitment itself were either principals such as Robert Kennedy, whose

questioning was only offhanded, tentative, and overridden by his visceral

commitment until he left the executive branch, or low-level officialssuch

as Kattenburg, or isolated figures such as George Ball, who almost never

went so fa r as to say explicitly that the United States should accept th e

demise of the Saigon regime. The system facilitated decisionmaking on

means to reach the end of containment; that end remained virtually un-

challenged within the executive branch. The system facilitated decision-

making on ways to keep the costs of commitment as low as possible; th e

problem was the progressive inflation of the lowest possible costs ofpre-venting Communist victory. The bureaucratic system did what it was

supposed to: select and implement means to a given end. The political

system did what a democracy usually does: produce a policy responsive

more to the majority and the center than to the minority or the extremes

of opinion. A nd strategic thought, from that of the limited war theorists

to the counterinsurgency specialists did what it was supposed to do:

s uppo rt th e general policy of world~de containment with specificideas

and PfOgrams for conta inment in Vietnam.



NS OF VIETNAM. B L£S50

rI! the Reformist School, seeks to alter institutions and '. 355c a l l e d h V' etnam. policIes tot anot er 1

p r ev e n

Win School includes both people who retrospe t' IfT h e . h . c rv e y eel that' involvement III t e war was a mIstake and th h b .

A m e r I c a n . ose w 9 eheve't was necessary. What urutes members of this school th .

t h a t 1 • h . d f ' en, ISnot

. hared belief III t e WIS am 0 the commitment but thei ht h e l r s , eir s ared' tion that the war was fought the wrong way Mostly c d f

c o n V lC , . ..' ompose 0' l i t r y men and political conservatIves, this school is divided' it

I T l l a III 1 S con-about how future commitments should be set but una . I

cern .' , nlmous yconvincedhat once Amenc~n prestige and credibility are committed,

theUnitedStates should SWIftly and fully employ its technological ad-

v a n t a g e s in battle.

T h e Reformist School consists of people who believe that the war was

a mistakeand that ways must be found to prevent its recurrence. Com-

posedof l iberals and moderates, it is united by the desire both to curbthew a r power and to frame policies with a restricted view of what is

v i t a l toAmerican security. It is concerned principally with the politics

a n d substanceof ends more than with the question of means. Interest-

i n g l y , in the late 1970S most members of both schools seem to agree that

t h e United States should not intervene with force in the developingworld,

Neitherschool conclusively addresses the critical element in the Viet-

n a m experience, the elements in the system that made the war and the

w a y it was fought "necessary," and neither seriously gets to the re-

latedproblem of how to deal with a "mistake" after it is made. But

~eforedeveloping these points, the arguments of the two schools need to

eexploredmore closely.

T he W in S ch oo l

PT h e W i n School looks to the differences in military strategy between

tl d f its argumen .J O : 8 e~t Johnson and President Nixon for the ~s O. 1 dual e s c a . .1 . on s strategy rested on three interrelated prinClples. g ra mining o f

h ati~ , a h ig h ly restrictive list of permissible operations (no J . .

' : u rs , no POPulation bomb ing InNorth VIetnam.

=" '_~h a t onalcross-border operations, and th e like), and-.a..... :~ ~~

t e l l Illade clear that Amerioa h ad DO i n t e D t i : ; _ ~ a l _ ~ " ' J ! ! I ! ! !\ \ I : ~ t h e NorthVietnamese re~ "..

a \ \ 1 d e r t h to give Hanoi some ad,,~10

\\tar. Avotdiug a~"'.-.~!I!IlIfI



.. _ ... .....__~-__.- ........-----........-- ... -. .. . . . .

356 THE IRONY 0,

ran a high risk of bringing about counterintervention b th$

Union and China. Y

Nixon, on the other hand, chose a military strategy anchored

sive and quick military action, to a less restricted bombing tar to t n a s . .

coupled with a declaratory policy that was ominously silent ab get l i s t ,. '. out whatmight happen to the North VIetnamese regime if it persisted A

. ccord_ingly he invaded Cambodia in 1970, ordered U.S. forces to su

S· 'th t i t L' d . pportargon s rus III ° aos III 1971,an III 1972restarted the bombingof

North Vietnam on a large scale, mined the harbors, and then approved

the bombing of Hanoi itself.

