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Defeat in Vietnam: Origins
01:04:12
This is the first episode in a three-part series marking the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. Is Vietnam still with us? Does this misbegotten American war still have something to teach? In this episode, historian Fredrik Logevall, a preeminent...
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- [00:01]
Martin DeCaro
I say this every election cycle, and.
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Frederick Logevall
I'll say it again. The 2024 political field was intense. So don't get left behind in 2025. If you're running for office, the first thing on your to do list should.
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Martin DeCaro
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- [00:27]
Frederick Logevall
History as it happens. April 22, 2025. Defeat in Vietnam. Origins.
- [00:35]
Lyndon Johnson
It's their war. They're the ones who have to win it or lose it.
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Martin DeCaro
President Diem killed by gunfire. His brother killed by staff from Dallas, Texas. The flash. Apparently official President Kennedy died at 1.
- [00:48]
John F. Kennedy
Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Vietnam 50.
- [00:54]
Frederick Logevall
Years after the fall of Saigon? We must still ask. The United States got involved in Vietnam for more than a decade, fighting an unwinnable guerrilla war in a country American leaders did not understand. Vietnam, a half century after final defeat, has something to teach us yet. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [01:17]
Martin DeCaro
In South Vietnam today, the Communists are reported to be in firm control of at least seven provinces. In our Philippines, people stood patiently, consolidating suitcases and awaiting their turn on one of the incoming helicopters that would fly them to the safety an American ship.
- [01:30]
John F. Kennedy
Our ambassador has left, and the evacuation can be said to be completed.
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Martin DeCaro
The city of Saigon was renamed today. The victorious Communists who forced the city's.
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Frederick Logevall
Surrender said the capital of South Vietnam.
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Martin DeCaro
Henceforth will be known as Ho Chi Minh City. I think one of the reasons it became a mystery for me was because I looked at the evidence both domestically and internationally. And what I saw first on the domestic side was a lot of misgivings in high places before the key decisions were made, both about whether the war was in any meaningful sense and maybe more importantly, whether it was necessary to try to win it. Because you can be a pessimist about a given military intervention and nevertheless conclude that it's necessary for us to try to do this. But I saw doubts on both counts, including in the Oval Office, that is to say, on the part of Lyndon Johnson himself. Congress, deep doubts on the part of senior Democrats, especially in the Senate. Important voices in the American press were not at all certain.
- [02:37]
John F. Kennedy
My fellow Americans, as president and Commander in Chief.
- [02:42]
Frederick Logevall
August 4, 1964. President Lyndon Johnson informs the American people. North Vietnamese gunboats attacked US Ships unprovoked in the Gulf of Tonkin.
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John F. Kennedy
Have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply. The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox on August.
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Frederick Logevall
The people trusted the President was telling them the truth. So did members of Congress. The first torpedo attack on the USS Maddox was actually North Vietnamese retaliation for the so called de Soto missions, U.S. reconnaissance missions to intercept North Vietnamese communications. The second torpedo attack was a phantom. There was no second attack.
- [03:29]
John F. Kennedy
The destroyers and supporting AIRC aircraft acted at once on the orders I gave after the initial act of aggression.
- [03:41]
Frederick Logevall
But three days later, at Johnson's urging, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing LBJ to take all necessary measures to repel armed attacks against U.S. forces in southeast Asia. As historian Max Hastings writes in his book An Epic Tragedy, the President's response to the Tonkin Gulf incident reflected an anger of state, a frustration that a tin pot Asian communist half country should dare to defy the United States of America. The details did not much matter to him. Already on the morning of August 4, Johnson indicated his intention to exploit the second attack, conjectured by SIGINT signals intelligence, to secure a resolution from Congress supporting escalation. He would have been dismayed if later that day anticlimactic facts had pricked the bubble of his carefully crafted indignation.
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John F. Kennedy
In the larger sense, this new act of aggression aimed directly at our own forces again brings home to all of us in the United States the importance of the struggle for peace and security in Southeast Asia.
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Frederick Logevall
This was a major step on the road to Americanization of the Vietnam War. But that would not happen in an election year.
- [04:59]
John F. Kennedy
We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
- [05:10]
Frederick Logevall
Eventually, however, despite his promises to stay out, President Johnson sent U.S. ground troops in to Vietnam March 1965. And it would prove nearly impossible to extract the country from this disastrous mistake. This is the first in a three part series, Defeat in Vietnam, marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon in late April 1975. This episode deals with the origins. The next two episodes will cover the anti war movement and then the consequences for US foreign policy. But origins is where we start with historian Frederick Logeval of Harvard University. He is the Lawrence D. Belfer professor of International affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the author of two must read books on this subject. Choosing war, published in 1999 and Embers of War, published in 2012. Our conversation next History is defined by.
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Martin DeCaro
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Frederick Logevall
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Frederick Logevall
Those in the history books.
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Martin DeCaro
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- [06:36]
Frederick Logevall
Frederick Logovall, welcome back.
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Martin DeCaro
So good to be with you.
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Frederick Logevall
You know, I get excited for all my podcasts, but to have a preeminent historian of the Vietnam era back on the program, I'm just thrilled you're here to launch this series with me. Your work has had a profound influence on the way I think about this war. And you're working on, I guess you could say it's a related series of books. A biography of jfk, Volume one has been published. Came out a couple of years ago. Right. You're just about done with volume two. Give us an update.
- [07:08]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, so I'm about to submit volume two, and then there actually will now be a third volume after this. The material just got. I guess one way of putting it is it got too good. So there'll be three volumes altogether and volume two is almost done. It'll take the story to Inauguration Day and then still to come is the volume on the presidency and the assassination. And as you point out, Martin, the Vietnam story is a part of this. It's actually in all three volumes from the time Kennedy first visits Indochina in 1951. That's in volume one. And then of course, the climax, or at least the, the near climax of the third and final volume will have a lot on Vietnam.
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Frederick Logevall
You're becoming another Robert Caro who planned to only write, he wanted to only write three books about lbj and he is still working on volume five. Just a short anecdote here. I visited the Robert Caro exhibit at the New York Historical Society a couple of summers ago and there was the press release from his publisher from the late 1970s, early 1980s, whatever it was. We have signed Robert Caro, who will write three books in the next five years about Lyndon Johnson.
