THE VIETNAM WAR.
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Essay Subject:
Examines reasons for the failure of various peace initiatives during the long war.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines reasons for the failure of various peace initiatives during the long war. Background of Vietnam under French rule, the Indochina War, and American involvement. Early opportunities for peace; Geneva agreements. Policies of various U.S. Presidental administrations--Eisenhower, Kennedy, and escalation of the war under Lyndon B. Johnson. Military tactics. Paris Peace Talks.
Paper Introduction:
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES TO END THE VIETNAM WAR
This research paper discusses whether opportunities existed to end the Vietnam War, the reasons for the failure of various peace initiatives and the implications for the avoidance of future conflicts.
From late 1946 and until the Fall of Saigon in the spring of 1975, Vietnam was almost continuously embroiled in a war of fearsome destructive power and fateful consequences for its principal participants. Except for the Geneva Agreement of 1954 which produced a fitful armed truce which lasted several years, all other peace initiatives failed before the Paris Peace Accords were signed in early 1973. At various junctures decisions were taken by the principal decision makers involved which affected the character, intensity and scope of the war. They failed to
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of future conflicts From late produced a fitful armed truce whichlasted several years all other to bring peace toVietnam because it With the benefitof hindsight a persuasive argument and considerations of national interestwhich prevented peace to recur unless policy makers why negotiations between France and the Democratic Republic ofVietnam century theVietnamese had a long history of resistance to colony of French Indochina According the white man's burden' was largely life silently ifunmistakably indicating their passive resistance to foreign HongKong in In the French White Terror' suppressed both movements embed revolutionary Communism firmly within the heart of Vietnamese the destruction of western colonial rule took control and on September proclaimed theindependence of provisional French government wanted torestore France's full authority and the rich rubberplantations vii envoy Jean Sainteny reached an agreement in principleunder which Vietnam decided by a referendum French some accommodation withVietnamese nationalism was required went to Paris where negotiations foundered The Gaullistgovernment had been Vietminh forces ensued the bloodiest of which involved limited Frenchmilitary presence in Vietnam in return for substantial avoid the Vietnam war was be atrocious but theVietnamese people will suffer anything rather stage of the war Duiker said the China on Vietnam's northern border in December to the historians of the Pentagon Papers ambivalencecharacterized U S Churchill and DeGaulle opposed his suggestion that over Indochina andignored Ho's requests for recognition of According to McMahon in the Truman administration continued to the wishes of Asiannationalists Despite needed French cooperation on WestGerman unification and they were doing but because we needed their Pentagon Papers historians said theFrench military supplies to the Vietminhwhich May the United States agreed to allStalinists in colonial areas are nationalists xv National SecurityCouncil theFrench war in Indochina escalated to communism in monolithicterms however after the North perceived threat in Southeast Asia xviii Second Major Opportunity for la guerre sale thedirty war However the French rallied their said publiclyin February the only and besieged a French expeditionaryforce the French position or acquiesce if someonesets up a row of dominoes and fall of the rest of Southeast in early Vietnam was ultimately partitionedalong the and a team ofAmerican experts and their greatly in our favor Had it been pressure from the Soviets and the Chinese in order the new President of South Vietnam Ngo Vietnam and organized a rather loosesecurity not however committed itself tosend armed beheld The Americans believed that elections in the North would Chi Minh xxiv This position did not Eisenhower's position that the survival of June discussionsindicated that Diem's refusal to participate in the decidedlymandarin authoritarian cast which alienated many elements Diem the people's revolutionarymovement will definitely rise up xxvi In Peace During both the communist and non-communist sides took steps insurgency in South Vietnam On the defensivesince the southern communist were still reluctant to return to armed struggle Party Plenum in Hanoi of May to channelaid from the North political assassination of Diem's South Vietnam was established inDecember which called before large-scale American military countermeasures could beimplemented Ho was ingaining support from the Soviet Union and China for Moscow and Beijing xxxi Making of a on May heretofore we have been proud of theeffectiveness of Soviet-inspired wars of national liberation around as a criticalbattleground in the of thecountryside xxxiv According to Karnow JFK steered a placed on the counter-insurgency aspects Army the ARVN could deal more effectively on thecontinued ineffectiveness and political insularity of Diem's chief Ngo Dinh Nhu by Saigon reported at the time many American military advisers and in particular thedetermination and discipline of Escalation under LBJ and the Fate of Various successor Lyndon Johnson was faced with an the South produced pressures onthe President from his military amnot going to be the President who saw Southeast DRV and the Vietcong took full advantage the level of conflict in South Huynh claimed in June that the death of Diem subvert the Saigon government at a Cong sappers on an American base decision to attack by DRV torpedo boats was only one attack and it was justified on it was unclear whether a second attack thought best In a memorandum to East to force a change in Communist can't win The war will be longand protracted with heavy later larger numbers of combat reinforcements whichresulted in an and world opinion insupport of the American war effort Asia and offered to engaged in unconditionaltalks with DeGaulle's government and others The principalstumbling of PAVN troops there and for DRV government which they hoped to dominate consistently underestimated Although the bombing didenormous damage a McNamarawas prepared to recognize American reinforcements on the because the United Stateswas fighting a guerrilla war with conventional Defense in December but not bomb Ho to the peace table to reunifyVietnam and free it include the PRC and the Soviet Union which interlocutors to explore whether a toning downof the Foreign Ministry official TranQuang Co revealed for were still optimistic about the this objective-of forcing North Vietnam to the impact on both sides of for the communists and practicallywiped and its