As we saw before, JFK and his administration set a new course for foreign policy, characterized by “flexible response” and use of “graduated pressure.” This policy “worked” in the Cuban Missile Crisis, so it would “work” elsewhere. Towards making the military a more adaptive and surgical instrument, JFK created a brand new unit, the Special Forces, popularly known as “the Green Berets.” The motto of the new unit was a latin phrase: De Oppresso Liber, roughly translated: To liberty, out of tryanny. The purpose of this unit was to further liberty and security in places unsuited for U.S. conventional military forces. In Vietnam, our Green Berets would write in blood, whole new chapters in that long and storied volume of AMERICAN MILITARY GLORY.

When the French Foreign Legion was surrounded at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, France turned to Eisenhower for help. America had been supplying the French for some time, but now the French asked for more than material assistance. The French needed us to lift the siege at Dien Bien Phu. Eisenhower declined to rescue them and the Foriegn Legion capitulated, {and then were summoned home to Algeria, where they would engage in another brutal, fierce, ten year losing effort, but thats another story, which we will get into later, by the way}.

Following the French pull out of Indo-China, Vietnam was divided along the 17th parallel. At the time of the demarcation, OVER A MILLION VIET refugees fled south, rather than trust the Communist Viet Minh, who now controlled the North. Elections were to take place throughout all of Vietnam, to decide who would control the ultimate reunification process. Those elections were never held, because nobody trusted the Northern Communists not to tamper with the results. Around 1960, the North decided to take over the South through a guerilla war, an insurgency. To this threat of a communist takeover, JFK would “flexibly” respond. The Green Berets would go in, and train indeginous forces to counter and thwart the insurgency.

Ngo Dinh Diem was then the Premier of South Vietnam. He was corrupt, but not wholly incompetent. While waging the war, he resorted to tough and repressive measures. This caused problems for the JFK administration, who concluded that Diem had to go. They orchestrated a military coup against him. Advising against the coup were the JCS, {Joint Chiefs of Staff}, and Vice President Johnson, who quipped that it was “playing cowboys and indians in Saigon.” But the coup went forward on November 1, 1963, and Diem was assassinated. 21 days later, JFK was to be assassinated too.

Diem’s demise greatly overjoyed and encouraged the enemy. Diem would prove far easier to displace however, than he would to replace. No fitting successor for Diem was found until Thieu, and that was much later, and Thieu was not without his problems either. General Maxwell Taylor, famed former commander of the 101st Airborne, was sent to Saigon several months afterwards as the American Ambassador. He wrote to Johnson that “no adequate replacement for Diem is in sight.” And that nobody “appreciated the … political forces kept under control by his iron rule.”

The murder of Diem reduced the reputation of our country in the other Asian nations. When Richard Nixon for instance visited Pakistan as a private citizen in ‘64, the Pakistani President told him that the murder meant three things to Asian leaders: “That it is dangerous to be a friend of the United States, that it pays to be neutral, and that it sometimes pays to be an enemy!” Removing Diem was a huge victory for the enemy. In the year that followed, five South Viet administrations were created, only to collapse. Nobody had the stature of Diem.

The U.S. removed Diem, so we were obligated to step into the vacum created. But the Johnson administration was not unnerved by this eventuality. Vietnam was to get the developing world version of his domestic “Great Society” program. McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor called it the “full fledged Pax Americana Technocratica.” Id est, American know how would solve all problems, from bridges, utilities, crop rotation, irrigation, economic development, insurgencies, you name it, we would advise them on it. And we did, rice production for example, would SOAR under our advice, {naturally it would PLUMMET once the clueless communists took over}.

In March of 64, the JCS told LBJ to either get in and win the thing, or get out. A Pentagon study concluded with almost crystal ball clarity that half measures would not win the war. The study was titled SIGMA I, and it said that Special Force advisors would be followed by air strikes, which would lead to ground troops in significant numbers. These troops would still not solve the problem, because the North would respond by INCREASING the number of guerillas they sent to infiltrate the South. The JCS and their studies were dismissed. McNamara had his own plans, his own aides, “the Whiz Kids,” his own studies and his own stats.

The “Whiz Kids” did not think they needed any advice on winning a war from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Which made sense in a way, since Roger Hillsman, {former State Dept official then} said that “Kennedy preferred to treat the problem as something OTHER than a war,” {my emphasis}. So if its not a war, then there is no need to consult the war professionals. LBJ throughout 1964, likewise preferred to treat Vietnam as “something other than a war.” The purpose of force was to send the message to the North to give up their plans of taking over the South. It was all about communicating with your enemy, not vanquishing him.

Robert McNamara, former Ford Auto executive, LOVED stats. He had wall charts all over his office. “Every quantitative measure we have shows we’re winning,” thats the type of line McNamara is famous for delivering. It was he who made body count a measure of victory, besides weapons captured, patrols made, air sorties launched, river patrols executed, shells fired, bombs dropped, ordinance type expended, etc., etc., etc., When McNamara was later asked if more troops meant an escalation, he replied: “Not at all. It is merely an incremental adjustment to meet a new stimulas level,” {you could search all of the statements made throughout the war, and not come up with a more pithy description of “graduated pressure” in action than that one}. And of course, he would “flexibly” respond to this “increased stimulas,” with a carefully measured and calibrated “pressure” to “communicate” to the enemy the proper “message.” Curtis Le May, former SAC Commander, Air Force Chief of Staff, would say of McNamara and his ilk: “The most egotistical people that I have ever seen in my whole life. They had no faith in the military at all. They felt that the Harvard Business School method of solving problems would solve any problem in the world.”

The Harvard Business School method would soon receive its comeuppance in the rice paddies of South Vietnam.

1964 was a Presidential election year. So naturally LBJ desired to keep Vietnam off of the political radar screen, so to speak. In August however, American Destroyers were reported to have engaged North Vietnamese Torpedo Boats in the Gulph of Tonkin. Tonkin would prove a turning point, and will be reviewed in my next post.

Archived in: Asia, China, France, India, Military, National Security, Pakistan, Presidential Election, Vietnam