Nixon, like Johnson, had to make his military moves without serious

risk of intervention by Peking or Moscow. But while Johnson did thisb y

restricting military actions in Indochina, Nixon did it by enlarginghis

diplomacy. Nixon's "insight," or plan, was that the way out of Vietnamwas through Moscow and Peking, not Hanoi. By playing on Sino-Soviet

rivalry and by initiating the policy of detente with both countries,he

hoped and calculated that they would restrain Hanoi and thus prevent

an American defeat.

Was the Nixon approach successful? In many respects, it seemedto

work. Despite the reescalation of the war, Moscow and Peking did not

intervene. Startlingly, the Russians wanted detente badly enough that

they even welcomed Nixon to Moscow after he ordered the miningof

the harbors. But quite apart from jeopardizing the beneBts of detente

with Washington, intervention could not have looked very attractivetothe Communist superpowers. By the time of the reescalation in 1972, th e

United States had 8 aircraft carriers some 200 B-S2 bombers, and nu-

merous other aircraft in and near the Indochina theater. The U.S.Air

Force also had just begun to use so-called smart bombs with astronon~i'

cally higher probabilities of knocking out targets than ordnance usedmhI' g con-all previous bombing. The United States thus had overw e min

ventional superiority in the area. b t

Nixon's decisiveness also seemed to have a tangible effect on the, a-ki t the ru i wartIe in South Vietnam. Mining the harbors and knoc ' lOg ou ., f

'1 d the B o W 0links between North Vietnam and China clearly CUl-tale res

supplies from Hanoi's friends. This in tum reduced the flowof supP ;'se. '. th h N rth Vietnam .gomg mto South Vietnam. The upshot was at teo ned

offensive was impaired, and the battlefield situation in the Souths e e l

to stabilize. in o f thatNixon·. ItrateK}' also worked politically in 197z. By the spn g



<c-.

, I ONS OF VIETNAMflf; r,t:ss. 35 7

~ e l l l ' i t appeared that the. antiwar mo~ement was growing irresistibly and

) C ngress would leglslate a termmal date for American part" tit h a t 0 icipa on

t b

War . Senator George S. McGovern had become the Demo ti

il l e . . cra c

p a r t Y ' s presidentia~ no~mee lar~ely. on the st.rength of his strong stand

. st the war. Nixon s escalation 10 May did not silence the lib III g lllll . era s,

but it did contam them. It also hastened a transformation of the basic

liberalargument against the war, as did the strategy of Vietnamization

t h a t reduced the number of Americans being killed. Instead of stressing

th e hopelessness of winning the war, liberals now began to emphasize

its immorality. This transformation probably weakened the antiwar

movement with the American people, although the evidence on this

point is not conclusive. Nonetheless, from the time of the escalation right

down to Henry Kissinger's statement in October 1972 that "peace is at

hand," Nixon had captured the support of most Americans in the mid-

dleand on the right.

Thus Nixon's strategy helped keep Moscow and Peking at bay, ad-

versely affected North Vietnamese military operations·in the South, and

gained the backing of most Americans. But this still does not prove that

it was successful. To demonstrate success, it would have to be estab-

lished that Nixon's military decisiveness caused Hanoi to accept settle-

ment terms that it would not have accepted otherwise. Here, the. k nd the answer depends

evidence and arguments become qmte rnur Y a

on judgment. N th V'etnam's

The essence of the Paris accords of January 1973was or 1 I. ners of war in exchange for comp e eagreement to return U.S. pnso Wh ot this agreement

S th Vietnam y was nAmerican withdrawal from ou '11 clte Nixon administration was

hatched years earlier? Because unti F973

I g time the United States,

hh nge or a on

unwilling to settle for t at exc a .' d Ki inger's heels, held out for. t Nlxon an ss

with Thieu anxiously nipplng a t ps from the South. The admin-

h V· tnamese roothe withdrawal of Nort Ie. dit'on buving Thieu off with secret

dd this con 1 , I- •Iti

istration finally aban one . h ent of North Vietnamese VIO a on

Port 10 t e ev ., d ands for

assurances of U.S. sup th maintain that Hanol s em

of the truce. IGssinger and :d::ands that were dropped at th~e~d of

Thieu's removal frotll:ow:~e agreement. Having WashingtoD

f

eh~lnat~

197Z-were what hel up bonus but it was not the basic issue for anodl.been a' 'd 'litary orees an

Thi would have .d the South of oUtsl e rrueu Ilong was to rt ..

