CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
Exactly what it says on the tin. Bonus points for citing sources besides Oliver Stone.
Was Kennedy Planning to Intervene in Vietnam?
- Thread starter CthulhuFhtagn
- Start date
Peter Parker
Banned
He was planning on getting all fighting ground troops out by 1965
But I still think advisors, bombing, and aid would still be sent
But I still think advisors, bombing, and aid would still be sent
Realpolitik
Banned
Considering how Diem had just been killed, I don't see how it is possible for Kennedy not to get somehow involved in the region. He might not screw it up utterly like LBJ did and put half a million men in while being less than candid with the people and the media, but from that point on, South Vietnam was our Frankenstein. My hunch is that we get a Vietnam, but a different one.
Kennedy was very into Special Ops kind of stuff, so I could see more of that.
Kennedy was very into Special Ops kind of stuff, so I could see more of that.
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Well, he did.
IIRC, when Kennedy died there was something in the order of the ten thousand American troops in South Vietnam.
One of my sources for this is Noam Chomsky's "At War with Asia", which I concede could be called into question.
I would suppose that Kennedy may have not envisioned Johnson's escalation policy and would have considered bringing the boys home instead, although I am dubious: since America was already significantly committed, pulling back would have looked like conceding the Soviets a point.
He was also the one who first sent in the U.S. Army Special Forces to act as advisers, so I think maintaining that program is not an unrealistic possibility.
What are the long term prospects for South Vietnam if the American intervention isn't escalated beyond this?
Something that has always intrigued me is whether the Rhodesians would be allowed to assist. IIRC south Vietnam wanted them but america refused: in this scenario they might not do so. Of course the RLI were among the most effective counter insurgency forces of the 20th century.
I'd guess somewhere between nil and zilch.
If this goes public, it would likely sink any support for the already widely despised South Vietnamese government in the public opinion of many American allies, and across important sectors of American opinion as well. Not to mention the disgust this could cause in the non-aligned movement, but they were already pretty consistently anti-US on the issue no matter what.
IIRC, Rhodesia declared independence unilaterally in 1965. Their involvement could piss off Britain, and maybe affect Australian position too?
That is undoubtedly true, but it wouldn't be the first time the west/us has backed an odious nation in the name of anti-communism. If they're worried about the domino theory being accurate they'll probably hold their nose and throw whatever money/arms they can at it. End result is probably still the same as you suggest, but without significant American casualties which is an important change.
I assume that without significant American troops on the ground there won't also be Australian or other allies.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
First of all, he already did. So really, the question is, "would Kennedy have further escalated US involvement in Vietnam had he lived?"
To that, there's plenty of evidence suggesting he wouldn't; that said, my favorite evidence is that Kennedy would be in his second (thus final) term, so he won't be looking to get re-elected (the way LBJ and Nixon were). If his Secretary of Defense is Robert Kennedy, as it was rumored to be planned, that would help keep a lid on escalation even further, as the brother had an affinity for local support, to contrast with McNamara's more "rationalist" approach.
To that, there's plenty of evidence suggesting he wouldn't; that said, my favorite evidence is that Kennedy would be in his second (thus final) term, so he won't be looking to get re-elected (the way LBJ and Nixon were). If his Secretary of Defense is Robert Kennedy, as it was rumored to be planned, that would help keep a lid on escalation even further, as the brother had an affinity for local support, to contrast with McNamara's more "rationalist" approach.
Of course, JFK *did* intervene in Vietnam. Presumably what you mean is whether he would have escalated the war as LBJ did. I discussed this a year ago in soc.history.what-if (unfortunately, *Vietnam: If Kennedy Had Lived: Virtual JFK* no longer seems to be available online):
***
On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination, there is
bound to be more debate about whether JFK would have escalated the war the
way LBJ did.
The arguments that he would have are familiar:
(1) He had already escalated the war considerably, in that the number of US
advisers increased dramatically, from several hundred to around 16,000.
And of course the US also increased material aid to the Saigon regime
during his administration.
(2) Yes, the famous McNamara-Taylor report of October, 1963 provided for
the short-term withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel and that "A program
be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now
performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by
the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of US
personnel by that time."
http://books.google.com/books?id=qh5lffww-KsC&pg=PA1497 But that doesn't
tell us what JFK would have done if in fact by 1965 it was clear that the
training was not preventing the South Vietnamese government from losing the
war.
(3) It would be hard in the mid-1960's for a US president to accept the
"loss" of an ally to communism.
(4) The advisers who guided LBJ in his decision to escalate were the same
ones who guided JFK.
I myself have accepted these arguments in the past and still think they
*may* be valid. However, recently I was reading Jeff Greenfield's recent
*If Kennedy Lived: The First and Second Terms of President John F.
Kennedy: An Alternate History* (which I may discuss in a future post). In
an appendix entitled "The Sources of Speculation" Greenfield defends the
plausibility of some of the events he has happening in his book. On the
question of what JFK would have done about Vietnam, Greenfield writes (pp.
236-7)
"It is often entangled in motives; 'keepers of the flame' are certain he
would not have escalated the war; Kennedy skeptics suggest he would have
been compelled by the same 'facts on the ground' as Johnson was, or note
that his avowed goal to begin withdrawing U.S. forces had been overtaken by
the coup that deposed Ngo Dinh Diem less than three weeks before Dallas.
"There is, of course, no definitive way to answer this question. An
excellent starting point, however, is *Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived*
(2009) by James Blight, Janet Lang, and David A. Welch. The book contains
the transcripts of a three-day conference held at the Musgrave Plantation
in 2005 among historians, other academics, and policy makers from the
Kennedy-Johnson era. It also includes extensive declassified documents
from the National Security Council and other sources...
"At the end of the conference, a majority of participants concluded that
Kennedy would *not* have escalated the war in Vietnam and would have been
willing to accept the political cost of disengagement..."
I have read *Vietnam: If Kennedy Had Lived: Virtual JFK* Although I read
a copy from a library, the book is available online--at least for now--at
http://tinyurl.com/kxd6hcw The symposium brought together "radicals" who
insisted that JFK had already decided to withdraw from Vietnam with
"skeptics" who argued that this decision was contingent on the South
Vietnamese being successfully trained to win the war. James K. Galbraith
represents the "radicals" in arguing (p. 218) that asking whether JFK would
decide to escalate in 1965 is asking the wrong question. "We don't need to
guess whether Kennedy might have made a decision at some time in 1964 or
1965. There *was* a decision. This is the precise word that Robert
McNamara uses. He uses it for good and sufficient reasons. So treating a
point of fact as though it were a what-if is intrinsically misleading...The
fact of the decision is a fact that--as I said yesterday--was quite
independent of what reservations may have accompanied that fact. A
correctly framed what if would have been 'Would Kennedy have reversed his
previous decision to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Vietnam?'"
Personally, I doubt whether it matters much how you formulate the question.
The real issue is whether JFK, regardless of what decisions he may
previously have taken, would be willing to accept the "loss" of South
Vietnam in 1965. (More important therefore IMO is what Galbraith says on
p. 239 that his father told him: "My father's got a very clear
recollection on just this issue--whether Kennedy could take a loss in
Vietnam. Kennedy's answer to that was, 'Not this year.' He could only take
one at a time. Laos, Cuba, and Vietnam would wait. But if he had to take a
loss in Vietnam, he was capable of taking it.")
Anyway, to summarize the arguments of those who do not believe JFK would
have escalated the war, I will start with the arguments of Gordon Goldstein
on pp. 55-58 (Goldstein worked with McGeorge Bundy on a memoir Bundy
intended to write on Vietnam, but which was aborted by Bundy's sudden
death):
(1) JFK took seriously the distinction between military advisers and combat
troops. In November 1961 McNamara urged JFK to send combat troops to South
Vietnam. He would start with 8,000 men for flood relief, but warned that
as many as 205,000 (!) could eventually be required.
