Recalling the meeting and discussion sixteen years later, Kattenburg thought the “whole group of them . . . absolutely hopeless. . . . There was not a single person there that knew what he was talking about. . . . They didn’t know Vietnam. They didn’t know the past. They had forgotten the history. . . . The more this meeting went on, the more I sat there and I thought, ‘God, we are walking into a major disaster.’”
After more than fifty-eight thousand American troops had died in Vietnam and the North had seized the South despite the sacrifices in American blood and treasure, Kattenburg was proven right. And even then only McNamara and Bundy publicly acknowledged how wrong they had been. Walt Rostow, a principal proponent of the war as Johnson’s national security adviser, never conceded the war was a failure, arguing that aside from Vietnam, the United States had saved the rest of Southeast Asia from communism. McNamara and Bundy tried to understand their misjudgments in the belief that it might head off similar future disasters. Bundy not only was self-critical, but he also passed judgment on other advocates of America’s increased involvement in Vietnam. In an interview, Bundy said later that Lodge was the stupidest man he had ever dealt with in public life.
Lodge was now instructed to renew pressure on Diem to push the Nhus aside and reform his government in hopes of increasing his popular support. At the same time, Kennedy used TV interviews with CBS and NBC to put Diem on notice that he stood squarely behind the demand for changes in Saigon. Could Diem’s government regain the support of his people? CBS’s Walter Cronkite asked. Kennedy replied: “With changes in policy and perhaps with personnel I think it can.” Kennedy left no doubt about his determination to win in Vietnam. He called the suggestions of withdrawal a “great mistake”; the people who advocated it were “wholly wrong.” The United States had no choice but to defend Asia and understand that we were locked in a “desperate struggle against Communism.” Leaving Vietnam would open the way to Chinese expansion in Southeast Asia and trigger greater threats to other Asian nations.
Nonetheless, Kennedy emphasized that it was up to the Vietnamese to do the fighting, and unless the Diem government generated popular support for itself, it was likely to lose the war. “In the final analysis,” he said, “it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it.” Anyone who thought about his comments had to be puzzled. If success in Vietnam was so crucial to U.S. national security and Diem was in jeopardy of losing the war, could the United States ultimately avoid full-scale involvement? Or was Kennedy signaling that if Diem didn’t reform he would back a coup that brought to power a government that would fight more effectively? It was an unacknowledged contradiction that Americans and Vietnamese were left to consider. Whether Kennedy purposely created this uncertainty or simply was expressing his own inner struggle about what he might do was unclear.
In suggesting that it was Vietnam’s responsibility to fight the war, Kennedy had considerable hope that it might yet rise to the challenge with limited American help. Taylor told him that military operations in Vietnam for August were encouraging, despite Saigon’s political disputes. Progress was also continuing with the Strategic Hamlets program, with 76 percent of the rural population under its protection, which said nothing about whether it was effective in defeating the Viet Cong.
As the summer ended, Kennedy’s strategy was to keep up the pressure on Diem to end or at least greatly reduce the Nhus’ power and limit the press stories about tensions between Saigon and Washington and pessimistic reports about the outcome of the war. Kennedy saw negative news accounts forcing him toward a choice between using U.S. forces and abandoning Vietnam, or encouraging a coup that might lead to victory or who knows what. He instructed government press officers to stay off TV and turn down calls from journalists requesting interviews. At the same time, he directed the embassy in Saigon not to initiate further contacts with the Vietnamese generals, but to be responsive to any initiative from them. He did not want the generals to think “that the U.S. had backed off” or excluded a coup from its plans for defeating the communists.