Hanoi'S aU n al St tus of Negotiations toward Viet-Nam Peace,

lCissinger Disc~sses J ~ (November 13, 197Z). p. 549·

6. "Dr. of Slate Bullet"', vo .

Departrnt!flt



'" u U.; Q) .~ .-., t::~o OCt: .9

" " : : : :

THE IRONy OF VI'""'TN AM:

support and to face Saigon one-on-one. To be sure, the Paris accords .

not prohibit the United States from reintervening, but Hanoi had dId

reason to calculate that this would be unlikely for political reaso gOoOdns, n

balance it would seem that Nixon's approach succeeded only in ca ., USlng

Hanoi to abandon the Thieu bonus and in damaging North Vietnameseforces enough to give Thieu a better chance of survival with the Am .en -cans gone.

Some will still judge this as sufficient reward to validate the lesson

that once a commitment is made, military decisiveness is required. But a

contrary lesson suggests itself with at least as much persuasiveness. Only

when terms that reflect the long-range battlefield and political realities

are offered can an agreement be concluded. If it is true that Nixon suc-

ceeded in getting Moscow and Peking to pressure Hanoi into signingthe Paris accords, certainly neither he nor they pressured Hanoi into

dropping its central demand-that North Vietnamese forces be per-

mitted to stay in the South and that American forces leave.

The quick and massive use of force has appeal in certain limited situ-

ations. It did when Johnson employed the Marines in the Dominican

Republic in 1965 and when President Ford used sea and air power to

rescue the cargo ship Mayaguez from the new Communist government

in Cambodia in 1975. In both instances American political opposition

did not have time to form; to the contrary, both operations gained gen-

eral public approbation while eliciting some criticism from the intelli-

gentsia and allied groups.

But to make broader deductions from these experiences would seem

futile. Presidents are unlikely to inculcate general lessons about th e use

of force. They and Congress will want to look at each case. Decisiveness

may have b een th e right w ay to dislodge a handful of Communists inth e

Dominica. Republic or to rapiD a sbip from the CambodianS· But

l\ l isoD rejected thts oouae w _ the North Koreans .h ot dow n the~

til." p1eae s a . . , Ii ..... to be another Kor_ W:8I,

...0Ji--.;



ONS OF VIETNAM

fJ ~ LtS S1 fightthan of how to fight. Its tendency is t ' 359

b e n to 0perceIve a h 1 1V I 'ti'ngeither no response or a nearly total on G c a enge

m e n e, radatio ba s table, Moreover, the school appears to be' diff ns ecomeuDaccep . In erent to th '

h

t to do about a mistaken commitment So d e ISSue

o f V I a , l v i h ' me a vocates of th ihI corneclose to Imp ymg t at honor and credibility S

5C 00 'f the commi must be upheld

h tve r the ments a e commitment, This seemed 'I I

w a e , . h ' pen ous y the case, th e manner m whic the Ford admmistration hand l d th1 D he Wi hi' e e Angolan, 'Iwarin 1975 ,T e W in Sc 00 ultimately makes a virt f '

C IV l • ue 0 necessitya n d thereby allows U.S. policy to b~ driven by the weakest features of

thesystemthat brought about the VIetnam War in the first place,

The Refo rmist S choo l

Whilethe Win School makes a virtue of whatever appears necessary,

th e ReformistSchool would have the United States adopt a new set of

v a l u e s and constraints-in sum, a new necessity, The majority of the

membersof this school-and they are mostly liberals and moderates in

b o t h parties-were early supporters of the American commitment to

S o u t h Vietnam. Gradually most came to see the war as a mistake that

theyd id not want to see repeated, to state the problem in tenns o f inter-

vention, and to believe that controlling intervention meant changing

policiesand governmental structures.Thepolicy prescriptions of the Reformist School vary considerably;

a l l basicallyhold that the United States should be prepared to engage

i n w a r in Europe and Japan, but they differ on Israel and Sou th Korea.

