Meditations on the Vietnam War: Long Road to an Absurd War

My recent viewing of the PBS documentary The Vietnam War triggered something in my obsessive nature.  I was inspired to pull out and revisit the material I have in the 30+ books and official reports I collected in my library back in the 80's and 90's.  Over half of these books are devoted to the military aspects of the war in some form or fashion, since I have a special interest in military history.  The other half are split between various political and cultural studies of the war. 

The more I skimmed through this material (for the first time in almost two decades) the more intrigued I became with certain patterns I saw develop through the various works when reviewed altogether - something I've probably never done before.  I divided my collection up into various categories and began to consider the little bunches of books for what they are, a plethora of often conflicting perspectives - an accurate reflection of how America still views the war itself.

Some themes emerged for a series of "meditations" on this material.  I'm sure several discerning works on the war were published since I stopped purchasing material in the late 1990's.  So my meditations do not pretend to include the latest insight in opinion or scholarship.  Rather this is a broad summary of topics based upon a variety of older material, much of which is still respected by readers and the academic community.

This first meditation concerns the years leading up the insertion of American combat troops in 1965.  This is based upon information from three books of diverse perspectives in my collection: Backfire is a rather liberal cultural interpretation of the war, The Necessary War is a more conservative interpretation, and The Irony of Vietnam more or less a neutral study of the political system that led the US into war.

"Ho Chi Minh founded the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and in early September 1945, a celebration of the birth of the new nation and of the Allied victory was held in Hanoi.  American planes, probably inadvertently, flew above the city to the cheers of the 400,000 people who had gathered.  Next to Vietminh officers on the reviewing stand stood American military officers saluting the new flag of North Vietnam.  The 'Star Spangled Banner' was played by the Vietnamese band.  In General Vo Nguyen Giap's speech he mentioned Vietnam's 'special affection' for America. Ho Chi Minh began his own speech by quoting the Declaration of Independence, 'this immortal statement.'" (Baritz, page 47)

The Japanese had just lost World War Two.  This created a vacuum in what was then called Indochina.  In order to make use of air and naval bases as well as to drive out "western" invaders in Japan's "sphere of influence", the Japanese had ousted the French colonialists who had controlled the Vietnam region since the 1800's.  Several Vietnamese factions rose up to fill the void, the most promising of which was led by Ho Chi Minh.  How did we get from the remarkable historical moment mentioned above to the beginning of warfare that ultimately led to some 58,000 American deaths just 20 years later?  Well, it is a long and rather twisted tale.  Much of it did not even involve Vietnam but, rather, concerned global events following World War Two.

Initially, there was a small chance that Ho would enjoy the support of the United States in creating a "democratic" and unified Vietnam.  Leslie Gelb reveals that the American support for the return of French imperial rule was not guaranteed, rather it developed out of how the victors of World War Two would strengthen their individual global interests.  "There can be no doubt about Roosevelt's anticolonial and anti-French sentiments, particularly with respect to Indochina.  In his way he maneuvered for an international trusteeship.  But at Yalta in February 1945 Roosevelt accepted a trusteeship formula that can only be interpreted as leaving the fate of Indochina solely in French hands.

"Roosevelt compromised on the principle of an international trusteeship under heavy pressure.  De Gaulle was making promises of a better deal for the people of Indochina.  Churchill, fearing repercussion of a trusteeship on the British Empire, was vigorously protesting against such an idea.  The leaders of the President's own bureaucracy we opposing him: the State Department, which favored both the return of the French to Indochina and eventual independence of the colonies; and the War and Navy departments, which were concerned lest the principle of international trusteeship be so broad as to jeopardize eventual American possession of certain Japanese islands for future U.S. security purposes." (Gelb, Betts, pp. 34-35) 

According to Loren Baritz, ten loosely connected historic events or circumstances created a "chain" by which America unwittingly bound itself to the war in Vietnam. 

