Presidential Address: Structure, Contingency, and the War in Vietnam

My topic today is the Vietnam War, and as I stand here before you I’m conscious of the fact that this organization was born in the midst of that long and difficult struggle. The date was April 29, 1967, and the setting was the Palmer House Hotel in downtown Chicago, during the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians. There, in an afternoon session co-chaired by Alexander DeConde, Joseph O’Grady, and David Pletcher and attended by about seventy-five scholars, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations came into being by acclamation.

Attendance at the session would have been higher but for the fact that a contentious panel featuring William Appleman Williams had been scheduled for the same timeslot! Williams himself, farsighted scholar that he was, understood he had missed something significant: he subsequently wrote to O’Grady, apologizing for his absence and expressing interest in joining the new organization. At the American Historical Association annual convention that December, SHAFR sponsored two panels—one organized by O’Grady, and one by Gaddis Smith—and at its first business meeting elected Thomas Bailey president and DeConde vice president.

They were on their way.1 Today, almost half a century later, we study the Vietnam War as history. The outpouring of scholarship on the conflict in the past two decades has been immense and shows no sign of abating, and the conference program this weekend gives ample evidence of the important work still being done on all aspects of the struggle. One man, however, has done more than perhaps any other person to deepen our understanding of the war, and he is moreover the main reason we are meeting here, in Lexington, even if he didn’t have anything directly to do with the site selection.

That man is George Herring. I don’t have to tell this august group that George is one of our most distinguished historians, a former president of SHAFR, a former editor of our journal of record, Diplomatic History, and the author of the foreign-relations volume in the “Oxford History of the United States,” among countless other works. But that’s not all he is.

George has been a mentor to me for a very long time, as dean among American historians of the Vietnam War, and as the epitome of the scholar-gentleman. He has taught me much about the war—about the questions to ask, the sources to consult. More than that, he has taught me about how to carry myself as a historian, how to treat graduate students and colleagues, and about how to walk that fine line between being confident in one’s research and findings while proceeding at all times with a healthy dose of intellectual humility.

For that I shall always be grateful. I want to focus in my brief remarks today on a particular historical problem: How do we account for the reality, as I see it, that three American presidents, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B.

Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon, escalated and perpetuated a war in Southeast Asia that they privately suspected was neither winnable nor necessary, one that before it was over would claim that lives of more than 58,000 Americans and some three million Vietnamese, two million of them civilians? (In April 1967, the month SHAFR came into being, 436 U.S. soldiers were killed in action.) It seems unfathomable on some level, it cries out for explanation, yet I’m not sure I have an adequate one to offer, even twenty-five years after I began researching the struggle’s origins.

But I believe it’s a question of profound historical importance, and I shall examine it here by zeroing in on the buildup under Kennedy and Johnson in the first half of the 1960s. (The Nixon decisions will be a subject for another day.) In the interests of time I shall be more or less relentlessly U.S.-centric, recognizing of course that the Vietnamese (North and South) played key roles, and that several outside powers mattered as well. And I want to get at the core issues by reflecting for a few minutes on a matter all of us deal with in our work and in our teaching—whatever our topic and time period—namely structure and contingency, and, more broadly, causation.

Is historical change made by impersonal, subterranean forces, or by human actions, by unexpected quirks, by chance? Or some combination? In preparation for this lecture I have been reading a range of authors, most recently Stephen Jay Gould, the late Harvard paleontologist and polymath who ruminated at length about historical contingency—about developments, Gould said, that may change the course of history, foreclosing some alternatives and making way for others.

In his book, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, Gould argued that if one replayed “the tape of life” from the early days of the Burgess Shale with only a subtle change in initial conditions, one would get a tree of life that would in all likelihood bear little resemblance to what we have. In particular, according to Gould, the “chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay.”2 I have also been rereading our early forebears Thucydides and Herodotus. The former’s History of the Peloponnesian War can be considered the foundation work of structural history, while Herodotus for his part gave us some of the earliest histories emphasizing individual agency.

I have looked again at Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, still remarkably fresh after 240 years, and—more to the point here—showing its author’s talent for building narrative out of human agency and the unexpected, even as he also illustrates how the empire’s structural problems become steadily more desperate and a kind of inexorable decline sets in.3 And, of course, in anticipation of today I’ve thought a lot about the work of our own time, the research produced over the past thirty to forty years, in particular in the field of U.S. and European international history. And I would make the following generalization about the scholarship done by professional historians during these four decades, much of it exceptionally valuable: that structural, impersonal determinants have become increasingly dominant over time, to the relative neglect of human agency. Why that should be the case is a fascinating subject in itself, best left for another occasion.4 Suffice it to say here that it is so.

And indeed, it cannot be denied that structural analysis is essential to an understanding of the human past. It’s an approach that helps us to comprehend the limitations imposed on individual agency by institutions, economic and social conditions, popular attitudes, demographic patterns, and other circumstantial factors that exist beyond personality. Human agency, that is to say, is qualified by the conditions in which individuals find themselves when making decisions.