In fact, it might be useful to reproduce McNamara's November 1961
memorandum to JFK in its entirety here:
***
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
The basic issue framed by the Taylor Report is whether the U.S. shall:
a. Commit itself to the clear objective of preventing the fall of South
Vietnam to Communism, and
b. Support this commitment by necessary immediate military actions and
preparations for possible later actions.
The Joint Chiefs, Mr. Gilpatric, and I have reached the following
conclusions:
1. The fall of South Vietnam to Communism would lead to the fairly rapid
extension of Communist control, or complete accommodation to Communism, in
the rest of mainland Southeast Asia and in Indonesia. The strategic
implications worldwide, particularly in the Orient, would be extremely
serious.
2. The chances are against, probably sharply against, preventing that fall
by any measures short of the introduction of U.S. forces on a substantial
scale. We accept General Taylor's judgment that the various measures
proposed by him short of this are useful but will not in themselves do the
job of restoring confidence and setting Diem on the way to winning his
fight.
3. The introduction of a U.S. force of the magnitude of an initial 8,000
men in a flood relief context will be of great help to Diem. However, it
will not convince the other side (whether the shots are called from Moscow,
Peiping, or Hanoi) that we mean business. Moreover, it probably will not
tip the scales decisively. We would be almost certain to get increasingly
mired down in an inconclusive struggle.
4. The other side can be convinced we mean business only if we accompany
the initial force introduction by a clear commitment to the full objective
stated above, accompanied by a warning through some channel to Hanoi that
continued support of the Viet Cong will lead to punitive retaliation
against North Vietnam.
5. If we act in this way, the ultimate possible extent of our military
commitment must be faced. The struggle may be prolonged and Hanoi and
Peiping may intervene overtly. In view of the logistic difficulties faced
by the other side, I believe we can assume that the maximum U.S. forces
required on the ground in Southeast Asia will not exceed 6 divisions, or
about 205,000 men (CINCPAC Plan 32-59, Phase IV). Our military posture is,
or with the addition of more National Guard or regular Army divisions, can
be made, adequate to furnish these forces without serious interference with
our present Berlin plans.
6. To accept the stated objective is of course a most serious decision.
Military force is not the only element of what must be a most carefully
coordinated set of actions. Success will depend on factors many of which
are not within our control-notably the conduct of Diem himself and other
leaders in the area. Laos will remain a major problem. The domestic
political implications of accepting the objective are also grave, although
it is our feeling that the country will respond better to a firm initial
position than to courses of action that lead us in only gradually, and that
in the meantime are sure to involve casualties. The over-all effect on
Moscow and Peiping will need careful weighing and may well be mixed;
however, permitting South Vietnam to fall can only strengthen and encourage
them greatly.
7. In sum:
a. We do not believe major units of U.S. forces should be introduced in
South Vietnam unless we are willing to make an affirmative decision on the
issue stated at the start of this memorandum.
b. We are inclined to recommend that we do commit the U.S. to the clear
objective of preventing the fall of South Vietnam to Communism and that we
support this commitment by the necessary military actions.
c. If such a commitment is agreed upon, we support the recommendations of
General Taylor as the first steps toward its fulfillment.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent3.htm
***
JFK obviously did *not* go along with McNamara's recommendation. He sent
advisers, not combat troops. Goldstein argues that the distinction was a
firm one to JFK: "Ground combat troops means Marine forces, or U.S. Army
forces organized in combat units, infantry, artillery, armor, or airborne,
in companies, battalions, regiments and divisions. These are not supply
forces, these are not air forces, these are not forces assigned to advise,
train, or assist South Vietnamese combat troops. These are fighting
forces." According to Goldstein, there was huge bureaucratic pressure on
JFK throughout 1961 to introduce US combat troops to South Vietnam:
"Over time, the loose coalition in favor of deploying combat troops
includes, among others, McNamara, the secretary of defense; Rusk, the
secretary of state; Bundy, the national security adviser; Walt Rostow, the
deputy national security adviser; Maxwell Taylor, the president's special
military adviser...and all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. All of
them support it--whether as a symbol of determination, as a deterrent, as a
defense for U.S. bases (the rationale that ultimately prevails in March
1965) or under the rather transparent ruse of 'flood relief.' The
president is surrounded. And with the exception of Undersecretary of
State George Ball and a few other advisers of significantly lower rank, the
president is alone.
"The president slams the door on the combat troop deployments to South
Vietnam proposed in 1961, and that door remains firmly shut. For the
duration of Kennedy's presidency, the no-combat-troop policy is never
revised. It is never reversed. It is never challenged..."
So, according to Goldstein, the answer to whether JFK in 1965 could have
resisted pressure from his advisers to send combat troops, is that he
resisted precisely such pressures in 1961. And before you say that in 1965
the position of the South Vietnamese government was desperate, remember
that McNamara makes it sound something close to desperate in 1961 ("The
chances are against, probably sharply against, preventing that fall by any
measures short of the introduction of U.S. forces on a substantial
scale...").
Goldstein argues that JFK's opposition to sending combat troops was based
on his distrust of the Joint Chiefs after the Bay of Pigs, by his awareness
of the disastrous French colonial experience in Vietnam (which he often
mentioned) and on his belief that Vietnam was not a conventional war to be
won by conventional means. He believed counterinsurgency required
different tools: "to the extent there was a Kennedy military strategy in
Vietnam, it was based on unconventional forces and strategies. It is
difficult to imagine he would have abandoned this conviction in favor of
Westmoreland's blunt nonstrategy of forty-four battalions to be deployed
more or less as the general saw fit..."
(2) Unlike some of the other participants in the symposium, Goldstein does
*not* rely on the idea that Kennedy's assent (NSAM 263) to the McNamara-
Taylor report represented a decision, let alone an irrevocable decision, to
withdraw all forces from Vietnam even at the risk of a Communist victory.
Rather, he argues:
"...the 1961 no-combat-troop decision is completely consistent with
Kennedy's pledge in NSAM [National Security Action Memorandum] 263 (in
1963) to conclude the advisory mission to South Vietnam by the end of
1965...But that consistency does not depend on the premise, which we will
discuss and debate tomorrow, that NSAM 263 is the beginning of Kennedy's
extrication policy. At the very least, the October 1963 decisions confirm
Kennedy's commitment to an advisory mission, not a combat mission. And it
further confirms Kennedy's desire and intent to wind down the advisory
program at the earliest possible date. The October '63 decision, even
interpreted conservatively, underscores the character of the Kennedy
program of action in South Vietnam. Advisers, yes; combat troops, no."
(3) But of course this does not answer the question: What would JFK have
done (assuming he survived and won a second term) when it became clear that
aid and advisers alone could not save the South Vietnamese government, and
the alternative was escalation or withdrawal? Goldstein notes that
according to Bundy, Kennedy had grave doubts about the wisdom of
Americanizing the war. If this is true, Goldstein asks (and he adds that
"the evidence seems strongly to support it") "the question then becomes
whether Kennedy would have been somehow forced, or compelled, to deploy
combat troops? And to answer that question we must ask, forced by what
interest? Or compelled by what influence? If Kennedy can stand his ground
in '61, can he not do so again in '65, even if it means a messy endgame in
South Vietnam? Many assert that the Diem coup deepened the U.S. obligation
to South Vietnam. But for Kennedy, wouldn't the protracted instability that
follows the coup in 1964 and early 1965 simply reaffirm the dismal
prospects for holding on in Vietnam? Wouldn't this undeniable mess
substantiate all that he feared? And wouldn't Kennedy then have great
latitude to maneuver? He has no Great Society program to push through
Congress, he has tamed the Chiefs ever since the debacle of the Bay of
Pigs, he is the champion of the missile crisis, and he is personally
liberated from politics. He will never face another election again. As
Bundy notes, he can define the national interest irrespective of his own
personal political interest. Thus history could have been profoundly
different if Kennedy had lived."