The first link in the chain came in March 1947 with the consequences of the Truman Doctrine.  "...the United States promised the world that it would resist Soviet expansionism wherever it occurred....the President said that 'it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure.' President Truman and his senior aides immediately began to explain that this doctrine did not mean automatic assistance to every country in the world, but they had unknowingly forged the first link in the chain that was ultimately to drag us into Vietnam. This is not because of the direct application of the Truman Doctrine, but because the American diplomatic and military mentality was now fixed." (page 52)

Then America acquiesced to the return of the pre-World War Two French rule in Indochina. "In February 1950, America formally recognized France's puppet Bao Dai, the second link in our chain to Vietnam, and thereby became Ho Chi Minh's enemy." (page 52)

That same year, the US intelligence community put together a document known as NSC 68 which broadened the initial intent of president Truman's doctrine.  "As Secretary of State Acheson said in 1950, 'we must consider Korea not in isolation but in the worldwide problem of confronting the Soviet Union as an antagonist.' The United States would no longer distinguish vital from peripheral interests.  This fundamental and widely accepted conclusion was the third link in the chain to the future American war in Vietnam." (page 54)

"Mr. Truman's decision in both Korea and Indochina was based upon two contradictory convictions: The United States was apparently strong enough to work its will in the world; but, the Soviets were so determined to spread revolution across the planet that any advantage they gained would inevitably result in further aggression either by subversion or war." (page 55)

For the US, the French return to Indochina was a workable scheme within the wider Cold War concern for the spread of Communism.  "The President and others in the administration did not believe that Korea represented a major American interest.  But as an adviser reported to Mr. Truman, Korea was an 'ideological battle ground.'  By then France was arguing that in reentering Vietnam, it too was fighting the Communists, not merely seeking to reclaim its empire.  France insisted it was holding back the troops that Mao Tse-tung already had amassed on his southern border with Vietnam." (page 56)

All of this was not only a reflection of American foreign policy, more importantly it represented the widespread belief structure of the American people, who were in the midst of a remarkable post-war economic expansion and who genuinely feared what the spread of Communism meant globally.  Extremist elements within the US took full advantage of this situation.

"A widespread agreement emerged in America about the shape and meaning of politics in the postwar world.  It was based on two assumptions which met with overwhelming favor in the succession of governments at the time, as well as with a great majority of American people.  The first assumption was that the American economy was working so well that a truly different age of affluence was eliminating poverty and, therefore, economic classes from the nation.  The second assumption was that this economic miracle - the American way of life - was mortally threatened by a monolithic, atheistic, international Communist conspiracy that was bent on universal aggression.  At specific moments dessert from this consensus was perceived to be treason, as Senator Joseph McCarthy was to demonstrate.

"The political significance of McCarthyism, the fourth link in America's Vietnam chain, was that it made reason and skepticism dangerous to many people, but especially to the careers of public officials, and they never forgot it.  McCarthyism accomplished this by making foaming anti-Communism integral to what the political center now called patriotism." (page 58)

This was the mindset that made the Korean War itself. among other things, a precursor to our attachment to Indochina.  "The involvement of the United States in Korea was closely linked in the President's mind to 'forces of freedom...fighting in Indochina.'  Each conflict was part of the larger global struggle, whether in the Korean War or in emerging conflict in Indochina.  'This,' he said, 'means military aid...to Indochina.'  This was the fifth link, a gold one, in the chain to Vietnam the United States unwittingly was constructing." (page 59)

The change in administrations from Truman to Eisenhower only accelerated our commitment to the French in Indochina and hence the further political alienation of the forces controlled by Ho Chi Minh.  "President Eisenhower explained that voting millions of dollars for the French was 'the cheapest way...to prevent' damage to American security while protecting our 'ability to get certain things that we need from the riches of the Indochina territory, and from Southeast Asia.' Underwriting the French war and the Associated States in their military efforts to defeat the Communist Viet Minh aggression.' He increased French aid from President Truman's $10 million to $400 million a year, and before he was finished he promised to raise that figure to $785 million.  By now America was paying for almost the entire French war effort, 78.35 percent, the sixth Vietnam link, another one made of gold.  In effect, the French had become mercenaries in America's conflict with the Soviet Union.  This was acceptable to a minority within France in the name of recapturing the colonial splendor of the old regime." (page 63)