- [08:16]
Martin DeCaro
I mean, I say, and I'm probably the hundredth person to use this line, but I say that I'm working on, or I will be working on, the third volume of a one volume biography of jfk.
- [08:26]
Frederick Logevall
Yeah, I don't read a lot of biography unless it's written by a specialist in that period of history. So I am definitely going to get around to reading your books on John Kennedy. So related Vietnam defeat in Vietnam 50 years after the fall of Saigon. But we're going to be talking about the origins of that American and Vietnamese debacle here. I have your 1999 book, Choosing War, and in the preface you wrote, vietnam is still with us. Let's add another 25 years to make it 50. Is Vietnam still with us?
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Martin DeCaro
I think it is that, both in terms of the nation's foreign policy and the decisions that it's likely to face in the future. But also, Martin, maybe even more to the point, in terms of where we are domestically, I would argue that the war is still with us, that many of the problems that plague our society today have their roots in the Vietnam era. I'm not going to say that all of these problems are the result of US intervention, military intervention in Vietnam. But I do think we need to go back to the Vietnam era to fully understand them, maybe thereby help us work through these problems.
- [09:40]
Frederick Logevall
I wonder if it weighs on the minds of US Policymakers as it once did. I think of the Gulf War in 1991 and warnings that this would become another Vietnam, and the US military trounced Saddam Hussein's forces and expelled them from Kuwait in short order. I don't know if today the younger generation is talking like that. Maybe they'll say we need to avoid another Afghanistan. I don't know.
- [10:04]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah. No, I think you make a good point. I think in that respect, the power of the Vietnam analogy has lessened. I don't think it's on the minds of certainly young people, as you say, but even policymakers. I think it doesn't have the resonance that it did maybe even a decade ago. I still think that there are lessons future policymakers should bear in mind if the United States comes to face a decision about whether to intervene militarily in this or that country. Vietnam has lots to tell.
- [10:36]
Frederick Logevall
Maybe for people who aren't paying too much attention to this anymore, this is an opportunity now to refocus on it. And as you say, lessons or takeaways. I said warnings there when I interjected, has it gotten harder or easier to explain why the United States intervened in Vietnam, this tiny country in Southeast Asia that used to have a different name during the Second World War, Indochina?
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Martin DeCaro
Well, you know, one of the things I say in choosing war, so that was, as you say, 25 years ago. I say that the war is actually harder to explain than we used to think. I wrote that in therefore, what, 1998, 1997. What I meant by that was that one used to hear. In fact, I used to say, before I began that dissertation which became the book. I used to say, well, however misguided we might think that the American intervention in Vietnam was at the time, it made all the sense in the world. That used to be my position on this. But in fact, as I dug into the research for choosing war became harder for me to explain U.S. military intervention in 1964 and 65. And that's, in a way, the heart of the book. And I would say that in terms of today, 25 years after writing that book, it's still harder to explain this war than certainly I used to believe when I began all of this work, say, three decades ago. Not impossible to explain. I do think we can. Historians now have enough archival and other evidence to explain how it happened. But it's a more complex explanation, I believe, and I think you and I will talk about it today than I believed at the time.
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Frederick Logevall
To some degree, it'll always be a mystery, but I don't want to take that too far. I mean, we can see the evidence as to why and how it happened, but it still doesn't really make a lot of sense internationally as well. You internationalize the perspective in choosing war. That's one of your innovations in the scholarship. Our allies, other countries are saying, what are you doing here?
- [12:38]
Martin DeCaro
No, it's true. I mean, I think one of the reasons it became a mystery for me was because I looked at the evidence both domestically and internationally. And what I saw first on the domestic side was a lot of misgivings in high places before the key decisions were made, both about whether the war was winnable in any meaningful sense, and maybe more importantly, whether it was necessary to try to win it. Because you can be a pessimist about a given military intervention and nevertheless conclude that it's necessary for us to try to do this. But I saw doubts on both counts, including in the Oval Office, that is to say, on the part of Lyndon Johnson himself, Congress, deep doubts on the part of senior Democrats, especially in the Senate. Important voices in the American press were not at all certain before the Americanization. And I would say the American public was at best ambivalent to the extent that the public was paying attention, was ambivalent about whether this should become a large scale American war. So that's the domestic side. Then, as you say internationally, you find that key American allies, the most important American allies, I would say, are themselves then also saying carefully, because of the importance of their bilateral relationship, they have to tread cautiously. But they are basically saying to Washington, are you sure you want to do this? To what extent is the outcome in South Vietnam really crucial to Western security? We are not convinced there are origins.
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Frederick Logevall
And we're going to talk about 1965, or really the long 1964, as you put it. But there are also deep origins. I mean, this can apply to Afghanistan. The American involvement in Afghanistan does not start on September 12, 2001. It goes back away into the 1980s, maybe for different reasons. But the United States had been involved in that country, really, since the late 1970s in the Carter administration. And even if Americans did not think of it that way, the Afghans certainly did same in Vietnam. We could really start in 1945. Right. Maybe April 12, 1945. FDR died. He opposed colonialism. He was no fan of de Gaulle either. Is it right to start in 45? Maybe a little bit after that, when the US decided to back the French in its war against the Viet Minh.
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Martin DeCaro
Yeah, we could even go back a bit further if we wanted, certainly, if 1945 is a reasonable starting point. In my book Embers of War, which is more recent than choosing war. In Embers of War, I, in a sense, begin in. In 1919. I begin after World War I, but in a more meaningful sense, I begin during the Second World War. So, in fact, the war itself, that is to say, the Second World War, I think, is crucial to all that happens later in Indochina, including in the American war. And what happens is that out of that war, out of the Second World War, the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh is in a much stronger position to challenge a return by the French. Let's keep in mind that Japan has taken de facto control over Indochina and then formal control over Indochina during the war itself. And so now the French want to come back in, and they're going to have a hard time doing so as I lay out in that book, Embers of War. But I think you're absolutely right. It's a tantalizing moment, really, FDR's death in April 1945, because he is, I argue, in that book, very much opposed to a return by France to Indochina. And his successor, Harry Truman, though he's no fan of colonialism, has no particular love of the French per se. He just doesn't feel this in the same way I argue, that FDR did. And so for him, this matters less. That is to say, preventing a French return matters less than maintaining good US French relations with respect to Western Europe. There's also an early, I think an early articulation of what becomes known as the domino theory. And I think that is beginning already now in the mid and late 1940s to drive us thinking about this. That is to say, if you allow one country to fall, fall to communism, then pretty soon the other countries around that nation will also fall.