So much for Goldstein's arguments. Blight, Lang, and Welch give additional
reasons for arguing that JFK would not have escalated in 1965. Their basic
argument is that to envision "virtual JFK" (I won't go into their dubious
distinction between "virtual history" and "counterfacual history"--they
view the latter as entirely too fanciful [1]) must be based on the record
of the "actual JFK"--whom they see as constantly overruling his advisers'
pleas for US combat troops--not only in Vietnam but elsewhere. They
discuss these overrulings on pp. 7-8:
(1) Bay of Pigs, April 1961--"JFK was urged by increasingly hysterical
advisers on April 19-20, 1961 to send the Marines into Cuba to rescue the
invading, but overmatched, Cuban exile brigade. Kennedy firmly refused to
oblige them. He resigned himself to the defeat of the CIA-backed exile
force rather than invade Cuba and engage in what he believed would be a
disastrous jungle war..." For Blight, Lang, and Welch, this answers the
question of whether JFK could accept military defeat and the loss of a
Third World country to communism as a lesser evil than getting US combat
forces into war--if he did it in 1961, as a politically vulnerable neophyte
president, why couldn't he do so in 1965, when he would be infinitely
stronger politically? Furthermore, "as is well known, but still
insufficiently appreciated, JFK vowed never to be bamboozled or intimidated
again by his military or intelligence advisers. And he wasn't." (p. 232)
He fired and replaced both his top intelligence officials. "Moreover, by
recruiting his own chairman of the Joint Chiefs in Taylor, he effectively
neutralized the hotheads among the Chiefs who were keen on Americanizing
the conflict in Vietnam, invading Cuba, and challenging the Russians to a
nuclear showdown over the status of Berlin." (p. 233)
(Of course as a rebuttal one can point out that while JFK may from that
point on have decided never again to venture an *invasion* of Cuba, that is
far from saying that he accepted the loss of Cuba. Rather, he tried to get
rid of Castro through other means--subversion and assassination. Andrew
Preston makes this point in his review of *Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived* at
http://www.miwsr.com/2011-019.aspx "Thus, after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy
authorized Operation Mongoose, an aggressive campaign to sabotage Cuba's
economy and assassinate Castro." True--yet none of these means was
guaranteeed success, and in deciding not to use combat forces JFK was in
fact increasing the risk that Castro's regime would survive, as in fact
happened.)
(2) Winter-Spring 1961--the Laos crisis: "JFK is told that the Soviet
resupply of communist insurgents in Laos must forcibly be stopped using
U.S. regular forces, but possibly also by using tactical nuclear weapons.
He is told that if he fails to Americanize the conflict, the communists
will overrun Laos and threaten all of Southeast Asia. Kennedy neither
orders U.S. troops into Laos nor does he authorize the use of U.S. air
power against Soviet assets in Laos. He is appalled at the thought of using
nuclear weapons in Laos or anywhere. Instead, he works with Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev to resolve the crisis via a political compromise: a
neutralist government for Laos...." (As a rebuttal one could note that a
neutralist government is after all not a communist government and that Laos
did not fall to the communists until years later. Still, the fall of the
anti-communist government of Laos in favor of a neutralist one was a
victory, if not yet a total one, for the communists, and JFK's refusal to
use force in Laos does show he could reject hawkish advice, even coming
from his revered predecessor General Eisenhower, who told JFK to do
"whatever is necessary" to save Laos from the communists.)
(3) August-October 1961--the Berlin Wall crisis: "JFK is told, as the Wall
goes up in Berlin, that he must threaten the Soviets with both conventional
and nuclear weapons until they capitulate, tear down the Wall, and refrain
from harassing U.S. personnel in East Germany en route to and from Berlin.
Kennedy refuses to intervene or risk a military engagement between U.S. and
Soviet forces in Berlin. As a result, he encounters stiff public criticism
and bitter internal dissension from his hawkish advisers. Nevertheless,
Kennedy tells his representative in Berlin, former General Lucius Clay, to
back off, and Khrushchev reciprocates. The Wall goes up and stays up,
tragically closing off the principal route for East Germans to escape to
the West, but a war in the heart of Europe is avoided..." (True, but
allowing the Wall to go up was not the same as writing off West Berlin.)
(4) October 1962, the Cuban missile crisis: "JFK is told point-blank by
most of his civilian and military advisers that the U.S. must bomb Soviet
missile sites in Cuba and invade the island as soon as possible in order to
ensure that Soviet military capability on the island is destroyed and the
Castro government removed. Kennedy personally restrains his U.S. military
advisers, who are aghast at what they take to be his timidity and cowardly
reluctance to use the deployment of Soviet missiles as a pretext to destroy
the Cuban Revolution. But JFK works out a compromise with Khrushchev and,
we now know, is ready to absorb enormous political heat rather than risk
war with the Soviet Union..." (Again, Preston sees it differently:
"Kennedy did not accept the missiles with equanimity but instead forced a
confrontation that nearly sparked a nuclear war.[14] Kennedy ran that risk
even though he agreed with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that the
missiles posed no strategic threat, or even strategic disadvantage, to the
United States.[15] He also recognized the double standard of protesting
Soviet missiles in Cuba when the United States had deployed nuclear
missiles to Turkey during his own presidency.[16] Kennedy provoked the
crisis in large part because of domestic political considerations, such as
intense pressure from Republicans not to allow any Soviet arms into Cuba
[17]--precisely the kind of political pressure he would have faced in
authorizing a withdrawal from Vietnam." http://www.miwsr.com/2011-019.aspx
One might rebut Preston by noting that (a) not having to worry about re-
election--and with a significantly more Democratic Congress after his
defeat of Goldwater--JFK would be in a stronger political position in 1965
than in 1962, and (b) short of acquiescing in the missiles, JFK took the
course *least* likely to result in war; he not only publicly promised not
to invade Cuba and offered Khrushchev a secret deal to swap the Cuban for
the Turkish missiles, but there is strong reason to believe that if
Khrushchev had rejected the secrecy, JFK would have accepted an *open* swap
to be proposed by U Thant--the so-called Cordier initiative I discuss at
http://tinyurl.com/k9lx3lq It is really hard for me to see Khrushchev
rejecting this offer, so I think Preston is exaggerating the risk of war.)
And of course there is (5), already discussed--the refusal to send combat
troops to Vietnam in November 1961. (Again, there is a conceivable
rebuttal: the South Vietnamese government was not in an *imminent* danger
of falling then, so sending advisers but not troops can be seen as an
attempt by JFK to defer a decision he did not yet need to make, rather than
as a once-and-for-all rejection of sending combat troops.)
Blight, Lang, and Welch conclude (p. 9):
"If we had to choose a single word to characterize the actual JFK who has
emerged over the twenty years during which we have become retrospectively
acquainted with him, it would be *skeptical.* JFK arrived at the White
House mistrusting slogans and easy answers as well as servile and self-
serving advisers. He was bored and irritated by yes-men. He seems to have
been almost instinctually skeptical of immediate, emotional responses to
crisis situations. But after the humiliation he brought on himself and his
administration by allowing the Bay of Pigs invasion to go forward, he seems
to have become an even more skeptical exemplar of a principle of leadership
attributed to one of his historical heroes, the French diplomat Maurice
Talleyrand: 'Above all,' Talleyrand proclaimed, 'no zeal.'
"Over the past 20 years, as we have listened to the Kennedy tapes, read the
written record of decision making during the Kennedy administration, and
cross-examined those who served in it, we have become struck by how clearly
Kennedy the skeptic appears over and over again. He is a president who
often asks the toughest questions and whose skeptical proclivities often
stand out in sharp relief from the Cold War boilerplate often served up to
him by his advisers.