Then came Eisenhower's famous personal take on the potential spread of Communism throughout the world.  "For President Eisenhower the war in Indochina was a classic example of what he christened the domino theory, the seventh link in the chain that was to shackle us to Vietnam....Later, the domino theory was essential to make Vietnam seem vital to the national interest of the Unites States, not by itself, but by its symbolic significance to Moscow and Peking.  A peripheral problem was redefined as the flaming fuse on an explosive that could obliterate freedom in the world.  This was a concept the American public could understand and support.  President Eisenhower told a National Governors' Conference, 'somewhere along the line, this must be blocked.  It must be blocked now.  That is what the French are doing.' The President had accepted the French argument that they were in Vietnam not merely to retake their empire, but stem Communism." (pp.  66-67)

As if to lend validity to the domino theory, Ho's forces, the Vietminh, ultimately defeated the French, leading to the partitioning of Vietnam into the North and the South according to the Geneva Conference in 1954.  This immediately created some serious problems for Ho which ultimately strengthened his ties with Communist world, particularly China.  "It was not sufficiently understood at the time that the dividing line would deprive northern Vietnam of food.  It had always depended on Southern surpluses of rice.  This provided the northerners with something other than ideology as a reason behind their 'fanatical' demands for reunification.  The other partitioned nations, Germany and Korea, had not divided the population from it food supply.  This single fact meant that inc dashingly the North would have to depend on its Socialist allies for aid.  The line delivered North Vietnam's belly into the hands of the People's Republic of China, while its head remained in Moscow." (page 76)

"In a letter to him in October 1954, President Eisenhower said that he was glad to respond favorably to the request for financial aid to assist in relocating hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, mostly Catholics, who were moving from North to South Vietnam.  About 80,000 guerrillas and their families moved to the North; about 5,000 guerrillas stayed in the South to fight again another day.  President Eisenhower informed [Ngo Dinh] Diem that the United States would like to begin 'an intelligent program of American aid' if a way could be found to assure 'standards of performance' of Diem's government.  The President wanted Diem to understand that America expected the Vietnamese to invent a nation that would fit into its intended slot in the Cold War...This letter was the eighth link in America's Vietnam chain." (page 82)

But the attempt at "democracy" in the South Vietnam was a joke from the start, as America backed a virtually dictatorial regime that discriminated against the vast majority of the people in the South. "The Catholic Vietnamese thrived under Diem's systematic discrimination against the Buddhists.  The Catholics were preferred in the civil service, while those who lived in the villages were not always required to do hard labor of building roads or other public works.  The Catholic Church, unlike the Buddhist pagodas, had special rights to acquired and own property, as had been the case under the French.  In time, this discrimination against the vast majority of the country would lead to politically lethal protests against Diem by the Buddhist bonzes." (page 83)

"Diem annoyed Americans not only because of his personal way of doing things.  He was an enthusiast when it came to repressing his political opponents, of whom he arrested upwards of 40,000. In early 1959, Diem legalized his brutality by creating special military courts to try political opponents and to pass sentences of death in no more than three days." (page 85)

Gelb underscores  the alienation Diem fashioned within South Vietnam through his tough, undemocratic rule, which led to mass assassinations in the South.  "Diem had problems: the taint of colonialism through past association with Bao Dai and then ties to the Americans, his autocratic way of governing, nepotism and his Catholicism.  His support derived preeminently from the Catholic and the urban middle class, many of whom had come South after Geneva, while the country he was trying to rule was populated mostly by Buddhists, Confucianists, and rural animists.  In short order he was to alienate the bulk of the peasantry and the non-Communist nationalist groups by abolishing village elections and instituting population relocation and censorship.  Then, in 1957 the terrorizing and assignation of pro-Diem officials began. The group responsible, called the Vietcong and composed of Communists, former Vietminh, nationalists, and varieties of Diem opponents, appears to have been fair indigenous.  There is no public evidence that the DRV [North Vietnam] began to direct Vietcong activities in the South until some time in 1960-61 with the creation of the National Liberation Front (NLF)."  (Gelb, Betts, page 64)

