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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TheLessons o f V ie tnam
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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
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. . . . . . .,
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.- ~ - . . . .
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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 . .
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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.,...
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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.,.."
1 I I J i I . . . . , . . . ~ I ~ .
i
; ~, ~
dt i
~" J f l
o
,~ p gp e
~J a c e
r H e lI t~ 9 f J c y
~ y s j S
~ e i J S
Im~ p e J J I
m ~ e s u ra K J r e ;n
~ e n c e ,b
r e s p e c t s w
m o r t t h e
w a e r i s s u
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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
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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.
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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
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.. _ ... .....__~-__.- ........-----........-- ... -. .. . . . .
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
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<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
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'" 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--.;
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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
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'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)',
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: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
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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
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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--:,-..-_
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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