It's been too long, fellow bloggites. Unfortunately, I've just been overpowered by the sheer quantity of homework that I have been getting. As a corollary, I haven't had the time to draft or plan a post - which is disappointing, because, in my neck of the woods (Melbourne, Australia), a lot has occurred in the month that I have been offline to this blog. To get the ball rolling, I am posting an essay that I did for History on, surprisingly enough, the Vietnam War. More specifically, I look at the evolution of US foreign policy from the end of the Second World War until the end of the Vietnam War. Enjoy.
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“Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war.” In Martin Luther King’s “bravest” speech, called “A Time to Break Silence” and given on the 4th of April, 1967 at the Riverside Church, King, jr, questioned American foreign policy in Vietnam. But was there ever really a war? What in fact were American policies in Vietnam and, by extension, Asia? Noam Chomsky instead labels it “outright aggression” . Indeed, as the French, under generals Ely and Navarre, extricated themselves and – to paraphrase Thucydides – “having suffered what men must”, the international community was left to mop up the mess through the means of the Geneva Conference of 1954. American involvement in Vietnam is even more documented and one can fairly posit that pop culture references are increasing proportional to scholastic studies, and both are increasing at an exponential rate. Four presidents were involved in the quagmire of Vietnam (Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) with the fifth – Truman – being important in shaping US foreign policy post – World War II. Meanwhile, the “faceless” men of these presidential administrations – McNamara, Rusk, Ball, both Bundys (William and McGeorge) and Taylor – played their part in doing their fair share of the political legwork for their public Commander-in-Chief.
Harry S. Truman, the first post-World War II president, along with political neophytes Dean Acheson and George Marshall directed American foreign policy – especially in Indochina – in such a way that imperialistic designs were hidden beneath maintaining the liberal-democratic status quo in the United States’ “sphere of influence” and other potentially-Communist areas across the globe. Ipso facto, this policy of hegemony laid the foundations for pre-emptive action that would so become a cornerstone of neocons like Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney.
Truman, as successor to Franklin Roosevelt, oversaw the end to the Second World War and the crucial Yalta and Potsdam conferences, which legitimised the eventual division of Europe into an East-West dichotomy. This in turn set the scene for Cold War battles, as epitomised in the wars of Korea and Vietnam. Clearly, the role of the common denominator of these two battles – Asia – needs to be explored further.
Inextricably linked with the rise of the Truman Doctrine was the focus upon Far East Asia as a place to subvert Soviet imperialism. Obviously, Eastern Europe was becoming Communist as well, but the politics there was more hegemonic – Josip Brosz’ “independent Communist state” of Yugoslavia was the exception rather than the rule. In Asia, however, Stalin’s schooling of Kim Il-Sung – the Korean Communist leader – was effected by the increase of Maoism. In the same vein, Soviet Russia was believed to only have “influence” – rather than direct control – over Ho.
The Truman Doctrine was influenced by events that occurred in the Eastern Hemisphere – namely, the Chinese Revolution. As Mao Zedong overcame Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, a sense of fear prevailed throughout the United States, which culminated in the virulent McCarthyism promoted by the eponymous Senator. Senior policy-makers manifested and preyed on these fears as well. NSC 68 especially demonstrates this fear-mongering. Under the guises of containment, which directed that Communism must be prevented through non-armed means and of the Domino Theory, which asserted that, if left unchecked, Communism would leap from one nation to the next. NSC 68 asserted the polarity between the USSR and the USA and also committed to the nuclear arms race. Importantly, it mentions pre-emptive war as a course of action. More significantly, however, NSC 68 endorses the “sublimity” of the United States. Chomsky rightly dismisses the paper as having “the simplicity of a fairytale.” At the very least, it is vainglorious of the USA to romanticise themselves in that matter. During the time of Truman, the culture of fear that existed due to foreign and domestic issues – real or imagined – allowed senior law-makers to provocatively endanger the world’s peace – and Truman, as public face of his Cabinet and Administration, should be remembered as doing such.
The accession to the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower saw a radical change in US policy. His administration gradually turned its eyes towards Asia even as the first piece of evidence came to light about the “severe discontent within the Eastern Bloc” came to light under Eisenhower’s watch. Even though the repressive “measures” taken by the Soviets to counter the Hungarians in 1956 were “distressing” Eisenhower seemed to be relatively indifferent compared to the glamour that Asia represented, given that it was to epitomise the epic ideological struggle between capitalism and communism, formally known as the Domino Theory.
NSC 5501 fully represented the “militant anti-Communism” that historian David Kaiser said was “the principle” of the Eisenhower administration’s foreign policy. The basic thrust of NSC 5501 was that nuclear weapons – seen as “the cheapest option for American defense” since the Second World War. Further revisions of foreign policy through the publication of later NSC documents became the foundation for the Eisenhower Doctrine, which, even though it was directed towards the Middle East, is still relevant as it advocated American aggression. The South East Asian Treaty Organisation – or SEATO – Pact that was signed by eight nations (Australia included) on the 8th of September 1954 was another arm of foreign policy of the Eisenhower administration. Created by the Secretary of State at the time, John Dulles, the SEATO Pact invoked each signatory to act “in accordance with its constitutional processes” against “overt” aggression. According to Kaiser, the SEATO Pact in any case gave considerable autonomy to member-nations to respond to the infiltration of Communism . The psychological effect of SEATO is an interesting endnote. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Arthur Radford suggested that support and intervention in Laos and South Vietnam should “be backed as much possible by other Asians.” Through NSC 5501, its subsequent revisions and the SEATO Pact, the Eisenhower administration was perhaps more reactionary than any of the other administrations involved in Indochina.