It i s with respect to the developing world that their differences aM m o s t

noticeable.Some would not exclude direct American ~

a t t a c k e r s included the Soviet Union and China . 0 t J .0 u u r . . . .

i n te rvent ion to air and sea power and leave th e ---

o t h e r s , Somewould categorically preclude d t J 1 " i~MI!!Whatever the variants all seem 'n"dIiVlLtea

thinking a bou t wo rld poiUies. Ea r l C . .. ..

! l e a t h e r s of th e sch ool in h is d e f J " ' - ~ ":: lOme of these f u D C . . . . . 1t



'n

360

THE IRONY OF VIETN.A.~matters by intervening in small ones, Thus, a set of antipresUmptio

d b i inst ' t ti ld ns thatstablish a structure las agams IIIerven IOnwou result in a p f. " forei I' ro oundhange IIIthe direction of our orergn po ICy.7

In the earliest stages of the Reformist School critique of past pol;

its advocates fastened onto the issue of bilateral foreign aid. This ki~of aid, they argued, created V.S. security interests where none preVi-

ously existed and magnified those that did exist. Their point Was that

bilateral economic and military aid deepened American involvement in

Vietnam, increased the stakes for the Vnited States, and generated new

incentives to support the existing regimes regardless of their visibiIity,

That aid programs have these effects is doubtless true. Aid does deepen

involvement. But to go further and contend that aid was the grease on

which the United States slid into the substantial commitment to the

Saigon regime is to misread the bulk of the evidence. Increased bilateralaid to Diem, Ky, and Thieu followed rather than preceded the basic

commibnent to a non-Communist South Vietnam. The aid programs

were essentially a reflection of the prior commitment, as weII as a way ofimplementing it.

There may be a host of valid reasons for eliminating bilateral aid pro-

grams, which certainly do increase American identification with many

repressive regimes and often are the fonn of aid most resented by the

recipients. But to consign these programs to history with the expectation

of thus having relieved the problem of intervention is to miss what really

drives commitments, namely the institutions of the system and the valuesthat penneate them.

The same objections can be made to the view of reformers who seek

to control COmmitments and interventions by reducing military spend-

ing. Here again, it is difHcuIt to see the connection between the Penta-

gon budget and the COmmitment in Vietnam. Pentagon spending in-

c reased after the start of th e Korean W ar and after the commitm ent to

Vi etn am . I t l e v e J e d o f f in the la tter E i senhower years, i n c r e a s e d some--

w I a a t i a " -.fy Lwmedy admiuimation, ud thou leveled" a p i P ' :lIIf &lid It'JI_._ l o 1 u u o a . The d e o i s J o a to ~...".,.., _;...... "L ~ th e rite ill ......... &.red)',



:NS OF VIETNAMr.,tSS O

- r r r t . the decision to get into direct and mass' 361

verse, rve combat· v 'th e r e 'pitated the budget increase under Johnson t h III let-

A ' " preCl b ) no t e reversO i J V ' fonners have een more specific on this poi t . e.

Somere n , suggesting th ttbacks in general purpose forces might make 't. a

everecu h G ham All: 1 easier for presi-S t to intervene. T us ra am Allison, Ernest M dd e n t s n o d i F . At!. « ay, an Adam

linsky asserte m oreigr: mrs: For the critical . b l .