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Frederick Logevall
My task here is to try to meld these bigger ideas. Domino theory, cold War consensus, bureaucratic inertia, concerns about credibility, personality of the different players with what's happening, the events on the ground. I do want to drill down and try to explain with a chronology here. But some of these ideas, of course, matter. Motivations are always critical. Was there Cold War consensus already at this early date, starting in 1945. But we can jump ahead into the 1950s. Your book embers of War digs deep into the Eisenhower Defense Department records to tell us why his administration was so supportive of the French. Was it simply a Cold War thing?
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Martin DeCaro
Well, it was in part. I mean, one of the fascinating moments here. It's sort of an open moment. I call it is 1945 itself, because I think there are divisions of opinion in the American government. Fascinating divisions of opinion. I call it an open moment because I argue that both in hindsight, but more importantly in the context of the time various roads were open for the United States to take with respect to Indochina, by the time we get into the late 40s under Truman, there is an emerging consensus, emerging Cold War consensus, as you called it in the Truman administration, which argues for backing the French in their war against the communists in Vietnam. And then after the French are defeated, climactic battle at Dien bien phu in 1954, essentially trying to do what the French had failed to do, sustain a non communist bastion, at least in the southern part of Vietnam. If you can't have, if you can't do it in all of what becomes Vietnam, you can at least do it in the south. And so. So no question, as we try to construct a kind of causal hierarchy. And I do tell my own students in my classes that when we're talking about decision making, I want them in their papers to give me a causal hierarchy. It's not enough for them to say there are X number of causes. I want them to rank them high on that ranking. Martin, I would say, is, as you.
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Frederick Logevall
Say, this Cold War consensus, you beat me to it. I was going to use causal hierarchy at some point in this conversation. I've borrowed that. You're the one who introduced me to that because it's important to think of it. And also the hierarchy shifts. What might be number one at some point was later on number two. Or number three or number four. What I've learned from you, among many things, is domino theory falls away the later we get on in this chronology. But let's stick with Eisenhower for a moment, Fred. How close does he come to Authorizing Military Intervention, U.S. military Intervention at Dien Bien Phu, when the French are asking for it?
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Martin DeCaro
Well, I argue that he came closer, Eisenhower did, to doing that, than many historians believe. I lay out the reasons why I come to that conclusion. In Embers of War, many historians suggest that Eisenhower was never close, that he understood that this was a foolish endeavor. But I think the evidence shows that he's actually supportive, at least of. Of intervention from the air to try to bail out the French position at Dien Bien Phu. He considers, I think the evidence shows Eisenhower does, that the outcome in Indochina matters enormously and that you have to, if at all possible, try to prevent a French defeat. And so I think he flirts with, maybe even more than flirts with, the possibility of American military intervention again, to try to save the French position. What he insists upon, however, is congressional support for this. And the lawmakers are interesting in this regard. They're a little bit all over the map. Some are supportive, some are skeptical, but they basically, to summarize a complex story, they coalesce around a position which says we need the British if we're going to be supportive of US military intervention here in the spring of 1954. To save the French position, we're going to have to have the British involved, our most important overseas ally. So in a sense, it comes down to what London is going to decide. Pretty interesting here that Churchill and Prime Minister Churchill, Anthony Eden, top British officials basically say, no way, it's not going to happen. We don't think that this is going to win the war for France and the west. And moreover, we're not convinced that the outcome here really matters. And so had you had that British support and therefore also gotten the Senate's support, the congressional support, I think there's a strong likelihood that you would have had aerial intervention by the United states already in 1954. Had that happened, we would be talking about an American war that began not in 1964, 65, but in fact, a decade earlier.
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Frederick Logevall
Did Ike think about sending in the Marines?
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Martin DeCaro
I think he was skeptical, to say the least, of what we later would call boots on the ground. Let's remember that it was only a year before that the truce in Korea had been signed. He was a savvy politician, Dwight Eisenhower. He understood that the American public was hardly relishing the thought of another military involvement that actually involved troops. To counter that, you could say, well, if he's going to, however, send in air power, very often, what that will accompany in the end, or what will happen ultimately is that you also will have to commit troops.
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Frederick Logevall
Mission creep.
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Martin DeCaro
Oh, he might have been forced to do that in the end. I think in the first instance, he was hoping to do this from the air.
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Frederick Logevall
One other thing about Eisenhower, though, you know, 1954 is not that long after the US and the Viet Minh, as they were called at the time, the armed resistance to the French weren't on bad terms. When Ho Chi Minh gives his Declaration of Independence, citing the words of Thomas Jefferson in Hanoi, it was either in 45 or 46. I think he even wrote a letter.
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Martin DeCaro
45? Yep.
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Frederick Logevall
Yeah, wrote a letter to Harry Truman. I guess I'm having trouble understanding why Eisenhower was so anti Viet Minh already at this point.
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Martin DeCaro
You're right. Not that much time has passed. Nine years, to be specific. And it is fascinating, as you point out, to look at relations in the summer of 1945, when, in fact, many Americans were hoping that the United States would make common cause with Ho or at least would not stand in his way. And he made a good impression on those Americans with whom he interacted that summer. And it is a great, you know, what if, as I think you and I have discussed in the past, I'm a believer in counterfactual analysis, and I think a great what if concerns the middle months of 1945. But on the other side, nine years later, a lot has changed. And so I think part of the answer to your question is in 1949, Mao's forces win the Chinese civil war, a huge development in international politics. All of a sudden, the number of major communist foes of the United States has doubled from 1 to 2. The Soviets have detonated an atomic device. The Cold War has become globalized in a way that it was not before. All of that, I think, affects Eisenhower's thinking About this in 1954, probably also, I suggest in my book, a certain amount of domestic political strategizing, even though Dwight Eisenhower is more immune to those kinds of pressures than probably anybody else literally in American politics after 1945, given the fact that he was supreme commander of D Day forces. He's the great military general, he's a very popular president. Even he has to think a little bit about what are the domestic political implications if I am perceived as, quote, unquote, having lost Vietnam. If I could have prevented Ho's forces from being victorious, and I chose not to do so. I could pay a price for this. I think, again, in a causal hierarchy, this is lower down for Eisenhower, but it's probably part of the equation, too.