Too often, however, it seems to me that structural explanations, soaring high above the everyday give-and-take of human interaction, tend toward a deterministic view of history which gives the impression that what happened had to happen. “The illusions of retrospective determinism,” the French philosopher Henri Bergson called it, in a marvelous turn of phrase.5 It’s in line with the Marxian view in which history unfolds according to its own logic, taking little or no account of the actions and decisions of individuals who are in effect powerless to influence the relentless flow of historical events. The result is to conceal the fluidity of past situations, to blot out the effects of contingencies, and to absolve individual human beings of personal after of they cannot (In our it can a to the is the point of to about change in if that is to The social and the have about this retrospective and the that from War the of the or the of the they point today who professional in to out half a or these had to at the time and in the they the of it is difficult for some to the that the historical were a not to were as a key to the of historians to see the as it to the of the not as it with the and of is something we in all of human have long have an to in the likelihood of an They see the as more than the past. it all is the even when the looked or was The of The this at first and the and In this we have to that we with the and the of can see the past But the of what happened is that it more into time more become and the of what happened become still the of how happened becomes to as that past with its and and the of it become by what happened and what was about it the to deterministic One is by to the but alternatives to what can the of past and the of in our on it as to scholarship and the of or as being by who to the past according to their have as historians out what these time on For Richard of the of the is a of the to he any at seems to me I that about alternatives is an part of the can the that out only by them with that were The of that is to say, into out as they is all historians, they make are in are developments, even when these alternatives are not to say can to say at In some historians say that that they are in the business of than But often, this is it in the American Historical more than half a century “The very of the gives that is at me to the subject before U.S. in Vietnam in the first half of the 1960s. what is this a about human agency, about individual among in the of the time, and to what is this about impersonal it is by themselves don’t do to the U.S. to economic or or But neither will it do to that the of war in Vietnam can be by the actions of individual who had a of who were by and have another to to an of that the a long time is a in its treat individual as they are from these the is to out the of human agency, on the one with impersonal on the and to history that to all the factors and to into account their we do that, we see that in any of the of in the early days of War when to to and a that the of had to in to the war, U.S. always had about which way to in the and his at the time, by as as outside the In other was about the U.S. that began in in the early 1960s. nor international American to the At they not an War to in Southeast but a fluidity in about the with to a war among of the and in after the war began and the were a in of the war in and popular the U.S. to and American to part in it, of about to and of that any kind of in Southeast Asia was in any The and were of but were to a with the United in this to making of to in the of American In the was after the of and the in while the of the of Vietnam high of among soldiers and a among to the In the Vietnamese war by years of was And it all a but for the it played a in these in part its were that they out in the as they had been out of a they the in But Vietnamese in not out an to the conflict that would the United a of from the struggle. any interest in a intelligence in late before the It’s to bear in here that American all about this and international They understood the of the and the of the to the to the They were anything but most of about the in the war even with American They were all that and outside the United the a And they understood they in about the was even at any of it mattered all that much to American and in these on the of an and that would in the But a much The that in the for the years and for the half of that is one of at the and level, with that the of was and to say that a war would make a to the on the they suspected is I of in the John Kennedy and Lyndon about Vietnam to when he as a and the War the French of and and that time was on the in this struggle. He questions about or by any it he to in this part of the by of are more and more in the of the Kennedy wrote in his that we the our is we will be if we don’t do what they The United should the by the and French and that the is not but and and and and all of which are the lot of of and to in late Kennedy the in a and in a before the of we have to the desperate of the French to on to the of an he is no of the Vietnam among the of that for it a would in of and his early of even when he president a be in the late he to War in in and on in particular, in part to for a for the House in But the was always to the time to time, he about the of the to to and problems that are at in on several and in the of he from to U.S. to And always the French at as when he to an early in his were into a war, we would it as the French Johnson, for his not long after to the in late began to question the in the even with American and to about the to U.S. don’t it’s and I don’t we can get he to his in in the is Vietnam to is it to this be at other times Johnson was of expressing and of for the of the the he was at his Vietnam analysis to his of the But in the evidence shows a president who in the to war was and and had little of the to and who even that Vietnam would be his man can if he can see the Johnson privately in early in a that his that no in not a the these same U.S. in Vietnam during their time in In under of the best American and in with of some of were to part in the of that American in Vietnam over and by the time of in in the had to In under Johnson, the to and to the president to as he in Southeast In in the very in which he to see no in the the days later, he the first to the struggle. initial of to and to a of In the in William an of to be by another Johnson In for a of to the of the this was in in the to more than half a should us It would be one if the of the evidence that Kennedy and Johnson out of a if perhaps that U.S. interests on in if it that the in still in the of In that case we of the war as a as an that was by its and in the of its time one we with but with a that it had to But it that president neither John Kennedy nor Lyndon Johnson was a on and that anything be on the that was the and And neither to believe the