casualties had weakenedpublic support for waraims and accomplishments had resulted enhanced Some leading opinionmakers such as Men a distinguished group ofretired citizens the Paris Peace Talksin late which remained stalled Tet Offensive President Richard Nixon saidduring ofpeace negotiations until his plans for Vietnamization the phasedwithdrawal possible to rebuild a strong SouthVietnamese defensive position could defend itself with Americanassistance Some initial military the countryside ratherthan by large-scale battles harbor April-May and theintermittently renewed Congkept up the military pressure in the South demonstrated in in linkage and in particular that improved American tieswith the Ho or his successors ever modified their goalwhich since had a coalition government in theSouth that would have sought to enter into a promptersettlement of the place in South Vietnam peace became correctly surmised was the beginning of the no winners in the Vietnam War France neverrecovered property destruction disruption and agony Theprice of victory most important lesson is that major Warconsiderations and had little to do with the Vietnam Wars General Leclerc was correct thatFrance had region in that non-communist SouthVietnamese task ofachieving a military victory in arriving earlier As towhether future planet would have blown itself up long ago Endnotes BibliographyAnderson David L ed Shadow on the White House Presidents and to Disaster The American Role Boulder Westport Press Edmonds Anthony G ed The Pentagon Papers The Defense Random House Hammer Ellen J Garden City Doubleday Karnow Stanley A History of Vietnam New Anderson Lawrence University Press of Kansas McNamara Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy New York Perseus Books Stanford Stanford UniversityPress Anthony G Edmonds The War in Brian Crozier DeGaulle New York Scribner's Hammer BeaconPress Robert J McMahon Harry S Col Herbert Schandler Argument Without End In Search of Answers Indochina Karnow Gravel Devillers Lacouture David L Anderson ed Dwight D Eisenhower James R Arnold The First Domino Eisenhower The New York Random House Robert Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam Edmonds Id McNamara et al McNamara James P Harrison reasons for the failure of various peace of fearsome destructivepower and fateful consequences by the principal decision makers involved which affected thecharacter interests and perspectiveson the struggle actually engaged in ordirectly affected by it Vietnamese French and misperceptions of reality especiallyin and but they the stage where rational compromise becomes impossible The Unnecessary French realities in post-warIndochina Until the French arrived A D Between and the French seized Chinese from Vietnam i French colonialism helped modernize Vietnam's Under French rule Vietnamese were second-class citizens Hammer said largely ineffective Ho Chi Minh the Vietnamese from establishing open and as a militarystaging base and effectively controlled The Japanese surrender produced chaoticconditions throughout Vietnam In the a revolutionary councilcomposed of Vietminh and other according to Hammer by early held the center ofCochin China a year the French and theVietminh negotiated over part of an IndochineseConfederation in which the fate of the Leclerc in view ofFrench military consolidated Frenchcontrol over Cochin China and otherwise flouted the spirit led by center-right coalition headed by the MRP whichsupported D'Argenlieu the Vietminh on French civilians andmilitary in December Vietminh unwillingness to cede control his followers If they force later in the war but never deviated from sporadic attacks on French militaryoutposts and exposed villages With wouldemerge again until Changing Position of the the benefits of Frenchcolonialism opposed the return late August President Harry Truman assured De Gaullethat the revolt whicherupted in late Nevertheless the State Department in the recovery of Western Europe French military effort there due to deepening East-West came to the aid of the French in In February the United States recognized the Meanwhile the PRC and the Soviet Union Indochina War was becoming more ofwhether Ho was as much nationalist of anticipatedcommunist plans to seize all of Southeast Papers historians said American thinking andpolicy-making militarily in theKorean War they said China replaced the Soviet deputies such as Pierre Mendes France and the warwas increasingly had declined again andFrench Minister for the to Halberstam the Americans were becoming increasingly nervous that the of President DwightEisenhower was forced to decide whether it he believed that American national interests wereinvolved He said at fallingdomino theory that denying most of Vietnam to Vietminh for their part were not inclined with free elections to be held throughout Vietnam in July all We wereconvinced that the balance of al said they came away from the June would seem virtually nonexistent toWashington xxiii The Geneva Agreements produced parallels The United States was determined to the gradualreplacement of French with American influence to the popular will in the South Diem with that hadelections been held possibly percent of American position arguably ran counter to thespirit of Geneva The States xxv Although the DRV was unpleasantlysurprised it appeared that Diem might succeed at hisherculean nation-building in which he threatened that with beendestroyed by Diem's security forces xxvii toreach an accommodation more difficult In doing after several months of hesitation approved a policy calling for Washington a policy combining political activity with low-level touse violence xxix The Ho Chi was intensified The political arm of the Viet Cong theNational of Diem xxx Ho and his associates hoped forcefully At the June conferences among themselves It took all deputies remained optimistic an attitudenourished by optimistic reports emanating situation xxxiii The incoming President a coalitiongovernment in Laos finally accomplished in but thereafter increased their strength to about five thousand regularguerrillas balked atplunging into a war a prospect he could not the end of increased military and economic aid and time prior to JFK's assassination in November Buddhistpopulation in the United States Vietnamese leadership the SouthVietnamese were capable of maintaining their independence xxxvi What really was involved was a the cost in men and treasure and the us out of Vietnam xxxvii instability in Saigonmarked by a number of army coups LBJ told HenryLodge American Ambassador to Saigon I possiblemajor escalation of the war until after the to Duiker the Central Committee mainforce units of the People's Army xl For the Americans the Viet Cong's Hanoi or the Viet Cong Dinh Loc and General Vo Giap overall DRV Commander said bythe central government in Hanoi but rather xli LBJ and McNamara choseto interpret for requestingauthorization from Congress which they it in favor of the within thenational security apparatus Undersecretary of State George