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Education Reading Vietnam War

Kennedy’s planned withdrawal from Vietnam

The Pentagon Papers reveal President Kennedy’s planned withdrawal from Vietnam in August 1961.  The Papers [Part V. B-4] Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Kennedy Administration. Book II reveal (page 544) a clear frustration with South Vietnamese President Diem.

Pentagon PapersThe frustration with Diem appears to have actually reached a point of abandoning the US commitment. Diem’s totalitarian rule against all dissent, especially with the backdrop of the Buddhist crisis had driven a wedge between Washington and Saigon.

Diem and his brother Nhu (who ran the South Vietnamese secret police) used the crisis as a way to arrest all suspected threats to their rule.  Torture was widely used to force confessions.

This included arresting members of military who were just on the outside of Diem’s inner circle of generals. Subsequent files reveal the US had to interject to secure the release of some senior military advisors who were supporting Washington who were among those students arrested and tortured during the Buddhist crisis.

The President initiated a series of meeting which outcome reporting from Saigon showed a shift in US views towards fighting communism in Asia:7b. The second basic factor, as outlined by Hilsman, was what effect will be felt on our programs elsewhere in Asia if we acquiesce to a strong Nhu-dominated government. In this connection, he reported that there is a Korean study now under-way on just how much repression the United states will tolerate before pulling out her aid. Mr. McNamara stated that he had not seen this study and would be anxious to have it.

7c. The third basic factor is Mr. Nhu, his personality and his policy. Hilsman recalled that NQu has once already launched an ef~ort aimed at withdrawal of our province advisors and stated that he is sure he is in conversation with the French. He gave, as supporting evidence, the content of an intercepted message, which Mr. Bundy asked to see. Ambassador Nolting expressed the opinion that Diem will not make a deal with Ho Chi Minh on Ho’s terms.

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My Lai massacre 45th anniversary

Saturday marked the 45th anniversary of the My Lai massacre.  LIFE Magazine published online their original coverage of US soldiers murdering 350 old men, women and children in cold blood. This remains a truly horrific atrocity and deep scar on the US Army in Vietnam.

The surprise for many today was the ability of the military to kept this horrific event a secret for over a year.  Former Army photographer Ron Haeberle assigned to “Charlie” Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade sold photos he took with a non-US Army issued camera.  LIFE published the photos and the damage further changed the American view on the war in Vietnam.

Amazingly three US servicemen tried to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were initially denounced by several US Congressmen as traitors. They received hate mail and death threats and found mutilated animals on their doorsteps. The three were later widely praised and decorated by the Army for heroic actions.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Eisenhower and the French war in Vietnam

Eisenhower and the French war in Vietnam outlined in the Pentagon Papers is proving to teach us some very interesting lessons. The Pentagon Papers now confirm actions under Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower that span 1945 – 1955. Even before the end of World War II France was demanding the Allied nations, namely the US and Britain to re-colonize Indo-China which they lost to the army of Japan.

Pentagon PapersThe Pentagon Papers reaffirm the US under Eisenhower financed the French Indo-China war beginning in late 1946.

Truman and Eisenhower preferred to send tens of millions of dollars in military assistance to France. They both held a position that the US would not stand in the way of France’s re-colonization in South Vietnam, permitting the US to keep an arm’s length from a growing communist war supported by Soviet arms and Chinese military advisors. The cold war was indeed beginning to heat up Asia.

The surprise for me in reading the Eisenhower volumes is how a cold war against communism was shaping up in Thailand, rather than Vietnam. David Halberstam reminds us in his book “The Best and the Brightest” that it was Eisenhower’s advise to President-elect Kennedy that he would inherit a war requiring US troop involvement — in Laos, not in Vietnam. But well before Kennedy’s defeat of Nixon, back in 1954 the siege of Dien Bien Phu would change France and America for generations.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

US involvement: FDR, Truman & Eisenhower

They said when I was growing up that America’s involvement in Vietnam began in the 1960s with Presidents FDR, Truman & Eisenhower sending advisors to Vietnam to help a democratic South defeat an aggressive communist North. After Kennedy’s assassination the US was ultimately dragged into war following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964.

But the truth of America’s involvement is far more complex as Section V of the Pentagon Papers outlines below. US involvement dates back to FDR, Truman & Eisenhower.  Actually the book cover obviously states realtions began in 1945 – before the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan.

Pentagon PapersAmerican involvement and plans for a post World War II Asia extended back to the Presidency of FDR and then Harry Truman, noting negociations with the French regarding Indo-China before the end of World War II.

US involvement in Vietnam spans a full generation reaching back 30 years to an pre-war era of French Colonialism. I must admit: it is amazing to read communications between the OSS (precursor to the CIA) and the French Government discussing the role of a new French Indo-China following the coming Japanese defeat in World War II.  Plans for a post-war “French Union” in Indo-China were being negotiated by the French as victors in the war with American support for their aims set against a backdrop of an emerging cold war with the Soviet Union and communist China.  It would forever handicap our efforts fighting the Communist north.  The Pentagon Papers document efforts by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson in the following volumes:

[Part V. A.] Justification of the War. Public Statements.
Volume I: A–The Truman Administration
Volume I: B–The Eisenhower Administration
Volume I: C–The Kennedy Administration
Volume II: D–The Johnson Administration

[Part V. B. 1.] Justification of the War. Internal Documents.
The Roosevelt Administration
The Truman Administration. Volume I: 1945 – 1949
The Truman Administration. Volume II: 1950 -1952
The Eisenhower Administration. Volume I: 1953
The Eisenhower Administration. Volume II: 1954 – Geneva
The Eisenhower Administration. Volume III: Geneva Accords – 15 March 1956
The Eisenhower Administration. Volume IV: 1956 French Withdrawal – 1960
The Kennedy Administration. Book I
The Kennedy Administration. Book II

The papers clearly bring American interests at the end of World War II to light with France’s attempt to re-claim colonial territories lost to Japan during the war.

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Pentagon Papers statistics and graphs of the war

The Pentagon Papers statistics and graphs of the war: Volume IV-c(10) “Statistical Survey of the War, North and South: 1965 – 1967” provides 23 pages of statistics and graphs on the war in the following areas:Volume IV-c(10)Clearly the splash of today’s information graphics are failed in comparison.   I wonder what Edward Tufte would say about these graphs.