Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam
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C. D. Jackson, a Time Inc. senior executive and editor who now served as an adviser to Eisenhower on Cold War strategy, fumed that Duncan’s spread furnished “invaluable documentation to those who want to pull out” of Indochina. Life’s publisher and editor-in-chief, Henry Luce, agreed. He had been away in Rome when a senior editor signed off on the article, and he furiously castigated Duncan as a “Rover Boy” who had “fouled up basic policy.”23 On Luce’s orders, the magazine ran a rejoinder in September titled “France Is Fighting the Good Fight.” This was the prevailing theme also in Luce’s other publication, Time. Issue after issue in the spring and summer, while acknowledging setbacks and problems in the war effort, gave readers the impression that the trends pointed in the right direction, that the Franco-American partnership functioned smoothly like a well-oiled machine, and that the “Reds” were on the ropes. Never mind that several of the cables coming in to Time Inc.’s editorial offices from correspondents offered a much different picture, one showing a faltering war effort and expanding Viet Minh reach.24
A Time cover story on Navarre in September was a perfect counterpoint to the Life photographic essay. This one lauded the “quiet but steely, cultured but tough” general’s conception of his role and applauded his early actions in the field. (Among them: Operation Hirondelle [Swallow], an airborne raid on enemy supply depots around Lang Son in July that involved two thousand paratroops supported by ten B-26 bombers and fifty-six Bearcat fighters. Numerous depots were destroyed, and the retreat to French lines, covering fifty miles and in crushing heat, took place without incident.) Navarre, the magazine gushed, was “a master of assembling bits and pieces into a pattern and molding the pattern into plans.” The article spoke of a “new spirit and optimism” among soldiers “who must fight the ugly war” in Vietnam, and it concluded by quoting an unnamed observer, whose phrasing would come back to haunt both the French and the Americans in later years: “A year ago none of us could see victory.… Now we can see it clearly—like light at the end of a tunnel.”25
The two magazines did have that in common: Victory in Vietnam, both said, was “entirely feasible.” Life may have been downbeat about the outlook, but it put the blame squarely on French civilian and military leaders for, in effect, giving up just as victory was near. The gulf between the two Luce journals was in this respect much smaller than a quick skimming would suggest. In other press assessments that summer, the same phenomenon could be observed: Some saw the glass as half-full, some as half-empty, but very few saw it as dry or nearly dry. If defeat occurred, principal blame would lie with France, for her unwillingness either to expend more of her human and material resources to fight the war, or to grant the Indochinese people real independence. The New York Times, for example, was straightforwardly hawkish, insisting that the defense of Indochina was vital “not merely to France but to the whole of the free world.” If Indochina fell, the editors warned, the way would be open to Thailand, Malaya, Burma, and eventually Indonesia, India, and the Philippines.26
In the U.S. government too, the range of opinion was narrow, narrower than it had been in previous years. The deep split that had existed among middle-level State Department officials for much of the Truman period—a split that went to the fundamental question of whether the United States should join in the fight against Ho Chi Minh, or remain neutral, or even support him—was to a large extent gone, even if officials still disagreed among themselves about the likely future course of events. The CIA was pessimistic, predicting that the French position was likely to deteriorate progressively and that after mid-1954, “the political and military position could go very rapidly.” The Nguyen Van Tam government was “more shadow than substance,” the agency noted, and too subservient to Paris to win even the semblance of popular support.27 In the Pentagon and at State, there were doubts that the Navarre Plan would in fact accomplish what its proponents claimed, while in the Oval Office, Eisenhower expressed frequent frustration with French decision making. But if few Pollyannas walked the corridors of power in Washington, a general consensus nevertheless prevailed among policy makers that the war could ultimately be won—and that, regardless, it was necessary to try.
This was Eisenhower’s basic message in remarks before a national governors’ conference in Seattle in early August. The Korean armistice had just been signed, and the president took satisfaction in having achieved that primary objective. But he was aware of grumblings within the Republican Party concerning his decision to bargain with godless Communists, and moreover he still believed that Indochina was vital strategically. He set about educating the governors on the importance to U.S. security of the outcome. He began by briefly sketching out the origins of the war, noting that it was variously seen as “an outgrowth of French colonialism” and a struggle “between the communists and the other elements in Southeast Asia.” Then, without saying which perspective he held, the president moved quickly to emphasize Indochina’s current strategic importance, thus implying that the war’s origins no longer mattered.
