|| INTRODUCTION ||
It is a tremendous achievement to make an entire nation believe
that a devastating error in history is being owned up to when in
actuality it is being rewritten with either precise
sophistication or complete ignorance. Robert McNamara, the
former Secretary of Defense of the United States during the
Vietnam War, refuses to give himself, Eisenhower, Kennedy,
Johnson, and Nixon the high praises they clearly deserve in his
book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. This
book is considered to be one of harshest publication ever to
come out against the Vietnam War. In it he argues that the war
was fought out of complete ignorance, not sophistication.
Regardless, it is a tremendous achievement that even in
admitting such a flaw – in turn, receiving praises and
criticisms due to the supposed harshness of it – he is actually
rewriting history in a fashion that goes far beyond anything
George Orwell ever envisioned. While Orwell spoke of
mind-control through a barrel of a gun, McNamara displays an
innovation unique only to democracies.
Robert McNamara puts forth four reasons as to why the United
States entered the war:
1. The Geneva Accords gave U.S. responsibility to protect
South Vietnam.
2. Fear of Communism (particularly, China).
3. The Domino Theory – which argues that the fall of Vietnam
would lead to other countries in Asia becoming Communist also –
as a reason for fighting the Vietnam War.
4. The war was fought out of complete ignorance. Simply, they
did not know better.
The fact that the latter arguments are widely accepted today as
something revolutionary is truly perplexing. In light of the
fact that all the pronounced official justifications are
outright absurd, this article will argue that the United States
got involved in Vietnam due to economic reasons and nothing
else.
|| THE DOMINO THEORY, GENEVA ACCORDS AND FEAR OF CHINESE
INTERVENTION ||
Historically, Robert McNamara believes that the United States
"assumed responsibility from France for protecting Vietnam south
of the partition line." In this statement, he is referring to
the 1954 Geneva accords. As normally purported, the U.S. sought
to defend South Vietnam from Communism. He argues that "At the
time, Communism still seemed on the march." [ Details edited out
to decrease length ] ... These developments appeared to
underscore the hostility of Communist policy. Therefore, losing
Vietnam will trigger the fall of the rest of Southeast Asia to
the Communist sphere of influence – otherwise known as the
Domino Theory.
Xiaoming Zhang, a military historian, gives support to this fear
of Communist hegemony. He argues that the U.S. was justified in
its fear because China expressed tremendous interest in the
conflict. What precluded full-scale war against North Vietnam
was the fear of a direct Chinese entry. [ Details edited out to
decrease length ] ... Since the deterioration of Sino-Vietnamese
relations, both Hanoi and China denies or downplays such a
wartime alliance between them. Thus, comprehension of the
Vietnam War and questions raised "concerning the wisdom of
American restraint in Washington’s conduct of the war" are often
distorted.
McNamara’s characterization of the Geneva Accords – in that they
assumed responsibility for the protection of South Vietnam
because of it – does not even merit refutation. McNamara and the
rest of the U.S. administration knew quite well what the Geneva
Accords amounted to. If they did not, they never would have
sought to undermine the accords since its beginning. The
National Liberation Front program of 1960 "reiterates the terms
of the 1954 Geneva settlement" in its call for an election of a
national assembly based on universal suffrage. A national
democratic coalition will head the government and will take
gradual steps in the peaceful unification of the country. As the
Pentagon Papers – internal government documents investigated and
published by the New York Times -- have shown, "the Eisenhower
Administration’s National Security Council decided that the
accords were a ‘disaster’ and approved actions to prevent
further Communist expansion in Vietnam." It concludes that the
National Security Council participated directly in the failure
of the Geneva settlement. It was the objective of the Council to
prevent political settlement because it knew that Communist
victory was imminent in an election. According to Fox
Butterfield, the Pentagon study "describes in detail how the
Eisenhower Administration sent a team of agents to carry out
clandestine warfare against North Vietnam from the minute the
Geneva conference closed." For example, the National Security
Council, in early August 1954, committed itself to supporting
Premier Diem already. McNamara further supports this by
mentioning in his book that the U.S. "pumped more than $7
billion in economic and military aid into South Vietnam from
1955 to 1961" in order to fulfill their responsibility.
