America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War

by David Milne

Walt Rostow's meteoric rise to power--from Flatbush, Brooklyn, to the West Wing of the White House--seemed to capture the promise of the American dream. Hailing from humble origins, Rostow became an intellectual powerhouse: a professor of economic history at MIT and an influential foreign policy adviser to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
 
Too influential, according to some. While Rostow inspired respect and affection, he also made some powerful enemies. Averell Harriman, one of America's most celebrated diplomats, described Rostow as "America's Rasputin" for the unsavory influence he exerted on presidential decision-making. Rostow was the first to advise Kennedy to send U.S. combat troops to South Vietnam and the first to recommend the bombing of North Vietnam. He framed a policy of military escalation, championed recklessly optimistic reporting, and then advised LBJ against pursuing a compromise peace with North Vietnam.
 
David Milne examines one man's impact on the United States' worst-ever military defeat. It is a portrait of good intentions and fatal misjudgments. A true ideologue, Rostow believed that it is beholden upon the United States to democratize other nations and do "good," no matter what the cost. America's Rasputin explores the consequences of this idealistic but unyielding dogma.

Genres: History, War, Biography, United States, Politics, American History, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2008

Reviews

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Rasputin is a story of what happens when an ideologue gets close to the levers of power. Rostow came from humble origins, his parents middle-class Jewish immigrants who were anti-Tsarist first and pro-Socialist second. Rostow rose through Yale, Oxford, and Columbia on the strength of his skills as an academic economist. In World War 2, he served in the OSS, picking targets in Nazi Germany for bombardment, and gaining a healthy respect for the ability of airpower to cripple a nation. In 1960, he published his magnum opus, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, a major work in development economics, which argued that Communism was pathological, that all countries proceeded towards a liberal democratic capitalist modernity, and that the United States had an obligation to use its preeminence to lift the Third World out of poverty and past communism.

Rostow had been making contact with political figures in the Eisenhower administration, but he had a real alliance with President Kennedy. Rostow was first deputy national security adviser and then head of the State Department planning group, where he began advancing the line that would define his career. North Vietnam was the major problem in American foreign policy, and had to be dealt with using maximum force. Through 1961 and 1962, Rostow was the loudest voice pushing for bombing North Vietnam. When Operation Rolling Thunder kicked off, Rostow demanded bombing Hanoi and Haiphong, and even invasions of Laos and North Vietnam.

Rostow was a canny bureaucratic infighter, and became a close confidant of LBJ through the darkest days of his presidency; hence the "American Rasputin" moniker, given to him by adversary and chief peace negotiator Averell Harriman. Rostow was able to manage LBJ's anxieties about being shown up by Kennedy's whiz kids, castigating those in the administration who had lost confidence in the war. With little formal power, Rostow made few of the actual decisions that mattered, but he carefully managed the available policy options to justify escalation and further bombing.

Rostow faded from public life after leaving office, moving to Austin to head the LBJ School of Public Policy. He never lost his essential contention that the Vietnam War was justified, that more bombing and more troops could have turned the tide, and his theory of economic modernization justified a more aggressive foreign policy. This biography is a fascinating portrait of a proponent of muscular liberalism, and how much harm can be done in the name of opportunity and security.

[Will James]

Tracing the life and career of one of America's most influential and idealistic National Security Advisers, 'America's Rasputin' provides an illuminating history of Walt W. Rostow's role in and impact upon US foreign policy in Vietnam in both the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson Administrations.

Milne's subject offers readers a fascinating insight into how excessive ideological commitment - in Rostow's case his strident anti-communism and his intellectual mission to confront Marxism head on in the Third World - can serve to distort foreign policy decision making. Quite how one of the Ivy League's most educated and talented Development theorists came to be JFK's and LBJ's most hawkish civilian adviser and the architect of the 'Rolling Thunder' bombing campaigns of North Vietnam is enough to draw anyone to read this surprisingly succinct book.

Indeed, if there is one drawback in 'America's Rasputin' it is that it is too short! I would heartily recommend 'Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War' not only to anyone interested in that period or that war, but for anyone who wants to understand the massive impact that academics have had and continue to have on the formation of US foreign policy.

[Matt Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

America's Rasputin is the perfect illustration of the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Rostow was a figure out of greek tragedy--blessed with incredible amounts of intelligence and luck but with a fatal flaw of a lack of intellectual curiosity. Rostow's seminal work, "the stages of economic growth" was his north star, and once affixed he never had a documented moment of doubt. Intelligence reports that contradicted what "should" be happening were discounted as "disconnected" (not that Rostow was any closer to the action), contradictory results to the "Rostow thesis" of graduated bombing were the last throes before success, victory was right around the corner. I noted a few themes of Rostow's failures:

1. Inflexibility in model (infiltration is key to war, bombing will decimate industrial sector and all nations care about economics most—eg, why is mao still supporting Vietnam if it’s an expenditure during a crisis?
2. Believing his values were everyone's values (industrial sectors are the most important, communism is the evil other to the south vietnamese, Mao wouldn't support Vietnam because its bad economics.)
3. being intellectual (wanting to develop explanatory theories) without being intellectually curious.

[Peter P. Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

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