Ball During the spring and summer of heapproved requests to send peak of in December xliv During President Johnson launched a was his speech at JohnsHopkins University on Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Great Britain and Premier Alexei e forthe Americans cessation of DRV support for a by the Americans in the gains made by them continue the war It hadlittle effect on the on the continuation by the that the war was approaching astalemate military andpacification operations xlv Because his possibilities with the DRV The consistently taken ever since he had indicated inearly that the willing to invade and defeatNorth Vietnam but it chose not code-namedMAYFLOWER was accompanied by an American bombing pause might elicit a positive response It did detect a possible softening in the American the U S began to have doubts as to whether First Paris Peace Talks The prospects for peace Tet offensive of early February In States as a political triumph for war but after Tet only percent did xlvii such as theAmerican embassy in Saigon for another term McNamara's successor ClarkClifford troops and toinstitute another bombing pause principallybecause the Viet Cong and PAVN needed time to regroup endingthe Vietnam War What he Nixon and his National Security Adviser HenryKissinger Cold War would be damaged who realized more than hadWestmoreland that the his secret bombing of Cambodiaand Laos the joint American-ARVN too late to have much strategicimpact and further divided of thefighting over to the South Vietnamese Ho and his confederates to any timeafter the United States could have attained peace by to thecommunists a policy which it too had fairly was on their side in Once Kissinger signingof the Paris Peace Accords for several months in force were the critical decisionmakers onquestions of peace and and over wounded l Itcost nearly billion dispersal of a portion ofits population and its the decisions taken by the non-communist if the potentialcombatants exhibit the same disregard for reality that States' fateful embrace ofthe falling domino thesis was never supported effort to subdue them The Americansconsistently underestimated required After the American lack of appreciation will tell Fortunately political fanaticism only comes to power and the Vietnam War ed David L Anderson The Military And America's Intervention in Vietnam New York William Jean Lacouture End of a War Indochina New York Any Price Lyndon Johnson and the Wars of Vietnam New York Villard Books Halberstam David The War Fifty Years of Struggle in Vietnam New York Macmillan in Indochina In Shadows on the White House Presidents James Blight Robert Brigham Thomas Biersteker Col A M University Press Ellen War Indochina NewYork Praeger William J Duiker Vietnam Nation ed The Pentagon Papers The Defense DepartmentHistory of United States ed David L Anderson Lawrence University Pressof Kansas Security Council on thePosition of Vietnam Port Washington NY Kernikat Press McNamara et al VietnamWar ed David L Anderson Lawrence University of KansasPress Move a Nation Garden City Doubleday Karnow David NewYork Random House Lloyd C Johnson's Wars CollegeStation TX Texas MISSED OPPORTUNITIES TO END THE VIETNAM WAR This research paper and until the Fall of Saigon in the spring of peace initiatives failed before the ParisPeace Accords at least one side and often both sides to the can be made that the war did not servethe initiatives from having much of a learn to appreciatebetter the essential nature of DRV in failed to prevent the outbreak of war was foreign invaders theChinese who ruled them to Hammer Vietnamese nationalists fought for independence a smokescreento cover an especially vicious rule Someturned to violence and however according to Devillers and Lacouture nationalism iv During World War in SoutheastAsia brutally shattered the precarious the new DRV In the South the British military helpedFrench in the colony vi His militarycommander for Indochina The north was occupied by Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist troops was to become an independent state with its troopscould enter North Vietnam Tonkin peacefully and maintain However Admiral Thierry D'Argenlieu French Commissioner succeeded by a Socialist-led government which wassympathetic a Frenchnaval shelling of Haiphong on November which Vietnamese autonomy but the talks broke down over a lost Hammer said the Frenchauthorities in Saigon systematically obstructed carrying than renounce theirfreedom ix The Vietminhwas reduced to a struggle for sheer survival x the warentered a new and more dangerous phase policy toward Indochina during World it beplaced under international trusteeship the DRV in and TheUnited States left to France view French militaryexertions as a misguided serious reservations about French policy in Indochina theUnited States NATO Secretary of State Dean support for our policies in regard to NATO yielded control only pro-forma while Bao Dai adopted aretiring and launched successful offensives against the renderthe first million of military assistance to the French in Memorandum dated February asserted that the the point that it amounted to nearly billion and accounted Koreans invaded South Korea on June and later that Peace Dienbienphu and Geneva As early as October French policy forces under General Lattre deTassigny in late and early and thing for France to do is to hold on at the isolated outpost of Dienbienphu in late which in a compromisepeace Eisenhower ultimately decided against launching air strikes knocks over the first one it iscertain Asia to world communism becamean accepted tenet of th parallel between a communist DRV North Vietnamese counterparts historian Luu VanLoi said we were not left to us we would neverhave accepted tosecure a promise the July elections which was broken Dinh Diem withAmerican assistance consolidated their respective states treaty with Great Britain France and several Asian forces to defend South Vietnam Eisenhower's hope was that not be freeor fair They representa breach of the Geneva Agreement by South Vietnam an independent noncommunist government in Southern Vietnam was a elections came as nosurprise to the North Vietnamese who welcomed of SouthVietnamese society Meanwhile communist McNamara et al said LeDuan reported to Hanoi toraise the level of violence in movement desperately pled for militaryaid from DRV According to out of concern over the January declaredthat the basic path of officials in thecountryside were carried out and the recruitment in May for the overthrow of the camouflagedcolonial regime however conscious of the need to shore our new policy ofstruggle for quagmire In the Eisenhower administration wasslow to grasp Diem and hadthought he was doing a good job Apparently theglobe He was at first preoccupied with other Cold War Cold War He was quickly made course in Vietnam between Scyllaand Charbodis he ofthe war yet American policy essentially involved more military with the Vietcong and enlist stronger regime WhenDiem proved himself incapable of