As John Kennedy took office in 1961, he found himself in a quagmire not only in Eastern Europe, but also in Laos and South Vietnam. Not only that, but he was hindered among the “hawks” in his Departments of State and Defense who refused to hear his acceptance of neutralist states – which would neither question Communism or endorse it – and instead proceeded to give Eisenhower-era advice. Furthermore, apologists of the increasingly-corrupt and nepotic Diem Administration in the American Embassy in South Vietnam, such as Frederick Nolting, prevented progress on an issue that was becoming more and more important.
The Kennedy Administration was riddled with civilian and military foreign policy advisers who seemingly could not adapt to the reformation of policies both foreign and domestic. However, foreign policy defined Kennedy’s presidency moreso than domestic ones did. Kennedy’s Cuban campaign was off to a horrific start with the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion which Andrew Bacevich describes as a campaign of “subversion and sabotage” . Indeed, it attempted to overthrow the popularly-supported Castro government by sending CIA-trained loyalists of the deposed – and corrupt – Batista government. These loyalists would land at the eponymous bay, where they would quickly engage and subdue Castro forces. Evidently, CIA chiefs Allen Dulles and John McCone severely underestimated their opposition, because it was to be the Batista loyalists that would be subdued. This defeat would shape Kennedy’s foreign policy for his next two years in government.
Kennedy’s “hawks” who were unable or unwilling to hear his directives set back acceptance of political ideology in the region – and therefore until the mid-seventies , when an American solution could have been manufactured at one of the many conferences that were attended by America in regards to far-East Asia. Part of this intransigence was a byproduct of the bipartisan politics that was so important to the American political scene . Initially, many Eisenhower-era advisors continued in their role. Indeed, important bureaucrats in Eisenhower’s administration were recycled by Kennedy, including U. Johnson and Dean Rusk. This ensured that an emphasis on unilateralism was retained and heard – though largely ignored – by Kennedy.
Any suggestions of a neutralist government in Laos – the main hotspot for Communist activity – were buffeted by the unilateralist “hawks” of Kennedy’s bureaucracy. A unique insight is given by Walt Rowstow, the deputy National Security Adviser and MIT economist in a confidential interview given in 1964. As an intelligence officer in the Second World War, he believed he was justified in stating that “in the field where I worked – Laos and Vietnam...I concluded that this was the worst mess I had seen since 1942”.Intriguingly, he also said – in a very hawkish matter – that he “saw no way that we could protect vital US interests without the application of American force.” [my emphasis] This perhaps explains the deep, encrusted resistance to the neutralism proposed by Kennedy in regards to Indochina. Years before, John Dulles believed that
the principle of neutrality pretends that a nation can best gain safety for itself by being indifferent to the fate of others. This has increasingly become an obsolete conception, and, except under very exceptional circumstances, it is an immoral and shortsighted conception.
Rusk supplemented this view by accusing Marshal Phoumi Nosavan of the pro-American Royal Laotian Army of behaving too “amicably” with the Communist-inclined factions of Laotian politics. Meanwhile, Kennedy encouraged Phoumi to continue with “perseverance” the negotiations of the Laotian coalition government. Eventually, Kennedy’s neutralist view won out but it would remain to be seen about what would happen in South Vietnam.
Since the partition of Vietnam, effected by the Geneva Accords of 1954, a political instability existed in the south. Ngo Dinh Diem was installed as President of South Vietnam and, almost immediately his cankerous rule began to be felt. In 1955, he “refused to hold the elections mooted for July 1956, claiming he did not think they would be held fairly in the north.” Thus began an almost-decade long era of authoritarian rule and gradual degradation of the South Vietnamese economy due to his nepotistic practices. Also, any cosmopolitanism that existed in Vietnam was nullified by blatant discrimination towards the Buddhist majority – destruction of Buddhist temples and pagodas in order to construct Roman Catholic churches and schools. Needless to say, Eisenhower and Dulles endorsed his rule, as encapsulated in the photograph of the two leaders shaking hands at Washington National Airport in 1957 . Even Australian politics got in on the act, with bipartisan support shown for Diem when he visited in the same year.
What exacerbated Diem’s power reign in South Vietnam was the apologism evinced by American ambassadors there. The whole catastrophe was initiated by General Edward Lansdale’s publication of the report of his fact-finding mission in South Vietnam in January, 1961. In it, he argued primarily that the “approaches of both the South Vietnamese government and the American Embassy had to change fundamentally to avert imminent defeat.” The report even articulated the need of endorsing Ngo Dinh Diem until another strong leader could be found. Instead of being warmly received, the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, J. Parsons, dismissed the report’s author to Dean Rusk as being a “lone wolf”.
