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Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned
Rufus Phillips gives an extraordinary inside history of the most critical years of American involvement in Vietnam, from 1954 to 1968, and explains why it still matters. Describing what went right and then wrong, he finds that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road of a conventional war until it was too late--we missed the war's essential political character.
Documenting the story from his own private files as well as from the historical record, the former CIA officer paints striking portraits of such key figures as John F. Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor, Robert McNamara, Henry Cabot Lodge, Hubert Humphrey, and Ngo Dinh Diem, among others with whom he dealt.
Documenting the story from his own private files as well as from the historical record, the former CIA officer paints striking portraits of such key figures as John F. Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor, Robert McNamara, Henry Cabot Lodge, Hubert Humphrey, and Ngo Dinh Diem, among others with whom he dealt.
398 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 13, 2022
CIA agent Rufus Phillips, a subordinate of CIA Saigon Station Chief William Colby, wrote an inside story about Vietnam and his time there. He belonged, to summarize, to the school of thought that the Vietnam conflict could have been won and that the conventional wisdom that America should not have got involved in first place only obscures the important lessons of Vietnam. Therefore, as Phillips points out, American policy-makers and military leaders carried the old Vietnam mindset into Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rufus Phillips' name inevitably appears in every account of Ngo Dinh Diem's rise and downfall, usually next to Edward Lansdale's. Lansdale was Rufus Phillips' hero, and Phillips does not event attempt to disguise his admiration. He portrays him as a genius, the one who knew best what was going on and how to respond. From what I have read about Lansdale and from Lansdale's own memoir, however, I concluded that Lansdale neither had that much of a great grasp on the situation nor was he infallible in his suggestions and decisions. That is why I was surprised to find out that Rufus Phillips, who had demonstrated a clearer understanding of the situation in Vietnam earlier than most, was under his influence. What's even more surprising, while Phillips indeed praises his idol, in his book he expresses opinions much different from Lansdale's. I remember Rufus Phillips as the CIA agent who cried in Gia Long Palace the day after Diem's assassination. To quote: “I wanted to sit down and cry. And I was so upset when I heard that he’d been killed. . . . That was a stupid decision and, God, we paid, they paid, everybody paid.” Unlike Lansdale, who had dismissed Diem as a dictator with no gift for politics, Phillips had recognized what a disaster the Ngo brothers' overthrow was right there, right then.
Generally, Phillips sees the American involvement in South Vietnam as having three overlapping aspects. The first is the military, a war pitting the US and the government of South Vietnam forces against the Communists. Second is the governmental, the effort to build the state of South Vietnam. Third, the struggle to suppress the Viet Cong and win the loyalty of the peasantry. The third aspect, which proved to be America's undoing, was primarily the responsibility of CIA officers, who supported and helped to shape the Saigon government’s effort to defeat the insurgency. According to Rufus Phillips, America's excessive focus on the first aspect and its neglect or mess-up of the second was instrumental for the eventual failure to win the war against the Viet Cong.
Phillips accuses the American government of overconfidence at the highest level. He places the bulk of the blame on Secretary of State Robert S. McNamara, and, while I disagree with his making McNamara the sole scapegoat, his observations about the Secretary's approach to Vietnam are on-point. As it is widely known, McNamara was the Kennedy administration's whizkid. He was the best and the brightest among the best and the brightest, at least by the New Frontier's standards, which praised thinking like a machine. McNamara's factors for measuring the progress in Vietnam were all numerical: numbers of operations, numbers of enemy killed, numbers of captured weapons. When he showed his list to Lansdale, the CIA operative pointed out, correctly, that it would not give him an honest assessment of the progress made. Lansdale called the missing part the "x factor", or in other words the Vietnamese people's feelings.
Throughout his book, Rufus Phillips emphasizes again and again that this was the key to winning the conflict. The anti-Communist fight in Vietnam was seventy-five percent political, but the American policy-makers were all focused only on the remaining twenty-five percent. According to Phillips, the best way to handle the war was to give back the Vietnamese nationalist revolution to the Vietnamese. He suggests using the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the Vietnamese catholics – groups that, while apart from Diem's government, were staunchly anti-Communist – and build a solid resistance base. I am not sure how achievable this idea was at the time, considering that the politico-religious sects wanted to remain autonomous and refused to succumb to Saigon or any other outside influence, but the American officials did not even try to negotiate with them.