"In claiming that JFK was a war-averse decisionmaker, a skeptic on the
overt use of military force, we are not endeavoring to recruit Kennedy
retrospectively into the ranks of pacifism. That would be silly...Kennedy
was no pacifist, but he was a serious student of history, especially
diplomatic history. He knew from his study of history, and also from having
his patrol boat cut in half by a Japanese destroyer in the Pacific, that
war is unpredictable, and that those who initiate it usually vastly
underestimate its costs in blood and treasure. Kennedy was immersed in the
history of war..."
From there it is easy to make a contrast with Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was
much more concerned with domestic policy, and less with foreign policy than
JFK. He had no real combat experience. He was much more willing to defer
to military and civilian advisers who warned him he must not let the
communists score a victory in Vietnam. Also, there was LBJ's tendency to
*personalize* the war--"to see it as a referendum on himself as a president
and as a person, and thus to imagine a 'loss' in Vietnam in terms of
catastrophic personal humiliation" (p. 209) Moreover, quite apart from the
differences in personality, LBJ was in 1965 in a different *political*
position than JFK would have been in. LBJ was in his first full term and
had re-election in 1968 in mind--something JFK of course did not have to
worry about.
(And of course one more difference is that LBJ had the JFK legacy to think
of--and always the fear of RFK posing as JFK's successor. It's not just
Republicans who might attack LBJ for "losing" Vietnam. If LBJ pulled out of
Vietnam, might not RFK (who was not yet a dove in 1965) accuse him of
betraying JFK's legacy? Larry Sabato makes this point in his recent *The
Kennedy Half Century*. He quotes LBJ as telling Doris Kearns Goodwin, "f
we lost Vietnam...there would be Robert Kennedy out in front, leading the
fight against me, telling everyone that I had betrayed John Kennedy's
commitment to South Vietnam. That I had let a democracy fall into the hands
of the Communists. That I was a coward. An unmanly man. A man without a
spine. Oh, I could see it coming all right."
http://books.google.com/books?id=kzAns3ne_OYC&pg=PT286&lpg=PT286 )
One should note that several of the instances of caution Blight, Lang, and
Welch point to involve JFK avoiding or at least minimizing the risk of a
Third World War with the Soviet Union. There was little danger that
escalation in Vietnam would lead to that--though intervention by the PRC as
in Korea was of course a possibility if the US went too far in punishing
North Vietnam. Also, one should remember that JFK would not necessarily
have decided in favor of *either* withdrawal *or* LBJ-style Americanization
in 1965. Another possibility is what one participant in the symposium
called "Americanization Lite"--just securing Saigon, US bases, and a few
other areas deemed to be strategically significant. This presumably would
have required far fewer US combat troops and far fewer US casualties.
(This is pretty much what was to be called the "enclave" strategy in OTL.)
A number of participants dismissed this as politically impossible--once you
sent combat troops in, the military would constantly be claiming that more
were needed, that the US needed to secure Area X in order to protect
Enclave Y, etc. (Yet it is not clear to me that such claims could not be
resisted.) To them, LBJ was right in thinking you had to go in big or get
out.
I'd have to say I'm agnostic on this issue but after reading Blight, Lang,
and Welch, I do find the case that JFK would not have escalated more
persuasive than I did previously. I should note that Larry Sabato, who is
no Camelot-worshipper, also thinks that there is something to be said for
this case, and adds one additional argument--JFK was more sensitive than
LBJ to the politics of the academic community:
"No one will ever know how John F. Kennedy would have handled the Vietnam
challenge had he lived, though that has not stopped a battalion of
historians, JFK aides, and others from trying to divine it. President
Johnson was correct to say that his predecessor had set the course in
Southeast Asia, and those who claim that all would have been sweetness and
light on Vietnam in a second Kennedy administration are blind to reality.
Yet JFK and LBJ could not have been more different as people or presidents.
Kennedy's strength was foreign affairs, given his family upbringing, life
in Great Britain, intellectual interests, and World War II service;
Johnson's expertise was mainly domestic. In the crucible of the Oval
Office, Kennedy had learned from the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile
Crisis not to rely overly on the advice of the military; Johnson was far
more deferential. And perhaps most of all, the Ivy League Kennedy's
premier base was among the academics at universities; Johnson, always a bit
suspicious and perhaps envious of intellectuals,was more at home among
hardscrabble Democrats and Capitol Hill politicians.
"Given the existence of the military draft and the left-leaning views of
most faculty, the first and most vociferous opposition to the Vietnam War
naturally emerged from the campuses, locus of JFK's ardent supporters. It
is difficult to believe that John Kennedy would have risked his political
foundation by pursuing a years-long, highly unpopular war in Vietnam, or
ever escalated it to the top of his agenda as LBJ did.."
http://books.google.com/books?id=kzAns3ne_OYC&pg=PT286&lpg=PT286
I am not sure how much weight to attach to this last argument. JFK may
have enjoyed the company of academics, may have valued them as a source of
ideas, may have enjoyed his popularity on campus--and yet he must also have
known that students and professors cast relatively few votes. Yet apart
from the fact that JFK in 1965 would not be seeking re-election (one can
make too much of that; after all, he would still be concerned with how well
the Democratic Party would do in the 1966 congressional elections), it is
noteworthy that no less a practical politician than Hubert Humphrey advised
LBJ in February 1965 that escalating the war would be bad politics and that
"It is always hard to cut losses. But the Johnson administration is in a
stronger position to do so now than any administration in this century.
1965 is the year of minimum political risk for the Johnson administration.
Indeed, it is the first year when we can face the Vietnam problem without
being preoccupied with the political repercussions from the Republican
right. As indicated earlier, our political problems are likely to come from
new and different sources (Democratic liberals, independents, labor) if we
pursue an enlarged military policy very long."
(For the complete HHH February 15, 1965 memo to LBJ, see
http://books.google.com/books?id=YRTeKY1xcVUC&pg=PA323 the fact that
Humphrey fell in line because he wanted to see LBJ succeed as president
should not obscure the prescience of this memo. Which of course also
rasies the what-if of LBJ dying of a heart attack in early 1965, making
Humphrey president...But this post is too long already.)
Thoughts?
[1] I agree with what Frederik Logevall writes in his Forward: "Blight,
Lang, and Welch refer to their approach as 'virtual history,' to
distinguish it from what they see as highly fictionalized, nonrigorous
'counterfactual history.' Fair enough, though I would say that what they
advocate is merely counterfactual history properly done."
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/WdK8-LxWm6s/vLDm_MyjGRAJ
***
On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination, there is
bound to be more debate about whether JFK would have escalated the war the
way LBJ did.
The arguments that he would have are familiar:
(1) He had already escalated the war considerably, in that the number of US
advisers increased dramatically, from several hundred to around 16,000.
And of course the US also increased material aid to the Saigon regime
during his administration.
(2) Yes, the famous McNamara-Taylor report of October, 1963 provided for
the short-term withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel and that "A program
be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now
performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by
the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of US
personnel by that time."
http://books.google.com/books?id=qh5lffww-KsC&pg=PA1497 But that doesn't
tell us what JFK would have done if in fact by 1965 it was clear that the
training was not preventing the South Vietnamese government from losing the
war.
(3) It would be hard in the mid-1960's for a US president to accept the
"loss" of an ally to communism.
(4) The advisers who guided LBJ in his decision to escalate were the same
ones who guided JFK.
I myself have accepted these arguments in the past and still think they
*may* be valid. However, recently I was reading Jeff Greenfield's recent
*If Kennedy Lived: The First and Second Terms of President John F.
Kennedy: An Alternate History* (which I may discuss in a future post). In
an appendix entitled "The Sources of Speculation" Greenfield defends the
plausibility of some of the events he has happening in his book. On the
question of what JFK would have done about Vietnam, Greenfield writes (pp.