“If Indochina goes,” Eisenhower warned his audience, “several things happen right away. The Malayan peninsula, with its valuable tin and tungsten, would become indefensible, and India would be outflanked. Indonesia, with all its riches, would likely be lost too.… So you see,” he went on, “somewhere along the line, this must be blocked. It must be blocked now. That is what the French are doing.” It followed that America’s financial contribution to the war effort was money well spent; by assisting France, Americans were acting “to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of the most terrible significance for the United States of America—our security, our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indonesian territory, and from Southeast Asia.”28
It must be blocked now. That is what the French are doing. A more ringing endorsement of the war’s importance would be hard to imagine. Reflecting on the speech over lunch with two British officials a few days later, Eisenhower said that Indochina was more crucial strategically than Korea. It was the neck in the bottle, and it was essential to keep the cork in. Unfortunately, getting this basic fact across to the American people and their representatives in Congress had not been easy. Ignorance was widespread: Many Americans thought Saigon was something to eat. The president assured his guests he had done his best with congressional leaders, but there was no telling if it was enough, and that’s why he had devoted so much of the Seattle speech to the subject. Congress had to be convinced, he said, to support an “all-out” effort in Vietnam for a year or eighteen months. Without such congressional backing, American aid would end.29
By “all-out” effort, did Eisenhower mean potentially using U.S. ground forces? It’s hard to be sure. He knew that lawmakers would be in no mood to send soldiers back to Asia immediately on the heels of the long and frustrating struggle in Korea, and he himself was not keen on such a prospect. In the short term, at least, the emphasis would have to be on other means. But something had to be done, and soon. Eisenhower doubted the Laniel government’s commitment to the war, but he also feared it might be the last French government to fight at all. Therefore, the United States should move immediately to boost the level of American aid to Navarre’s war effort. The president received support on this point from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said in August that the ultimate success of the Navarre Plan might depend on the allocation of additional U.S. aid. From Ambassador Dillon in Paris, meanwhile, came the warning that the “Indochina problem is rapidly reaching a crisis here,” and that “to carry out the basic elements of the Navarre Plan, something like $200 million extra will be required.” Dillon, a Francophile who owned vineyards in Bordeaux, urged that the funds be allocated, and that more be given later.30
Already Congress had approved the administration’s request for $400 million for Indochina for fiscal year 1954, despite complaints among some in the Senate—notably freshman Republican Barry Goldwater of Arizona—that the money would merely support France’s
colonial oppression. Now the president moved to boost the amount. In September, with Congress out of session for the remainder of the year, he quietly approved an additional $385 million, to be taken out of the budgets of existing aid programs. He instructed aides to consult with select lawmakers prior to the announcement of the decision, confident he could get at least grudging support.
And so he did. Some of the congressional leaders consulted grumbled about the massive outlay, but none was prepared to block the administration on Indochina strategy. Unlike in previous years, when the war had elicited only sporadic interest on Capitol Hill, now, with an armistice in Korea and concerns on the rise regarding Communist expansion elsewhere in Asia, more and more House members and senators paid attention and issued pronouncements. And although some three hundred and fifty U.S. ships (or more than two each week) had already made the voyage to Vietnam over the previous three years, delivering all manner of war matériel to the French—trucks, tanks, automatic weapons, small arms and ammunition, artillery shells, engineering and hospital equipment, radios—the legislators were prepared to do more.
A select few Senate members, such as John F. Kennedy, the freshman Democrat from Massachusetts, offered biting critiques of the French for failing to grant “genuine independence” to Indochina, while others were more forgiving of the Paris government, saying effective independence was already in place. Almost no one, however, disputed the administration’s interpretation of the stakes. Certainly not Senate majority leader William Knowland of California, who had railed against Truman for “losing” China and who would later so exasperate Eisenhower that the president claimed he confounded the age-old question “How stupid can you get?” In early September, Knowland stopped off in Vietnam during an extensive tour of Asia. Upon being briefed by French officials, he went before the microphones and thundered that Vietnam was now free and independent and that France’s cause was also America’s.31
IV
KNOWLAND’S VISIT, HOWEVER, WAS NOT THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL by a U.S. senator to Vietnam that fall. That honor belonged to Mike Mansfield, a freshman Democrat from Montana who was destined to be the leading congressional voice on Vietnam matters in the years to come. Known as something of an Asia expert for having visited wartime China and postwar Japan and having taught college classes on the region’s history, Mansfield in fact knew little about Indochina before the start of 1953. But already in February of that year, a mere seven weeks after being sworn in, he expressed his alarm over the situation. “Indo-China is at this time the most important area on the Continent of Asia,” he wrote in a memo for his files, the gist of which he also conveyed to The New York Times. “Its loss would start a chain-reaction extending to the Persian Gulf and would give to the Soviets and the satellites the rubber, the tin and the oil which are in such short supply within the Soviet Union and which would mean so much to the conduct of a war.” Admittedly, Indochina herself would probably supply only a small amount of the needed rubber, but her loss would open up the area in Southeast Asia that contained the riches the Kremlin badly needed. “In addition the loss of Indo-China would entail grave political consequences in the countries to the East, Malaya, Thailand, Burma, India, Pakistan, Iran and perhaps, beyond.” Consequently, “I believe that military shipments should be stepped up considerably to that area.”32