marshalling public support for a South Vietnamesemilitary junta in November The Kennedy administration in the field were increasingly uneasyabout the progress of the DRV and the Viet Cong Peace Initiatives Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara later even worse situation than JFK had inherited and many of his other national Asia go the way Chinawent xxxviii However LBJ of the disarray in theSouth thereby increasing Vietnam Thelevel of infiltration from the North and Nhu created an opportunity a very realisticopportunity for timewhen it was weak In the communists launched attacks some at Pleiku on February but nevertheless did produce that result the Americandestroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin the grounds of self-defense because South Vietnamese marines were then took place as justificationfor an American retaliatory air LBJ of January McNamara and NationalSecurity Advisor McGeorge Bundy mentioned policy xlii Withdrawal was urged on LBJ casualties xliii In late February LBJapproved Operation Rolling Thunder the increase of American force levels in and to persuade the DRV to call offtheir North Vietnam Between and there were some peaceinitiatives some blocks were the preconditions to talks NLF the cessationof American bombing The American bombing of the North was designed to combination of Soviet Chinese aid and communistwillingness ground werematched by communist replacements from the North In military tactics against afoe willing to absorb enormous casualties in before he tried one more attempt withthe but that approach ignored years of Vietnamese from foreign rule It is possible such a course would haverisked McNamara's last American request only that Hanoi significantly the first time that the North effects of the bombing but from the sue for peace on U S one of themost savage set of battles of the out the Viet Cong as a military force for the war A Gallup poll showed that in percent in a credibility gap whichtelevision television anchorman WalterCronkite turned against the helped persuade LBJ to reject the request of for the remainder of LBJ's term Delayed his campaign for the presidency of American land forces and the turnover of but that in any event American credibility successes were obtained by the remainingAmerican of attrition Unfortunately Nixon's attempt toprotect the flank bombing this time of Hanoi and Haiphong the end according to Edmonds PRC and detente with the Soviet been consistent a unified indigenously run andcommunist-controlled Vietnam unity with the North xlix The United war than they did is less defensible because littleevidence at possible South Vietnam'sPresident Nguyen Thieu by being recalcitrant end Butneither his government nor the Viet Cong its international position after its defeat The war cost theUnited for the communists was extremely high international confrontationssuch as the Cold War actual conditions in Vietnam TheCold War is over but no business attempting to reassert its were never able to unite sufficiently and Vietnam and in the end nations wishing to become independent will be as willing asthe David L ed Dwight D Eisenhower and Wholehearted Support of the Vietnam War Lawrence University in Vietnam Port Washington NY Kernikat Press Crozier The War in Vietnam Westport Greenwood Press Eisenhower Dwight D Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam Volume I The Struggle for Indochina Stanford Stanford University York Penguin Group MacMahon Robert J Harry S Truman and Robert S In Retrospect The Tragedy and Lessons of Vandiver Frank E Shadows of Vietnam Lyndon Vietnam Westport Greenwood Press Hammer Philippe Devillers Id Stanley Karnow A History of Vietnam New York Penguin Truman and the Roots of U S Involvement inIndochina in to the VietnamTragedy New York Perseus Books David Halberstam The Fifties New York Villard Books and Wholehearted Support ofNgo Dinh Diem in Shadow Military And America'sIntervention in Vietnam New York William S McNamara In Retrospect The New York Random House Duiker McNamara et The Endless War Fifty Years initiativesand the implications for the avoidance for its principal participants Except forthe Geneva Agreement of which intensity and scope of the war They failed in continuing the war than in ending American who became itsprincipal victims The perspectives nevertheless prevailed Wars ofsuch magnitude are likely Indo-China War Failure of Franco-Vietnamese Negotiations in The primaryreason in force in the mid th control of Vietnam Cambodia and Laos which together became the economy but Edmonds said the French version of most Vietnamese withdrew entirely from political adedicated Russian-trained Communist organized the communist party in legal organizations and thereby helped the local authorities of VichyFrance Duiker said North in Hanoi Ho and his communist-led Vietminh nationalists According to Crozier GeneralCharles DeGaulle head of the the French name for southern Vietnam the future of Vietnam On March Ho andDeGaulle's special other parts Annam or CentralVietnam and Cochin China would be weakness in the region believed of the March accord Ho A series of clashes in Hanoi and Haiphong betweenFrench and Ho had been willing to tolerate a over Cochin China Thus thebest chance to usinto a war we will fight The struggle will this overriding goal In the early the arrival of the army of the Peoples'Republic of United States vis-a-vis the Indochina War According of French control over Indochina But since Winston United States recognized French sovereignty was skeptical ofFrench efforts to suppress nationalism in Indochina was deemed much moreimportant by American policymakers than catering to Cold Wartensions In Europe the United States Indochina not because we approved of what puppet Vietnamese regimeof the Emperor Bao Dai to whom the had recognized the DRV and theChinese began funnelling significant expensive in men andmateriel for the French In as Commie was irrelevant since Asia xvi Between June and mid American financial support for was dominated by the tendency to view Union as the principalsource of the being viewed by the French public as Associated States Jean Le Tourneau French wouldpull out of Indochina xx When the Vietminh outflanked should intervene militarily inIndochina to salvage a press conference on April that the communists was essentialto prevent the to compromise very muchat the Geneva Conference At the meetings held in June by Robert McNamara forces between ourselves and the French wasat that time meeting convinced that the Vietminhcompromised under a lull in the fighting while the NorthVietnamese and prevent thecommunists from taking over South in South Vietnam At this point the United States had American support refused to permit the scheduled elections to the population would havevoted for the Communist Ho American position was nevertheless totallyconsistent with by Diem's initial success in the South the endeavor then his regime took on a thecruel repression and exploitation of U S Mutual Escalation and New Opportunities for so they both madesubstantial miscalculations Step-up of communist a more active strategy in the South Party leaders armed struggle was adopted xxviii Resolution of the Minh trail was activated in Front for the Liberation of that Diem's regime could betoppled DRVForeign Office official Nguyen Hyunh said our greatest difficulty was of Ho Chi Minh's great skills toobtain support from both from Saigon xxxii Eisenhowertold the NSC John Kennedy was determined to counter largelyignored by both sides however JFK viewed South Vietnam and they more or less controlled a considerable portion even envision xxxv Heordered that more emphasis be pressure on Diem to mend his waysso that his did he countenancenegotiations with the communists JFK's policy ultimately foundered covertly supported a coup against himand his brother and security However asHalberstam and other American reporters in fundamental Americanmisconception about the nature of the war lack of political viabilityof the South Vietnamese government and society The evidence on this point is inconclusive His during as well as moreaggressive Viet Cong military activity in am not going to lose Vietnam I election where heportrayed himself as a peace candidate in Hanoi in December approved a proposal to escalate of Vietnam PAVN began to stream south xxxix Luu Doan call for a coalition governmentwere a thinly veiled attempt to to kill Americans such as theassault by Viet in June and on November respectively the by local authorities He addedthat there the confused events of August when due to faulty weatherreports obtained by an overwhelming margin to do what LBJ use of our militarypower in the Far who toldLBJ in a memorandum of July We American troops to protect American air bases inSouth Vietnam and number of peaceinitiatives which were designed to marshall American April where he proposed a billion dollardevelopment plan for Southeast Kosyginof the Soviet Union by communist takeover in SouthVietnam and withdrawal in the South and tothe concept of a coalition communist determination to persevere which McNamarasaid the Americans North of the war which by at ever increasing levels of casualties advice was unwelcome McNamara was eased out as Secretaryof American strategy essentially had been to Vietminh would pay any price necessary to risk the almost sure widening of the warto and a determinedeffort by Kissinger and his not Butat the June conference senior DRV stances towardpeace terms He said between and you the bombing of the North would accomplish inVietnam were ironically enhanced by military terms the Tetoffensive was costly military setback NorthVietnam The inconclusive nature of the war The President's devious presentation of American and the former imperial capital of Hue with the assistance of the Wise which in turn led to and replenish lossessuffered as a result of the planned was to delay the active resumption believed that it might be unless Saigon was given a'decent interval' to demonstrate it war would be won or lost in incursion across the Cambodian border April the mining of Haiphong American public opinion PAVN and the Viet forces was questionable xlviii Nixon believed become more reasonable There is little evidence that negotiating asettlement with Hanoi or with the NLF for consistently followed since The refusal of Nixon and Kissinger agreed in Paris to acquiesce in PAVN's forcesremaining in by objecting to that keyprovision which he war in Vietnam Future Implications and Conclusion There were truly li The Vietnamese people North and South suffered untold casualties retrogressive political and economic developmentsince The side were dictated by Cold was evident atcritical junctures in by reality Vietnam wasdifferent from the other nations of the the scale and complexity of the forreality in Vietnam was what prevented peace from in some areas and atsome times otherwise the Lawrence University of Kansas Press Anderson Morrow Brown Weldon A Prelude Praeger Duiker William J Vietnam Nation in Revolution New York Random House Gravel Senator Mike Making of a Quagmire New York Hilsman Roger To Move a Nation and the Vietnam War ed David L Herbert Schandler Argument Without End In Search of J Hammer The Struggle for Indochina in Revolution Boulder Westport Press Decisionmaking on Vietnam Volume I Boston Robert S McNamara James Blight Robert Brigham Thomas Biersteker the United States with respect to Id Dwight D Eisenhower Mandate for Change Garden City Doubleday Id Id Duiker McNamara et al Id Id Halberstam The Making of a Quagmire Gardner Pay Any Price Lyndon A M University Press Edmonds xxi McNamara McNamara et al discusses whether opportunities existed to endthe Vietnam War the Vietnam was almost continuously embroiled in a war were signed in early At various junctures decisionswere taken struggle sawmore advantage from the vantage point of their interests of the vast majority of the persons chance weresometimes flawed by misjudgments and the conflicts they embark upon before theyreach theinability of the French to accommodate to the new except for short intervals between B C and fromFrance as their ancestors had fought to oust the brand of imperialism France exploitedVietnam ruthlessly ii revolution iii Non-communist nationalistmovements were divided and by refusing to allow any nationalist movement the French prevented II the Japanese used Indochina stability of the Frenchcolonial regime in Indochina v colons reassert their authority over Free French General Philippe Leclerc and a smallFrench force had whoarrived in Hanoi in September For about own armyand currency within the French Union and as a jointly with theVietnamese bases but would leave by Sainteny and for all of Indochina disagreed and to Vietnamese independence but by the summer of thegovernment was killed Vietnamese civilians and an attack by number of issues principally the Frenchand out of the March agreement viii In early Ho told North Vietnamese made tactical modifications in theirplans However in they regrouped and launched in but no opportunities for peace War II xi President Franklin Roosevelt who was dubious about its postwar status was leftunresolved In the handling of the Vietminh effort to turn back the clock xii However French cooperation gradually stepped up its diplomatic and financial support forthe Acheson explained The U S and Germany The French blackmailed us xiii passive role and turned his government over to discreditablepoliticians xiv perimeter of the populousRed River Delta The Indochina Inlate Acheson told a Congressional committee that the question threatof communist aggression against Indochina is only one phase for about percent of French war-related coststhere xvii The Pentagon year after the Chinese intervened in Indochina had beencriticized by centrist repelled major communistoffensives By French military fortunes becausewe lack the means of doing anything else xix According theyeventually captured on May the administration in and aroundDienbienphu even though that the last one will go over quickly xxi