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Frederick Logevall
Those were major earthquakes in 1949, 1950, the start of the Korean War, and this is also the McCarthy anti communist hysteria era as well, in the early 1950s. So we're going to jump ahead to 1963. People should read. I'm always giving my listeners reading assignments, but at the top of the list, after listening to this embers of war, which you detail US support for the French, among other historical events, won the Pulitzer Prize. And then they should read Choosing War, the earlier book, but they should read that second because that's the chronology. So, yeah, August 1963, John Kennedy is still president. There's a remarkable coincidence. You say this is the point where Vietnam, and this is an important turning point, if you will. Vietnam becomes a daily foreign policy priority for the US government. So what happens in 1963?
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Martin DeCaro
August 63, it's a very important moment. Before this, one could say that intermittently, Vietnam had been a foreign policy priority. One of the reasons I begin my book in August of 1963 is because it seems to me that's when it becomes a sustained, continuous priority for strategists in Washington. The reason for that, I think, is that the situation in South Vietnam and the strength of the insurgency in South Vietnam is such that now there's a real fear of losing this struggle in South Vietnam, that the insurgency might actually win. And so Kennedy and his advisors have to think about what to do. They're dissatisfied with the government under Ngo Din Diem, and they begin to talk secretly, internally, about a change in government, that is to say, engineering a couple that conversation, that discussion begins in earnest here in the late summer of 1963 also. At the same time, important voices in the international community are beginning to question this, are beginning to suggest, well, maybe we need a political solution here. None more notable than Charles de Gaulle, French leader. And he would say, of course, with a certain degree of, I don't know, conceit, we know something about.
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Frederick Logevall
I'm sorry, de Gaulery.
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Martin DeCaro
Yeah, we. Certain amount of the gallery. I like it. We, the French, we know something about this place. Take it from us, you're not going to prevail. And therefore the time has come, Mr. President, in so many words, for this to be taken now to the diplomatic sphere. And what's so fascinating about Kennedy and I'm going to, obviously be dealing with this again in the third volume of my book is that I believe Kennedy in fact had deep doubts about Indochina and about whether it should become the scene of a major US intervention. So on some level, I think he agreed with de Gaulle. And yet this same Kennedy, this is the paradox, is steadily expanding US involvement in 1962 and then into 63 where we are now. And here at this moment, he steadfastly refuses, he staunchly refuses this suggestion of moving the struggle to the diplomatic realm. So Kennedy rejects de Gaulle's suggestion.
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Frederick Logevall
That's funny because the United States had been telling the French that in the 50s there was an incongruent situation there where the French wanted to recapture a colonial possession and the United States is backing them but saying, you know, at the end of this war you have to then allow for Vietnamese autonomy. So the French were saying then what the hell are we fighting for? I can't remember if de Gaulle was in power in 54. I don't think he was.
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Martin DeCaro
No, he wasn't. He was very important at the beginning, I suggest in embers of war, at the very beginning in 1945 when he is the man in charge, he's really important in the French return to Indochina in 54.
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Frederick Logevall
He's in his wilderness period in 1963. This is around the time shortly after the French leave Algeria because de Gaulle said, enough is enough. We cannot win, win this war. So yeah, this was a humiliating time for the so called French empire. So Kennedy's decision to authorize a coup, you mentioned this was first broached in the summer. Maybe the initial attempt was called off. Kennedy is taking heat for this from historians who are not necessarily saying yes, do it now, and also murder no Dinh Diem, the Catholic autocratic president of South Vietnam. But he also didn't stop it when he was aware that it could possibly happen. And the wheels start turning later on in November. Actually, there's a voice audio recording that Kennedy does just weeks before he himself is assassinated where he is lamenting the downfall of no din. Jim.
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Lyndon Johnson
Over the weekend the coup in Saigon took place culminated three months of conversation about a couple. I feel that we must bear a good deal of responsibility for it, beginning with our cable of early August in which we suggested the coup period. In my judgment that why I was badly drafted should never have been sent on a Saturday. I should not have given my consent to it without it. Roundtable conference in which McNamara and Taylor could have presented their views. While we did redress that balance in later wires that that first wire encouraged Lodge along the course to which he was in any case inclined.
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Frederick Logevall
So we can look at this two different ways. Getting rid of Diem means the United States is more committed to South Vietnam. You know, why get rid of the President and install somebody who's going to be better for you there if you're not actually committed to the cause. But also, you alluded to this, Fred. South Vietnam was a mess, disorder and chaos. And Americans could have said, you know what? Enough is enough. We can't fix this. This is a disaster. Let's get out of here.
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Martin DeCaro
I think my own view is that U.S. involvement in that coup, more than involvement, certainly giving the green light to the coup plotters and encouraging this action further committed the country to South Vietnam. Or at least that it would have been very difficult in the near term, that is to say, in those closing weeks of 1963. And let's remember there's also obviously a new American President. We'll come back to that. But it seems to me hard to imagine that either a surviving Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson in his first days and weeks would have said, well, the country is really in a mess now. We're therefore going to withdraw our support. So in the short term, as somebody powerfully put it, this tied the American flag to the mast in Saigon. I wouldn't want to overstate that argument because some have gone so far as to say that coup against Diem and American complicity made inevitable everything that happened later. And I don't believe that for a minute. And that's what choosing more goes on to examine. But I do think in the short term, as Kennedy's recording that you mentioned, which is an extraordinary recording, November 4, 1963, speaking into a dictaphone that's on the dictabelt.
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Lyndon Johnson
I was shocked by the death of Zim and new I met Zim with Justice Douglas many years ago. He was a extraordinary character. While he became increasingly difficult and lost last month, nevertheless, over a 10 year period he'd held his country together, maintained its independence under very adverse conditions. The way he was killed made it particularly abhorrent. The question now is whether the generals can stay together and build a stable government or whether Saigon will begin return on public opinion in Saigon, the intellectual students and conceptual turn on this government as repressive and undemocratic in the not too distant future.
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Martin DeCaro
I think he, if you listen, he doesn't come out and say so explicitly. I think he understands the gravity of this situation. He says, we bear a significant responsibility for what has happened. My Sense is that Kennedy understood three weeks before his death, less than three weeks, he understood. We have now really complicated our situation, at least in the near term.
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Frederick Logevall
I didn't put my initial question so well about Kennedy's responsibility here. He gives the overall authorization to get rid of Diem when the generals in South Vietnam think it's the right time to do it. So he's not necessarily saying, okay, do it today and do it this way. He allows that order, that authorization to linger out there, and then it happens in November.
- [33:59]
Martin DeCaro
That's exactly right. And of course, the large question here is, did he know that Diem and his brother knew would be killed? Probably not. By all accounts, at least. My view is, I think he was genuinely shocked. You could say he should have expected that an assassination would follow. These are ruthless people. So he would have been naive not to believe killing could occur in addition to the coup itself. But that, too, is a question mark among historians. What did he anticipate? What should he have anticipated?
- [34:30]
Frederick Logevall
Yeah, no, Dinh Diem was not a popular leader. Doesn't mean he deserved to die. He had a brother, Nu Dinhem. The brother's wife, Madame Nu, was mocking the Buddhists as they were lighting themselves on fire to protest the persecution of their religion in South Vietnam. At this time, I want to talk a little bit about what was going on on the ground in South Vietnam and whether Fred Logeval Americans were even paying attention to this. Again, this is 1963, summer of 63, you know, the lack of fighting, morale in the South. There's a war going on. It's the Viet Cong in the South. Right. An unpopular and corrupt government. What else?
- [35:07]
Martin DeCaro
Well, I mean, one of the things that happens here is that for the first time, and this is again why I begin my account in the summer of 63. For the first time, the American press is really paying attention. And therefore the American public, at least the reading public, the public that is interested in world affairs, is beginning to pay attention. And so people like David Halberstam, Malcolm Brown, Neil Sheehan, you know, they're beginning now to report on a sustained basis. I think to a person at least. I don't think there's an exception to what I'm about to say to a person. Those reporters arrived in South Vietnam supportive of the US Commitment. In other words, they're not arriving to oppose what's happening. But little by little, I think they become more concerned, ultimately pessimistic, about the prospects. But I think what's notable here, as you say, is that there is a raging insurgency. You've got a leader in South Vietnam unable, maybe to some extent unwilling to really work hard to gain broad popular backing. Kennedy and his advisors feel like they're at a kind of fork in the road, that if they're going to maximize South Vietnam's chances of survival, they decide with some internal opposition. Not everybody's on the same page, but the President and some of the people around him decide, we need a change in government.
- [36:32]
Frederick Logevall
They may have been right that Diem was hopeless. Cause at that point, because of the crackdown on the Buddhists, he was a Catholic autocrat in a Buddhist country.
- [36:39]
Lyndon Johnson
I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the government to win popular support that would. That the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it's their war. They're the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment. We can send our men out there as advisors. But they have to win it. The people of Vietnam against the Communists. We're prepared to continue to assist them. But I don't think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort. And in my opinion, in the last two months, the government has gotten out of touch with the people. The repressions against the Buddhists we felt were very unwise. Now all we can do is to make it very clear that we don't think this is the way to win. It's my hope that this will become increasingly obvious to the government, that they will take steps to try to bring back popular support for this very essential.
- [37:29]
Martin DeCaro
Struggle, that army units loyal to the.
- [37:30]
Frederick Logevall
Late President Ngo Dinh Diem may still pose some threat to the military rebels who ousted Diem's government on Saturday morning.
- [37:38]
Martin DeCaro
The rebels have pledged democracy and a.
- [37:40]
Frederick Logevall
Decisive war against communism.
- [37:42]
Martin DeCaro
The caretaker cabinet is being formed, reportedly.
- [37:45]
Frederick Logevall
Under Nguyen Nok to as Premier. November 22, 1963. John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Lyndon Johnson becomes President of the United states. What were LBJ's initial impressions? Here we are, what, about a year and a half From March of 1965 in Da Nang.
- [38:10]
Martin DeCaro
He believes first off that the coup was a mistake, that the United States should have stuck with Diem. So he was one of those people in the government. He didn't have a very strong voice. And I think he was often quite happy to be a pretty quiet participant in national security meetings to the extent that he was involved in them. But he thought that that was a mistake. So that's one thing that's worth noting as he takes office. A second thing we need to emphasize is that he believed strongly in the Cold War consensus. He believed strongly in the notion of falling dominoes. I think it's fair to say he had a simpler view of the Cold War than I believe John F. Kennedy did and I think endorsed the idea, did Johnson, that if South Vietnam were allowed to fall, it would be a real problem for the United States and a problem for him in terms of his domestic political position. So Johnson said, you know, early on, soon after becoming president, you know, I will not be the president who lost Vietnam. He said at one point, I want you to wake up each day and ask yourself, what can I do for South Vietnam today? That gives you a sense of how LBJ is thinking about this. And I think it conditions his decision making not only in those first weeks, but really for the year, year and a half that follows. I don't think he really ever wavers from that notion. I will not be the president who lost South Vietnam. And moreover, should South Vietnam fall on my watch, it will be bad for me domestically. Domestic programs I want to enact, it'll be bad for me in terms of my support, my reputation, my legacy, et cetera.
- [39:54]
Frederick Logevall
Even though he didn't really know a lot about South Vietnam itself, probably didn't really care about the country very much either prior to this. I mean, why would he have, Right?
- [40:03]
Martin DeCaro
No, and it's really quite true. I don't think he'd paid that much attention. I mean, what he cared about and cared about deeply was domestic legislation. And here, I think from an early point, he wanted to match, maybe even outdo, Franklin Roosevelt. He dreamed big dreams for domestic legislation. And what's so interesting to me, and I guess on some level troubling, is that we have evidence that from an early point, that is to say even in the spring of 1964, privately, Lyndon Johnson is beginning to have doubts, doubts about Vietnam's importance, doubts about whether the war can be won, maybe even with the introduction of American ground forces and the use of American air power. He has misgivings. He's a skeptic, maybe even a pessimist, and yet keeps taking steps. And we'll talk about this to deepen us involved.
- [40:54]
Frederick Logevall
And because he said, I don't want to be the president who loses Vietnam, at one point, he also said, I'm not going to send American boys halfway around the world to do a job Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
- [41:05]
John F. Kennedy
We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do What Asian boys ought to be doing for them themselves.
- [41:16]
Frederick Logevall
So there are many in the.
- [41:17]
Martin DeCaro
In the 64 campaign.
- [41:18]
Frederick Logevall
Yeah, there's a public Johnson who wants to keep Vietnam out of the election season, but also this private Johnson who is talking with his. Well, they weren't his. They were Kennedy's people, the best and the brightest. You identify McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, and Dean Rusk, Rusk being the Secretary of State, as the key. Among the key decision makers here. Before we continue along the timeline, the chronology, I do want to talk a little bit more about ideas here. These advisors, were they buying into dominoes? Were they buying into, or maybe all of this Cold War consensus or credibility? Right. Concerns about America's credibility.
- [42:00]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, we should maybe differentiate a little bit among them of the top advisors, Dean Rusk was the real true believer. I think he believed in all of these things. In other words, he believed in the importance of credibility. And credibility, by the way, is related to the domino theory. It's been called the psychological domino theory, which is. And Jonathan Schell was the person who first, I think, coined that notion. That phrase meaning that it's no longer the concern about individual countries falling one by one. It's now countries all over the world who will draw conclusions on the basis of what the United States does. America's credibility, both with allies and with adversaries, will suffer if it fails to stand firm. Rusk believes this, and Rusk believes, I think, that the commitment to South Vietnam and its future is absolutely vital. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, the single most important advisor I would argue to Johnson, is privately a bit dubious, in my view. Publicly, of course, McNamara is bullish. Publicly, he is the famous number cruncher, and he's talking about why, you know, if we, if we just do this, we can succeed. And by all measures, he says after an early visit to Vietnam, we're winning this war, etc. I think privately he's more skeptical. And McGeorge Bundy, I think, is more on the committed side, if I can put it that way. He's more hawkish, probably, than McNamara is. But your question is a very important one. I think that the bottom line is that these top advisors support a continued U.S. involvement and if necessary, and expanded U.S. involvement. In part, I think they do so because they get the message from Lyndon Johnson that that's what he wants, so they want to support what the President wants. But they are, I think it's fair to say, advocates of escalation and the.
- [43:54]
Frederick Logevall
American people as 1964 unfolds. And there's going to be a presidential election, and they're still mourning the assassination of their young president, jfk. Are the American people concerned about the fate of this country, South Vietnam, that only existed since 1954 or whenever the Geneva Conventions were?
- [44:14]
Martin DeCaro
Not really. You know, I. I suggest in the book, in Choosing War that, you know, we can call this Johnson's War or we can call this McNamara's War. And with justification. I mean, to the extent that this war is any single individual's war from the American side, I would say it's Johnson's war. So I'm not opposed to that notion, to that designation, but it's also problematic because in a deeper sense, this is America's war. What I mean by that is Congress bears responsibility. Congress could have forced the issue more than it did. If you look at the vote of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964, after the incidents in the Gulf, which is essentially a kind of blank check for Johnson to wage war. If you look at the debate prior to the vote, there are a lot of lawmakers who have real reservations about what they're about to do, but the vote itself is almost unanimous. So Congress bears responsibility for this, but so does the American public. I think most Americans are apathetic, not just at the beginning of this period, that is to say, late 1963, when Johnson takes office, but really at the end. I think it's fair to say that right through the Americanization decisions in 1965, most Americans are not paying close attention, are not forcing a national debate of the kind that they could have forced. There was enough time. This is not like the Cuban missile crisis, where you have only a number of days to small number of days to make key decisions. Here it seems to me possible for the nation to have a true debate. How much does it matter what happens in South Vietnam? How important is the outcome in South Vietnam to us? Is it worth sending America's young men to fight and in some cases die for this cause? There's an opportunity here for a debate that didn't happen, and I think there's shared responsibility for that.
- [46:13]
Frederick Logevall
If we look ahead to 1965 and his why Vietnam? Speech, Johnson lays out some of these rationales. We had been in Vietnam for a long time trying to help them against foreign aggression, Right? So we've been doing it a while. We should continue to do this in a Cold War context. Of course, he also talks about credibility as well. I know that there's a lot of debate among historians when politicians give speeches. Is that just for public consumption or do they actually mean what they say? I have no reason to believe that Johnson wasn't being sincere.
- [46:46]
John F. Kennedy
If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise. Us are in American protection. In each land, the forces of independence would be considerably weakened. And an Asia so threatened by communist domination would certainly imperil the security of the United States itself.
- [47:19]
Frederick Logevall
But I don't want to jump too far ahead. Gulf of Tonkin, that's a huge turning point here. So, Fred, you're saying there's this ambivalence even among the hawks. Well, maybe not among the hawks, but at least in the LBJ administration and definitely among the commentariat, public intellectuals, the American people, insofar they were paying attention at all. An ambivalence about getting too deeply involved in Vietnam. Yet. Yet when we get these attacks or the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, LBJ and his people use that as an opportunity to crank up toward escalation, not move away from it.
