Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam 1945-1995

by James S. Olson

  The United States and South Vietnam were preparing for a different type of invasion. Washington aimed to build ARVN into a reliable fighting force. American policymakers wanted to reduce it from a ragtag army of 250,000 poorly equipped, demoralized troops to a streamlined, efficient army of 150,000 dedicated soldiers. The United States also wanted a reliable, 40,000-man local militia. The training unit was the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), commanded by General Samuel (“Hanging Sam”) Williams. Fresh from duty in Korea, where he had witnessed the North Korean and Chinese invasions, Williams was convinced that the assault on South Vietnam would come by way of a large-scale sweep southward by North Vietnamese and perhaps Chinese troops across the seventeenth parallel. Along with seven hundred American military advisers, Williams trained the South Vietnamese army in the art of conventional warfare—how to use artillery, air support, and armor to repel an invasion. He placed ARVN soldiers in static positions along the borders with Laos and North Vietnam. When ARVN troops moved, they depended on armored personnel carriers and trucks, and they rarely ventured off the main roads. Off the main roads was, of course, exactly where the Vietcong were operating. In what can be considered an extraordinary example of naiveté, Williams remarked in 1957: “We have exactly 342 men, the number allowed by the Geneva Armistice Conference. It would be a breeze if we had more.”

  Few people in South Vietnam, however, had any sense of patriotic nationalism; their country was a diplomatic creation just a few years old. Asking men and women to die for their country is one thing; asking them to die for someone else’s country is quite another. There was no identity between the army and the nation. The other problem MAAG faced was the traditional Vietnamese suspicion of foreigners. One American said that MAAG’s greatest challenge was “assuring the Vietnamese that the United States is not a colonial power—an assurance that must be renewed on an individual basis by each new adviser.” Still, the United States supplied $1.65 billion to South Vietnam between 1956 and 1961, and nearly 80 percent of the money went into military equipment and personnel. The United States and ARVN thought they were ready for the invasion.

  But Le Duan was training the Vietcong for a very different kind of war. For them the real issue was political, not military. They wanted to secure the allegiance of the peasants and destroy the credibility of the Diem regime. With peasant support they would enjoy food, protection, and recruits, and through selective terrorism they would prove that Diem could not provide security. “Establish yourselves in the Central Highlands,” Giap told the Vietcong. “Like the French before them, the Americans and their puppet Diem will stay in the cities. Then extend your influence into the lowland jungles and the villages of the Mekong Delta. Assault on the cities will be only the last stage of the conflict.” Le Duan’s instructions to the guerrillas were known as the Xuan Mai: “When the enemy masses we disperse. When the enemy passes we harass. When the enemy withdraws we advance. When the enemy disperses, we mass.” Instead of coming across the seventeenth parallel by the thousands, former Vietminh came a few at a time down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through the jungles and mountains of the North Vietnam panhandle into Laos and then into South Vietnam. It was an arduous trip—one to two months of hard marching. When the guerrillas arrived in South Vietnam, they joined with Vietcong already there. They brought weapons with them or dug up weapons and ammunition they had buried in 1954.

  The nature of the political uprising in South Vietnam has caused considerable debate in the United States. Antiwar activists claimed that it was spontaneous, purely a civil war and popular rebellion against a repressive government that North Vietnam had ignored until American intervention forced Hanoi to react. Supporters of the war in the United States saw it purely as a matter of communist aggression from North Vietnam against South Vietnam. The truth, of course, embraces both perceptions. The historian William Duiker noted “genuine revolt based in the South... organized and directed from the North.” Diem created a wealth of hostility and resentment, which North Vietnam exploited through superb organization and extraordinary willpower.

  Alienated from the government of Ngo Dinh Diem as well as frightened by the threat of Vietcong violence, South Vietnamese peasants vacillated for a while but eventually sided with the people in power at the local level. Whether they truly believed in the Vietcong cause or were simply intimidated matters little. When guerrillas controlled a region, the peasants went along. By late 1960, with reinforcements from North Vietnam and new recruits from South Vietnam, the number of armed Vietcong had increased to 10,000, and they were expanding out from their strongholds in the mountains of Quang Ngai Province, the U Minh Forest in Kien Giang and An Xuyen Provinces, the Plain of Reeds along the Cambodian border, and the swamps of southeastern Vietnam. They began to launch lightning guerrilla strikes against ARVN forces near the major cities.

  Government soldiers, trained in conventional warfare, were no match for the guerrillas. Diem and Nhu packed the ARVN officer corps with Roman Catholics. Loyalty to the Ngo family, not leadership ability or tactical skill, was the prerequisite for appointment. Soldiers distrusted the competence of their superiors and resented their religion. Morale was poor and commitment weak. Diem viewed ARVN as a military force whose primary responsibility was keeping the Ngo family in power, not destroying the communists. Diem and Nhu discouraged offensive operations for fear that heavy government casualties would lead to popular discontent and political uprisings.