Y a ( 1 1 l o • . vana e IS the

fxpectations within the bureaucracy, and an ap·parent 1 .

set0 e eanness III

D o n - n u c l e a r forces would help to persuade the bureaucracy that the

Presidentgenuinely intended to stand behind the presumptions he had

nnounced."Bt is difficult to accept, however, that the bureaucracy'a . I" h "I " ISthe"criticalvanab e or t at eanness would deter a president on inter-

vention.Asdiscussed extensively in previous chapters, the bureaucracy

(andparticularly the military bureaucracy) was not a major force in

m a k i n g the commitment. Indeed to the extent that opposition to the

commitmentwas anywhere to be found, it was in some quarters of the

bureaucracytself. There may be many sound reasons for curtailing de-

fensespending, but curbing commitments is not one of them. Forces so

leana s to preclude any intervention in the Third World may well be too

leanto intervene credibly anywhere. Moreover, precluding options by

limitingapabilities puts the cart before the horse. It is a strate gem to

preventa president from being able to do what he may want to do. The

U . S . military buildup in the flexible response program of the early 1960s

-which made large-scale intervention in Vietnam possible-was th eresulto f administration policy, not the cause. Itwas a rational strategic

adaptationto the containment doctrine, undertaken precisely because

t h e administration wanted to be able to use force to prevent the estab-

llshmentof new Communist governments.9 The anti-couununist d e »

t r i n e of containment led the United States into Vietnam, not th e s t r a t e :o f flexiblemilitary options and doctrine and policy, m,o.nt bns t r a te g y , Ie fo7 the·......

M and tactics that flow from th em , are the prob lD ____.

o s t : adherents o f th e R eform ist S ch ool h ave c m o e to 1IIfIIRIr ..

~ents and to focus OIlbroacLwpOlQ r .and P rocedu res of the system- U 8 1 - -

~ ; : : A D i a G a . Erueet u••. , . . . . . t » I 1 " " . . III (:r-W!I



362 THE IRONY OF VIETNA.~

have thus proposed curbing the powers of the President and enhancing

those of Congress. For reasons that are understandable but unsubstan_

tiated, it has become fashionable in reform circles to blame wars on

presidents and to seek wisdom and restraint inCongress.

The arguments about the imperial presidency in foreign affairs are b ynow well known. Irrefutably, the powers given to Kennedy, Johnson

,and Nixon were well in excess of those of their predecessors and perhaps

in excess of those allowed in the Constitution. It is also probably true

that presidents constituted the main force behind establishing the Viet-

nam commitment and the main stumbling block to extrication from the

war. Thus reformers find it natural to ignore or downgrade the pressures

external to the presidents, the beliefs and constraints that impelled th epresidents toward commitment.

On similar grounds, the reformers turned to Congress. Never mindthat congressional pressures on Truman at the time of the Korean War

and after the "loss" of China to prevent Communist gains elsewhere and

anywhere were enormous. Congressional leaders were even ready to

back an Eisenhower intervention in Dien Bien Phu as long as the United

States was joined by allies. The situation was not much diHerent for

Kennedy and Johnson. Nonetheless, the reformers turned to Congress,

not because they forgot Congress's role in making the commitment, but

because they saw hope inCongress's role in ending the war. The ques-

tion is whether they saw more than was really there. It is true that themain pressures to end the war were centered in Congress. But the fact

remains that Congress did not enact restrictive legislation on the war

until after all American troops were out of Indochina. Before 1973 the

Senate passed bills to set a terminal date for American participation, h utth e HOUle rejected them.

The new p ro -C ong re ss s en timen ts did produce a rush of legfllation,

b e n e . I c . i a I in the IeD8e of enhancing checks and ba1a DC e 8 . Congressionalr e w e w P f O O e d u r e s we re ena cte d i 1 1 t o law tha t reduce eaecatlve b r a n c h

~t erpoae 181 f~ ~ tatioDa1e.t, and make th e COD-

.... ....."... ..tude CoDpII.

,,. ... tut ....tI



oN'SOF VIETNAM

fl~ LESS'I ' to do in the first place becomes virtuall . 3

63

J } f l c e s s a l ) ' Y Impossible to undo

t h e r e a f t e r .

up' The Win School would have America . e li1 '0 s u I I l ' . v m cate mist k .whilethe ReformIst School would have it avoid th a esm

v i c to r y , . Th f' 1 ano er mistak.. r 'th er i s comforting. e ormer gives promise of on l th e.J~el " Y reats and

The latter suggests a certam naivete. For if 0 t h of o r c e . . ne mg can be

ted onas one looks back to VIetnam, China Munich d S .c o u n . . " an araJevo't ' s that mistakes W I ll be committed. The problem then's t 'II • . .." 1no somuchpreventionas extricati~n, and the solution ISnot somuch governmental

restrUcturings changmg fundamental attitudes about and within the

s y s t e m .