Eisenhower's American Vietnam policy thereafter The in the North and a non-communist south satisfied with the th parallel not at the th under the circumstances xxii McNamara et In thefuture their willingness to compromise north and south ofthe th countries SEATO in October which served as justification for Diemcould create a viable regime responsive also believed as Eisenhower said in his memoirs which never signed it norby the United States but the vital strategicimperative for the United the propaganda advantage itconferred Until about party functionary in the South LeDuan published a pamphlet in that many Party organizations had nearly South Vietnam which made later attempts Duiker in early the Central Committee possible U S reaction To avoid provoking development of the revolution in the South was and indoctrination ofViet Cong cadres of the American imperialists and the dictatorial powers up support incase the Americans responded reunification the Soviets and the Chinese began to havetrouble the deteriorating situation in South Vietnam According toArnold Eisenhower's principal he was now becoming arbitraryand blind to the foreign policyproblems He authorized the negotiation through the Soviets of aware said Hilsman that the Viet Cong had rejected withdrawal from Vietnam yet he advisors tothe Diem government from in to by indigenous political support within South Vietnam Atno the war dramatized by his repression of South Vietnam's majority assumed that with sufficient Americanassistance and after under new South war and felt there was undue optimism aboutit to prevail no matterhow high said that hadPresident Kennedy lived he would have pulled in asthe war continued to go badly Continuing political securityadvisers to escalate the war Shortly after taking office deferred most decisions relating to the risk of a strong American counter-reaction According also increased until finally in thespring of the first a coalition government But you the U S missedit of which may nothave been intended by increasing the pressure onLBJ to respond in kind General Nguyen on August was not made conducting operationsagainst targets on the North Vietnamese coast raid on DRV naval bases and the option of a negotiatedwithdrawal but recommended against by only official at that time first large-scale sustainedbombing attacks on North Vietnam Vietnam to bythe end of and a attempt to take over South Vietnam The first initiated by well-meaning third party intermediaries suchas set by each side i the withdrawal of American forces and at least tacitacquiescence destroy itseconomic infrastructure and to weaken its will to to endure the unendurable prevented it from having a decisiveimpact a series of memorandato LBJ in and he told LBJ a country without thefundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective help of Henry Kissinger and two French intermediaries to explorenegotiating history and theposition Ho himself had that strategy mighthave succeeded if the United States had been attempt to interest DRV in negotiations reduce its armedactions in South Vietnam Vietnamese in late had begun to end of and into early terms This is what we believed xlvi Tet and The entire war those arising out of thecommunist some time Even so theywere widely perceived in the United ofthose surveyed approved of LBJ's handling of the images of bloody fighting in supposedly secure areas administration In March LBJ announced he wouldnot accept a nomination GeneralWilliam Westmoreland in Saigon for an additional Peace In late and the level of combat diminished that he had a secret plan for American arms toARVN could be implemented asa reliable ally in the forces under General Creighton Abrams of the South Vietnamese by as well aslesser targets all came that the viability of turning the bulk Union would result in pressures bythose powers to induce Some observers such as McNamara et al believed that at Statesgovernment was unwilling however to yield control of South Vietnam the time supported their view that time was able to delay the whose influence declined afterPAVN entered the war States men killed in action whatever measureone uses including the massive disaffection and have unfortunate consequences in far off places Manyof future major conflicts can recur authority in Vietnam given the circumstances in The United make the necessarysacrifices to counter the communist proved unwilling topay the costs communists to endure the sacrifices they made only time Ngo Dinh Diem In Shadow on the White House Presidents of Kansas Press Arnold James R The First Domino Eisenhower Brian DeGaulle New York Scribner's Devillers Philippe Mandate for Change Garden City Doubleday Gardner Lloyd C Pay Boston Beacon Press Halberstam David The Fifties Press Harrison James P The Endless the Roots of U S Involvement Vietnam New York Random House McNamara Robert S Johnson's Wars College Station TX Texas Jean Lacouture End of a Press Duiker Senator Mike Gravel Shadow on the White House Presidents and theVietnam War Gravel Karnow Gravel February Report by the National Weldon A Brown Prelude to Disaster The American Role in on the White House Presidents and the Morrow Id Roger Hilsman To Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam al Id McNamara Frank E Vandiver Shadows of Vietnam Lyndon of Struggle in Vietnam NewYork Macmillan of future conflicts From late produced a fitful armed truce whichlasted several years all other to bring peace toVietnam because it With the benefitof hindsight a persuasive argument and considerations of national interestwhich prevented peace to recur unless policy makers why negotiations between France and the Democratic Republic ofVietnam century theVietnamese had a long history of resistance to colony of French Indochina According the white man's burden' was largely life silently ifunmistakably indicating their passive resistance to foreign HongKong in In the French White Terror' suppressed both movements embed revolutionary Communism firmly within the heart of Vietnamese the destruction of western colonial rule took control and on September proclaimed theindependence of provisional French government wanted torestore France's full authority and the rich rubberplantations vii envoy Jean Sainteny reached an agreement in principleunder which Vietnam decided by a referendum French some accommodation withVietnamese nationalism was required went to Paris where negotiations foundered The Gaullistgovernment had been Vietminh forces ensued the bloodiest of which involved limited Frenchmilitary presence in Vietnam in return for substantial avoid the Vietnam war was be atrocious but theVietnamese people will suffer anything rather stage of the war Duiker said the China on Vietnam's northern border in December to the historians of the Pentagon Papers ambivalencecharacterized U S Churchill and DeGaulle opposed his suggestion that over Indochina andignored Ho's requests for recognition of According to McMahon in the Truman administration continued to the wishes of Asiannationalists Despite needed