236-7)
"It is often entangled in motives; 'keepers of the flame' are certain he
would not have escalated the war; Kennedy skeptics suggest he would have
been compelled by the same 'facts on the ground' as Johnson was, or note
that his avowed goal to begin withdrawing U.S. forces had been overtaken by
the coup that deposed Ngo Dinh Diem less than three weeks before Dallas.
"There is, of course, no definitive way to answer this question. An
excellent starting point, however, is *Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived*
(2009) by James Blight, Janet Lang, and David A. Welch. The book contains
the transcripts of a three-day conference held at the Musgrave Plantation
in 2005 among historians, other academics, and policy makers from the
Kennedy-Johnson era. It also includes extensive declassified documents
from the National Security Council and other sources...
"At the end of the conference, a majority of participants concluded that
Kennedy would *not* have escalated the war in Vietnam and would have been
willing to accept the political cost of disengagement..."
I have read *Vietnam: If Kennedy Had Lived: Virtual JFK* Although I read
a copy from a library, the book is available online--at least for now--at
http://tinyurl.com/kxd6hcw The symposium brought together "radicals" who
insisted that JFK had already decided to withdraw from Vietnam with
"skeptics" who argued that this decision was contingent on the South
Vietnamese being successfully trained to win the war. James K. Galbraith
represents the "radicals" in arguing (p. 218) that asking whether JFK would
decide to escalate in 1965 is asking the wrong question. "We don't need to
guess whether Kennedy might have made a decision at some time in 1964 or
1965. There *was* a decision. This is the precise word that Robert
McNamara uses. He uses it for good and sufficient reasons. So treating a
point of fact as though it were a what-if is intrinsically misleading...The
fact of the decision is a fact that--as I said yesterday--was quite
independent of what reservations may have accompanied that fact. A
correctly framed what if would have been 'Would Kennedy have reversed his
previous decision to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Vietnam?'"
Personally, I doubt whether it matters much how you formulate the question.
The real issue is whether JFK, regardless of what decisions he may
previously have taken, would be willing to accept the "loss" of South
Vietnam in 1965. (More important therefore IMO is what Galbraith says on
p. 239 that his father told him: "My father's got a very clear
recollection on just this issue--whether Kennedy could take a loss in
Vietnam. Kennedy's answer to that was, 'Not this year.' He could only take
one at a time. Laos, Cuba, and Vietnam would wait. But if he had to take a
loss in Vietnam, he was capable of taking it.")
Anyway, to summarize the arguments of those who do not believe JFK would
have escalated the war, I will start with the arguments of Gordon Goldstein
on pp. 55-58 (Goldstein worked with McGeorge Bundy on a memoir Bundy
intended to write on Vietnam, but which was aborted by Bundy's sudden
death):
(1) JFK took seriously the distinction between military advisers and combat
troops. In November 1961 McNamara urged JFK to send combat troops to South
Vietnam. He would start with 8,000 men for flood relief, but warned that
as many as 205,000 (!) could eventually be required.
In fact, it might be useful to reproduce McNamara's November 1961
memorandum to JFK in its entirety here:
***
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
The basic issue framed by the Taylor Report is whether the U.S. shall:
a. Commit itself to the clear objective of preventing the fall of South
Vietnam to Communism, and
b. Support this commitment by necessary immediate military actions and
preparations for possible later actions.
The Joint Chiefs, Mr. Gilpatric, and I have reached the following
conclusions:
1. The fall of South Vietnam to Communism would lead to the fairly rapid
extension of Communist control, or complete accommodation to Communism, in
the rest of mainland Southeast Asia and in Indonesia. The strategic
implications worldwide, particularly in the Orient, would be extremely
serious.
2. The chances are against, probably sharply against, preventing that fall
by any measures short of the introduction of U.S. forces on a substantial
scale. We accept General Taylor's judgment that the various measures
proposed by him short of this are useful but will not in themselves do the
job of restoring confidence and setting Diem on the way to winning his
fight.
3. The introduction of a U.S. force of the magnitude of an initial 8,000
men in a flood relief context will be of great help to Diem. However, it
will not convince the other side (whether the shots are called from Moscow,
Peiping, or Hanoi) that we mean business. Moreover, it probably will not
tip the scales decisively. We would be almost certain to get increasingly
mired down in an inconclusive struggle.
4. The other side can be convinced we mean business only if we accompany
the initial force introduction by a clear commitment to the full objective
stated above, accompanied by a warning through some channel to Hanoi that
continued support of the Viet Cong will lead to punitive retaliation
against North Vietnam.
5. If we act in this way, the ultimate possible extent of our military
commitment must be faced. The struggle may be prolonged and Hanoi and
Peiping may intervene overtly. In view of the logistic difficulties faced
by the other side, I believe we can assume that the maximum U.S. forces
required on the ground in Southeast Asia will not exceed 6 divisions, or
about 205,000 men (CINCPAC Plan 32-59, Phase IV). Our military posture is,
or with the addition of more National Guard or regular Army divisions, can
be made, adequate to furnish these forces without serious interference with
our present Berlin plans.
6. To accept the stated objective is of course a most serious decision.
Military force is not the only element of what must be a most carefully
coordinated set of actions. Success will depend on factors many of which
are not within our control-notably the conduct of Diem himself and other
leaders in the area. Laos will remain a major problem. The domestic
political implications of accepting the objective are also grave, although
it is our feeling that the country will respond better to a firm initial
position than to courses of action that lead us in only gradually, and that
in the meantime are sure to involve casualties. The over-all effect on
Moscow and Peiping will need careful weighing and may well be mixed;
however, permitting South Vietnam to fall can only strengthen and encourage
them greatly.
7. In sum:
a. We do not believe major units of U.S. forces should be introduced in
South Vietnam unless we are willing to make an affirmative decision on the
issue stated at the start of this memorandum.
b. We are inclined to recommend that we do commit the U.S. to the clear
objective of preventing the fall of South Vietnam to Communism and that we
support this commitment by the necessary military actions.
c. If such a commitment is agreed upon, we support the recommendations of
General Taylor as the first steps toward its fulfillment.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent3.htm
***
JFK obviously did *not* go along with McNamara's recommendation. He sent
advisers, not combat troops. Goldstein argues that the distinction was a
firm one to JFK: "Ground combat troops means Marine forces, or U.S. Army
forces organized in combat units, infantry, artillery, armor, or airborne,
in companies, battalions, regiments and divisions. These are not supply
forces, these are not air forces, these are not forces assigned to advise,
train, or assist South Vietnamese combat troops. These are fighting
forces." According to Goldstein, there was huge bureaucratic pressure on
JFK throughout 1961 to introduce US combat troops to South Vietnam:
"Over time, the loose coalition in favor of deploying combat troops
includes, among others, McNamara, the secretary of defense; Rusk, the
secretary of state; Bundy, the national security adviser; Walt Rostow, the
deputy national security adviser; Maxwell Taylor, the president's special
military adviser...and all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. All of
them support it--whether as a symbol of determination, as a deterrent, as a
defense for U.S. bases (the rationale that ultimately prevails in March
1965) or under the rather transparent ruse of 'flood relief.' The
president is surrounded. And with the exception of Undersecretary of
State George Ball and a few other advisers of significantly lower rank, the
president is alone.
"The president slams the door on the combat troop deployments to South
Vietnam proposed in 1961, and that door remains firmly shut. For the
duration of Kennedy's presidency, the no-combat-troop policy is never
revised. It is never reversed. It is never challenged..."
So, according to Goldstein, the answer to whether JFK in 1965 could have
resisted pressure from his advisers to send combat troops, is that he
resisted precisely such pressures in 1961. And before you say that in 1965
the position of the South Vietnamese government was desperate, remember
that McNamara makes it sound something close to desperate in 1961 ("The
chances are against, probably sharply against, preventing that fall by any
measures short of the introduction of U.S. forces on a substantial
scale...").
