Category: Vietnam War

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: The Making of a Quagmire

Hindsight makes us brilliant.  David Halberstam brought his experiences writing in Saigon for the New York Times in late 1962 into this book “The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era” in which he won a pulitzer prize for international reporting from Vietnam in 1964.  In many ways its a perfect prequel to his wonderful book The Best and the Brightest.

There are terrible lessons from the long US involvement in Vietnam that echo today.  Its fair to say we Americans like to repeat history.  This book written almost thirty years ago yet tells much about our approach in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The quick lesson is that America regardless of party backed Ngo Dinh Diem from 1955 until plotting his assassination in 1963.  Diem was actually living in a catholic monastery in New Jersey for three years before returning to Vietnam to become South Vietnam’s first President.

Halberstam makes it clear early in the book that the war in Vietnam was lost during the Eisenhower Administration. The war against the North continued to fail throughout the coutnryside of South Vietnam during Kennedy’s short Presidency.

Halberstam shows how the war was not lost in Saigon or the Central Highlands. It was lost in the Mekong Delta between 1956-1959. But the US back Diem insisting on saving Vietnam from communism, tolerated a corrupt Diem family and fought a war for another 20 years before finally giving up.  Halberstam does not spare America its sinking America’s loss as a world power.  Again I find his writing to be powerful lessons for today.

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Pentagon Papers: Rolling Thunder a “colossal misjudgment”

Thats a pretty harsh analysis from Volume IV-7-c (page 56) of the Pentagon Papers. This volume may not have been previously declassified. This Volume displays a detailed analysis and background to the lack of effectiveness of Operation Rolling Thunder.

Pentagon PapersThis volume clearly shows critical errors in judgement by Curtis Lemay who in referring to our war in Vietnam famously stating: “we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.”

I have come to understand Rolling Thunder as an immense bombing campaign, dropping more bombs than on the entire pacific campaign during World War II.  And we bombed the hell out of Germany and Japan.

The analysts who wrote this volume have determined the ongoing Rolling Thunder operation was truly a waste of money and resources.  The most terrible cost was our American soliders who died executing this campaign.

While reading these pages I was somewhat surprised this report had not surfaced before last summer when the entire 47 volumes were released by the National Archives.

Clearly the North was a agrarian economy and US military intelligence could only identify a small number of valued bombing targets that were neither vast nor critical to the North Vietnamese.

Targets linked to their infrastructure was so limited that when the initial draft was presented to President Johnson, researchers had to go back and widen the scope.

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Pentagon Papers Part IV-C7a

Air War in the North: 1965 – 1968 Its interesting to read Pentagon Papers Volume IV-C7 to learn how global politics was playing out against China for a majority of the war. To be frank it’s all stated at the beginning of the volume on the US air war in the north:

1 Jul 65
Under Secretary of State George Ball memo to the President.
Ball argues for “cutting our losses” in Vietnam and negotiating an end to the war. A massive US intervention would likely require complete achievement of our objectives or humiliation, both at terrible costs.

Pentagon PapersBall was the Director of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey in London during the war which measured the impact of bombing Nazi Germany.  Before Johnson, Ball served President Kennedy and was the only one in the President’s inner circle who opposed escalating the war in Vietnam.

He told President Kennedy “within five years we’ll have 300,000 men in the paddies and jungles and never find them again.” In response to this prediction, “JFK is reported to have laughed and replied, “Well, George, you’re supposed to be one of the smartest guys in town, but you’re crazier than hell. That will never happen.” Further in this Volume George Ball wrote a telling statement before Kennedy’s assassination:

Politically, South Viet-Nam is a lost cause. The country is bled white from twenty years of war and the people are sick of it. The Viet Cong — as is shown by the Rand Corporation Motivation and Morale Study — are deeply committed. Hanoi has a Government and a purpose and a discipline. The “government” in Saigon is a travesty. In a very real sense, South Viet-Nam is a country with an army and no government. In my view, a deep commitment of United States forces in a land ‘war in South Viet-Nam would be a catastrophic error. If ever there was an occasion for a tactical withdrawal, this is it.

If only President Kennedy had listened to his advice. Maybe he did but did not live long enough to see it through.

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Pentagon Papers Part IV-C6c

Pentagon PapersVolume IV-C6c reveals a number of interesting items. The CIA’s contributions to prepping Westmoreland and a memorandum immediately following Tet had the following expanded topics of recommendation:

4. Drive on the Viet Cong Infrastructure
In our concern over the behavior of our allies, we must not neglect our enemies and the present opportunity to compound and exacerbate communist problems. Operation Phoenix which is targeted against the Viet Cong must be pursued more vigorously in closer liaison with the US. Vietnamese armed forces should be devoted to anti-infrastructure activities on a priority basis. The Tet offensive surfaced a good deal of the infrastructure and the opportunity to damage it has never been better. This would force the VC on the defensive and head off the establishment of local VC administrative organizations and VC attempts to set up provisional governmental committees.

7. The Prime Minister
We should solicit Ambassador Bunker’s views on the desirability of replacing the Prime Minister. If he is to be replaced we should agree on his successor beforehand, in consultation with Thieu and Ky.

The dreaded Phoenix Program.  For the first time Phoenix was mentioned in the Pentagon Papers.  CIA was always commenting on how effective this counter-terror program was in weakening the Viet Cong during an ‘unconventional war’ in the South following Tet.

For the first time in the Pentagon Papers this volume displays the full text of American journalists articles critical of the US command.  The first was written (Part IV-C6c – Page 65) by Neil Sheehan and Hedrick Smith:

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Pentagon Papers Part IV-C6c

I feel that the opening pages of Volume III: 1965–1967 US Ground Strategy and Force Deployments is a telling example of why we lost Vietnam.  One cannot help notice that we were way off the mark regarding the enemy in this volume.

Pentagon PapersWe relied upon technology to fight when behind the scenes we knew the political structure of the South Vietnamese government would never succeed, their desertion rate was rising and constant turnover of leaders weakened their moral. Yet we continued to support the South because of the risk (at the time) attributed to the domino effect regarding communism in Asia and the Cold War relationship with the Soviet Union:

The friendly picture gives rise to optimism for increased successes in 1968. In 1967, our logistics base and force structure permitted us to assume a fully offensive posture…A greatly improved intelligence system frequently enabled us to concentrate our superior military assets in preempting enemy military initiatives leading us to decisive accomplishments in conventional engagements. Materiel and tactical innovations have been further developed and employed: Long range reconnaissance patrols, aerial reconnaissance sensors, new observation aircraft, air-mobile operations and the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), to name a few.

The MRF has been significantly successful in depriving the enemy of freedom and initiative in the population and resources rich Delta areas. The helicopter has established itself as perhaps the single most important tool in our arsenal — and we will welcome more.

While the helicopter may have won the day in the Ia Drang Valley at LZ X-Ray bad command decisions to not to use helicopters led to an ambush for those remaining troops walking from LZ X-Ray to LZ Albany, about 4 kilometers to the north-northeast. I’m no longer convinced about the accuracy of the report are concerning Tet:

The enemy’s TET offensive, which began with the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon on 31 January 1968, although it had been predicted, took the U.S. command and the U.S. public by surprise, and its strength, length, and intensity prolonged this shock.

Predicted? The Pentagon Paper’s acknowledge the Tet offensive had been predicted.

Really?

Its safe to assume IV-C6c will reveal more problems with Clark Clifford as the newly installed Secretary of Defense.