Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Making of a Tragedy

The appearance of Robert S. McNamara's book on Vietnam in the spring of 1995 touched off an explosion of recrimination reminiscent of the 1960s. McNamara's confession that the war was a great mistake that he, President Lyndon B.

Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and other civilian and military advisers should have avoided confirmed war opponents in the belief that Vietnam was a transparent error in judgment that need not have happened. McNamara's supposition that John F. Kennedy would have checked the drift into an unwinnable struggle deepened the feeling that Vietnam was an unnecessary war that wiser statesmanship could have prevented.1 Since McNamara, according to his own account, came to understand this, but felt compelled to hide his disillusionment, critics have attacked his confession of error as self-serving, an attempt to make peace with himself, win forgiveness from those who suffered losses in the fighting, and, not incidentally, make a significant sum of money on an international best-seller.

The impulse to see Vietnam as a readily avoidable mistake is, I believe, a case of bending history to presentist assumptions. To be sure, dissenting voices at the time warned against the dangers of involvement in an Asian land war, predicting a stalemate that could cost the United States substantial losses in blood and treasure. But almost no one counseled simply letting Vietnam go; early opponents of expanded U.S. military action urged some kind of negotiated settlement that would protect South Vietnam from a Communist takeover.

Three of the most vigorous early opponents of an American war in Vietnam, Senators J. William Fulbright (D-AR) and Mike Mansfield (D-MT) and Undersecretary of State George Ball, did not reject initial American efforts to preserve Saigon's independence. Fulbright and Ball, for example, were warm supporters of Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin Resolution announcing American intentions to resist Communist aggression against South Vietnam, and Mansfield proposed a number of negotiating scenarios for keeping the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese from seizing control of the South.

Moreover, there is good reason to think that had he lived, John Kennedy, like Johnson, would have expanded upon the military efforts of his thousand days in the White House to save Saigon from communism. Noam Chomsky's Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture (1993) makes a convincing case that Kennedy had no intention of withdrawing American forces from South Vietnam without a greater test of the Communist drive for control.

Chomsky quotes JFK's public declaration on 12 September 1963: “What helps to win the war, we support; what interferes with the war effort, we oppose. … We have a very simple policy in that area [Vietnam]. … We want the war to be won, the Communists to be contained, and the Americans to go home. … But we are not there to see a war lost.” Chomsky points out that had Kennedy intended to withdraw, it is hard to understand why he so consistently spoke publicly about holding the line in Vietnam. JFK was too astute a politician to have created a public expectation that he intended to abandon after reelection in 1964.2 Retrospective arguments in behalf of an American withdrawal in early 1965, before Rolling Thunder, the sustained bombing campaign begun in March 1965, and the massive expansion of ground forces begun in July, are difficult to credit. The widespread and prevailing opinion in the administration, Congress, and the press and among the mass of Americans was that the United States simply could not walk away from Vietnam and sacrifice a pro-Western country to Communist aggression.

In February 1965, for example, 79 percent of Americans believed that a U.S. withdrawal would mean a Communist takeover of all of Southeast Asia; 79 percent viewed it as “very important” to prevent that from happening; 64 percent favored continuing present efforts in Vietnam; 63 percent believed our presence in Vietnam “very important” to America's national security; 48 percent supported “sending a large number of American troops to help save Vietnam”; and 60 percent gave the president positive marks for his handling of Vietnam.3 In the winter of 1965–66, nearly 60 percent of the American people saw the Vietnam War as the country's most urgent problem. The number had more than doubled since the presidential campaign in 1964. Two out of three Americans considered it essential to take a stand in Vietnam, with only 20 percent favoring a pullout over an expanded role for U.S. forces.

Seventy-five percent of a sample poll viewed the war as “part of our worldwide commitment to stop Communism.”4 Almost everyone who thought about Vietnam remembered the run up to the Second World War and the appeasement of Hitler. There was genuine fear in 1965 that giving the Communists a free hand in Vietnam might be the prelude to bolder actions that would lead to a Soviet-American and/or Sino-American confrontation that could result in a nuclear war. Further, the “loss” of Vietnam could mean the start of a chain reaction in Southeast Asia that would put anti-Communist countries on the defensive around the globe.