Goldstein argues that JFK's opposition to sending combat troops was based
on his distrust of the Joint Chiefs after the Bay of Pigs, by his awareness
of the disastrous French colonial experience in Vietnam (which he often
mentioned) and on his belief that Vietnam was not a conventional war to be
won by conventional means. He believed counterinsurgency required
different tools: "to the extent there was a Kennedy military strategy in
Vietnam, it was based on unconventional forces and strategies. It is
difficult to imagine he would have abandoned this conviction in favor of
Westmoreland's blunt nonstrategy of forty-four battalions to be deployed
more or less as the general saw fit..."
(2) Unlike some of the other participants in the symposium, Goldstein does
*not* rely on the idea that Kennedy's assent (NSAM 263) to the McNamara-
Taylor report represented a decision, let alone an irrevocable decision, to
withdraw all forces from Vietnam even at the risk of a Communist victory.
Rather, he argues:
"...the 1961 no-combat-troop decision is completely consistent with
Kennedy's pledge in NSAM [National Security Action Memorandum] 263 (in
1963) to conclude the advisory mission to South Vietnam by the end of
1965...But that consistency does not depend on the premise, which we will
discuss and debate tomorrow, that NSAM 263 is the beginning of Kennedy's
extrication policy. At the very least, the October 1963 decisions confirm
Kennedy's commitment to an advisory mission, not a combat mission. And it
further confirms Kennedy's desire and intent to wind down the advisory
program at the earliest possible date. The October '63 decision, even
interpreted conservatively, underscores the character of the Kennedy
program of action in South Vietnam. Advisers, yes; combat troops, no."
(3) But of course this does not answer the question: What would JFK have
done (assuming he survived and won a second term) when it became clear that
aid and advisers alone could not save the South Vietnamese government, and
the alternative was escalation or withdrawal? Goldstein notes that
according to Bundy, Kennedy had grave doubts about the wisdom of
Americanizing the war. If this is true, Goldstein asks (and he adds that
"the evidence seems strongly to support it") "the question then becomes
whether Kennedy would have been somehow forced, or compelled, to deploy
combat troops? And to answer that question we must ask, forced by what
interest? Or compelled by what influence? If Kennedy can stand his ground
in '61, can he not do so again in '65, even if it means a messy endgame in
South Vietnam? Many assert that the Diem coup deepened the U.S. obligation
to South Vietnam. But for Kennedy, wouldn't the protracted instability that
follows the coup in 1964 and early 1965 simply reaffirm the dismal
prospects for holding on in Vietnam? Wouldn't this undeniable mess
substantiate all that he feared? And wouldn't Kennedy then have great
latitude to maneuver? He has no Great Society program to push through
Congress, he has tamed the Chiefs ever since the debacle of the Bay of
Pigs, he is the champion of the missile crisis, and he is personally
liberated from politics. He will never face another election again. As
Bundy notes, he can define the national interest irrespective of his own
personal political interest. Thus history could have been profoundly
different if Kennedy had lived."
So much for Goldstein's arguments. Blight, Lang, and Welch give additional
reasons for arguing that JFK would not have escalated in 1965. Their basic
argument is that to envision "virtual JFK" (I won't go into their dubious
distinction between "virtual history" and "counterfacual history"--they
view the latter as entirely too fanciful [1]) must be based on the record
of the "actual JFK"--whom they see as constantly overruling his advisers'
pleas for US combat troops--not only in Vietnam but elsewhere. They
discuss these overrulings on pp. 7-8:
(1) Bay of Pigs, April 1961--"JFK was urged by increasingly hysterical
advisers on April 19-20, 1961 to send the Marines into Cuba to rescue the
invading, but overmatched, Cuban exile brigade. Kennedy firmly refused to
oblige them. He resigned himself to the defeat of the CIA-backed exile
force rather than invade Cuba and engage in what he believed would be a
disastrous jungle war..." For Blight, Lang, and Welch, this answers the
question of whether JFK could accept military defeat and the loss of a
Third World country to communism as a lesser evil than getting US combat
forces into war--if he did it in 1961, as a politically vulnerable neophyte
president, why couldn't he do so in 1965, when he would be infinitely
stronger politically? Furthermore, "as is well known, but still
insufficiently appreciated, JFK vowed never to be bamboozled or intimidated
again by his military or intelligence advisers. And he wasn't." (p. 232)
He fired and replaced both his top intelligence officials. "Moreover, by
recruiting his own chairman of the Joint Chiefs in Taylor, he effectively
neutralized the hotheads among the Chiefs who were keen on Americanizing
the conflict in Vietnam, invading Cuba, and challenging the Russians to a
nuclear showdown over the status of Berlin." (p. 233)
(Of course as a rebuttal one can point out that while JFK may from that
point on have decided never again to venture an *invasion* of Cuba, that is
far from saying that he accepted the loss of Cuba. Rather, he tried to get
rid of Castro through other means--subversion and assassination. Andrew
Preston makes this point in his review of *Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived* at
http://www.miwsr.com/2011-019.aspx "Thus, after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy
authorized Operation Mongoose, an aggressive campaign to sabotage Cuba's
economy and assassinate Castro." True--yet none of these means was
guaranteeed success, and in deciding not to use combat forces JFK was in
fact increasing the risk that Castro's regime would survive, as in fact
happened.)
(2) Winter-Spring 1961--the Laos crisis: "JFK is told that the Soviet
resupply of communist insurgents in Laos must forcibly be stopped using
U.S. regular forces, but possibly also by using tactical nuclear weapons.
He is told that if he fails to Americanize the conflict, the communists
will overrun Laos and threaten all of Southeast Asia. Kennedy neither
orders U.S. troops into Laos nor does he authorize the use of U.S. air
power against Soviet assets in Laos. He is appalled at the thought of using
nuclear weapons in Laos or anywhere. Instead, he works with Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev to resolve the crisis via a political compromise: a
neutralist government for Laos...." (As a rebuttal one could note that a
neutralist government is after all not a communist government and that Laos
did not fall to the communists until years later. Still, the fall of the
anti-communist government of Laos in favor of a neutralist one was a
victory, if not yet a total one, for the communists, and JFK's refusal to
use force in Laos does show he could reject hawkish advice, even coming
from his revered predecessor General Eisenhower, who told JFK to do
"whatever is necessary" to save Laos from the communists.)
(3) August-October 1961--the Berlin Wall crisis: "JFK is told, as the Wall
goes up in Berlin, that he must threaten the Soviets with both conventional
and nuclear weapons until they capitulate, tear down the Wall, and refrain
from harassing U.S. personnel in East Germany en route to and from Berlin.
Kennedy refuses to intervene or risk a military engagement between U.S. and
Soviet forces in Berlin. As a result, he encounters stiff public criticism
and bitter internal dissension from his hawkish advisers. Nevertheless,
Kennedy tells his representative in Berlin, former General Lucius Clay, to
back off, and Khrushchev reciprocates. The Wall goes up and stays up,
tragically closing off the principal route for East Germans to escape to
the West, but a war in the heart of Europe is avoided..." (True, but
allowing the Wall to go up was not the same as writing off West Berlin.)