Nothing to say of the fact that America never gave the Vietnamese people a solid reason to fight on their side. American indifference to their nationalist aspirations and the massive military intervention, which impacted the structure and culture of the Vietnamese society negatively, wasted South Vietnam's opportunities to rise up in a joint nationalist struggle. To explain about the destruction of Vietnamese traditional culture: in traditional Vietnamese society soldiers are at the bottom, but with the arrival of the Americans and especially with the replacement of Diem with a military junta, this structure was abruptly overturned – and naturally resulted in chaos and disunity.
Notably, Rufus Phillips dispels the myth about Liuetenant Colonel John Paul Vann, whose false heroism was actively promoted by Neil Sheehan. He travelled with Vann's unit, and the experience was nothing like he had imagined. Vann was mad at the ARVN for its alleged incompetence in the battle of Ap Bac, which he believed to be crucial. In fact, Rufus Phillips neither saw the incompetence Vann described nor believed that Ap Bac was somehow crucial for what he calls "the real war," the fight for the allegiance of the rural population.
WHY VIETNAM MATTERS is a good first-hand account – by far the most truthful, complete, and clear first-hand account I have read. And by even farther the most truthful account written by a CIA agent. Historians like Geoffrey Shaw and Mark Moyar argue for Phillips' point of view, and it seems to me that they have even been influenced by his thinking. This book failed to impress me because I think I read it at the wrong time, at a time when I have already read a number of books on the same subject. Phillips' account would have been an amazing introduction because it succeeds in being both well-rounded and specific, compelling and serious. Regardless, it was an enjoyable read even most of the things he mentions were already familiar to me.
Rufus Phillips' name inevitably appears in every account of Ngo Dinh Diem's rise and downfall, usually next to Edward Lansdale's. Lansdale was Rufus Phillips' hero, and Phillips does not event attempt to disguise his admiration. He portrays him as a genius, the one who knew best what was going on and how to respond. From what I have read about Lansdale and from Lansdale's own memoir, however, I concluded that Lansdale neither had that much of a great grasp on the situation nor was he infallible in his suggestions and decisions. That is why I was surprised to find out that Rufus Phillips, who had demonstrated a clearer understanding of the situation in Vietnam earlier than most, was under his influence. What's even more surprising, while Phillips indeed praises his idol, in his book he expresses opinions much different from Lansdale's. I remember Rufus Phillips as the CIA agent who cried in Gia Long Palace the day after Diem's assassination. To quote: “I wanted to sit down and cry. And I was so upset when I heard that he’d been killed. . . . That was a stupid decision and, God, we paid, they paid, everybody paid.” Unlike Lansdale, who had dismissed Diem as a dictator with no gift for politics, Phillips had recognized what a disaster the Ngo brothers' overthrow was right there, right then.
Generally, Phillips sees the American involvement in South Vietnam as having three overlapping aspects. The first is the military, a war pitting the US and the government of South Vietnam forces against the Communists. Second is the governmental, the effort to build the state of South Vietnam. Third, the struggle to suppress the Viet Cong and win the loyalty of the peasantry. The third aspect, which proved to be America's undoing, was primarily the responsibility of CIA officers, who supported and helped to shape the Saigon government’s effort to defeat the insurgency. According to Rufus Phillips, America's excessive focus on the first aspect and its neglect or mess-up of the second was instrumental for the eventual failure to win the war against the Viet Cong.
Phillips accuses the American government of overconfidence at the highest level. He places the bulk of the blame on Secretary of State Robert S. McNamara, and, while I disagree with his making McNamara the sole scapegoat, his observations about the Secretary's approach to Vietnam are on-point. As it is widely known, McNamara was the Kennedy administration's whizkid. He was the best and the brightest among the best and the brightest, at least by the New Frontier's standards, which praised thinking like a machine. McNamara's factors for measuring the progress in Vietnam were all numerical: numbers of operations, numbers of enemy killed, numbers of captured weapons. When he showed his list to Lansdale, the CIA operative pointed out, correctly, that it would not give him an honest assessment of the progress made. Lansdale called the missing part the "x factor", or in other words the Vietnamese people's feelings.