It could have been John Foster Dulles speaking. Though Moscow’s involvement in Indochina was minimal—especially compared to Washington’s—both the senator and the secretary of state were inclined in this early period to see the Soviet bear looming large and menacing behind the scenes, directing the struggle. Regarding the dire consequences of a defeat in Indochina, certainly, the two men were in full agreement, and in the months that followed, Mansfield held to that view. In early May, he attended a luncheon in Washington in honor of Ngo Dinh Diem, the Roman Catholic and ardently anti-Communist Vietnamese nationalist who was then living at the Maryknoll Seminary in Lakewood, New Jersey. In time, as we shall see, Mansfield would become Diem’s great champion in Washington, indeed would become known as “Diem’s godfather,” but for the moment it is enough to note that the senator came away from the luncheon further convinced of Vietnam’s importance—and of the need for a “Third Force” in between the French and the Viet Minh. The trouble in Vietnam, Diem told his attentive listeners, who also included John F. Kennedy, was the absence of a “rallying point between the Communists and the French.” His mission, he said, was to create such a Third Force.33
Mansfield determined that he would have to experience Indochina for himself. He obtained authorization for a trip from the Foreign Relations Committee and logistical assistance from the State Department, which prepared an itinerary and coordinated with American diplomatic posts in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. His arrival in Saigon on September 21 received little notice, which surprised no one who knew him, for he was by nature reticent and unassuming, the very antithesis of the charismatic and glad-handing politician. Neither witty nor silver-tongued, he was in many ways a prototypical gaunt and laconic westerner (though he was born in the east), who could be monosyllabic in public. To gain a more accurate assessment of the conditions, Mansfield had asked that 60 percent of his time be free from official inspections and briefings, that entertainment be kept to “an absolute minimum,” and that no publicity accompany his various stops. Nevertheless, the range of opinions he heard was constricted, for he interacted almost solely with French officials and high-ranking French-appointed Vietnamese. Never did he come close to experiencing the war on the ground—he toured the Red River Delta by air—and he encountered few independent observers. An exception was Australian journalist Denis Warner, who told him the French strategy was gravely flawed and the war likely lost. Mansfield, Warner recalled, refused to accept the analysis, replying, “I’m sure you can’t be right. I’m sure you can’t be right.”34
Navarre, on the other hand, sang a different melody, one much more to the senator’s liking. He would implement the Navarre Plan, he assured Mansfield, and so would take the fight to the enemy. Mansfield returned home further convinced of the vital importance of the French effort and expressed confidence bordering on enthusiasm regarding Navarre’s intentions for the fall campaign. “There are indications,” he wrote in his report to Congress, “that the stalemate in Indochina may be coming to an end. The months ahead could witness the beginning of a series of significant military engagements.” With increased American assistance as well as a buildup of the VNA, and with French devolution of sovereignty to the non-Communist governments, “only an outright invasion by the Chinese communists would be likely to rescue the Viet Minh from defeat.” The report acknowledged the breadth of Ho Chi Minh’s popular appeal and took note of the “current of nationalism [that] runs strong throughout Indochina,” but its author was not willing to characterize Ho as a genuine nationalist. The Viet Minh leader’s objective, Mansfield wrote, was merely to use a “form of misdirected nationalism” to gain the support of non-Communists.35
For Eisenhower and Dulles, the Mansfield Report was a godsend, providing just the kind of bipartisan legitimacy they wanted at a critical time in the war, when the U.S. aid effort was ramping up massively. He was a junior senator but a respected one, especially on Asian issues, and he was from the opposition party. His claim that the military outlook was good and getting better served to further strengthen the consensus on Capitol Hill that this was a battle that should be waged. The future of Southeast Asia, and ultimately Asia as a whole, and therefore the future security of the United States, depended on it. If someone as steady, sober-minded, and seemingly knowledgeable as Mansfield—a former professor of Asian history!—could voice this kind of unwavering support for the French cause, many lawmakers must have asked themselves, who am I to disagree?
V
THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT REMAINED STEADFAST WAS LOST ON none of the principal actors in Vietnam—not the French, not the Viet Minh, and not the non-Communist nationalist groups who picked this
time to begin clamoring more loudly for major concessions from Paris. “We’ll fight, but only for independence” was the new refrain among these groups. The Mayer government’s unilateral devaluation of the piaster back in May still rankled many of them, including Bao Dai and his prime minister Nguyen Van Tam, and Joseph Laniel’s July 3 promise to “perfect” (parfaire) the independence of the Associated States seemed like so much empty rhetoric. Paris, it was clear, still called the shots. At official ceremonies, French representatives still sat in the front row, relegating the Vietnamese to the back; on Saigon streets, French officials still rubbed in their presence by tearing around with screaming motorcycle escorts.