(4) October 1962, the Cuban missile crisis: "JFK is told point-blank by
most of his civilian and military advisers that the U.S. must bomb Soviet
missile sites in Cuba and invade the island as soon as possible in order to
ensure that Soviet military capability on the island is destroyed and the
Castro government removed. Kennedy personally restrains his U.S. military
advisers, who are aghast at what they take to be his timidity and cowardly
reluctance to use the deployment of Soviet missiles as a pretext to destroy
the Cuban Revolution. But JFK works out a compromise with Khrushchev and,
we now know, is ready to absorb enormous political heat rather than risk
war with the Soviet Union..." (Again, Preston sees it differently:
"Kennedy did not accept the missiles with equanimity but instead forced a
confrontation that nearly sparked a nuclear war.[14] Kennedy ran that risk
even though he agreed with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that the
missiles posed no strategic threat, or even strategic disadvantage, to the
United States.[15] He also recognized the double standard of protesting
Soviet missiles in Cuba when the United States had deployed nuclear
missiles to Turkey during his own presidency.[16] Kennedy provoked the
crisis in large part because of domestic political considerations, such as
intense pressure from Republicans not to allow any Soviet arms into Cuba
[17]--precisely the kind of political pressure he would have faced in
authorizing a withdrawal from Vietnam." http://www.miwsr.com/2011-019.aspx
One might rebut Preston by noting that (a) not having to worry about re-
election--and with a significantly more Democratic Congress after his
defeat of Goldwater--JFK would be in a stronger political position in 1965
than in 1962, and (b) short of acquiescing in the missiles, JFK took the
course *least* likely to result in war; he not only publicly promised not
to invade Cuba and offered Khrushchev a secret deal to swap the Cuban for
the Turkish missiles, but there is strong reason to believe that if
Khrushchev had rejected the secrecy, JFK would have accepted an *open* swap
to be proposed by U Thant--the so-called Cordier initiative I discuss at
http://tinyurl.com/k9lx3lq It is really hard for me to see Khrushchev
rejecting this offer, so I think Preston is exaggerating the risk of war.)
And of course there is (5), already discussed--the refusal to send combat
troops to Vietnam in November 1961. (Again, there is a conceivable
rebuttal: the South Vietnamese government was not in an *imminent* danger
of falling then, so sending advisers but not troops can be seen as an
attempt by JFK to defer a decision he did not yet need to make, rather than
as a once-and-for-all rejection of sending combat troops.)
Blight, Lang, and Welch conclude (p. 9):
"If we had to choose a single word to characterize the actual JFK who has
emerged over the twenty years during which we have become retrospectively
acquainted with him, it would be *skeptical.* JFK arrived at the White
House mistrusting slogans and easy answers as well as servile and self-
serving advisers. He was bored and irritated by yes-men. He seems to have
been almost instinctually skeptical of immediate, emotional responses to
crisis situations. But after the humiliation he brought on himself and his
administration by allowing the Bay of Pigs invasion to go forward, he seems
to have become an even more skeptical exemplar of a principle of leadership
attributed to one of his historical heroes, the French diplomat Maurice
Talleyrand: 'Above all,' Talleyrand proclaimed, 'no zeal.'
"Over the past 20 years, as we have listened to the Kennedy tapes, read the
written record of decision making during the Kennedy administration, and
cross-examined those who served in it, we have become struck by how clearly
Kennedy the skeptic appears over and over again. He is a president who
often asks the toughest questions and whose skeptical proclivities often
stand out in sharp relief from the Cold War boilerplate often served up to
him by his advisers.
"In claiming that JFK was a war-averse decisionmaker, a skeptic on the
overt use of military force, we are not endeavoring to recruit Kennedy
retrospectively into the ranks of pacifism. That would be silly...Kennedy
was no pacifist, but he was a serious student of history, especially
diplomatic history. He knew from his study of history, and also from having
his patrol boat cut in half by a Japanese destroyer in the Pacific, that
war is unpredictable, and that those who initiate it usually vastly
underestimate its costs in blood and treasure. Kennedy was immersed in the
history of war..."
From there it is easy to make a contrast with Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was
much more concerned with domestic policy, and less with foreign policy than
JFK. He had no real combat experience. He was much more willing to defer
to military and civilian advisers who warned him he must not let the
communists score a victory in Vietnam. Also, there was LBJ's tendency to
*personalize* the war--"to see it as a referendum on himself as a president
and as a person, and thus to imagine a 'loss' in Vietnam in terms of
catastrophic personal humiliation" (p. 209) Moreover, quite apart from the
differences in personality, LBJ was in 1965 in a different *political*
position than JFK would have been in. LBJ was in his first full term and
had re-election in 1968 in mind--something JFK of course did not have to
worry about.
(And of course one more difference is that LBJ had the JFK legacy to think
of--and always the fear of RFK posing as JFK's successor. It's not just
Republicans who might attack LBJ for "losing" Vietnam. If LBJ pulled out of
Vietnam, might not RFK (who was not yet a dove in 1965) accuse him of
betraying JFK's legacy? Larry Sabato makes this point in his recent *The
Kennedy Half Century*. He quotes LBJ as telling Doris Kearns Goodwin, "f
we lost Vietnam...there would be Robert Kennedy out in front, leading the
fight against me, telling everyone that I had betrayed John Kennedy's
commitment to South Vietnam. That I had let a democracy fall into the hands
of the Communists. That I was a coward. An unmanly man. A man without a
spine. Oh, I could see it coming all right."
http://books.google.com/books?id=kzAns3ne_OYC&pg=PT286&lpg=PT286 )
One should note that several of the instances of caution Blight, Lang, and
Welch point to involve JFK avoiding or at least minimizing the risk of a
Third World War with the Soviet Union. There was little danger that
escalation in Vietnam would lead to that--though intervention by the PRC as
in Korea was of course a possibility if the US went too far in punishing
North Vietnam. Also, one should remember that JFK would not necessarily
have decided in favor of *either* withdrawal *or* LBJ-style Americanization
in 1965. Another possibility is what one participant in the symposium
called "Americanization Lite"--just securing Saigon, US bases, and a few
other areas deemed to be strategically significant. This presumably would
have required far fewer US combat troops and far fewer US casualties.
(This is pretty much what was to be called the "enclave" strategy in OTL.)
A number of participants dismissed this as politically impossible--once you
sent combat troops in, the military would constantly be claiming that more
were needed, that the US needed to secure Area X in order to protect
Enclave Y, etc. (Yet it is not clear to me that such claims could not be
resisted.) To them, LBJ was right in thinking you had to go in big or get
out.
I'd have to say I'm agnostic on this issue but after reading Blight, Lang,
and Welch, I do find the case that JFK would not have escalated more
persuasive than I did previously. I should note that Larry Sabato, who is
no Camelot-worshipper, also thinks that there is something to be said for
this case, and adds one additional argument--JFK was more sensitive than
LBJ to the politics of the academic community:
"No one will ever know how John F. Kennedy would have handled the Vietnam
challenge had he lived, though that has not stopped a battalion of
historians, JFK aides, and others from trying to divine it. President
Johnson was correct to say that his predecessor had set the course in
Southeast Asia, and those who claim that all would have been sweetness and
light on Vietnam in a second Kennedy administration are blind to reality.
Yet JFK and LBJ could not have been more different as people or presidents.
Kennedy's strength was foreign affairs, given his family upbringing, life
in Great Britain, intellectual interests, and World War II service;
Johnson's expertise was mainly domestic. In the crucible of the Oval
Office, Kennedy had learned from the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile
Crisis not to rely overly on the advice of the military; Johnson was far
more deferential. And perhaps most of all, the Ivy League Kennedy's
premier base was among the academics at universities; Johnson, always a bit
suspicious and perhaps envious of intellectuals,was more at home among
hardscrabble Democrats and Capitol Hill politicians.
"Given the existence of the military draft and the left-leaning views of
most faculty, the first and most vociferous opposition to the Vietnam War
naturally emerged from the campuses, locus of JFK's ardent supporters. It
is difficult to believe that John Kennedy would have risked his political
foundation by pursuing a years-long, highly unpopular war in Vietnam, or
ever escalated it to the top of his agenda as LBJ did.."
http://books.google.com/books?id=kzAns3ne_OYC&pg=PT286&lpg=PT286
I am not sure how much weight to attach to this last argument. JFK may
have enjoyed the company of academics, may have valued them as a source of
ideas, may have enjoyed his popularity on campus--and yet he must also have
known that students and professors cast relatively few votes. Yet apart
from the fact that JFK in 1965 would not be seeking re-election (one can
make too much of that; after all, he would still be concerned with how well
the Democratic Party would do in the 1966 congressional elections), it is
noteworthy that no less a practical politician than Hubert Humphrey advised
LBJ in February 1965 that escalating the war would be bad politics and that
"It is always hard to cut losses. But the Johnson administration is in a
stronger position to do so now than any administration in this century.