Intervention was seen as necessary because without American help
it was believed that the French were likely to negotiate a
treaty that would allow them to escape an unpopular war – a
‘sellout’ in the words of the report. Secretary Dulles
"suggested that the United States ought to seek to delay the
elections and to require guarantees that the Communists could be
expected to reject." Without the support of the United States
Diem could not consolidate his rule on the South. The threat of
U.S. intervention gave South Vietnam the leverage it needed to
refuse "to even discuss the elections called for in 1956 under
the Geneva settlement without being immediately overrun by the
Vietminh armies." In sum, the government the United States
created in South Vietnam had very little legitimacy.
Particularly, it was created to undermine the Geneva Accords
because they were given no responsibility to protect South
Vietnam – legally or by popular support.
Keeping in mind the simple moral standard of applying to
yourself what you apply to others, rhetoric about the fear of
Communist hegemony is omnipresent in government documents. While
fear of a Chinese and USSR intervention was justified, North
Vietnam could hardly be blamed for seeking a military alliance
with another country – especially after U.S. efforts to
undermine the Geneva Accords were taken. Unless of course the
convenient path of ignoring their independence and status as a
country is taken then people like McNamara can use such a thing
as a justification for invasion – obviously, they do. Of course,
taking this path requires the United States to accept the logic
that China has every right to attack countries within the U.S.
sphere of influence or even the United States itself. If
anything, China has a more serious claim about fearing U.S.
hegemony just by the mere fact that Vietnam is in close
proximity with China. That being said, one can only imagine what
kind of reaction such an argument would incite in the United
States.
While many comprehension of the Vietnam War suffers from the
distortion that China only had a small involvement in the
conflict as Zhang argues, the intense bombing of the south in
the early 1960’s is still left without a reason. Surely one
cannot attribute the bombing due to fear of Communism without
first admitting that there was deep support for the
reunification of Vietnam in the South. If not, one must
attribute it instead to fear of North Vietnamese infiltration.
Regardless, while small-scale infiltration from North Vietnam
began in 1955 – later becoming large-scale in 1959 –
intelligence officers from the United States "learned that until
1964 almost all the infiltrators were native southerners who
went to the North in 1954." Therefore, it is ridiculous to use
Communist infiltration as an excuse for the bombing of South
Vietnam. Such information leaves one to conclude that the
bombings were aimed at the people the United States supposedly
protected because they feared their political allegiance.
|| U.S. IGNORANCE OF VIETNAM ||
- The Domino Theory -
McNamara also argues that when the U.S. government formulated
their Vietnam policy they "lacked experts" to consult with to
compensate for their ignorance. As a result, many "ill-founded
judgments were accepted without debate by the Kennedy
administration, as they had been by its Democratic and
Republican predecessors." They failed to analyze their
assumptions critically making the foundations of their
decision-making gravely flawed.
When speaking of the Domino Theory, McNamara argues that they
"received no thoughtful analysis of the problem and no pros and
cons regarding alternative ways to deal with it." They had to
prevent the fall of Southeast Asia at all cost because there was
no other alternative. Despite their ignorance of Vietnam in
their decision-making, the U.S. still created their policies
with "innocence" and good intentions during the early days of
the Kennedy administration. Although, McNamara does admit that
while their ignorance explains their behavior, it certainly does
not excuse it. His book is a testament to his unrelenting
attempt to admit the mistakes of his administration and his own
as well.
In particular, the fact that President Kennedy was shaken by the
assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem distresses the former Secretary
of Defense. It "shocks and saddens" McNamara even "today to
realize that action which eventually lead to the overthrow and
murder of Diem began while U.S. officials in both Washington and
Saigon remained deeply divided over the wisdom of his removal."
Most important, "no high-level approach to Diem – with
appropriate carrots and sticks – had been attempted to persuade
him to mend his ways." McNamara admits "that the problems
plaguing South Vietnam and its embattled leader, Ngo Dinh Diem,
were far more complicated than" they "had initially perceived"
when they thought he would be effective in garnering national
support.
Despite the admission of McNamara that ignorance permeated every
aspect of U.S. policy in Vietnam, it is ironic that his
admission in itself is even more ignorant. In fact, what he
admits to is both ridiculous and outright insane. Regardless of
what McNamara says about the lack of intelligence and thoughtful
analysis when it came to the policies during the war, there was
no shortage in neither of these things.
