Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

Nguyen Khanh possessed even less popular support than Ngo Dinh Diem had possessed; the military outlook was even more grim than it had been a year earlier; anti-Americanism in South Vietnam was much more widespread; and Washington’s international isolation with respect to the war had deepened appreciably.

most voters envisioned an American commitment that stayed roughly at its current level, which was one reason many rushed to the seemingly moderate Johnson and away from strident challenger Barry Goldwater—they did not know that privately the two men were nearly identical in their opinions on the war, that the president and his men were gearing up to do more or less what Goldwater suggested, namely, escalate the conflict.

Even some State Department and NSC officials, as we have noted, were beginning to confess to British and other foreign observers that they saw no hope for the U.S.- South Vietnamese effort.39 The most important such official was Undersecretary of State George Ball.

To the usual list of options presented to the president (continuation of current policy; air war against North Vietnam; and introduction of U.S. ground forces in the South), Ball added another: a course of action that would “permit a political settlement without direct U.S. military involvement.”

Ball knew that the key members of the Johnson team were opposed to a political solution for one primary reason: it would require a withdrawal of the American military presence, which, they argued, would humiliate America and cripple its credibility among friends around the world. Ball took the opposite line. Far from damaging the country’s credibility, a political settlement would actually enhance it, because the allies, most of whom questioned Vietnam’s importance, would “applaud a move on our part to cut our losses.”

Ball’s memorandum warrants extended discussion because of its extraordinarily prescient argumentation, because that argumentation so closely mirrored what many independent observers were saying, and because of the timing of the memo’s appearance: early October 1964, with U.S.-GVN fortunes at a new low and with the American election only four weeks away.

Had leading American policymakers given Ball’s effort a full and careful hearing, it could have been used as a blueprint for a fundamental réévaluation of U.S. Vietnam policy once the election was over. But the memorandum did not figure prominently in top-level thinking on the war in the fall of 1964.

William Bundy drafted a response memorandum that, though it did not “attempt to meet all of Ball’s arguments,” addressed several of his points and all the other “apparent heresies” Bundy could think of. Bundy’s effort is a fascinating historical artifact in its own right, and not only because it represented the only indepth examination in this period of the stakes and options in Vietnam by a staunch proponent of standing firm in Vietnam. Equally fascinating is that Bundy endorsed many of Ball’s assertions, implicitly if not explicitly. He agreed that all of America’s options in the war were unpalatable and that the situation on the ground in South Vietnam was worse than ever. Allied nations in Europe did not think a major defense of South Vietnam was worth the trouble, Bundy conceded, believing as they did that the Soviet threat was reduced and that Indochina was not an area of vital concern to western security.

Let us accept that the domino theory is much too pat.

Had Bundy in his memo withheld an explicit preference for any one option, a reader could indeed be forgiven for thinking he too backed an early American extrication from the conflict. But though he shared many of Ball’s doubts about any program of expanded military action, he still thought it preferable to the alternatives. Ball did not.

Ball later strenuously denied that he had been assigned his role, that he had been appointed a “house dove,” a resident devil’s advocate, but it now appears certain that this is precisely what he was, and with his own full knowledge. The 5 October memorandum had been requested by Johnson at an NSC meeting some two weeks earlier and had been seen from the outset as a devil’s advocate exerdse.

“Why do people hassle around with [Ball’s] motives?” Bundy wondered in an interview. “I think George should be taken on the merits and also on who he was dealing with. You can’t organize against Lyndon Johnson without getting bombed before breakfast, because in his view that’s the final and ultimate conspiracy.”

Ultimately, it seems, Ball’s was a misplaced loyalty, one that put loyalty to boss before loyalty to nation.

The fact that a general consensus existed among them, to the effect that expanding the war was preferable to disengagement, should not obscure the reality that genuine options existed.

On 3 November, election day, an interdepartmental working group chaired by William Bundy convened for the first of several meetings to consider the next stage of the war and how to approach it. It would be the last, best chance to ask the really fundamental questions about the war, to deeply probe the policy alternatives available to the United States, to closely examine the implications of making Vietnam an American war.

analysts both inside and outside the United States saw a fundamental choice facing whoever might be the victorious candidate: whether to dramatically expand the American involvement in the conflict or seek some kind of face-saving exit from South Vietnam.

Which way would the president go? To the international diplomatic community aad to many close observers ia the United States who did aot know the details of the administration’s secret planning, it was an open question. An expaaded war was ia no way preordained.

the dominant impression left by LBJ in the final weeks of the campaign was that of a president telling voters that if they wanted to avoid a larger war in Vietnam, he was their man.

