Top 5 Books On JFK & Vietnam

[Bill Fite]

On 7/27/2023 at 3:15 PM, Michael Griffith said:

we did indeed effectively have the war won in 1970 (and 1971) in South Vietnam.

I was 18 then.

Did I miss the victory parades?

When exactly did N Vietnam & the Vietcong surrender?

 

 

[Michael Griffith]

22 hours ago, Bill Fite said:

On 7/27/2023 at 9:15 AM, Michael Griffith said:

we did indeed effectively have the war won in 1970 (and 1971) in South Vietnam.

I was 18 then.

Did I miss the victory parades?

When exactly did N Vietnam & the Vietcong surrender?

Oh, sheesh. Really? Seriously? That is your reply to my point? Obviously, you have no interest in substantive, serious discussion on the subject. 

[Michael Griffith]

On 7/28/2023 at 1:38 PM, Gene Kelly said:

Here is the link ... https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1177&context=ghj

Another reference is "GI Resistance: Soldiers and Veterans Against the War," Vietnam Generation: Vol. 2 : No. 1 , Article 1. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/vietnamgeneration/vol2

Gene

Since you say that you have not made up your mind yet about the Vietnam War, and that you are still researching the subject, and since you seem to be searching for sources online (although somehow you only seem to find leftist sources), here are some online sources that I recommend:

How to Lose a War
http://academics.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietnam/Readings/elegant.htm

Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate
http://www.viet-myths.net/turner.htm

Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter End, 1973-1975
https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/U.S. Marines in Vietnam_The Bitter End 1973-1975 PCN 1900310900_1.pdf   Among other things, this article discusses the devastating impact on South Vietnam's army from Congress's slashing of aid to South Vietnam. 

U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese 1967
https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/U_S_ Marines in Vietnam Fighting the North Vietnamese 1967 PCN 19000309000.pdf   This is relevant because it relates to Westmoreland's factual claim that the war was going very well in 1967.

Linebacker and the Law of War
https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/1983_Vol34_No1-6/1983_Vol34_No2.pdf

The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam 1960-1968 (two parts)
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Vietnam/Vietnam_1960-1968_P001.pdf
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Vietnam/Vietnam_1960-1968_P002.pdf

War in the Shallows
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/nhhc/research/publications/publication-508-pdf/WITS_508.pdf

Edited July 30, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Sometimes I really wonder about Mike.

We had the war won in 1971?

Mike, I hate to tell you this, but the Easter Offensive was in 1972.

That was the biggest land invasion since the Chinese overran North Korea.

It was so successful at first that Nixon and Kissinger contemplated using atomic weapons and bombing the dykes.

It was only stopped due to heavy US air intervention and Operation Linebacker, some of the heaviest bombing from air and sea of the war.

[Michael Griffith]

18 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

 

Sometimes I really wonder about Mike.

This is a curious, comical comment for you to make, given the number of severe gaffes you have committed about the war just in this thread.

We had the war won in 1971?

Mike, I hate to tell you this, but the Easter Offensive was in 1972.

That was the biggest land invasion since the Chinese overran North Korea.

It was so successful at first that Nixon and Kissinger contemplated using atomic weapons and bombing the dykes.

You made these same arguments several days ago and I answered them. Yet, you have ignored my response and have simply repeated your arguments. So, let me repeat mine:

Yes, we most certainly had the war won in South Vietnam by 1971. Dr. Lewis Sorley presents dozens of pages of evidence and analysis on this very point in his best-selling book A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (2007). Several other scholars have made the same point. 

The Easter Offensive only enjoyed initial success because the NVA came across the DMZ in massive numbers, something they had never done before. Until then, the NVA had showed some respect for the zone's neutrality and had refrained from launching large-scale assaults from it. Even the Saigon regime did not believe that Hanoi would so brazenly violate the Geneva Accords as to launch an invasion from the DMZ.