Frederick Nolting, the Foreign Service officer , as Ambassador, abandoned the “carrots-and –sticks policy” of his predecessor, Elbridge Durbrow. He decided instead to employ the practice of speaking optimistically to the press about Diem. First and foremost, Nolting was sure that Diem was “no dictator, in the sense of relishing power for its own sake.” One might think that the repressed Buddhists would be contrary to this position. Nolting’s description of Diem’s “philosophy of government” as “personalism” is a textbook example of diluting the language so much as to remove any sort of meaning from it. These examples suffice to account for the apologism that existed in the US Embassy in South Vietnam. Even Nolting’s successor, Henry Lodge, was in no hurry to show Diem the door once it became apparent that General Khanh and his associates would stage a coup in 1963. With that, the corner had been turned in South Vietnamese politics and there may have even been a golden period of cooperation between South Vietnam and America between Diem’s and Kennedy’s assassination three weeks later.
Lyndon Johnson’s ascendancy of the presidency saw a complete repeal of the optimistic and forward-thinking politics advocated by Kennedy. His passage of the civil rights, tax bills and his introduction of the Great Society highlighted great domestic success. But, in the foreign policy, Johnson’s leadership on the crises in Indochina was found wanting. The defining moment of Johnson’s presidency in Indochina came amidst the nation once and for all legitimising his executive powers by garnering 61 percent of the popular vote against the trigger-happy Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater.
On the third of November to the fourth, a group gathered “to examine courses of action in Southeast Asia” included some familiar faces, such as William and McGeorge Bundy, but also had up-and-comers, like John McNaughton, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. This group made only one recommendation –with three alternatives – and this was to shape Johnson’s administration in Indochina. Option C’ – the one that was accepted – would have in it “an advance decision to continue military pressures, if necessary, to the full limits of what military actions can contribute toward US national objectives” . Kaiser believes that there is a clear reference towards Eisenhower-era when nuclear weaponry was considered part of the main arsenal. As this option was endorsed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one would expect it to be more militant than a policy endorsed by civilians, by very definition. Apart from this flashback, Johnson’s legacy as an elected President in the foreign policy sphere in Indochina will be remembered as very much maintaining the status quo.
The last President to be involved directly in Indochina , Richard Nixon, instigated a policy of Vietnamisation, whereby indigenous South Vietnamese troops would have the opportunity to replace their American guardians . Or, as essayist Tony Judt explains, the “Nixon Doctrine” had the U.S. support “foreign allies without getting militarily embroiled in local conflicts.” Of course, Nixon’s input into foreign policy was miniscule. National Security Adviser, Secretary of State and general Superman Henry Kissinger did the globetrotting in order to sell the American foreign agenda. William Bundy’s tome, A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency critiques, according to Judt, “deception, and the peculiar combinations of duplicity and vagueness that marked foreign policy in the Nixon era” . Maybe there is a little bit of truth in that – after all, Nixon was impeached in 1972.
Another part of Nixon foreign policy was the invasion of Cambodia. An embodiment of Nixon or Guam Doctrine, which in turn was initiated by Nixon’s “Silent Majority” speech. Delivered on national television on the 24th of November, 1969, it boosted support for the closing war .
From the end of the Second World War and the start of the Truman Doctrine until the start of Vietnamisation and the end of the Vietnam War, American foreign affairs spokesmen either sought to be the world’s policeman by launching “police actions” – a war in everything but name – like that in Korea or by halting the Domino-like spread of Communism. However, the abstract nature of foreign affairs allowed faceless bureaucrats to get a chance to employ their fear-mongering, such as Eisenhower’s men considering nuclear weaponry as part of conventional arsenal. Kennedy’s presidency was instead defined by peace, with his advocacy of self-determination and neutralism the most remembered. Johnson was instead insecure in his first, unelected year as President. With a mandate tucked under his belt, however, he still decided to maintain the Indochinese status quo, and yet he brought troops in to South and North Vietnam proper. Finally, Nixon’s “Silent Majority” speech epitomised his Vietnamisation views, even though he sent troops to Cambodia in 1970.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mirams, Sarah, (2004), Twentieth Century History, Thomson Press: Melbourne
Desailly, Robert, (1991), Conflict in the Modern World, Jacaranda Press: Melbourne
McDonald, Di, “Remembering and Forgetting: the Vietnam War and Historiography” in Welsh, Steven, (2005), Agora, History Teachers’ Association Press: Melbourne
Spurr, Michael (ed), (2007), Twentieth Century History, History Teacher’s Association Press: Melbourne
Judt, Tony (2008), Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, William
Sawinski, Diane, (ed), (2001), Vietnam War: Primary Sources, UXL
Briggs, Justin, (2005), Contested Spaces, McGraw-Hill Publications, Sydney
Chomsky, Noam with David Barsamian, (2007), What We Say Goes: Conversations on US Power in a Changing World, Metropolitan Books
Bacevich, Andrew J. (2008), The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Metropolitan Books
Kaiser, David, (2000), American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Davidson, Phillip B. (1988), The History: 1946-1975: Vietnam at War, Presidio
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