were as as the line were to their and only privately and even only to a they to the that the in Southeast Asia were and that they were to their Vietnamese from the problems be the war would be in the of And the of the of would be The the very that of their French a years have a to no war, but our will is would be to among our who have their and And by in American the French before be exceptionally They that if they even a interest in in the in and to them of their past and to if they had The were themselves in a time and again that the should and be to a they that their were on the and with that also their And we to see that are that we have to For can be no question that American in the Kennedy and Johnson years had on not the also shows that alternatives were to being for and the of is not to say all were is the that historical on research in and other can be no that and of had been at to a by the of their of the French war in and by the in to directly in as the Johnson had the of of U.S. during his days in and by American in the that to the and of on For over a the United had to a in and Kennedy and Johnson that to course even under the of a have effects in of their their It was not a they were to The two what a long line of French before them had that in the of in was to and that would turn out at long to be to a mattered Kennedy and Johnson had to with the of and the claim that they were on with this in Vietnam decisions of in the foundation for the war yet to be considered the in which they were But the of this was even in the first half of the as the two presidents, the that all in the to this line of the question of how to in I believe history that I’ve been made by than by But I also believe that one cannot comprehend as they do one also the that their it impersonal may make in human make happen. we are to the of the decisions the United into war in Vietnam in the first half of the it is to the on which they by over the part of two to in other that of thought were in that would American on for the two were to the U.S. these years, the always in the of U.S. not always as as it in the of and the of from have course, but they the of much on It can us to of the that the American in Southeast on the that not be to And the importance, if we are to the U.S. war, of with the French war that But it do to me by to you that of us who are historians of time and an to For history is history, neither will it do to of and to to what philosopher called the of the which that a of can be for any and it at David has a for that the of that bear on a particular how they bear on it or how they to one we And with to the American to a in I believe that at the of the of the of and of of the War of international The were the key in the not in the that they had to to any and all but in the of the of the And Johnson was to be president when the it is his on the that is most his and his of the of mattered in the one in the he was a on the as I’ve but In his first days as president he that he would not be the president who It the in the and half that and to in when he left a man by the to all issues to to view on the as on himself, to see American and his as his to He to see that the international and in late after his in gave on the The Kennedy would he have done in Vietnam had he from historical here, and not of it helps us to about what a have it helps us what Johnson by his in the I have considered this in some length here I will say that I believe the best is that a Kennedy would have in the and of He the war and the than Johnson, and was less to he in important he the line at U.S. and for less Kennedy a fact of that an that in the can carry the on its it that he would have the of on Vietnam in his and when the would have been less But it have been for Kennedy to The in the the most important to the have been to in and for the He had not been a in on Vietnam during his first three years as it’s not he would have in when was no an us this as we an that to Lyndon Johnson in during the most important in the history of American in the that to the He was in the and of the War, an on after the War and been in the in the and early 1960s. one to on the and that from the of a to here we find his president that is the best time to these and that the of are more war, would other U.S. with and with European and would the It would for the Society The would become the had not made the of Vietnam was of The American we would to a which is to its own in is the only and is and It is always to But the Johnson is in a to do than any in this is the of for the Johnson it is the first when we can the Vietnam being with the from the The best a from would be a Vietnam which out to be than was in the the for the first time came to with a and It that the of an and a new for the would be if no the would still be to a on the other we find from to and of a war with but in in Vietnam over the few will steadily “the and which we have about The American would be the in in It was an not for being with that of the in and Johnson mentor Richard and Foreign Relations William of the of a and struggle.

And on that point no in in the and of had any in the best the war would a long even as they a conflict on the of which in three years would be and not to being would Johnson on of Johnson had the same The that when began for the Johnson to be in a and war, with still years he with the we don’t all these this understanding Lyndon Johnson, his own his own in the late of his own of what mattered and what But it also beyond Johnson, as becomes if we as president would have his own that half a century he would have. But as with a John F. Kennedy, it would not have been It would not have been the of in would have a even if out under the of a one a the before any of the may have been few in that and may have from the by their the but that would not have them from the on of the would have in the the be at for a The for would have been to these and to which in view of the on the would have some of was no an not as and as that by of for a that argued for a and for on and about a buildup would the of the when a would be I is that is a at the of this Lyndon Johnson had about which way to in to at the time by and to is he their of about the about the of the Vietnamese and and he the of the to American And Johnson came to one of these other he to subject them to I have over this for the past is more of a to me than when I my I with as an early graduate that the was to over do the of and other we have to on this It out that even on the subject of U.S. on one of the most in the history of American I of the we in our for individual can be difficult for the can be But this much I I can from Lyndon of his and in the war made a kind a And one reason for that was of what the United had done in first in of the French in their and after was in building and Johnson was a and that what and he or thought he and what decisions he as a new and history.