Bombing the dikes had been suggested by none other than McNamara devotee John McNaughton way back in 1966, as well as by others. The dikes were a valid target because the NVA put SAM batteries, AAA batteries, and anti-air radar units on them and near them. One of the ways we compelled the North Koreans to end the Korean War was when we began bombing their dams.  

I ask again, Has it occurred to you that Hanoi launched the Easter Offensive precisely because the war went so badly for them from 1969-1971? Similarly, the Hanoi regime launched the Tet Offensive in 1968 in desperation because they suffered so many severe defeats in 1967 that they decided that time was no longer on their side and that they had to try to win the war with one massive knockout punch.

It [the Easter Offensive] was only stopped due to heavy US air intervention and Operation Linebacker, some of the heaviest bombing from air and sea of the war.

LOL! A Third Reich apologist could say, "The Allies only won the Battle of the Bulge because of heavy U.S. air intervention!" Furthermore, you obviously do not know that the South Vietnamese air force played a big role in defeating the NVA in the Easter Offensive--it was not just "heavy US air intervention." You once again show that you have no business pretending to be any kind of an authority on the Vietnam War or on warfare in general. 

Moreover, just as in the Battle of the Bulge, in some key locations, fierce ARVN resistance, before massive air power was available, blocked or greatly slowed the NVA advance, allowing crucial time for more U.S. air assets to be brought into the fight.

I suspect you do not know that massive U.S. air reinforcements did not arrive in the region until 11 days after the Easter Offensive began. Until then, a significant part of the air support was provided by the South Vietnamese air force (VNAF).

A little educational background for you: By 1971, the VNAF had assumed control of the Direct Air Support Centers (DASCs) in all four military regions in the country (MR I, MR II, MR III, and MR IV). Military historian Matthew Brand (Lt. Col., U.S. Army, now retired):

          Along with other forces in South Vietnam, Vietnamization pushed the USAF to begin a relatively rapid shift of the TACS [Tactical Air Control System] to VNAF control. In June 1971, the TACC [Tactical Air Control Center] at Tan Son Nhut transferred completely to VNAF control with a separate TACC at 7AF to control US air assets. The VNAF TACC had no USAF operational advisors, although the Air Force Advisory Group did set up an initial qualification training program to help educate VNAF officers for duty in the TACC. The VNAF assumed control of the DASCs in all four regions by August 1971, with a USAF detachment in each VNAF DASC providing command and control of US tactical aircraft supporting the ARVN. (Lt. Col. Matthew Brand, Airpower and the 1972 Easter Offensive, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 2007, p. 80)

A few more facts about the VNAF role in repelling the NVA offensive:

          The TACS in MR II was in better shape than MR I when the NVA attack began. . . . The VNAF were so effective in this region that they were eventually granted the job of providing CAS to Kontum City itself, allowing US airpower to focus on other vital areas around the besieged province. As stated earlier, but worth repeating, MR II’s senior US advisor, John Paul Vann, called the performance of the VNAF “magnificent, absolutely magnificent.” (pp. 81-82)

So, yes, American air power was the most crucial factor in defeating the Easter Offensive, but it was not the "only" reason the invasion was defeated.

I should add that the NVA came equipped with large numbers of sophisticated anti-aircraft systems (provided by the Soviets). The fact that the NVA still took such a terrible beating from the air is a testament to the American and South Vietnamese pilots who took part in the fighting. 

By the way, Brand touches on the point that the Viet Cong had been neutralized by 1972, i.e., that they no longer posed a significant threat, which meant that in order to threaten Saigon, the NVA had to go through ARVN units:

          With the VC no longer a significant threat, the North Vietnamese no longer had a legitimate military means at striking at the strategic targets in South Vietnam, specifically Saigon. To reach Saigon, the NVA would have to tactically slug its way south through ARVN defenses. (p. 96)

Exactly, which is why Hanoi decided to launch the Easter Offensive. They had lost control of the countryside in South Vietnam. The VC no longer posed a meaningful threat. They were losing the war. South Vietnam was growing stronger. Hanoi realized they had to take dramatic action because once again time was no longer on their side. The Easter Offensive ended in disaster. The NVA suffered catastrophic losses in manpower and weaponry. 