Throughout his book, Rufus Phillips emphasizes again and again that this was the key to winning the conflict. The anti-Communist fight in Vietnam was seventy-five percent political, but the American policy-makers were all focused only on the remaining twenty-five percent. According to Phillips, the best way to handle the war was to give back the Vietnamese nationalist revolution to the Vietnamese. He suggests using the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the Vietnamese catholics – groups that, while apart from Diem's government, were staunchly anti-Communist – and build a solid resistance base. I am not sure how achievable this idea was at the time, considering that the politico-religious sects wanted to remain autonomous and refused to succumb to Saigon or any other outside influence, but the American officials did not even try to negotiate with them.
Nothing to say of the fact that America never gave the Vietnamese people a solid reason to fight on their side. American indifference to their nationalist aspirations and the massive military intervention, which impacted the structure and culture of the Vietnamese society negatively, wasted South Vietnam's opportunities to rise up in a joint nationalist struggle. To explain about the destruction of Vietnamese traditional culture: in traditional Vietnamese society soldiers are at the bottom, but with the arrival of the Americans and especially with the replacement of Diem with a military junta, this structure was abruptly overturned – and naturally resulted in chaos and disunity.
Notably, Rufus Phillips dispels the myth about Liuetenant Colonel John Paul Vann, whose false heroism was actively promoted by Neil Sheehan. He travelled with Vann's unit, and the experience was nothing like he had imagined. Vann was mad at the ARVN for its alleged incompetence in the battle of Ap Bac, which he believed to be crucial. In fact, Rufus Phillips neither saw the incompetence Vann described nor believed that Ap Bac was somehow crucial for what he calls "the real war," the fight for the allegiance of the rural population.
WHY VIETNAM MATTERS is a good first-hand account – by far the most truthful, complete, and clear first-hand account I have read. And by even farther the most truthful account written by a CIA agent. Historians like Geoffrey Shaw and Mark Moyar argue for Phillips' point of view, and it seems to me that they have even been influenced by his thinking. This book failed to impress me because I think I read it at the wrong time, at a time when I have already read a number of books on the same subject. Phillips' account would have been an amazing introduction because it succeeds in being both well-rounded and specific, compelling and serious. Regardless, it was an enjoyable read even most of the things he mentions were already familiar to me.
April 23, 2022
I learned a lot especially the failure to listen to General Edward Lansdale. It also reaffirmed the incompetence of General Westmoreland.
March 22, 2023
Rufus Phillips writes a compelling narrative about the inability of America's leaders to establish any goals or objectives in Vietnam. American political squabbles, incompetent military and civilian leadership, the duplicity of American political leadership, and finally the inability of stabilizing the South Vietnam government leadership led to the U.S. failure. I am not convinced that Mr. Phillips' argument is completely correct, but I am convinced that had we continued with the Rural Affairs organization Vietnam would not have ended so tragically.
Want to Read
January 19, 2009After hearing him speak on C-Span, I am eager to read Phillips's take on Vietnam in more detail. I have begun to develop a conviction that no one has been as unfairly portrayed and underapprciated as Edward Lansdale. It is interesting that Lansdale's insights have been belittled by both those who were determined to undermine our efforts to support the anti-communists in Vietnam and also by Robert McNamara. Phillips served with Lansdale for several years and provides (at least in his oral presentation) an entirely different picture of Lansdale than we have gotten from other sources.
August 12, 2016
Remarkably vivid memoir
Phillips was among the first CIA officers in Vietnam. He famously argued with an overly optimistic Marine General over how bad the conditions were in front of President Kennedy! This is a fast and accurate memoir beginning just before the US committed troops in Viet Nam.
Phillips was among the first CIA officers in Vietnam. He famously argued with an overly optimistic Marine General over how bad the conditions were in front of President Kennedy! This is a fast and accurate memoir beginning just before the US committed troops in Viet Nam.
February 7, 2009
Well written by a man who was there for a lot of it.
April 11, 2015
Very good book, worth reading just for another perspective from someone who was not in Washington but on the ground.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews