8. Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, November 5, 1934, Dodd to Moore, pp. 274–77.
9. Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, May 9, 1935, Dodd to FDR, pp. 499–503.
10. Memorandum by Mr. S. R. Fuller, Jr., of a Conversation With Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Minister of Economics and President of the Reichsbank of Germany, Berlin, September 23, 1935, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1935. Volume II: The British Commonwealth, Europe (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935), pp. 282–86.
11. Memorandum, FRUS 1935, pp. 282–86.
12. President’s Secretary’s File (Dodd), Part 2, Reel 11. FDR to Dodd, December 2, 1935. Roosevelt reiterated his concern over media control in Germany in a letter to Dodd on August 5, 1936, going so far as to liken the Nazi’s media control to the Republicans’ control over American media. “The election this year has, in a sense, a German parallel. If the Republicans should win or make enormous gains, it would prove that an 85% control of the Press and a very definite campaign of misinformation can be effective here just as it was in the early days of the Hitler rise to power. Democracy is verily on trial. I am inclined to say something a little later on about the great need for freedom of the press in this country, i.e., freedom to confine itself to actual facts in its news columns and freedom to express editorially any old opinion it wants to.” PSF Dodd, Part 2, Reel 11, August 5, 1936.
13. Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, Nemesis (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 141.
14. Draft Statement on Kristallnacht, November 15, 1938, President’s Secretary’s Files: Diplomatic Correspondence, Germany 1933–1938 (Box 31).
15. Thomas E. Ricks, The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 27.
16. The political scientist Barbara Farnham has argued that the Munich Crisis of September 1938 convinced Roosevelt that Hitler represented a genuine threat to the Western democracies, America included. Barbara Farnham, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis: A Study of Political Decision-Making (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). In contrast, I have suggested that FDR grasped the nature of Hitler’s regime and its dangers long before Munich. I have not focused on the Munich crisis here because it did not represent a pattern break but was instead the continuation of a pattern in Hitler’s diplomatic style.
17. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, p. 153.
18. The historian David Irving has argued that Hitler was unaware of the plans for Kristallnacht, and once he learned of it, he sought quickly to end it. This claim is exceedingly hard to support, given, among other issues, Hitler’s close collaboration and personal friendship with Josef Goebbels, who orchestrated the pogrom. Irving subsequently went to prison in Austria for denying the Holocaust.
19. Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 (hereafter DGFP), Series D, Memorandum by the Führer, “Directive for the Conversations with Mr. Sumner Welles,” February 29, 1940, doc. 637, pp. 817–19.
20. Montefiore, Stalin, p. 312.
21. DGFP, Series D, Supplement to Memorandum of the Conversation between the Foreign Minister and Sumner Welles on March 1, 1940, doc. 641, p. 829.
22. Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. 1, 1940. Memorandum by Under-Secretary of State Welles, March 1, 1940.
23. DGFP, Series D, “Directive by the Führer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht,” March 1, 1940, doc. 644, pp. 831–33.
24. DGFP, Series D, “Conversation Between the Führer and Chancellor and American Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, in the Presence of the Foreign Minister, State Secretary Meissner, and American Charge d’Affaires Kirk,” March 2, 1940, doc. 649, pp. 838–45.
25. Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. 1, March 2, 1940. See also Welles’s subsequent account in Sumner Welles, Time for Decision (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1944), ch. 3, “My Mission to Europe: 1940.”
26. DGFP, Series D, vol. VIII, “Conversation Between Field Marshal Göring and Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles,” March 3, 1940, doc. 653, pp. 853–62.
27. FRUS, Welles Report on conversations with Göring, March 2, 1940.
28. Fred L. Israel, The War Diary of Breckinridge Long: Selections From the Years 1939–1944 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), p. 64. One scholar of the Welles mission concludes that FDR had multiple aims in mind beyond seeking a peace initiative, including gleaning information on Hitler’s and Mussolini’s views, prolonging the Phoney War, and continuing Italy’s neutrality. See C. J. Simon Rofe, Franklin Roosevelt’s Foreign Policy and the Welles Mission (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007).
29. OSS Study of Hitler, 1943, Hitler 201 File, RID/AR, WASH X-2 PERSONALITIES #43
30. DGFP, Series D, vol. XI, doc. 326, Berlin, November 16, 1940, p. 547.
31. DGFP, Series D, vol. XI, doc. 326, Berlin, November 16, 1940, p. 542. Record of the conversation on November 12, 1940. People present: Hitler, Molotov, von Ribbentrop, Dekanozov, Hilger, and M. Pavlov.
32. DGFP, Series D, vol. XI, doc. 328, Berlin, November 15, 1940. Record of the conversation on November 13, 1940. People present: Hitler, Molotov, von Ribbentrop, Dekanozov, Hilger, and M. Pavlov, p. 554.
33. DGFP, Series D, vol. XI, doc. 328, Berlin, November 15, 1940. Record of the conversation on November 13, 1940. People present: Hitler, Molotov, von Ribbentrop, Dekanozov, Hilger, and M. Pavlov, p. 557.
34. Montefiore, Stalin, p. 350. Montefiore has offered this quote from an unpublished collection of notes by Reginald Dekanozov, son of the Soviet Ambassador to Berlin and Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Dekanozov. I have therefore not corroborated the quote from Montefiore’s book with the original that he claims is found in the son’s notes.
Chapter 6
1. This chapter and the subsequent one previously appeared as an article in the Journal of Cold War Studies. I am grateful to the journal for its permission to reprint the work here.
2. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (The New Cold War History) (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).
3. “The Historic Talks: 35th Anniversary of the Paris Agreement, 1973–2008,” Diplomatic History Research Committee of the Foreign Ministry, ed. Vu Duong Huan [Vũ Du’o’ng Huân] (Hanoi, Vietnam: National Political Publishing House, 2009), p. 101.
4. This lament is made most famously by Robert McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1996), p. 32. McNamara wrote that neither he nor the Presidents he served nor their top advisors possessed any appreciation for or understanding of Indochina, “its history, language, culture, or values.”
5. The Van Kien Dang is a collection of Politburo and Central Committee directives, speeches, and cables, emanating from Hanoi and covering most of the post–World War II era. The collection is assessed in the Journal of Vietnamese Studies, vol. 5, no. 2 (2010).
6. From among the many official DRV histories, this article has been informed in part by the histories of the Foreign Ministry, the People’s Army, the People’s Navy, the Sapper Forces, the Central Office of South Vietnam, histories of combat operations, histories of the Tonkin Gulf incident, the memoirs of prominent military officers, records of the secret negotiations with the Johnson administration, and some Vietnamese newspapers.
7. Pierre Asselin has highlighted the Party Secretary’s importance in state building. See his article, “Le Duan, the American War, and the Creation of an Independent Vietnamese State,” The Journal of American—East Asian Relations, vol. 10, nos. 1–2 (2001). A 2007 biography of Le Duan, which is essentially a hagiography by the official state-run publishing house, covers his general background and impact on Vietnamese history. See Tong Bi Thu, Le Duan: Party General Secretary Le Duan (Hanoi, Vietnam: VNA Hanoi Publishing House, 2007).
Liên-Hang T. Nguyen’s Hanoi’s War spotlights intra-Party factionalism, emphasizing the roles of Le Duan and Le Duc Tho. Still largely absent from the literature is a focus
on the Party General Secretary’s ability to know his American enemy and its effect on the war.
8. Tuong Vu, “From Cheering to Volunteering: Vietnamese Communists and the Coming of the Cold War, 1940–1951,” in Connecting Histories: The Cold War and Decolonization in Asia (1945–1962), eds. Christopher Goscha and Christian Ostermann (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 172–204; and also “Dreams of Paradise: The Making of Soviet Outpost in Vietnam,” Ab Imperio: Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Space, no. 2 (2008), pp. 255–85.
9. Martin Grossheim, “‘Revisionism’ in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam: New Evidence from the East German Archives,” Cold War History, vol. 5, no. 4 (2005), pp. 451–77.
10. For an excellent analysis of just how dangerous Party rivalries could be, consider Le Duan’s maneuvers to sideline General VÕ Nguyên Giáp and force the Tê´t Offensive. See Merle L. Pribbenow, “General VÕ Nguyên Giáp and the Mysterious Evolution of the Plan for the 1968 Tê´t Offensive,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (2008), pp. 1–33.
11. Christopher E. Goscha, Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945–1954): An International and Interdisciplinary Approach (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies) (Copenhagen, Denmark: NIAS Press, 2011), p. 261.
12. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War.
13. Hanoi’s official commemorative biography of the Party First Secretary states that Le Duan was granted an exemption from the rule limiting Politburo members to one wife. In the arduous resistance war, Le Duan had close relationships with southern compatriots and comrades. In 1950 he was allowed by the Party organization to obtain a second marriage to Ms. Nguyen Thuy Nga. Tong Bi Thu, Le Duan: Party General Secretary Le Duan (VNA Hanoi Publishing House, 2007), p. 5.
14. “The Southern Wife of the Late Party General Secretary Le Duan,” Installment 3, Tien Phong, July 9, 2006., Accessed July 10, 2006, at http://www.tienphongonline.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=52871&ChannelID=13.
15. Carlyle Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Vietnam, 1954–1960 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989). See chapter titled “The 8th Plenum, August 1955.”
16. As translated by Robert Brigham and Le Phuong Anh, the relevant text reads: “Recently, in the U.S Presidential election, the present Republican administration, in order to buy the people’s esteem, put forward the slogan ‘Peace and Prosperity,’ which showed that even the people of an imperialist warlike country like the U.S. want peace.” Le Duan, “The Path of Revolution in the South,” 1956. Available at http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/southrevo.htm.
17. See Nhan Dan, no. 975 (November 5, 1956); “Some Observations Regarding the Recent General Election in the U.S.” no. 981 (November 11, 1956); “Is That Actually Democratic?” no. 993 (November 25, 1956); “Democracy and Dictatorship,” no. 1000 (November 30, 1956).
18. Historical Chronicle of the Cochin China Party Committee and the Central Office for South Vietnam, 1954–1975 (Hanoi, Vietnam: National Political Publishing House, 2002), pp. 119–20. This history discusses the significance of Le Duan’s thesis, placing it in the context of COSVN activities at the time.
19. History of the COSVN Military Command, 1961–1976, ed. Colonel Ho Son Dai (Hanoi, Vietnam: National Political Publishing House, 2004), p. 44.
20. Alec Holcombe, “The Complete Collection of Party Documents: Listening to the Party’s Official Internal Voice,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies vol. 5, no. 2 (2010), pp. 225–42.
21. Thayer, War by Other Means. See chapter titled “The Fatherland Front and Renewed Political Struggle, September 1955–April 1956.” For more on Moscow’s influence over Hanoi, see Ilya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
22. History of the COSVN Military Command, p. 42. “Faced with the duplicity and the brutal terrorist actions of the U.S. and their puppets, starting with 200 officers and men we had left behind to support the political struggle movement, the self–defense and armed propaganda forces of the B2 Front had expanded to form 37 armed propaganda platoons. However, these units only conducted limited operations because of the fear that they might be violating the Party’s policy at that time, which was to conduct political struggle only.”
23. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975, trans. Merle L. Pribbenow (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), p. 43.
24. For more on armed propaganda, see Greg Lockhart, Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People’s Army of Vietnam (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989).
25. For more on the construction of Le Duan’s police state, see Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, ch. 2.
26. See William J. Duiker in the Foreword to Victory in Vietnam, p. xiii.
27. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had closely followed General Thanh’s rise and analyzed his influence. It was well-aware of his closeness to Le Duan within the Politburo. Following the General’s death, the Agency assumed that his replacement would indicate whether Pham Van Dong and the moderates or Le Duan and the militants had greater power within the Party. See CIA Directorate of Intelligence, Intelligence Memorandum (July 11, 1967), No. 1365/67, “Problems Posed for North Vietnam by Death of Politburo Member Nguyen Chi Thanh.”
28. See Asselin, “Le Duan.”
29. Sophie Quinn-Judge, “The Ideological Debate in the DRV and the Significance of the Anti–Party Affair, 1967–1968,” Cold War History, vol. 5, no. 4 (2005), pp. 479–500.
30. Asselin, “Le Duan.” One of Le Duan’s close supporters has published a memoir, attempting to defend his former boss’s reputation. Tran Quynh served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1981 to 1987. See Tran Quynh, “Reminiscences of Le Duan.” Self-published recollections were available at http://d.violet.vn//uploads/resources/492/369514/preview.swf at the time of this manuscript’s submission.
31. See Tran Quynh, “Reminiscences of Le Duan.” The author served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1981 to February 16, 1987, and worked closely with Le Duan. Self-published recollections were available at http://d.violet.vn//uploads/resources/492/369514/preview.swf at the time of this manuscript’s submission.
32. For a helpful summary of communist states and the primacy of the Party, see Archie Brown, The Rise and Fall of Communism (New York: Ecco, 2009).
33. Liên-Hang T. Nguyen argues that in 1963 Le Duan abandoned a protracted war strategy in favor of “big war” involving conventional forces aimed at a rapid victory. My own view is slightly different. I note that Le Duan preferred “big war” but recognized the need for protracted war against America for a variety of both military and political reasons. Nguyen’s view is detailed in both Hanoi’s War, ch. 2, and “The War Politburo: North Vietnam’s Diplomatic and Political Road to the Têt Offensive,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies, vol. 1, nos. 1–2 (2006), pp. 4–58.
34. Letters to the South [Tho Vao Nam] (Hanoi, Vietnam : Su That Publishing House, 1985). Letter to Muoi Cuc (Nguyen Van Linh) and the Cochin China Party Committee [Xu Uy Nam Bo], April 20, 1961, p. 48. Because the English translation of Letters to the South does not contain all of the letters in the Vietnamese version, I have drawn on both editions. The letter referenced here, for example, is not found in the English edition.
35. Letters to the South. Letter to Muoi Cuc (Nguyen Van Linh) and the Cochin China Party Committee [Xu Uy Nam Bo], July 1962, p. 50. “Currently, even though there are some cities where the enemy is vulnerable, it is not yet the time to attack and occupy them. From an over-all strategic standpoint, such a victory would not yield positive results at this time, because it could incite the American imperialists to increase their intervention and to expand the war.”
36. Letters to the South, July 18, 1962, p. 65. A slightly different version of this letter is reprinted in Van Kien Dang.
37. Letters to the South, July 18, 1962. Le Duan wrote: “If we present limited demands that allow the enemy to see t
hat, even though they must lose, they can lose at a level which they can accept, a level that the enemy can see does not present a major threat to them, then they will be forced to accept defeat. We have put forward goals and requirements for the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam that we have calculated are at the level necessary for us to be able to win and for the enemy to be able to lose.”
38. For a thoughtful revision of Diem’s reputation, see Philip E. Catton, Diem’s Final Failure: Prelude to America’s War in Vietnam (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2002).
39. Van Kien Dang, 1963, p. 818.
40. Van Kien Dang, 1963, p. 815.
41. Le Duan, Letters to the South, May 1965. English edition.
42. For an interesting assessment of the hollowness of America’s “flexible response” approach see Marc Trachtenberg, The Cold War and After: History, Theory, and the Logic of International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), ch. 6, “The Structure of Great Power Politics.”
A Sense of the Enemy Page 28