Nonetheless, Vietnam remained a muddle without a solution. On the morning of September 10, General Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall, a State Department Asian expert, reported to Kennedy on a four-day visit they had just made to Vietnam. Krulak described a war that was moving in the absolutely right direction and was going to be won. The impact on the war effort from the current tensions between the government and the Buddhists were at most “small”: The ARVN units under American direction were “worrying about the Viet Cong and not about politics or religion,” he said. Mendenhall saw a different universe: “a virtual breakdown of the civil government in Saigon as well as a pervasive atmosphere of fear and hate arising from the police reign of terror and the arrests of students. The war against the Viet Cong has become secondary to the ‘war’ against the regime.” He concluded “that the war against the Viet Cong could not be won if Nhu remains in Vietnam.” Krulak countered, “The battle was not being lost in a purely military sense.”
An astonished and frustrated Kennedy asked: “The two of you did visit the same country, didn’t you? . . . How is it that you get such different—this is not a new thing, this is what we have been dealing with for three weeks. . . . I’d like to have an explanation what the reason is for the difference.” Kennedy didn’t know what to believe or, more important, what to do. He had pressed the case in public for Diem to introduce political reforms and to convince U.S. congressional and public opinion that this was a conflict we must not lose. But “this had ignited nothing.”
Because no one had a surefire solution to the Vietnam dilemma, advisers felt empowered to make the case for their viewpoint. It was as if the discussion about Vietnam had turned into a faith-based dispute with clashing egos. Each side was invested in its advice and uncertain about what would be effective; advisers felt free to urge their policy but perhaps more because they were mindful of the weakness in their opponents’ arguments than from being confident of their prescription.
The inability of his advisers to reach a consensus discouraged Kennedy’s hopes of finding an effective response to the Vietnam morass. The debate continued at a late afternoon meeting on September 10. McNamara, Taylor, and McCone argued for working with Diem to sideline Nhu and unite the country against the Viet Cong. They saw no alternative to Diem and feared chaos and defeat if he were removed from power. Harriman and Hilsman sharply disputed their conclusion. Diem could not win, and the only alternative for the United States was to find another leader who could defeat the communists. Hilsman acknowledged that this might require the use of American combat troops. Taylor opposed the introduction of combat forces either to oust Diem or fight the Viet Cong. Lodge, writing from Saigon, insisted that the time had come for the United States “to bring about the fall of the existing government.”
Bobby Kennedy, who had been preoccupied with domestic struggles over civil rights, now joined or rejoined the conversation about Vietnam. At the September 10 meeting, the ongoing debate among the national advisers about how to win the war angered him. Mindful of his brother’s frustration with a debate that seemed unending and unproductive, he pressed for a consensus: “All agreed that the war would go better without Nhu and Diem,” he said. He insisted that they not burden the president with their differences. He wanted them to reach a consensus on Vietnam policy. But agreement remained beyond reach, and President Kennedy, hoping that they might yet find common ground, asked Forrestal to write a paper “recommending a delay in any decision for a sufficient time for the situation to ripen.”
In the meantime, Kennedy, who knew that his advisers could not agree, wished to keep the argument about Vietnam out of the headlines. At the morning meeting on the tenth, he described himself as “disturbed at the tendency both in Washington and Saigon to fight out our own battles via the newspapers. . . . He wanted these different views fought out at this table and not indirectly through the newspapers.” At the White House daily staff meeting the next d
ay, the same day New York Times columnist James Reston published an article decrying the censorship of U.S. journalists in Saigon, Bundy raised the administration’s press problem. He seemed “at a loss about what to do” about Vietnam in general and the press in particular. When told that Madame Nhu was coming to the United States, a visit Kennedy had made clear he opposed, Bundy, who was “already wobbly” and, according to the note taker, “close to the last blow,” said, “This was the first time the world had been faced with collective madness in a ruling family since the days of the czars.”
The continuing daily conversations about Vietnam at the State Department and the White House left everyone discouraged. Lodge kept pushing for a commitment to remove Nhu and Diem, while Rusk, McNamara, and Taylor maintained hopes of spurring Diem onto a fresh course. Rusk directed Lodge to have “frequent conversations” with Diem, but Lodge resisted, complaining that he had nothing new to bring up and saw “many better ways in which I can use my waking hours.” Instead, he wanted Kennedy to send Lansdale to Saigon at once “to take charge, under my supervision, of all U.S. relationships with a change of government.” But as Harriman explained to Lodge, differences of opinion were a deterrent to action.
On September 16, eighteen national security advisers debated the right course in Vietnam yet again. Rusk instructed Hilsman to draft two cables, one reflecting a “conciliatory approach” and the other the “pressure approach.” The pressure policy aimed to force Diem into dropping Nhu and reforming his government, while the conciliation track assumed no change in the government and the rehabilitation of its leaders. “I think we have come to a position of stall in our attempts to develop a Washington consensus” on Vietnam, Forrestal told Bundy. The divide among the president’s advisers was stimulating a war of leaks. “The longer we continue in an attitude of semi-public fluidity, the worse the leak problem becomes,” he added. The only sure step Kennedy favored was putting a lid on the negative press stories on Vietnam. He wanted Lodge “to hush up the press in Saigon.” Since he and his advisers had no good idea of how to ensure a victory in the fighting and end U.S. involvement in an unwanted war, Kennedy seemed to hope that matters would resolve themselves, but that would happen only if the press did not agitate the issue and pressure him into actions he was reluctant to take.
Because Kennedy saw no likelihood that Diem would be gone soon, he instructed Lodge to implement the pressure policy. In addition, he directed McNamara and Taylor to visit Vietnam once again to assess the state of the war and Diem’s ability to defeat the communists. Advocates of dumping Diem were incensed at Kennedy’s decision to send two of the most outspoken supporters of continued cooperation with Diem. Lodge immediately cabled his objection to a visit that “will be taken here as a sign that we have decided to forgive and forget and will be regarded as marking the end of our period of disapproval of oppressive measures.” Lodge was furious. Why wasn’t the White House listening to him? He was on the ground and believed he knew exactly what should be done. To appease him, Kennedy agreed to include Forrestal in the visiting team. Hilsman weighed in with a letter to Lodge asserting that “more and more of the town is coming around to our view and that if you in Saigon and we in the Department stick to our guns the rest will also come around. . . . A determined group here will back you all the way.”
It was clear, however, that Kennedy simply didn’t want to encourage a coup that would deepen U.S. commitments and increase the possibility of sending combat troops. To persuade Diem to follow America’s lead, he directed McNamara and Taylor to shun any contact with coup generals and emphasize “the positive accomplishments of the last decade” that had resulted from U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation.
Predictably, the McNamara-Taylor visit solved nothing. A meeting with Diem was an exercise in futility. Having perfected the technique of speaking at length so as to limit what unwelcome visitors might say, Diem did most of the talking during the first two hours. It was a “virtual monologue” in which Diem simply repeated familiar observations about the fighting and the actions of his government. In the third hour, McNamara and Taylor made the case for reforms that could enhance the war effort and blunt criticism in the United States that threatened to reduce backing for Vietnam. Diem dismissed their complaints as unwarranted and generated by a hostile press corps attacking his government, him, and his family. McNamara and Taylor concluded that Diem was unmovable; he was indifferent to what they said.
In a report to Kennedy on their return to Washington, McNamara and Taylor reported significant progress in the fighting. They saw little likelihood of a successful coup and little prospect for government reforms. Nonetheless, they favored continuing pressure on Diem and Nhu and contacts with generals who might one day rise to the challenge and carry off a successful coup. They also predicted that “the major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965” and recommended that one thousand U.S. military advisers be withdrawn by the end of 1963. They gave no explanation for why the United States could leave Vietnam in a little over two years. In everything to do with Vietnam, wishful thinking won the day.
The White House then issued a press release that declared “the security of South Viet-Nam a major interest of the United States” and the determination of the administration to defeat the communist insurgency. The military support for the South Vietnamese was showing good progress and would be provided until the insurgency has been suppressed. “Secretary McNamara and General Taylor reported their judgment that the major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965,” and one thousand U.S. military personnel could be withdrawn by the end of this year. Political tensions in Vietnam were “deeply serious,” and the White House had “made clear its continuing opposition to any repressive actions in South Viet-Nam.”
The public pronouncement was more an exercise in political posturing than a realistic assessment of current and future conditions in Vietnam. McNamara and Taylor understood that Kennedy opposed any expansion of U.S. military involvement in the war, and they were predicting communist defeat in the next two years that would allow the United States to withdraw its advisers. William H. Sullivan, an assistant to Averell Harriman who was part of the visiting group, told Taylor that the commitment to withdraw U.S. forces at the end of 1965 “would be considered a phony and a fraud and an effort to mollify the American public and just not be considered honest.” But Kennedy was insisting on an end date to U.S. involvement in the war. When Bundy and members of the NSC questioned the wisdom of the announcement, McNamara and Taylor replied that they were “under orders.” William Bundy thought “the words of the release on the military situation were extraordinarily unwise.” Mindful of the questionable realism in placing limits on America’s role in the fighting, Kennedy instructed that no formal announcement accompany the implementation of this decision. He did not wish to test the limits of public credulity.
Above all, now, he wanted to repress negative press accounts that he continued to think would make it difficult for him to limit, if not end, U.S. involvement in the conflict. Newspaper stories describing hostile State Department views of Diem, as well as Defense Department complaints that “inept diplomacy” was putting American interests at risk in Vietnam, angered him. As the White House prepared to release the statement summarizing the McNamara-Taylor findings, Kennedy told advisers, “Reports of disagreement do not help the war effort in Vietnam and do no good to the government as a whole. We must all sign on and with good heart set out to implement the actions decided upon.” He insisted “that no one discuss with the press any measures that he may decide to undertake” on Vietnam. Bundy proposed that Kennedy instruct everyone not to say anything to the press that implied differences among policymakers. Bundy cabled Lodge: The president thinks it essential that the White House rather than the press inform the public about Vietnam. It was impermissible for the newspapers to describe the pressure Washington was putting on Diem. It would be better for the “press to consider us inactive tha
n to trumpet a posture of ‘major sanctions’ and ‘sweeping demands.’”
But Kennedy couldn’t plug leaks or halt the flow of discouraging news coming from Saigon. In September and October, New York Times reports by Halberstam as well as critical columns and other negative headlines about American problems in Vietnam continued to irritate him. Despite a conscious effort by McNamara and Taylor to shun the press during their visit, Halberstam reported that the “U.S. mission is finding no easy solutions in Vietnam.” Their tour underscored the “difficulty in assessing the impact of the political climate on the U.S.–aided war effort.” On October 3, New York Times columnist Arthur Krock described “The Intra-Administration War in Vietnam.” CIA operatives in Saigon were portrayed as at odds with Lodge, refusing on two occasions to carry out his orders. Halberstam also depicted Lodge as in disagreement with Harkins. “As you can appreciate, the story has caused concern in Washington,” George Ball cabled Lodge, “since we have been making a serious effort in conjunction with McNamara-Taylor mission to achieve actual and visible unity” within the U.S. government. On the eighth, despite Kennedy’s insistence on repressing news accounts of significant pressure on Saigon, Halberstam reported that the United States was halting some aid to Vietnam in hopes of forcing changes in Diem’s government. On the seventeenth the Times reported that Nhu saw his country as losing faith in the United States.
Kennedy made Halberstam the focus of his campaign to restrain the press. It was not simply that Halberstam produced day-to-day headlines describing the vulnerabilities of Diem’s government and its stumbling war effort; it was also that he had become an unspoken advocate of replacing the current leadership and winning the war. Halberstam did not think that the introduction of U.S. ground forces was the answer to the guerrilla insurgency. He had already concluded that it would trap the United States in a colonial war that would “parallel the French experience.” So Kennedy and Halberstam partly agreed on the limits of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. But Kennedy did not want policy made or forced on him by unelected journalists. Specifically, he feared that Halberstam’s hectoring was pressuring him into support of a coup that could further destabilize Vietnam and bring irresistible demands for intervention with American combat troops.
Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House Page 44