  In 1959 and 1960 the political situation deteriorated rapidly. The number of assassinations and kidnappings was up, as were terrorist assaults on government offices, military bases, American transport convoys, and hotels and bars catering to the handful of GI servicemen. On July 8, 1959, Vietcong commandos infiltrated the American base at Bien Hoa and killed two air force personnel, Major Dale Buis of Imperial Beach, California, and Sergeant Chester Ovnand of Copperas Cove, Texas. The Americans were amazed at the audacity of the Vietcong, or “Charlie” as they came to call them. “Vietnam,” announded Diem, “is a nation at war.” For American troops, a new saying became common: “The daytime is ours, but the night belongs to Charlie.”

  In 1960 there were nearly nine hundred American advisers in South Vietnam carrying out the “Hanging Sam” training program, but they could not undo the damage of Diem’s regime. On November 11, 1960, just a week after John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard Nixon for president, South Vietnamese paratroopers under the command of Colonel Vuong Van Dong launched a coup against Diem, surrounding the presidential palace in Saigon and demanding his resignation. The coup collapsed when loyal ARVN marines and infantry attacked the paratroopers, but the event sent chills throughout the Saigon diplomatic community. Diem arrested thousands of people.

  The crumbling political situation fueled the communist drive for reunification. In September 1960 the Third Congress of the Lao Dong party, the political group that had assumed power from the Vietminh in 1951 and became the ruling force in North Vietnam, called for the “liberation” of South Vietnam and reunification. Vietcong recruiting efforts were increasingly successful in the south, since Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime was creating thousands of disaffected people. On December 20, 1960, at a secret location in South Vietnam, North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front to give political direction to the Vietcong guerrillas.

  At that very moment, John F. Kennedy was meeting with Dwight Eisenhower, planning the transition to the new administration. International tensions were running high. During the same month that North Vietnamese leaders decided to push toward reunification with South Vietnam, President-elect John F. Kennedy was finishing his plans for taking office. Suddenly issues that he had debated in the abstract during the campaign, offering the free and easy opinions of a politician who did not have to implement policy, had become his issues. Eisenhower’s burdens of office would in less than a month become his burdens.

  On December 6, 1960, the two men met in the White House. They had met face-to-face only once b
efore, though Ike had forgotten the occasion. And during the eight years Ike was President of the United States and JFK was a U.S. Senator, the two had never met. In an odd sort of way, it was like two different centuries meeting. Eisenhower, born in the nineteenth century, was at the time the oldest man ever elected president. Now, weakened by heart problems and illnesses, he was seventy-one. Kennedy, born in the twentieth century, was the youngest man ever elected president. Although he also had severe health problems, at forty-three he appeared young and vigorous, especially as he swiftly stepped out of his limousine at the North Portico entrance of the White House and bounded up the steps to shake hands with Eisenhower. Hatless, tan, smiling, and energetic, John Kennedy was the very face of a new, optimistic, confident generation.

  There was no great closeness between the two men. In private, Eisenhower called the Kennedy “that younger man” or “Little Boy Blue.” JFK sometimes referred to Ike as “that old asshole.” Nor did the meeting draw them any closer. They talked largely about the decisionmaking process. As fitting America’s greatest general, Eisenhower followed a chain-of-command approach. The only issues that reached his desk were important ones. “No easy matters will ever come to you as President,” he told JFK. “If they are easy, they will be settled at a lower level.” Kennedy listened politely but Eisenhower could tell that his words were not penetrating very deeply. Kennedy clearly intended to be involved in decisions large and small. He wanted his hands in the making of every pie.

  Eisenhower saw himself as the top of a flow chart. Kennedy regarded himself as the center of the action. Same job, different approaches. But the two men did develop a grudging respect for each other as they talked about the foreign policy issues that confronted America. They discussed Berlin and the Soviet Union, defense communities and hot spots. But neither ever considered conversing about Vietnam. A year later Kennedy ruefully recalled, “You know, Eisenhower never mentioned it, never uttered the word, Vietnam.”

  4

  The New Frontier in Vietnam, 1961–1963

  We are going to win in Vietnam. We will remain here until we do win.

  —Robert F. Kennedy, 1962

  When the 1960s dawned, the United States was ready to embark on the salvation of the world: more specifically, to save it from communism. The most popular novel of the time bearing on the Cold War criticized Americans not for being fixated on communism but for their failure to make the effort that the struggle demanded. William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick’s The Ugly American, written as a response to The Quiet American and published in 1958, stayed on the bestseller list for seventyeight weeks and was made into a successful motion picture starring Marlon Brando. Set in Sarkhan, a fictionalized Saigon, the novel has a character based on Colonel Lansdale. Unlike Greene’s Pyle, however, Colonel Hillandale is an example of the type of American the country needs more of overseas.

  The primary target of The Ugly American is the foreign service. Chosen for their “personal wealth, political loyalty, and the ability to stay out of trouble,” most of the nation’s ambassadors cannot even understand the languages of the countries to which they are assigned. They hear only what their interpreters want them to hear and obtain from newspapers only what their readers want them to obtain. Isolated in the cities, they and their spoiled staff spend their days entertaining visiting American VIPs, socializing with other Western diplomats, and occasionally meeting with members of the local elite. They ignore the masses who live in rural poverty. They have no knowledge of their enemy. They have not read the works of Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, or Vladimir Lenin. While the communists speak the native languages and work closely with the peasants, building loyalties and political support, the Americans drift along on the belief that dollars will win the Cold War. In short, the novel argues, “We have been losing—not only in Asia, but everywhere.” The Ugly American was a tale of woe but also a call for action. The United States was losing the fight against communism in the Third World, but it could still win. The United States needs hardworking, well-trained professionals: “They must speak the language of the land of their assignment, and they must be more expert in its problems than are the natives.” The ugly American himself is one of the few admirable characters. He is a plain, honest engineer, his unvarnished features a symbolic contrast to the slick good looks of the pampered foreign-service staff, and he and his wife labor with villagers on practical projects that will make life a bit more livable. (The subsequent use of the phrase “ugly American” to describe Americans who show their country’s worst face misses the content of the novel but is true to its intentions.) The Ugly American ends with a challenge and a warning: “If the only price we are willing to pay is the dollar price, then we might as well pull out before we’re thrown out. If we are not prepared to pay the human price, we had better retreat to our shores, build Fortress America, learn to live without international trade and communications, and accept the mediocrity, the low standard of living, and the loom of world Communism which would accompany such a move.”

  President John F. Kennedy was to become the embodiment of this call to action. “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike,” he declared at his inauguration in 1961, “that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage.” The words contained pride and arrogance, promise and warning: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.” Kennedy promised that his administration would never allow one form of colonialism to be replaced by another, for “those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” He asked for the commitment of all Americans, but he offered greatness in return: “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it.... The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”

  The speech was a tour de force. Only later—years later—would critics ask what it meant and, since it was largely written by the president’s adviser Theodore Sorensen, whether it represented Kennedy’s own views. No nation can limitlessly pay, bear, meet, support, and oppose. Yet Kennedy promised just that; he pledged to remove limits, to go beyond the possible to achieve immortality for his nation. Actually, 1961 was not a particularly dangerous moment for the United States and for the world. But Kennedy believed, as his Profiles in Courage had declared six years earlier, that “great crises produce great men” coveting greatness, he was determined to produce at least the illusion of a crisis.

  About John Kennedy there was an air of romance and courage, a hint he was born for greatness. He had been a sickly child reared in a family of great wealth. Joe Kennedy, his domineering father, expected his sons to show courage, drive, and manliness. They played sports, battled among themselves, and competed for their father’s love. Jack never used his physical troubles as an excuse; he played as hard as his brothers. The main difference between him and his brothers, perhaps since he spent so much time in a sickbed, is that he loved to read. The tales of King Arthur, Scottish chiefs, James Fenimore Cooper, and Marlborough intrigued him. Stories of greatness and acts of courage molded his character. Sickliness was an enemy to be overcome, a call to inner strength.

  Kennedy’s education furthered his progress to greatness. His father was rich, but that was not enough to gain a Boston Irish Catholic an entry to the Anglo-American establishment. Therefore he sent his sons not to Catholic institutions—to Holy Cross or Notre Dame—but to establishment schools and universities. Jack followed Joe, Jr., to Choate, an elite, Protestant prep school dedicated to producing Christian gentlemen who understood duty and obligation and believed that le
adership was their rightful heritage. From Choate Jack went to Harvard, where he continued to mix and compete with the Protestant elite. The immigrant family’s rage to succeed burned in him. But he learned to conceal the fire beneath a cool facade. Years later, when he was president, he twitted one of his aides for refusing to resign from a prestigious Washington, D.C., club that did not encourage Jewish or black membership. The aide remarked that Kennedy belonged to the equally elitist and equally restrictive Links in New York. “Jews and Negroes,” Kennedy laughed. “Hell, they don’t even allow Catholics!” But a Kennedy—Boston Irish, wealthy, and Catholic—had kicked down the door.

  World War II allowed Joe, Jr., and Jack to show their father and their country their mettle. Jack enlisted in the navy, and on the night of August 1, 1943, in waters near the Solomon Islands, a Japanese destroyer cut his PT-109 in half. Two men died, and Kennedy saved the life of another badly burned crew member. It was all very courageous—the stuff of his childhood reading. And it was fully covered by the American press. Not to be outdone, Joe, Jr., volunteered for a near suicidal bombing mission. Just before his takeoff, he told a friend, “I’m about to go into my act, and if I don’t come back tell my dad... that I love him very much.” He did not come back. He was the one his father had groomed for politics. Now that Joe, Jr., was gone, Jack was the one: “He demanded it,” so Kennedy said of his father’s desire that he enter politics.