November and December 1964 witnessed the almost total unraveling of the South Vietnamese socio-political fabric. Internal factional struggles among Saigon officials reached new levels of intensity, and intelligence agencies reported widespread support for some form of neutralist settlement leading to a coalition government.

In December 1964, dozens of newspapers across the United States, some of which had hitherto been unquestioning supporters of the American commitment (and would be again after the Americanization of the war in 1965), began to express deep doubts about the enterprise. Many of them endorsed a negotiated disengagement from the war.

Lyndon Johnson not only wanted consensus on which way to proceed in Vietnam; he also wanted victory in the war, or at least something other than defeat. In the wake of his campaign triumph, he was no less adamant than before that he would not be the president who lost Vietnam.

These pressures explain what in hindsight is the most defining characteristic of the postelection deliberations: their highly circumscribed nature. Whatever freedom of action other observers may have thought Johnson possessed after the crushing victory over Goldwater, it quickly became clear that there remained little latitude for reopening the basic questions about American involvement in Vietnam—about whether the struggle needed to be won or whether it could be won.

In the last weeks of 1964, Lyndon Johnson and his top aides made the final plans to go to war in Vietnam. It was a momentous decision, the most important of the entire mid-1963 to mid-1965 period, indeed of the entire war, but in their eyes it was also a logical one—for much of the year, they had anticipated that this day would come and had planned accordingly.

The panel members noted that “the basic elements of Communist strength in South Vietnam remain indigenous” and that “even if severely damaged,” North Vietnam could continue to support the insurgency at a reduced level.

the administration had access to remarkably accurate intelligence information about the current situation on the ground in Vietnam and about the probable impact of a major war on both North and South.

Still more remarkable, most of the Working Group members appear to have agreed with the intelligence panel’s grim diagnosis, even as they advocated a stepped-up American effort.

Now here was Taylor, the senior American official in Vietnam, a man whose opinion mattered more than perhaps any other presidential adviser’s, suggesting that a second brake on such action—the requirement of a stable Saigon government—also be removed.

Washington was concerned about the Huong government and its prospects and about the government’s stated promise to hold elections for a National Assembly. Neutralist and other left-wing elements opposed to a continuation of the war might win a majority of the seats in such an assembly, and thus it was vital to delay any elections for at least several months, so that the ARVN could first strengthen its position on the battlefield.

Nor was Ball alone in hoping to restrain the move to a larger war. Several midlevel officials shared his basic position, among them James C. Thomson Jr. of the NSC; Thomas L. Hughes, who headed the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department; Allen Whiting, deputy director of the East Asian desk at the State Department; Carl Salans of the Legal Adviser’s Office at the State Department; and the Working Group’s Robert Johnson.

Perhaps sensing that the point of no return was about to be passed, Ehrlich worried that policy proposals of the type proposed by the group tended to develop swiftly a strong bureaucratic momentum unless immediately challenged.

One issue divided them, however: whether to commit U.S. ground forces to Vietnam as part of the escalation. McGeorge Bundy, Rusk, and McCone were sympathetic to the idea, whereas McNamara saw no military need for ground troops and stated his strong preference for bombing alone. Ball also argued against sending troops, pointing to the French experience in the Indochina war. It is a measure of Taylor’s influence on the thinking in Washington that the principals looked to him to help resolve this issue and to give his input on the final recommendations to the president.

Escalation, in other words, should be undertaken regardless of the political picture in Saigon, either to reward the GVN or to keep it from disintegrating.

If the Saigon situation failed to improve, he declared, looking at JCS chairman Wheeler, “then I'll be talking to you, General.” Johnson further noted that American dependents should be removed from Saigon; though the meeting notes do not clearly indicate why, the context suggests that it was because he feared for their safety in a wider war. And in ordering Rusk to get military support from allies for the wider action, he tellingly said, “If [the government?] fails, we want them in with us,” and not merely with a “chaplain and nurse.”32 It would be hard to overestimate the importance of this presidential decision. Johnson opted to fundamentally alter the American involvement in Vietnam. Like his ambassador in Saigon, he was unhappy about the prospect of moving against the North without a stronger South Vietnamese government, but like him, he was prepared to do so if necessary. The decision contained deep contradictions. Washington policymakers had for a long time conceded among themselves that the keys to victory in the war lay in the South, but now they were seeking a solution through striking the North, despite general skepticism in the intelligence community that such a policy would yield results. They

Plainly put, the self-determination Washington claimed to be defending was what it feared most.