Recommendations

Specifically,what can be done to the political-bureaucratic decision-

m a k i n g process to make it more likely that if a mlstake'is made, it can be

corrected?Posingthe issue this way raises the question of how to define a "mis-

t a k e , " But this seems more a philosophical than a practical problem.

Considerableevidence suggests that on the basis of intuitive cost-benefit

analysesnd moral values, most of the American people, the foreignpol-i c y professionals,the politicians, and the foreign leaders concluded that

th eVietnamW ar was a mistake long before it was over. The same caD be

s a id o f U . S . efforts to isolate China after 1950 , or of western e i f o r t s to

appeaseHitler in th e late 19305, or of some of the policies t b a ~ :W orldW ar I. The problem i s tr an sla ti ng the r etrospeo tlve aw u

h amistakes,urning th e policy around, and overoomiBI th e

d overwhelmed th e facts.

to M a n y of th e proposals advanoecl by th e Rei!offl-.... ~!'!~

l D . o r e r e a t r u c t u r e incentiveB in the ~b U a t e r a tolit ically feasible to chGl • . . 'W ~

.....=it--:,-..-_



3 6 4 THE IRONy OF VIF.TNA~

Potential is at least balanced by what is gained in promoting

escaperoutes. Those who worry about leadership usually believe that this qual.

ity inheres only in the President and are fe~uI of damaging presidential

authority. These fears are exagg~r~ted. ~lth fe>; exceptions, the chief

executive has been able to prevail In foreign aHaIrs OVer the past thirt

years. Even in the past few years, with new restrictive legislation on th ~

books, he has generally been able to follow his desired COurse.

Competing centers of power, however, allow for a greater sharing of

responsibility, and this sharing is essential for extrication. Political costs

are bound to be attached to any reversal of policy. Judging by the Viet-

nam experience, presidents seemed to have been more concerned about

these costs than many congressmen were. Particular constituencies of

individual congressmen turned against the war before the President's

national constituency. It was politicaIIy safer for these congressmen to

come out against the war than it was for the man in the White House.

When they became a majority in 1973, these congressmen began to man-

date a declining American involvement. Their actions were a signal to

the President and the American people that Congress was prepared to

share the blame for whatever might subsequently happen in Indochina.

Although Nixon and Ford rejected these entreaties, other presidents

might find them a welcome COver for retreat and change. Thus the no-

tion that Congress should playa larger role in foreign aHairs is a healthychange in the system.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a case in point.w Congressmen

came to see that putting together a majority to vote against the President

was impossible until after all American troops were withdrawn. Based

largely on that experience, Congress framed the War Powers Resolut ion

in such a way that it did not require a majority vote against the Presi-

dent. By this law the President cannot continue military action beyond

sixty days unless Congress votes with h im. Failure to support h im con-

stitutes a veto.ll

This may be a small matter, and perhaps onee the Presi-

dent commits forces Congress Will go along anyway_ But th e ac t d o e s

addn:u a W e a I m e o s Inth e 1 Y S b m I , th e d i 1 I I o u J t y 01 0 J I I P 0 I I a c th e P M o I d a n t



oN'S OF VIETNAM

l ! F : J)J:SS

l' trOOPS are in the field, and that is a plus in itself . . 365

W b ;n g than to undue something. . It I S eaS I er to d o

n c 'dents can do two things to give themsel '.p r e s l h ves slmllar fl 'b'

, to nurture dissent. T e other is to present C exi ility.O n e i s f li 1 ongress and th b.tbarealisticlisto po cya ternatives, epu -

li cWl

D i s s en t a n d Pol icy

Onc e a president sets policy, it becomes a herculea t k f 'n as or senior

m e l' g i s and bureaucrats to argue against it. Presidents h

0, ave to makec l e a r upand down the line that they want to hear criticisms and alterna-

t i v e s f r o m their subordinates before they read them in the press, a n d

t h a t dissenterswill be rewarded as well as team players, This does n o t

m e a n that presidents and their senior officers should penalize teamplay-e r s o r n o t seek agreement on policies, They should press for agreement

o n coherentpolicies but also leave the door open to revising judgment.

N o r d o e s it mean creating separate "dissenting staffs" in the various de-

partments;hat would serve only to isolate and tame dissenters, Dissent

should be institutionalized by rewards and promotions, not domesti-

c a t e d . Subordinates will perceive quickly whether or not the President

is serious.

Relatedto this is the manner in which the President speaks to th e

Americanpublic about his choices. Presidents have made th e unholy

trilogy oftwo extremes and the Aristotelian mean their standa rd far e- -

a n inaccurate reflection of the options given to a president by h is s u b -

ordinates,The middle way subsumes many separable choices, which

w o u l d certainly be difficult to break out for public inspection, b u ! _ ! :alternativeis having these options aired by outside critics, a : .c o m e s f r o m outsiders is bound to be less acceptable. Moreover, ::

f a c t o f a president speaking about th e se o th e r alterD4tivet

iD - =e a J i s t i c t e r m s might make it more poss ib le fo r h im to e h o o J e

a h o u I d change h ia mind.



366 THE IRONY OF VIETNA:M:

either ignored or forced to fit the theory. To define policy in terms of

necessity) as doctrines do, is to preclude choice by definition.

While an overall doctrine embodied in political consensus does not

end dispute, it makes the outcomes a certainty. There was little chance

that President Roosevelt could have the United States weigh in thescales against Hitler before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, given

the doctrine of isolationism. There was no way President Truman could

avoid the commitment to Vietnam, given the doctrine of containment.

The street demonstrators, the academic critics, and congressmen had no

power to reverse that commitment; they could only affect how the war

was conducted.

As long as the general doctrine of military containment of commu-

nism remained the consensus, the specific military intervention in Viet-

nam followed logically. The domino theory saw any conflict withCommunists as a testing ground of Western resolve and credibility.

Communists had threatened, or had seemed to threaten, to take over

"Free World" territory in Greece, Berlin, Korea, Iran, Guatemala,

Lebanon, and the Dominican Republic. Actions to prevent these

changes were seen by majorities in the public and within government

as the American successes of the cold war. When Communists did gain

control in China and Cuba, these were seen as American defeats. When

containment was interpreted flexibly and modified, as it was in the sec-

ondary scene of conflict in Indochina (Laos) in 1961, this made affirma-tion of commitment in the primary Indochina scene (Vietnam) all the

more necessary. Vietnam was another arena in the cold war, another

domino, and as such it was covered by the doctrine that Communists

would not be allowed to take over territory by force, that salami tactics

that succeeded in the 19308 would not succeed inthe postwar era. Doc-

trine dictated commitment .

0pp0sIti0a to llJ'.l)'ielding d.octrino need not degenerate into a prag-

... aihaJi. or.. 6 1 ' . l & l ' O h y rllte ada .rda th at ~ ~g.

... .. ~ .... 8aIJ - Y Iluahla. It l e D . d t o o J a e r e D C 8.. ,~it



oN'S OF VIETNAM

E : r,tSS

1'l! than constrains, and that does not take On lif 367t h er a e of it

r a , does not produce paralysis or sterility in d . 1sown. Prag-a05m . I h there i omestic poli .

1 1 1 , f reign policy. n s art, ere IS a need to'd C Y i It needa t 1!1 0 I avoi OVerarh '

J 1 nd to seek more particu ar, more adaptive d c lUgdoc-t r i J l e s a . ,an more co di .

Ruskand Kissinger argued that commitment n tiona!o o e s · . , II h s cannot be t

, ly: i f this is so , It IS ate more vital that the b me se -l e c o v e ' . Y e made selecti 1

T he objection here 1S not to a consensus on a part' 1 ve y.

ld hlCU ar policy f

-..Mcularart of the wor . T e problem is with a c or apill'" . onceptual or doc-, 1consensus-the Truman Doctrine the Eisenh D II

tnD a . . .' ower- u e s doc-

tn'D e ofmassiveretaliation, or the Nixon Doctrine. These' ti .

liti I " m me acquire

t he characterof a po tica imperative. It is only possible t di

. . . 0 ssent suc-cessfullyn a particular policy so long as It is not encased in Holy SCrip-

t u r e .

Thecompulsion to have conceptual doctrine embodied in consensusis strong.Most of the best foreign policy minds in the country devote

themselveso promoting new doctrines. In Henry Kissinger's most influ-

entialbook, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, he rejected prag-

m a t i s m as improvisation and ended with a chapter on "The Need for

Doctrine."A strategic doctrine, he wrote, "is the mode of survival of a

s o c i e t y " and is the only basis for achieving purposeful action, defining

w o r k responsibilities, giving direction, and defining challenges a n d re-

sponses."By explaining the significance of events in advance of their

occurrence,t enables society to deal with most problems as a matter o fr o u t i n e and reserves creative thought for unusual or unexpected situ·

a t i o n s . " 1 2 ••earslater, after Congress passed the ban on fur the r Amencan

t a r y action inIndochina, Secretary of State Kissinger said: - r J a e ~

o r d e a l of the whole nation is too obvious to require ~

solUtion:i.1le consensus that sustained our ~n.:!ii."""indanger o f being exhausted. It must b e . . . , . , r . ""There are two unspoken assumptioDJ he ftu ••• ~~

d o c t r i n e an d c on sen su s ...elective controL That le a dM ,. .. 1 1 1



368 THE IRONy OF V I t > -

" ~!NA~doctrine bearing their names IS unquestionably true. That they could

have been effective ~thout that do~trine is questionable. Leaders co~~

have argued the ments of each policy on a case-by~case basis Thi'. • S cer-

tainly would have been more difficult, whioh serves to point out that th

main lure of doctrine and consensus is indeed control. Kissinger did not

idly italicize the phrase "in advance" when writing of the virtues of doc:

trine. To the extent that doctrine is embodied in consensus, it virtuall

eliminates the chance of seriously debating the significance of an eve~

in advance. By this means, bureaucrats come to know what to expect and

dissenters come to understand the futility of resistance.

Control and power, however, are purchased at a h i gh price. In obtain-

ing them a leader or a president not only stymies potential opponents

but entraps himself as well. In the end it is the President himself who is

most bound by his own doctrine and who most deprives himself ofchoice.

Stanley A. Hoffmann saw this quite clearly: "The tendency to analyze

issues in terms of set formulas or analogies instead of tackling them on

their merits encourages the continuance of policies long after they have

outlived their usefulness, and then a rather abrupt dismissal of them

once their counter-productiveness has become damaging (at which

point they are replaced with new dogmas that have the same effect);

hence, the alternation of rigidity and radical change noted by observ-

ers."U

The need for pragmatism more than doctrines, formulas, and ideolo-

gies is the basic lesson of the Vietnam War. Americans are rightly known

as a pragmatic people intheir internal aHairs and in their thinking. That

SO pragmatic a people have followed such Ideological foreign policies is

paradoxioaL While Americans by and large spumed ideology in their

d o m e s t i c polities, they embraced it intheir foreign policy. Somehow the

~ States had to l ie better, purer, and cleaner abroad than it was at



NS OF VIETNAM 3~

tS

SO

h b v~

rg

t

L boice- Americans ave een so mesmerized for the pastn a t i o n and c b aIls for leadership and creativity in t h e conduct o fears y C I d ht J r i r ! Y Y . that they have neg ecte t e need for adaptation and. n policy b "th h' ld" b

f o r e I g always talk a out e c angmg WOr ut too rarely of

c h a n g e . TheYed to change policies. It is to this end-to think of policy.

therelated ne t f adjustment as well as an act of creativity a nd le ad er-i g as an ac 0

III~ nth t the system must work.sh ip- a

Gelb and Betts.Lessons of Vietnam

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