In regards to the Domino Theory, the blame for the lack of
alternative presented, first and foremost, must be laid on the
shoulders of those involved with policy-making. The Pentagon
study concludes that the assumption of this theory was never
seriously questioned during the Eisenhower years. Thus, "the
Government’s internal debate usually centered more on matters of
military feasibility than on questions of basic national
interests." The U.S. government did not seek to question the
theory because they saw it as imperative to prevent the
unification of Vietnam by any means. Therefore, in light of the
unrelated bombing of South Vietnam to the Domino Theory, it is
not difficult to see the latter as a mere tool to justify an
intervention that was already occurring. In sum, it was accepted
as it was because it fit the U.S. government’s purpose.
- Prospects of the Ngo Dinh Diem Regime -
In further explanation of widespread ignorance, McNamara claims
that before the coup they saw little prospect for any
improvement of the Diem regime. In light of that claim, one must
put into question how long ago they have arrived at this
conclusion. According to McNamara this was only recognized
shortly before the coup happened. In contrast, while Diem’s
assassination occurred during the late-1963, his shortcomings
were already well-known long ago. In fact, "both American
intelligence and Vietcong prisoners attributed the Vietcong’s
rapid success after 1959 to the Diem regime’s mistakes." He was
recognized by Washington as a "remote figure to most Vietnamese"
who is incapable of generating any widespread support from the
population. The Pentagon study reports that "instead of
redistributing land to the poor" Diem took back "what the
peasants had been given by the Vietminh and returning it to the
people." Due to this so-called land reform program, "75 percent
of the land was still owned by 15 percent of the people." Not to
mention the 50,000 to 100,000 people – many of which were not
Communists – and the brutal actions of Diem’s Self-Defense Corps
and Civil Guards.
- The Nationalist Nature of the Revolution -
In the official story, shortly after the realization that the
problems in South Vietnam was more complicated than originally
perceived, the U.S. government also realized the nationalist
nature – both in the North and South -- of the Communist
movement. According to McNamara, this is the epitome of the
ignorance he speaks of. This ignorance was present even until
the overthrow of the Diem regime. At his embarrassment, McNamara
attempted to promote General Khanh to his own people. Since they
"still did not recognize the North Vietnamese and Vietcong
struggle as nationalist in nature" they "never realized that
encouraging public identification between Khanh and America may
have only reinforced in the minds of many Vietnamese the view
that his government drew its support not from the people but
from the United States."
Scott Sigmund Gartner supports the assertion that the U.S. was
truly ignorant in dealing with the whole of Vietnam. He argues
that the "speed of the North Vietnamese conquest left little
doubt that the ARVN [Army of the Republic of Vietnam] and the
government of South Vietnam were weaker than had been previously
perceived." Furthermore, "manifestations of these weaknesses,
which challenged the earlier claims of effectiveness, are
evident in postwar evaluations of Vietnamization."
As the Pentagon study states, the goal of the U.S. was military
victory because they could not compete politically against the
nationalist nature of the movement. In fact, as the Pentagon
study concludes, "the war began largely as a rebellion in the
South against the increasingly oppressive and corrupt regime of
Ngo Dinh Diem." Douglas Pike, a U.S. government analyst, argued
that the NLF "were organizers much more than they were warriors"
in that they were the only movement with any real support and
influence in the rural areas. Therefore, the nationalist nature
of the movement, the weaknesses of the ARVN and the Diem regime
has always been evident, not just in hindsight.
- The Tonkin Gulf Incident -
Lastly, the Tonkin Gulf affair is regarded by McNamara as an
important event which ensured U.S. involvement in the Vietnam
War. President Johnson and McNamara "told the American public
there was an attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on
American destroyers." In August 1964, Johnson and McNamara
invoked the Tonkin Gulf Resolution "to justify the
constitutionality of the military actions it took in Vietnam
from 1965 on." Based on McNamara’s account, the North Vietnamese
shell fragment that was fired at Maddox was brought directly to
him at his request. He contends that "At the time of the
incident, the Maddox lay in international waters, more than
twenty-five miles off the North Vietnamese coast."