Critical to understanding the advocacy of a wider war in the face of general pessimism is the growing attachment among key officials to the theory of the “good doctor,” first articulated by John McNaughton in a memo back in September in connection with the need to put the best possible face on what might be an unavoidable defeat. In this scenario, the United States should strive to project the image of a patient (South Vietnam) who died despite the heroic efforts of the good doctor (the United States). Even if bombing North Vietnam were expected to fail, it could serve an important purpose, which McNaughton phrased as follows in one of the early Working Group memoranda: “Even if Option C failed, it would, by demonstrating U.S. willingness to go to the mat, tend to bolster allied confidence in the U.S. as an ally.”

veteran diplomat W. Averell Harriman (who also preferred Option A),

If we go down this road we will not bring them to their knees, or to the negotiating table. We could bomb them back to the stone age. They will disappear into jungle and they will wait us out. Because they know something we know deep down, and they know that we know, which is that some day we're going to go home.” Bundy thought for a moment and responded, “Thomson, you may be right.”

American officials felt that only Australia and New Zealand were wholly dependable allies on the war;

As America’s leading ally in international affairs, and as a major world power in its own right, Britain’s position mattered to Washington in a way that no other government’s stance mattered. Even Tokyo’s importance paled in comparison.

By the time Harold Wilson’s plane touched down in Washington on the evening of 6 December, the chances for an Anglo-American confrontation over Vietnam had disappeared.

The columnist had not altered his own belief that Vietnam was a looming disaster for the United States, but he had been less outspoken about the conflict in recent months, in large measure because of the presidential campaign and his determination to do his part to help defeat that “radical reactionary,” Barry Goldwater.

Johnson remained doubtful. “This is a commitment I inherited,” he complained. “I don’t like it, but how can I pull out?"50 That question succinctly summarized Lyndon Johnson’s predicament at the end of 1964.

The polling data cited in the literature is for the period after spring 1965—that, is after American ground forces had been committed.53 As always happens in such instances, a rally-around- the-flag phenomenon resulted.

A Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) poll released in mid December showed that 25 percent of respondents did not know there was fighting in Vietnam. (A slightly larger number did not know China was communist. Of those who did, 71 percent favored talks with Beijing to improve relations.) Of the informed, close to half favored withdrawal, and only 24 percent were “definitely in favor” of using U.S. ground forces to avoid a communist victory.54 A University of Michigan study of public attitudes released in mid December showed similar results. Asked if the United States should get out of Vietnam immediately, 37 percent of those polled “strongly opposed” withdrawal, and 18 percent were “definitely” in favor of it. But when asked if American forces should be used in the struggle, 32 percent were opposed, and only 24 percent (the same figure as in the CFR study) were supportive.

By the start of the new year, the papers calling on the administration to rule out escalation and seek a negotiated exit from the war included, in addition to the Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Milwaukee Journal, the Miami Herald, the Salt Lake City Tribune, the Providence Journal, the Minneapolis Star, the Des Moines Register, the New York Post, the Indianapolis Times, the San Francisco Examiner, the Chicago Daily News, and the Hartford Courant. Even the generally hawkish Chicago Tribune warned that the United States might be pushed out of Vietnam if it did not withdraw:

“I am afraid,” Nes wrote, “that too many of the top people responsible for the extent and nature of current U.S. involvement in Vietnam are emotionally reluctant to face the fact that we are striving for the impossible—on a battleground and with weapons chosen by the Communists.”

on 9 December, the same day that Mansfield wrote the president, Fulbright told an audience at Southern Methodist University in Dallas that expanding the war in Vietnam would be a “senseless effort” and that America should never have gotten involved there in the first place.

Frank Church of Idaho, in an interview with Ramparts magazine that had actually been done some weeks before but that now received front-page coverage in the New York Times, said that Washington should pursue a neutralization of Vietnam and perhaps all of Southeast Asia.

Church received praise for the interview from none other than Vice President-elect Hubert Humphrey,

if there were large and small newspapers recommending against escalation, there were also those that voiced support for a steadfast commitment to the cause. These included the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Seattle Times, the Dallas Mom- ing News, the Kansas City Star, and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.65 Although the New York Times editorialized in favor of early negotiations, two of its star reporters, David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan, in this period resolutely opposed such a move.