- [47:53]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, no, it's true. And I think what's going on here is that in secret, starting in the spring of 64, they are planning for escalation. Johnson doesn't want to embark on that policy yet, certainly not until the election is over in November. But there's secret planning for an escalation of U.S. involvement. I think that's very important to remember because of a recognition that probably South Vietnam is not going to survive unless we commit American ground forces or at the very least air power. So they're planning for this escalation. And then we get into August, and I suggest in the book that the administration is really looking for a pretext to flex some American muscle, not too much, but a little bit. And the Gulf of Tonkin provides that opportunity. And so you have limited airstrikes in response to this, and then you get this congressional resolution. And it serves the administration's purposes beautifully because it really takes Vietnam out of the campaign, which is just then beginning the presidential campaign. Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, doesn't have much room or certainly isn't able to land punches that are related to Vietnam, because Johnson has now flexed US muscle, but in a limited way. It really takes the war off.
- [49:13]
Frederick Logevall
The campaign day to day news cycle.
- [49:16]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, the news cycle for the campaign is really off through the election. And it's not coincidental. I think that really on the day of the election and in those days afterwards, the planning for the escalation ramps up.
- [49:29]
Frederick Logevall
And you said there it was clear to the administration that South Vietnam might not last. And they knew this because there had been us, as I mentioned, a war, an insurgency raging. There had been U.S. advisors in South Vietnam for quite a bit. Sixteen thousand by the end of 1963. That is not an insignificant number of people. About 140Americans were killed in Vietnam in 1963. Yet you argue, Fred, that after LBJ wins, and this was a landslide, one of the biggest landslides in American history, he now has the capital to get us out of there.
- [50:09]
Martin DeCaro
I think he does. It's a real opportunity, not just in hindsight, but more importantly, in the context of the time. And let's remember this, we didn't mention this before, but at various points in 1964, he is continuing to express his deep reservations about this. There's a conversation that he has with Bundy in late May 1964. So this is, you know, five or six months before the election. But he says in that conversation, we have this tape. I play it for my students. I don't think it's worth fighting for, and I don't think we can get out.
- [50:47]
John F. Kennedy
I'll tell you, the more I just stayed awake last night thinking about this thing, the more I think of it. I don't know what in the hell it looks like me, we're getting into another career. It just worries the hell out of. I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we're committed. Once I believe the Chinese Communist coming into it, I don't think that we can fight them 10,000 miles away from home and ever get anywhere on in that area. I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out. And it's just the biggest damn mess. It is. It's an awful mess.
- [51:20]
Martin DeCaro
I ask you, Martin, is there a more extraordinary assertion by a president in the long history of American involvement in Vietnam? I don't think it's worth fighting for, and I don't think we can get out. What does the latter part of that assertion mean? Well, it could refer to credibility. We can't get out because our credibility will be shot. I think we need to think of credibility in three terms. Credibility cubed, as I call it, because I think that it's also about partisan credibility and about personal credibility. And I think those latter two forms are also in play here. So when he says, I don't think it's worth fighting for, either because we can't win or because it's not necessary to try. And yet I don't think we can get out. I think it has to do with credibility. But the point you're making, I think, is key. And the point I want to stress here is that I do think you have maneuverability. Lyndon Johnson, after this landslide victory, has through, I would say, March, maybe even at least into the beginning of March. So that is to say, what, three, four months in which he could have opted for a different course.
- [52:30]
Frederick Logevall
And another key point, through this entire period, despite all this ambivalence and uneasiness about getting involved too deeply in Vietnam, LBJ and his team failed to pursue diplomacy and negotiations. Right. They even rejected offers to negotiate by the North Vietnamese, who are seeking a diplomatic resolution to all of this on their terms, of course. But. So this is what is so hard to understand when we're talking about the origins of American involvement in Vietnam from 1965. They didn't try that hard when it mattered most to find a way out. No diplomacy, no negotiations.
- [53:10]
Martin DeCaro
It's absolutely correct. I think you make a very important point in what you just said, which is that the North Vietnamese want negotiations on their terms. So we should not, I think, fall into the trap of thinking that Hanoi is clamoring for a. A deal based on mutual concessions. I don't think they're interested in making very many concessions to the United States here. But you can get, I believe, if you had wanted to do this, Lyndon Johnson could have gotten some kind of fig leaf negotiated settlement, perhaps involving what would later become known as, under Nixon and Kissinger, a decent interval. Let's remember that in great power negotiations of the type that had gone on in Geneva in 1954, and you could have had a reconvene Geneva conference. Now, in great power negotiations, the greatest power always gets at least some of what he wants. And so I think you could have had a deal here that would have allowed the United States to get not a perfect settlement, but a means by which it could avoid the alternative, which is the one Johnson chose, namely, major escalation. There may also be something in between the status quo and major escalation, which we can discuss if you want. In other words, could he have opted for something less than what he chose in 1965? Perhaps. But you're quite right to say that the diplomatic option, the political option, was never really explored, may not have led.
- [54:40]
Frederick Logevall
To anything Anyway, as you say, the North Vietnamese did not want permanent neutrality. They wanted to, in their view, liberate their country from foreign occupation and can't blame them. For that after everything they had been through. But In February of 1965, LBJ is sworn in. By now we're a month away from his decision to send in the Marines. His vice president sends him a memo. Before we get to the import of the Hubert Humphrey memo, are the American people aware that we're heading toward conflict here?
- [55:09]
Martin DeCaro
That's a really good question. And I think, in fact, even though we've got a lot of books and articles on this period, I think there's more to do do. And I would love to see more on public opinion in these critical weeks. Both, both in terms of what we might call elite opinion newspapers, columnists and reporters, university presidents, other opinion makers, and what ordinary people, ordinary Americans are thinking about this. I think those who are paying attention either reading their own local newspaper because I don't think you needed to read the New York Times to be aware of this, but if they're paying attention to current affairs and watching one of the three networks at night at home, they're going to have a sense, I think, that this thing is getting more and more serious, that the United States is looking at a very important decision and that before too much longer we could have American young men in South Vietnam fighting communist forces. So I think that's a long way of saying to you that people who are paying attention, informed Americans have a pretty good sense here that a war could be happening.
- [56:17]
Frederick Logevall
It's pretty clear to me that there was no groundswell for intervention. Americans were not clamoring, so the pressures were almost self imposed, maybe psychological. It just seems like they stumbled, although that maybe that lets them off the hook to say they stumbled. There was no pressure on them to do this. This is not post 911 where Americans were behind the US intervention in Afghanistan. That's not the case here.