1965 is the year of minimum political risk for the Johnson administration.
Indeed, it is the first year when we can face the Vietnam problem without
being preoccupied with the political repercussions from the Republican
right. As indicated earlier, our political problems are likely to come from
new and different sources (Democratic liberals, independents, labor) if we
pursue an enlarged military policy very long."
(For the complete HHH February 15, 1965 memo to LBJ, see
http://books.google.com/books?id=YRTeKY1xcVUC&pg=PA323 the fact that
Humphrey fell in line because he wanted to see LBJ succeed as president
should not obscure the prescience of this memo. Which of course also
rasies the what-if of LBJ dying of a heart attack in early 1965, making
Humphrey president...But this post is too long already.)
Thoughts?
[1] I agree with what Frederik Logevall writes in his Forward: "Blight,
Lang, and Welch refer to their approach as 'virtual history,' to
distinguish it from what they see as highly fictionalized, nonrigorous
'counterfactual history.' Fair enough, though I would say that what they
advocate is merely counterfactual history properly done."
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/WdK8-LxWm6s/vLDm_MyjGRAJ
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Could you cite this evidence? This sounds rather interesting to read.
Damn I could have sworn that I'd saved an excellent post on this topic from a previous thread but now I can't find the link. That said from what I can remember the general thrust of it was that Kennedy and Vietnam would be all sweetness and light that many of the more heavily pro-Kennedy supporters suggest it would have been. Will do a search later and see if I can find it again.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Well, David T went over more above (McNamara-Taylor report, "advisors" distinction, overruling advisors, etc) I could presently get hands on.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
I talked to someone writing a dissertation on Kennedy's Vietnam policy and he had no clue what JFK would have done if he lived.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
I like Mr. T read Jeff Greenfield's If Kennedy Lived, In that book South Vietnam falls during Kennedy's second term. I think if South Vietnam was in serious danger, Kennedy would have felt obligated to save our ally with combat troops.
To paraphrase what my father used to say about bears: I don't even think Kennedy knew what the hell he was going to do next when it came to Vietnam. For every little bit of noise he made about getting out, there was the countervailing reality of more advisers on the ground (from a few hundred to over ten thousand), more casualties (single digit in 1961 to over 400 before his death), and ever deeper involvement in the internal affairs of South Vietnam. In my opinion, people are attributing wisdom and foresight and a clarity of purpose to the man that he simply didn't possess.
redlightning
Banned
Kennedy was hoping to keep Vietnam quiet by slowly removing advisers in November 1963. That would not have happened though. After Diem was assassinated, the government of the South started to become unstable. It was also seemingly inevitable that some sort of incident would occur along the scale of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident where Amercan troops were killed in mass as the Vietcong would kill Americans located on airfields during their raids. By 1965, Kennedy is bombing North Vietnam to some degree. The Vietcong will retaliate against airbases in the South and the war will continue to slowly escalate, probably not quite with troop numbers Johnson sent in though.
Realpolitik
Banned
I think you could use this to describe the Vietnam policy of everybody sans Nixon, and even his judgment was questionable and at times flat out wrong(the main difference was he at least had a general idea of what he was going to do). At times, our leaders don't know exactly what they are going to do-they aren't Gods. Johnson didn't WANT to get into Vietnam and occasionally mused about folding. It didn't matter one iota-it sucked him in nevertheless. It's not going to be different for Kennedy. The key is if Kennedy HANDLES it differently. Johnson let his Presidency be defined by Vietnam, with all his other goals going down the drain. Kennedy must avoid this, or at least make sure it doesn't go to the same degree.
But yes, I'm very skeptical of the Oliver Stone "Kennedy would have prevented Vietnam and led us to utopia, thus he was slayed by a bunch of warmongering cowboys" thesis. Kennedy was a committed Cold Warrior, and not exactly the proto hippie that a lot of Boomers seem to be so determined to remember him as. I agree with redlightning. The key is, is Kennedy more clear with Johnson with the people, does he have a clearer goal (make it into a Korea 2.0 with a permanent American garrison? That might work in 64 if Kennedy is very explicit about it. However, South Vietnam still inevitably goes through its 20-something governments after the death of Diem, and it'll be tough because until Tet, it's a counterinsurgency-the type of thing that drives the US insane) and does he fight it differently, with less amounts of troops? The fact that Kennedy is better with the media and has advisors dedicated to him gives him a big covert advantage over LBJ, along with his superior knowledge of foreign policy. Johnson was not a foreign policy President-Kennedy was. Diem's death means we are going to be an ansatz for the ARVN in one way or another, while they are busy fighting each other until late in 1967 when Thieu finally takes over and brings some form of stability to the government. It also means that from that point on, South Vietnam's survival is based off of what the USA does.
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Is this a DBWI?
He did intervene in Vietnam, you know.
Check my essay thread 'JFK's Vietnam etc'.
I'm planning on adding cites to it, particularly as I've been plowing through Robert McNamara's Brown University seminar publication (not available online), where he essentially renounces, or at least blows off, his previous famous claim of "I think Kennedy would have got out before getting deeper in".
That was the original 1962 planning, drawn up under orders of Secretary McNamara, to be implemented in the event of victory over the VC.
McNamara and co. rescinded those plans after the Diem coup removed the last excuses for ignoring the realistically bad situation on the ground RE communist successes.
People who think Kennedy wouldn't have gone along with McNamara on that pivot that took place in late '63 early '64, they tend to be raising all sorts of complicated claims which they can't support.
Actually, no, not necessarily. It's all anecdotal, and mostly after the matter stuff.
Is this an argument someone has made about post-'65 senator RFK being at odds with McNamara? (Which strikes me as possible, not that I'm across Bobby's senate career that much.)
Because it doesn't sound like anything from the actual time they worked together in Camelot. Bobby appears to have towed the partyline on Vietnam while his brother was alive. Also, the Pentagon Papers mentions him being ignored when he tried to question the very rationale for the war at one of the NSC meetings. That must have been a formative experience for him.
I agree with most of your post, but I disagree that either the original '62 plan to remove advisers ("because we've won!"), or the way it was beginning to be half-implemented during the time of the assassination-coup-plot (so as to pressure Diem to give into the ARVN generals? Nobody knows--it's actually the one genuine Oliver Stone-style mystery in the whole thing--a mystery RE just how ruthless JFK was willing to be, by extorting Diem!) was all about keeping a lid on the US involvement.
Because it seems Kennedy never allowed for the possibility that his war should have attracted any attention stateside, regardless of the situation with advisers RE overall numbers.
I'll reiterate, but if JFK accepts advice to bomb the North and reinforce the collapsing ARVN position in 1965 (when Saigon was starting to lose multiple open battles against the NVA/VC) then he will, at best, merely be able to put a limit on the size of the Westmoreland war he's committed to.
I.e., he might be able to put a limit on total US deployments significantly below 500,000, but it's still going to be way above 100,000. (The 'special forces' war thing is a red herring; it's never what the JCS wanted as their main effort, and it's not enough to implement a 'go large' strategy to preserve the Saigon govt. Notice how the recent US invasions and surges in Iraq/Afghanistan were main infantry force wars?)
Also, if a surviving Camelot starts to be open with the US people about Vietnam in 1965, then that means they've reversed their 1961/63 policy of being deliberately evasive about the original JFK advisers war. I'm reading Sheehan's first & second hand accounts of Kennedy-era obfuscation in the Mekong Delta, and it's every bit the same as Johnson's credibility gap; it's just it was a credibility gap that was getting elite COIN specialists killed in relatively small numbers, not regular American grunts killed in large numbers. That's why it's effectively a secret legacy.
You're a cruel man
.
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