Finally, Johnson and his principal advisers could not ignore memories of Senator Joseph McCarthy's assault on Democrats and State Department officials for “losing” China. It was feared that the “loss” of Vietnam would produce a political reaction in the United States that could cripple the Johnson administration and accuse the Democratic party of failing to meet the Communist threat.5 My point here is not that Johnson and his advisers were wise to have escalated the U.S. stake in Vietnam but that in the context of 1964–65 it is difficult to imagine them doing anything else. This is not the same as saying they had to expand and sustain that involvement, which of course they did, between 1966 and 1968.

Indeed, here is where I think JFK would have acted differently from LBJ. By 1966–67, when it became increasingly evident that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong would not easily succumb to American power, either in the near or even possibly long term, Kennedy would have cut U.S. losses and found a way to extricate us from the war. Unlike Johnson, who had no significant diplomatic achievements and no fund of political credibility as a foreign policy leader, Kennedy had the prestige of success in the Cuban missile crisis and the Soviet-American Test Ban treaty to bolster any big decision he made in foreign affairs.

No one can say with certainty, of course, what Kennedy would have done, but, as his behavior in the Bay of Pigs and missile crises demonstrated, he was a cautious foreign policy leader who resisted compounding errors and taking risks that could lead to a wider war or divisions at home that could jeopardize the country's Cold War consensus.6 Lyndon Johnson's response to the war was another matter. Indeed, the central question that I see for historians considering LBJ and Vietnam is not why he escalated American involvement in the fighting in 1965 but why he failed to take the political precautions necessary to protect his administration from a stalemate or even failure in Vietnam. Johnson knew, as his mentor Franklin D.

Roosevelt had demonstrated in 1939–1945, that an effective policy abroad requiring significant sacrifices had to rest on a solid political consensus at home. “We are in bad shape in Vietnam,” Johnson told New York Times editor Turner Catledge in December 1964. Uncertainties in that area are far more than the certainties. Yet we can't afford to, and we will not, pull out.

We must find some way to bring the job off even if we have to set it up so that a withdrawal would have a better face. … Whether we spread military operations across North Vietnam is yet to be decided. We certainly haven't decided against it. We've got to do whatever it takes, either to get a good settlement there, or to furnish a good face behind which we can withdraw.

Again, withdrawal is not in the picture, certainly not now.7 Judging from his comments to Catledge, Johnson was mindful of U.S. public opinion in deciding how to meet the difficulties in Vietnam. Moreover, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey cautioned him against losing sight of this essential ingredient of a successful policy toward the in Southeast In February 1965, as LBJ was about to to Rolling Thunder, Bundy him to the country for substantial sacrifices publicly what an campaign might Bundy told Johnson that at very the struggle in Vietnam will be It to us that this be made … to our own people and to the people of Vietnam. in the we have the that we an early … It is our own belief that the people of the United States have the necessary will to and to a policy that upon the that there is no cut to success in Vietnam.