- [56:43]
Martin DeCaro
No, I think that's a good point. One of the reasons why I argue in a couple of different places, including choosing war, but also a later essay that though we can never know what a surviving John F. Kennedy would have done because it's a counterfactual and counterfactuals are ultimately unanswerable. I think the best argument is that a surviving Kennedy would have avoided a large scale escalation of the type that Johnson embarked upon. In part for the reasons that you've just said that you know, there isn't public clamor. The situation on the ground in South Vietnam is not encouraging. You're going to need a stable Saigon government at some point to have long term success. It's really not there in early 65. So I think what you're saying in a certain way here, which I think is important, is that there is a kind of mystery here. Year, as Hubert Humphrey sits down to write this memo about what is to.
- [57:36]
Frederick Logevall
Come, what does Humphrey Tell Johnson? February 1965.
- [57:40]
Martin DeCaro
It's an extraordinary memo drafted principally by Tom Hughes, who's an aide to Humphrey, but I think reflecting Humphrey's real views. Let's remember this is the Vice President of the United States. This is the second ranking public official in America. And he's basically saying to the President, don't do this. Don't escalate this war. If you do, you're going to divide the Democratic Party, you're going to divide the American people. You're going to, I think he says, in so many words, harm your own political position. So looking ahead to 1968, and you can bet that Johnson was already thinking ahead to 68, you're going to be in a worse position if you escalate this war. Moreover, Humphrey says, and this is an exact quote, 1965 is the year of minimum political risk for this administration. In other words, a year in which Johnson doesn't have to worry about the Republicans.
- [58:35]
Frederick Logevall
Yeah, yeah. If South Vietnam goes To hell by 68, people will have moved on.
- [58:41]
Martin DeCaro
People will have moved on. And the thing that I think is worth noting here is that Hubert Humphrey was no political naif. In other words, Hubert Humphrey had a deep understanding of Democratic precinct politics across America that I would argue is as great as Johnson's. Johnson arguably was more of the master when it came to sort of inside the. What we would come to call inside the beltway, strategizing, strong arming. But in terms of understanding where the country was, where ordinary Americans were and were likely to be, I think Humphrey, Hubert Humphrey, was every bit his equal. If you look at Humphrey's history and if you look at all that he had experienced, all he had said, all he had written, my point simply is that this is a voice that was reasoned and with Hughes's help, produced, I think, one of the more remarkable pieces of writing relating to the long intervention in Vietnam that we have Hubert Humphrey right here.
- [59:42]
Frederick Logevall
March 8th, 1965. The end of our story here for part one of this series. Lyndon Johnson finally decides to send in the Marines to Danang. We have to remember they were sent there not to fight this gigantic war that was going to last 10 years. They were simply sent. This is one contingent of Marines sent to defend an airfield because Johnson believed that he was taking the path of least resistance. It's not worth fighting for, but we can't get out. So this is the middle way.
- [60:13]
Martin DeCaro
It is the path of least political resistance. And we should remember that politicians. Johnson is not alone in this. This. This is true, I think, of most successful politicians, they will often take the path of least immediate resistance. We'd like to think that they don't always do it, but some of the time they do. I think that John F. Kennedy had doubts about Vietnam from the time he visited in 1951, 12 years before his death. And yet he was content, as politicians are, to postpone the difficult decisions for later. And in a sense, I think that's what Lyndon Johnson is doing here. Johnson is basically saying, we're going to try escalation. We are going to start a sustained aerial campaign. We're going to therefore need to commit some ground troops. But I'm not making this a large scale war yet. And I think he's hoping that one or two steps in some way might be sufficient. And so in terms of his immediate needs, this is the path of least political resistance. And he's hopeful. I don't think he's confident by any means.
- [61:22]
Frederick Logevall
Boy, once you take that, he's a realist.
- [61:24]
Martin DeCaro
Johnson's a realist. He's hopeful that these measures will succeed for him in that moment. That's enough.
- [61:31]
Frederick Logevall
And a decade later, all the bombs and bullets still hadn't convinced the North Vietnamese to stop fighting for their country, despite all of McNamara's charts and statistics and everything else. One really important thing here from the defeat in Vietnam, we are supposed to now be able to differentiate between what our core national interests and what our peripheral national interests. And I still think we struggle with that today.
- [61:59]
Martin DeCaro
I think we do. It's hard. Maybe to some extent, I want to be not necessarily sympathetic to decision makers, but I want to at least understand things from their perspective. Perspective. It's hard sometimes to do this, to differentiate between core and peripheral interests. And it becomes pretty easy to convince yourself that what might seem to be a peripheral interest, in fact could quite quickly become a core one for you. And I want to be mindful of the fact that in domestic political terms, you could pay a price for failing to stand firm. But I think what Vietnam teaches me is that you have to resist that pressure. You have to, as you say, Martin, really think long and hard about what is truly in our national interest, as I define that national interest, and what is not, and then have to act accordingly. And I think that, in fact, the American people will understand and will support a decision made on that basis. In that sense, I think Hubert Humphrey was absolutely right, because what Humphrey was doing in that memoir was, in fact, in a sense, telling Johnson, let's focus here on what's essential. Let's focus here on what you're going to accomplish domestically and what this intervention, if you proceed with it, will actually mean for yourself and for the country.
- [63:17]
John F. Kennedy
This is a different kind of war. There are no marching armies or solemn declarations. Some citizens of South Vietnam, at times with understandable grievances, have joined in the attack on their own government. But we must not let this mask the central fact that this is really war. It is guided by North Vietnam and it is spurred by communist China. Its goal is to conquer the south, to defeat American power and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism. And there are great stakes in the balance. Most of the non communist nations of Asia cannot by themselves and alone resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian communism. Our power, therefore, is a very vital shield. If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise or in American protection.
- [64:53]
Frederick Logevall
On the next episode of History as it Happens, Part two of this series, defeat in Vietnam Resistance. Remember, new episodes every Tuesday and Friday and my newsletter every Friday. Sign up free at History as it happens dot com.