In my opinion, of critical importance at this time, was not of the fact the Diem promoted Catholic privilege (as the French did) in a largely Buddhist country, rather America supported Diem with a culture that was completely alien toward traditional Vietnamese culture.  "When President Eisenhower left office, there were some one thousand Americans in South Vietnam, the ninth link in the Vietnam chain which now long enough to wrap around our national neck.  About one billion dollars had created a Saigon economy that looked good, with well-stocked stores, available Coca-Cola, automobiles in the streets, and expensive houses going up in expensive neighborhoods....The other 85 percent of the people of South Vietnam, the peasants living in countryside villages, were barely touched by this new, shiny dreamworld of expensive American objects." (Baritz, page 86)

This alienation led to a gradually stronger revolt against the Diem regime.  "As a matter of course, opposition to Diem's repression, especially opposition by the 95 percent of Vietnam that was not Catholic, began to rise....the southern guerrillas, especially the five thousand or so who stayed behind in the South when populations were exchanged after the Geneva Conference, began their struggle against a tyrant who embarrassed the Americans.

"In September 1960, shortly before the American presidential election, bloody fighting broke out in Kontum, a province in the central highlands.  The Diem government announced that it had captured some North Vietnamese who had infiltrated through Laos.  This was not the invasion of a foreign power.  It was not even a civil war between contending factions inside South Vietnam.  It was a domestic uprising of people who would have been executed for their political beliefs by their own government if it could catch them....By then, 70 percent of South Vietnam's budget deficit, along with all the expenses for the police and the military, was paid by the United States , the tenth link in our chain to Vietnam." (pp. 87-88)

Michael Lind points out that there were important Cold War considerations for US involvement in Vietnam that really had more to do with American strategic allies and enemies than anything to do with Ho, Diem, or the Vietnamese people. "American officials swallowed their misgivings about French colonialism and paid for France's effort in its on-going war on Indochina from 1950 and 1954, in hope of winning French support for the rearmament of Germany.  Khrushchev's humiliation of the United States in the Berlin crisis of 1961 persuaded the Kennedy administration that a show of American resolve on the Indochina front was all the more important." (Lind, page 5)

To be fair, the North Vietnamese regime was at least as bad as its South Vietnamese counterpart in terms of brutal control and manipulation of Vietnamese society.  This is a fact that should not be understated (as it was in the PBS documentary that inspired my revisiting of the subject).  North Vietnamese brutality was well-known to American policy makers in the 1950's via the intelligence community and this only strengthened our perception of the necessity of stopping the spread of Communism.  As bad as Diem was, Ho was his equal under the guidance of Chinese political agents operating in North Vietnam. This, in turn, only heightened the sense of urgency in American policy.

"In North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh's regime followed the advice of Mao's government and concentrated on consolidating its rule rather than on sponsoring revolution in South Vietnam.  China showered North Vietnam with military aid, which between 1956 and 1963 amounted to 270,000 guns, 200 million bullets, more than 10,000 pieces of artillery along with 2 million artillery shells, 15,000 wire transmitters, 28 ships, 15 planes, and more than 1,000 trucks. The Chinese communist military advisers who had helped their Vietnamese allies defeat the French were now replaced by Chinese communist political advisers who guided a Vietnamese collectivization campaign modeled on the previous 'land reforms' in China and the Soviet Union.  At least ten thousand rural Vietnamese were singled out for denunciation as class enemies and executed after rigged trials organized by Vietnamese communists with the help of Chinese communist advisers.  When North Vietnamese peasants finally rebelled against this state terrorism, Ho Chi Minh used his military to crush them.  Maoist rural terror in North Vietnam was followed in due course by a purge of North Vietnamese intellectuals modeled on an earlier purge in communist China." (Lind, pp. 10-11)