Johnson made it to that there would be no public of a in that White House would say or to the and that about Vietnam would be to and the same Hubert Humphrey to Johnson that toward Vietnam might most of Humphrey believed it essential that Johnson make the war to the American to be a convincing case if we are to sustained public he LBJ on February World I and we had in where could not sustain American political for fighting the public had a better of what we were doing than in Vietnam. Humphrey that if find from to and up of a war with but in fighting in Vietnam over the political will Humphrey warned that this would from and would a the across the It is a of the Johnson that LBJ to a in Congress, the and the country about what to do in Vietnam. he escalated the war without those who would have to and it with and on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as giving him to expand the war, he what of Americans came to understand as the Lyndon Johnson's failure to to the do when Lyndon Johnson is the a was told around the he his his the he to his Johnson's impulse to a about Vietnam the of 1965, when the initial a Johnson was that public of an expanded war would the and the country from to the explosion of to and and the of a Department of and and the National for the and the Johnson believed that to off his of would have all too to upon the war as an to and the and war on Yet at the same Johnson was defensive about not the public and and of the Johnson to that he is not to the American people about the and risks of the Vietnam New York Times at the of around in his a of that to that the of the people not only what he is doing but what he is Johnson that this could In he to can to and the he believed it policy to his and when he would But he not he after To the in the winter of he had a to a public about the war in Southeast the for an troops to from I of the fighting, in which we had the to in which we would against and and and military in the In his of to for a of more than in the president would not to would he it to on but he had to he to cut U.S. losses and than expand America's role in the The for and more bombing could have an for a great on what to do about the But of the hard the country in Vietnam and a national Johnson the for example, to expand without that had made for a of forces the of the the time in he had a to a public to a difficult and make Vietnam America's war. he the of which made the struggle Lyndon Johnson's war and all that would mean for a president over a losing Johnson's to a bombing which he on December The after a on the Johnson considered to bombing as and State Department and a after the White House had made to that a peace was But McNamara, and counseled The percent of Americans for a with percent to of the North if no a and Bundy warned that a of bombing before the New would result in on the as urged a as a way to American public that we have no to peace McNamara, who three to the president at his on the of the the case for a and saw if military from an bombing Johnson to a was that it would to but, as in it was a way to test and Communist and the country for a of large in and of some for solid of American will be that we have but that us no Johnson told “We have that will out of this but that is no reason not to … I think with and the New York all people there could be peace if we were only to have we to it the But there was to be no a of administration for peace and to would Johnson not a public that could have the war and the political of his of the and of U.S. involvement in the war would have that there was more to South Vietnam than the Communists In a that an expanded war would have to from the when the public of without substantial the only way it to the war. a LBJ could have the fighting as the Moreover, the country to on the war, the president could have upon the mass to and as Senator George had counseled in Johnson could have a policy of as did, that American forces had Communist aggression and the South Vietnamese the to if this to be a as it did in the American of a struggle that cost more than it to would have in no to a president and an administration the But Johnson from taking a more it was not his political to make policy his as leader, or to of was behind the in the of the House than on out that as leader, Johnson for those who to points of to as a of public to or to for home. … a of not them Johnson's political had the of and In he had as of the National on the White House and successful for a House in on that him to better his almost in the he made his on his and in the more to the White House and in and were with not only his own campaign but those of his the against Johnson's with gave him the of Johnson's the most successful were the most like and John and national like Franklin and the Kennedy In Johnson's impulse to expand the war in Vietnam without public to national out of in American in which he a significant Johnson's to action than Johnson was an who made his way in everyone around about his and are understand were in a the is to have a to Johnson have with I was in a it too Johnson told some his only to be in there for three Johnson's political success on his to people the of his his up against the people this country for Johnson's presence in the Senator George was like a that as it around Johnson the of to the felt as if a had face for an had all … with hand was the other hand was of course he was a great the be feeling up and on the at the same time be to of that he and I was not and there was the of a on his face. It was a The a in with the of U.S.

Johnson to the line on so he him over and him and I have a to a of was to at the of that LBJ him spread him out on the and when we was his that was to anything like it. … But it what he it was the way he over and at Robert the Democratic party was an in his own Yet he no for Johnson over and the one who had number all his when he was a out of he out on the of was the I but the I I did that he is that have to be a on a of if want to be around to have way on the big him saying in from the Johnson became even more the only President he told opponents of he was on for foreign and he believed essential to national Indeed, he could not understand how Americans could take with him on Vietnam. American fighting and to the country from Communist he believed it if not to to the publicly the war. Johnson could not the that opponents were as to the United States as war could not that they were in in the of the To his they were the of Communist in the United In a with in March Johnson that country is to to no mistake about the he a It is in the of our McCarthy's were the is greater than in his By the of against the war, and on the decision of to on to the without the the of in drive a between the and the rest of the that Vietnam taking money from the and a LBJ saw as giving to war opponents confirmed Johnson's belief that forces were behind the to abandon and White House that the of 1966 of the days had a war … The leader to of and was after of the good and of who did not the Vietnam This Lyndon Johnson was not only at he could be an at the White House with a and three over and The of a war a to the face. were who had … the who are behind the he The and the him about what was the as with … and to at the of people think up for the to I before they do what are to J. was in Johnson's in a at the White which Vietnam to I was to Since Johnson saw the war as or the of what and were from Communist he had that the great of Americans would to the war In other there was no need to a most Americans were of the of Communist expansion in Vietnam, and only the with a of the country had was to abandon the war.

