Kennedy Sends Troops to Vietnam

 

      John F Kennedy

John F Kennedy visited Vietnam in 1951 as a young Congressman and  returned convinced that “to act apart from and in defiance of innately nationalistic aims spells foredoomed failure.” By 1956, he had stopped speaking about Vietnamese nationalism, and had assumed the cold war rhetoric, describing Vietnam as “proving ground for democracy --- a test of American responsibility and determination.” Of course, South Vietnam wasn’t any more democratic than North Vietnam. 

The beginning of Kennedy’s term as president, 1961, was another opportunity to get out of Vietnam. There were only a few American military advisors there. We had given Diem’s government a lot of economic aid, but we had not committed ground troops or air support for his war against the Vietcong insurgents. 

Diem, for his part, was holding onto power by a thread. The handpicked followers he had put into leadership positions in the provinces had no respect. His repression of dissidents by detaining them in reeducation camps caused even more dissent. His favoritism toward the Catholic minority alienated the Buddhist majority. His land reform program, which moved families off their ancestral land and favored rich land owners, alienated the peasants. In May of 1960, a group of prominent Vietnamese citizens including 10 cabinet members produced a document, “The Manifesto of the Eighteen,” demanding reforms and Diem’s resignation, and six months later he barely survived a second coup. 

Kennedy however was committed. Withdrawal from Vietnam wasn’t even considered. Ten days after taking office he approved a counterinsurgency plan requiring more military advisors, and he made articles on guerrilla warfare assigned reading for military officers.

In May of 1961 Kennedy sent his vice president, Lyndon Johnson, to Southeast Asia to assess the situation in Vietnam and neighboring countries. On his return, Johnson echoed the cold war rhetoric that it was America’s responsibility to defend the “freedom” of Asian countries, but straddled the fence, saying our decisions should be made “in full realization of the very heavy and continuing costs in terms of money, of effort and of US prestige.” He added that if other efforts failed we might have to cut our losses, and decide against sending US troops. 

In the meantime, the Vietcong were gaining ground in the countryside, isolating Diem’s troops along the border and in the cities. In October, Diem requested a defense treaty with the possibility of US troops, so Kennedy sent a team of advisors, including Gen. Maxwell Taylor, commander of the 101^st Airborne division during WWII, and Walt Rostow, assistant director of the National Security Council, to Vietnam. They concluded that the South Vietnamese army was ineffective, but recommended sending in US troops and bombing Hanoi, to show the South Vietnamese “how the job might be done.” 

When Kennedy expressed reluctance to make a military commitment, the response by Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, and Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was ambivalent. In a joint statement they warned that “United States forces could not accomplish their mission in the midst of an apathetic or hostile population,” while on the other hand the fall of South Vietnam would “undermine the credibility of American commitments elsewhere.”    

When Diem, pressured by increasing gains by the Viet Cong or VC, accused the US of getting ready to pull back, Kennedy committed himself by pledging to “help the Republic of Vietnam to protect its people and preserve its independence.” Then without any definite plan, mission, or Congressional approval, he sent in more troops, with air and naval support, and began “Operation Ranchhand,” the use of defoliatiants such as Agent Orange, to deprive the VC of jungle cover and food. Of course it also deprived the Vietnamese civilians of food, so that Vietnam, once a major exporter of rice, became dependent on US imports. By the end of 1962 there were 11000 US troops in Vietnam. The US death toll was 109 in 1962 and 489 in 1963. 

The US strategy had changed from the threat of massive retaliation under Eisenhower, to limited war during Kennedy’s administration. Accused of waging an undeclared war, Kennedy described our involvement as a “training mission.” 

At first, the increase in US involvement had some positive results. VC defections increased, and the ratio of VC to ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) deaths increased to 5 to 3. Secretary McNamara declared that we were winning the war, and he predicted that we would begin to withdraw our troops in 1965. The respite was brief though. 

John Kenneth Galbraith, ambassador to India, visited South Vietnam in 1961 and submitted a formal report stating that we were “married to failure.” He said the morale of the Vietnamese army was low; the government was corrupt, and Diem was unwilling to make reforms.  He said that the problem was internal, and recommended that we negotiate with Hanoi to withdraw our troops in exchange for them pulling back the Viet Cong. Mike Mansfield, majority leader in the senate, also visited Vietnam and recommended to President Kennedy that we pull out. Even Robert Kennedy remarked that no government could stop the communists in Vietnam. President Kennedy’s response was that he couldn’t pull our troops out until after the 1964 election. 

In May of 1963 Diem prohibited celebration of Buddha’s birthday, destroying what little following he had in a country that was 80% Buddhist. There followed demonstrations to which Diem responded by arresting and killing demonstrators. When a Buddhist monk lit himself on fire in the middle of a busy Saigon intersection, the American public was horrified. 

Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis increased his prestige, and this would have given him another opportunity to withdraw from Vietnam, but our support was established policy, so instead of withdrawing or negotiating with Hanoi, we decided on regime change. Our ambassador to Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, began meeting with the top Vietnamese generals to arrange a final coup to remove Diem and his brother Nhu from power. A month later Diem and Nhu were both dead, and the next month Kennedy was assassinated.

 

After thought:

In reading different accounts of this period, I’ve noticed that historians disagree in their assessment of Ngo Dinh Diem’s effectiveness as South Vietnam’s president. Most of the accounts judge him as ineffective, out of touch, and only interested in holding onto power, but just yesterday I ran across a historian from Hillsdale College named Mark Moyar. He points out that in the context of Vietnamese culture, Diem’s actions made sense. Ho Chi Minh, reportedly said of Diem’s assassination:

 "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid".

He also quotes the North Vietnamese Politburo:

“The consequences of the 1 November coup d’etat will be contrary to the calculations of the imperialists… Diem was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communism. Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diem. Diem was one of the most competent lackeys of the imperialists …Among the anti-Communists in South Vietnam or exiled in other countries, no one has sufficient political assets and abilities to cause others to obey. Therefore, the lackey administration cannot be stabilized. The coup d’etat on 1 November 1963 will not be the last.” 

I don’t necessarily agree with his assessment, but it just illustrates my cousin Steve’s principle of ambivalence. The more you know about a situation, the less sure you can be about your judgements. (See my blog post – Ambivalence. 

While you can question Diem’s effectiveness as a leader, I don’t think there’s any question that he didn’t earn his oxygen, referring to Steve’s other principle. (See my blog post – Earning Your Oxygen.) No one can cause as much suffering and death as Diem and earn any oxygen.