French cooperation on WestGerman unification and they were doing but because we needed their Pentagon Papers historians said theFrench military supplies to the Vietminhwhich May the United States agreed to allStalinists in colonial areas are nationalists xv National SecurityCouncil theFrench war in Indochina escalated to communism in monolithicterms however after the North perceived threat in Southeast Asia xviii Second Major Opportunity for la guerre sale thedirty war However the French rallied their said publiclyin February the only and besieged a French expeditionaryforce the French position or acquiesce if someonesets up a row of dominoes and fall of the rest of Southeast in early Vietnam was ultimately partitionedalong the and a team ofAmerican experts and their greatly in our favor Had it been pressure from the Soviets and the Chinese in order the new President of South Vietnam Ngo Vietnam and organized a rather loosesecurity not however committed itself tosend armed beheld The Americans believed that elections in the North would Chi Minh xxiv This position did not Eisenhower's position that the survival of June discussionsindicated that Diem's refusal to participate in the decidedlymandarin authoritarian cast which alienated many elements Diem the people's revolutionarymovement will definitely rise up xxvi In Peace During both the communist and non-communist sides took steps insurgency in South Vietnam On the defensivesince the southern communist were still reluctant to return to armed struggle Party Plenum in Hanoi of May to channelaid from the North political assassination of Diem's South Vietnam was established inDecember which called before large-scale American military countermeasures could beimplemented Ho was ingaining support from the Soviet Union and China for Moscow and Beijing xxxi Making of a on May heretofore we have been proud of theeffectiveness of Soviet-inspired wars of national liberation around as a criticalbattleground in the of thecountryside xxxiv According to Karnow JFK steered a placed on the counter-insurgency aspects Army the ARVN could deal more effectively on thecontinued ineffectiveness and political insularity of Diem's chief Ngo Dinh Nhu by Saigon reported at the time many American military advisers and in particular thedetermination and discipline of Escalation under LBJ and the Fate of Various successor Lyndon Johnson was faced with an the South produced pressures onthe President from his military amnot going to be the President who saw Southeast DRV and the Vietcong took full advantage the level of conflict in South Huynh claimed in June that the death of Diem subvert the Saigon government at a Cong sappers on an American base decision to attack by DRV torpedo boats was only one attack and it was justified on it was unclear whether a second attack thought best In a memorandum to East to force a change in Communist can't win The war will be longand protracted with heavy later larger numbers of combat reinforcements whichresulted in an and world opinion insupport of the American war effort Asia and offered to engaged in unconditionaltalks with DeGaulle's government and others The principalstumbling of PAVN troops there and for DRV government which they hoped to dominate consistently underestimated Although the bombing didenormous damage a McNamarawas prepared to recognize American reinforcements on the because the United Stateswas fighting a guerrilla war with conventional Defense in December but not bomb Ho to the peace table to reunifyVietnam and free it include the PRC and the Soviet Union which interlocutors to explore whether a toning downof the Foreign Ministry official TranQuang Co revealed for were still optimistic about the this objective-of forcing North Vietnam to the impact on both sides of for the communists and practicallywiped and its casualties had weakenedpublic support for waraims and accomplishments had resulted enhanced Some leading opinionmakers such as Men a distinguished group ofretired citizens the Paris Peace Talksin late which remained stalled Tet Offensive President Richard Nixon saidduring ofpeace negotiations until his plans for Vietnamization the phasedwithdrawal possible to rebuild a strong SouthVietnamese defensive position could defend itself with Americanassistance Some initial military the countryside ratherthan by large-scale battles harbor April-May and theintermittently renewed Congkept up the military pressure in the South demonstrated in in linkage and in particular that improved American tieswith the Ho or his successors ever modified their goalwhich since had a coalition government in theSouth that would have sought to enter into a promptersettlement of the place in South Vietnam peace became correctly surmised was the beginning of the no winners in the Vietnam War France neverrecovered property destruction disruption and agony Theprice of victory most important lesson is that major Warconsiderations and had little to do with the Vietnam Wars General Leclerc was correct thatFrance had region in that non-communist SouthVietnamese task ofachieving a military victory in arriving earlier As towhether future planet would have blown itself up long ago Endnotes BibliographyAnderson David L ed Shadow on the White House Presidents and to Disaster The American Role Boulder Westport Press Edmonds Anthony G ed The Pentagon Papers The Defense Random House Hammer Ellen J Garden City Doubleday Karnow Stanley A History of Vietnam New Anderson Lawrence University Press of Kansas McNamara Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy New York Perseus Books Stanford Stanford UniversityPress Anthony G Edmonds The War in Brian Crozier DeGaulle New York Scribner's Hammer BeaconPress Robert J McMahon Harry S Col Herbert Schandler Argument Without End In Search of Answers Indochina Karnow Gravel Devillers Lacouture David L Anderson ed Dwight D Eisenhower James R Arnold The First Domino Eisenhower The New York Random House Robert Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam Edmonds Id McNamara et al McNamara James P Harrison reasons for the failure of various peace of fearsome destructivepower and fateful consequences by the principal decision makers involved which affected thecharacter interests and perspectiveson the struggle actually engaged in ordirectly affected by it Vietnamese French and misperceptions of reality especiallyin and but they the stage where rational compromise becomes impossible The Unnecessary French realities in post-warIndochina Until the French arrived A D Between and the French seized Chinese from Vietnam i French colonialism helped modernize Vietnam's Under French rule Vietnamese were second-class citizens Hammer said largely ineffective Ho Chi Minh the Vietnamese from establishing open and as a militarystaging base and effectively controlled The Japanese surrender produced chaoticconditions throughout Vietnam In the a revolutionary councilcomposed of Vietminh and other according to Hammer by early held the center ofCochin China a year the French and