While McNamara claims that the attacks on the U.S. destroyer
Maddox was unprovoked, it was later revealed that this event was
faked. As Howard Zinn argues, "the CIA had engaged in a secret
operation attacking North Vietnamese coastal installations." In
fact, as the Pentagon papers discloses, six months before the
incident "the United States had been mounting clandestine
military attacks against North Vietnam while planning to obtain
a Congressional resolution that the Administration regarded as
equivalent of a declaration of war." As was later revealed, the
Maddox "was on a special electronic spying mission" on North
Vietnam’s territorial waters and, as McNamara later said, "no
torpedoes were fired" at it. As a result of the Tonkin
Resolution, President Johnson initiated hostilities against
another country "without the declaration of war by Congress that
the Constitution required."
|| REAL REASONS FOR THE VIETNAM WAR ||
Due to the fact that no possible explanation for U.S.
involvement in Vietnam is possible – fear of Communist, domino
theory, ignorance, and so forth – only economic reasons provide
a rational explanation to McNamara’s inanities. In the 1952
Policy Statement by U.S. on Goals in Southeast Asia it mentions:
"Southeast Asia, especially Malaya and Indonesia, is the
principal world source of natural rubber and tin, and a producer
of petroleum and other strategically important commodities. The
rice exports of Burma and Thailand are critically important to
Malaya, Ceylon and Hong Kong and are of considerable
significance to Japan and India … The loss of Southeast Asia …
could result in such economic and political pressures in Japan
as to make it extremely difficult to prevent Japan’s eventual
accommodation to communism."
The mention of Japan is a mere afterthought to the economic
importance of Southeast Asia to give a veil of good intentions.
U. Alexis Johnson, Kennedy’s Undersecretary of State, explained
to the Economic Club of Detroit in early 1963 that the "lush
climate, fertile soil, rich natural resources, a relatively
sparse population … and room to expand" in Southeast Asia are
the primary reasons for attracting interest from the great
powers. At the very same time, President Kennedy was speaking of
Communism and freedom with the American population.
|| CONSEQUENCES OF THE VIETNAM WAR ||
In addition to deaths of some seventy-five thousand during the
first Indochina war with the French, hundreds of thousands more
were added to the casualties after U.S. intervention. According
to Hanoi, "2 million civilians had been killed, the overwhelming
majority in the south, along with 1.1 million North Vietnamese
and southern resistance fighters" and over 300,000 were missing
in action. The southern regime also suffered 225,000 deaths in
its army as well. These numbers do not include the 58,000 killed
and 2,000 missing in action’s from the United States, "5,000
killed from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand" and
so forth. Operation Phoenix, a CIA program, "secretly, without
trial, executed at least twenty thousand civilians in South
Vietnam who were suspected of being members of the Communist
underground." Overall, over "7 million tons of bombs" was
dropped on Vietnam which was twice the amount "dropped on Europe
and Asia in World War II." Lastly, Cambodia and Laos also
suffered from the Vietnam War. According to a CIA estimate,
600,000 in Cambodia were killed in addition to the tens –
perhaps hundreds -- of thousands killed in Laos "mainly by U.S.
attacks that were in large part unrelated to the war in Vietnam"
which Washington conceded to.
The legacy of the war continues to kill even until today.
According to a British Mines Advisory Group, a huge number of
anti-personnel fragmentation bombs "remain active and explode
when disturbed" in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The chemical
warfare that John F. Kennedy began to undertake also continues
to take its toll on the Vietnamese people and many U.S. Vietnam
veterans. Poisonous chemicals like Agent Orange were dropped on
"an area the size of the state of Massachusetts." According to
recent research, "A substantial leak of over 5000 gallons of
Agent Orange occurred underground at the Bien Hoa air base."
According to this research, "Markedly elevated TCDD levels were
found during the 1970s in some Vietnamese nursing mothers’ milk
and also fish from areas heavily sprayed with Agent Orange."
Chemicals within Agent Orange "can cause an increased risk of
cancer, immune deficiencies, reproductive and developmental
changes, nervous system damage, liver injury, elevated blood
lipids, skin damage, and death." The study concludes that,
despite the fact that "the spraying ended over 3 decades ago, in
certain areas of Vietnam food is clearly a present-day route of
intake of dioxin from Agent Orange, as it might have been since
the spraying began in 1962."
|| CONCLUSION ||
U.S. involvement in Vietnam was not the result of fear of
Communism, the Domino Theory, ignorance, or any other pointless
reason that McNamara and many speak of. While it is true that
fear among the U.S. officials were present, it is fear of a
different kind. Instead, the fear he speaks of are political and
psychological in that free and independent people in the world
are taking control of their own lives – an outrage according to
U.S. doctrine. It is impossible to blame ignorance because of
poor intelligence and analysis because the information was
within government reach – especially McNamara’s. It hard to
fathom how the comedic value of his book can be ignored amidst
all the praises it continually receives.