Cruelty abounded as Communists in the South, apparently not yet directed by Ho's regime in the North, fed on Diem's autocracy and contributed to the instability of the fragile and uninspiring Catholic rule in the South. "Between 1959 and 1961 the number of South Vietnamese officials who were assassinated rose from twelve hundred to four thousand per year.  As the South Vietnamese insurgency grew more powerful, the United States equipped Diem's military and provided several hundred advisers, who trained the South Vietnamese military in often inapplicable conventional war tactics.  Ina July 8, 1959, guerrilla raid on a South Vietnamese army headquarters in Bien-hoa near Saigon, along with several Vietnamese the first American soldiers to die in Indochina were killed." (page 12) 

Baritz is perceptive in linking ten events of varying connectivity in America's journey from a victory celebration in Hanoi in 1945 to the commitment of American military assets in the early to mid-1960's.   Gelb underscores much of this chain of events with insights into the America's initial anti-colonial stance and ultimate support for a regime in the South that did not have the support of the majority of the South Vietnamese people.  The basic absurdity of what would become a completely bizarre war is that, from the beginning, America supported a weak, paranoid, and undemocratic government in the South in order to fight a threat to "democracy" from a brutal regime in the North.  This central fact is something I will return to in a future post.

Lind continues the narrative of the deteriorating situation throughout the greater Southeast Asia region following Diem's assassination.  "The political chaos gave Hanoi-controlled insurgents the opportunity to make major gains.  Before the coup against Diem, the Viet Cong had controlled less than 30 percent of the territory of South Vietnam; by March 1964, they controlled between 40 and 45 percent.

"The desperate situation in South Vietnam was matched by turmoil throughout Southeast Asia.  Beginning in 1962, the Indonesian dictator Sukarno had aligned himself with Mao and the Indonesian Communist party, the third largest in the world.  Having seized the formerly Dutch western part of New Guinea in 1962, Sukarno initiated a guerrilla war against Malaysia. To help the Malaysians fight Sukarno's forces and their Malaysian allies, the British dispatched elite Special Air Services (SAS) units.  Nearby in Cambodia, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, expecting a communist victory in South Vietnam, permitted the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars to use Cambodian territory to infiltrate South Vietnam." (page 15)

The wider anti-Communist perspective that developed in the US government during the 1950's ensured that US policymakers would view Vietnam as a component in the larger Cold War. America’s largest concern was to appear strong and demonstrate resolve in the face what was seen as cohesive, global communist expansion. 

"More than Vietnam was at stake.  Much or all of Southeast Asia appeared to be on the verge of incorporation into a radical, antiwestern bloc led by China and Indonesia.  With Mao's encouragement, Sukarno, who had adopted the slogan 'Crush America,' had withdrawn Indonesia from the United Nations and announced the formation of a rival body, the Conference of the New Emerging Forces.  Speaking in 1965 of a 'Djakarta-Phnom Penh-Hanoi-P'yongyang axis,' Sukarno, predicted that China would 'strike a blow against the American troops in Vietnam from the north while Indonesia would strike from the south.'...Even more important than the possibilities of 'falling dominoes' was America's credibility as a super power with worldwide military commitments to weak and endangered allies and client-states.  The United States had been humiliated already by the Soviet bloc in Berlin, Cuba, and Laos; yet another retreat threatened both to encourage the Soviet Union and China and to demoralize America's allies." (page 17)

This is how the long, twisted road ended with a policy that killed 58,000 Americans and tore this nation apart, entering our national psyche as profoundly as the Civil War did a century earlier.  But how we chose to fight that war is a different story and the subject of my next meditation on the Vietnam War.