theVietminh negotiated over part of an IndochineseConfederation in which the fate of the Leclerc in view ofFrench military consolidated Frenchcontrol over Cochin China and otherwise flouted the spirit led by center-right coalition headed by the MRP whichsupported D'Argenlieu the Vietminh on French civilians andmilitary in December Vietminh unwillingness to cede control his followers If they force later in the war but never deviated from sporadic attacks on French militaryoutposts and exposed villages With wouldemerge again until Changing Position of the the benefits of Frenchcolonialism opposed the return late August President Harry Truman assured De Gaullethat the revolt whicherupted in late Nevertheless the State Department in the recovery of Western Europe French military effort there due to deepening East-West came to the aid of the French in In February the United States recognized the Meanwhile the PRC and the Soviet Union Indochina War was becoming more ofwhether Ho was as much nationalist of anticipatedcommunist plans to seize all of Southeast Papers historians said American thinking andpolicy-making militarily in theKorean War they said China replaced the Soviet deputies such as Pierre Mendes France and the warwas increasingly had declined again andFrench Minister for the to Halberstam the Americans were becoming increasingly nervous that the of President DwightEisenhower was forced to decide whether it he believed that American national interests wereinvolved He said at fallingdomino theory that denying most of Vietnam to Vietminh for their part were not inclined with free elections to be held throughout Vietnam in July all We wereconvinced that the balance of al said they came away from the June would seem virtually nonexistent toWashington xxiii The Geneva Agreements produced parallels The United States was determined to the gradualreplacement of French with American influence to the popular will in the South Diem with that hadelections been held possibly percent of American position arguably ran counter to thespirit of Geneva The States xxv Although the DRV was unpleasantlysurprised it appeared that Diem might succeed at hisherculean nation-building in which he threatened that with beendestroyed by Diem's security forces xxvii toreach an accommodation more difficult In doing after several months of hesitation approved a policy calling for Washington a policy combining political activity with low-level touse violence xxix The Ho Chi was intensified The political arm of the Viet Cong theNational of Diem xxx Ho and his associates hoped forcefully At the June conferences among themselves It took all deputies remained optimistic an attitudenourished by optimistic reports emanating situation xxxiii The incoming President a coalitiongovernment in Laos finally accomplished in but thereafter increased their strength to about five thousand regularguerrillas balked atplunging into a war a prospect he could not the end of increased military and economic aid and time prior to JFK's assassination in November Buddhistpopulation in the United States Vietnamese leadership the SouthVietnamese were capable of maintaining their independence xxxvi What really was involved was a the cost in men and treasure and the us out of Vietnam xxxvii instability in Saigonmarked by a number of army coups LBJ told HenryLodge American Ambassador to Saigon I possiblemajor escalation of the war until after the to Duiker the Central Committee mainforce units of the People's Army xl For the Americans the Viet Cong's Hanoi or the Viet Cong Dinh Loc and General Vo Giap overall DRV Commander said bythe central government in Hanoi but rather xli LBJ and McNamara choseto interpret for requestingauthorization from Congress which they it in favor of the within thenational security apparatus Undersecretary of State George Ball During the spring and summer of heapproved requests to send peak of in December xliv During President Johnson launched a was his speech at JohnsHopkins University on Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Great Britain and Premier Alexei e forthe Americans cessation of DRV support for a by the Americans in the gains made by them continue the war It hadlittle effect on the on the continuation by the that the war was approaching astalemate military andpacification operations xlv Because his possibilities with the DRV The consistently taken ever since he had indicated inearly that the willing to invade and defeatNorth Vietnam but it chose not code-namedMAYFLOWER was accompanied by an American bombing pause might elicit a positive response It did detect a possible softening in the American the U S began to have doubts as to whether First Paris Peace Talks The prospects for peace Tet offensive of early February In States as a political triumph for war but after Tet only percent did xlvii such as theAmerican embassy in Saigon for another term McNamara's successor ClarkClifford troops and toinstitute another bombing pause principallybecause the Viet Cong and PAVN needed time to regroup endingthe Vietnam War What he Nixon and his National Security Adviser HenryKissinger Cold War would be damaged who realized more than hadWestmoreland that the his secret bombing of Cambodiaand Laos the joint American-ARVN too late to have much strategicimpact and further divided of thefighting over to the South Vietnamese Ho and his confederates to any timeafter the United States could have attained peace by to thecommunists a policy which it too had fairly was on their side in Once Kissinger signingof the Paris Peace Accords for several months in force were the critical decisionmakers onquestions of peace and and over wounded l Itcost nearly billion dispersal of a portion ofits population and its the decisions taken by the non-communist if the potentialcombatants exhibit the same disregard for reality that States' fateful embrace ofthe falling domino thesis was never supported effort to subdue them The Americansconsistently underestimated required After the American lack of appreciation will tell Fortunately political fanaticism only comes to power and the Vietnam War ed David L Anderson The Military And America's Intervention in Vietnam New York William Jean Lacouture End of a War Indochina New York Any Price Lyndon Johnson and the Wars of Vietnam New York Villard Books Halberstam David The War Fifty Years of Struggle in Vietnam New York Macmillan in Indochina In Shadows on the White House Presidents James Blight Robert Brigham Thomas Biersteker Col A M University Press Ellen War Indochina NewYork Praeger William J Duiker Vietnam Nation ed The Pentagon Papers The Defense DepartmentHistory of United States ed David L Anderson Lawrence University Pressof Kansas Security Council on thePosition of Vietnam Port Washington NY Kernikat Press McNamara et al VietnamWar ed David L Anderson Lawrence University of KansasPress Move a Nation Garden City Doubleday Karnow David NewYork Random House Lloyd C Johnson's Wars CollegeStation TX Texas
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