Johnson believed that he could the that dissenting was on Americans his of the are Johnson simply to the pull of the most … is to win the of who There is no as an There is a behind the public if control the to that get good no how great do for the of the only one way of from and that is to the the and the they need for own so that can it out when and to Johnson set a for bending the to his in the presidential The press and which were to of the had to White House In September for example, after had attacked Johnson and Humphrey as and Humphrey in as a Johnson and spoke to and at the William S. White and at the New York and about to the way the campaign of them to take to for his The of the of to a cut to doing a and the The White House to of what the was saying off the In when at the Democratic National gave one he was a with Senator to make so that we can have him to the White House than on were and in the of the a who had the and and would the of the United States in 1965, from and to Johnson, a of the was to in with and and them with campaign The White House Johnson's or were across the … We had in about that would in the and what in the Johnson's a campaign Johnson himself, who with the of in an to his to The was to a of a President at his but to win a in Johnson saw the press as essential in him but he a more and for it and other to win the To Johnson's the White House a over and and people from a number of and The on on which had made for to people who could them into the in the at the one to to LBJ who would get it in the press to or of and to get them to with they to like they made of they and them for of and they mass like the and to on nuclear this Johnson had that he could bring the on Vietnam. In 1965, for example, when a with of a U.S. a to a in the of an for Johnson up President to that the had on the American Johnson to why would a a with could a Communist like how could they be so as to put on like to to the to the White In a with that was to a that Vietnamese U.S. as his to American have the days on we can take to of the Vietnam in Saigon and he “We will the and of like New and who are not Americans and do not have the American at but we will to Johnson on In the supported Johnson's decision to in Vietnam. most Americans at this they believed it in the national to prevent a Communist takeover in the South.

But this was not for to control the and of the and the to his Johnson to be toward and his principal press believed that and the war Johnson that had the press Viet Cong get he is or to make the Viet all that is is to The White House saw on the war as the Communists to think that would not the course in The “We those as he told the William in September an editor to get on the and do it for three the of to of the We any to of course, he did, taking to as far as that out of the White House was only what he it to the national at press to and as difficult as for became Johnson that a to the war would make a To be sure, the of a number of McNamara, were against a stalemate that could for In after from a to Vietnam, told the president that he saw way to bring the war to an some in the military the Communists were not about to had a of keeping us and us out of our national was bad was the which had the of Yet at the same there were that the was and that and the Viet Cong would not be to out if the administration to in the United which Johnson believed was the Communists to and civilian advisers of what believed the war was early most of advisers and I felt that the of war was in of the South Vietnamese and and against the Johnson in his most of his like felt compelled to see the to that or other American had to over so an gave him of about the in Vietnam. are on all the big more about how to make them out than any in Bundy told him in the time since the U.S. military in Saigon and a in forces in South Viet National Security Adviser him days and Robert in Vietnam, him a of in December out for with of and of the was that if we can up our in and and press the a than we be to see the of No one the for positive in Vietnam than the war, our to the big Communist and is so demonstrated that I would a very military here he the president in December for the political need not be an to see the between … and that which in … Vietnam is In a with LBJ at his days that of a in Vietnam had no feared that the Viet Cong could cut the country in or the might the country no feared a Communist from for military in that military in Vietnam had from to in 1965 to to in 1966 made Johnson's and on what to in Vietnam made him the at the time in the By the great of the had in the of Vietnam. with the national consensus for Cold War abroad and at home. By some of the war in Southeast Asia the in a foreign war on the United the for the and war on and Johnson's of as a great with John Kennedy, and LBJ will a as one of those who of what his and might have him to