In addition, the Easter Offensive proved that if the U.S. would just keep providing air support and would give the VNAF enough time to get fully equipped and trained, ARVN could defeat the NVA indefinitely. The few American advisers who served with ARVN during the offensive constituted less than 1% of the ground forces that were involved in the fighting. Providing air support (direct or advisory after the VNAF were fully equipped and trained) and ground advisory support for another decade or two would have cost a fraction of what we spent to maintain a large military presence in South Korea during the same period. 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gene Kelly]

21 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Since you say that you have not made up your mind yet about the Vietnam War, and that you are still researching the subject, and since you seem to be searching for sources online (although somehow you only seem to find leftist sources), here are some online sources that I recommend:

How to Lose a War
http://academics.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietnam/Readings/elegant.htm

Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate
http://www.viet-myths.net/turner.htm

 

Mike

Not sure where you're going with the insinuation that "somehow you only seem to find leftist sources".  I don't select articles and information based upon the political leanings of the authors. 

In "How to Lose a War: The Press and Viet Nam", Robert Elegant (a confidante of both Nixon and Kissinger), seems to put blame on the media and journalists for losing the war, and refers to "journalistic lemmings" stating:

But never before Viet Nam had the collective policy of the media—no less stringent term will serve—sought by graphic and unremitting distortion the victory of the enemies of the correspondents' own side.

In "Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate", Robert Turner (a public affairs fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Federalist Society), he seems to put blame on anti-war protestors for losing the war,

The people who protested against Vietnam were, in the overwhelming majority, as good, as decent, and as patriotic as any of us here. If you think I am suggesting that they were in any way evil, you have misunderstood me. But for all of their innocence, their actions had consequences. Because of their protest, tens of millions of people lost their freedom and millions of others lost their lives. Each protester will have to come to terms with that reality on their own.

Neither of these authors or their theses moved me. At the risk of provoking your political sensitivities, I did come across "The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy" by David Brock, who posits a deliberate strategy to promote conservative views and talking points in the mainstream media by:

1. fostering the illusion that the mainstream media has a liberal bias,
2. creating a phony academic body of entities (primarily think tanks, but also funded university programs) to manufacture "scholarship" that promotes the right-wing talking points so that they appear objective,
3. leveraging the perception of liberal bias in the media to demand "equal time" for presentation of the laundered right-wing media talking points as news.

Gene

[James DiEugenio]

See, the Vietnam War was one of the last times that the press was allowed to openly follow military operations.

That does not happen today in the USA. Today its called embedding reporters.

Which is why it is difficult  to find out what happened at places like Fallujah.

The Pentagon learned its lesson.

[Michael Griffith]

20 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Mike

Not sure where you're going with the insinuation that "somehow you only seem to find leftist sources".  I don't select articles and information based upon the political leanings of the authors. 

In "How to Lose a War: The Press and Viet Nam", Robert Elegant (a confidante of both Nixon and Kissinger), seems to put blame on the media and journalists for losing the war, and refers to "journalistic lemmings" stating:

But never before Viet Nam had the collective policy of the media—no less stringent term will serve—sought by graphic and unremitting distortion the victory of the enemies of the correspondents' own side.

In "Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate", Robert Turner (a public affairs fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Federalist Society), he seems to put blame on anti-war protestors for losing the war,

The people who protested against Vietnam were, in the overwhelming majority, as good, as decent, and as patriotic as any of us here. If you think I am suggesting that they were in any way evil, you have misunderstood me. But for all of their innocence, their actions had consequences. Because of their protest, tens of millions of people lost their freedom and millions of others lost their lives. Each protester will have to come to terms with that reality on their own.

Neither of these authors or their theses moved me. At the risk of provoking your political sensitivities, I did come across "The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy" by David Brock, who posits a deliberate strategy to promote conservative views and talking points in the mainstream media by:

1. fostering the illusion that the mainstream media has a liberal bias,
2. creating a phony academic body of entities (primarily think tanks, but also funded university programs) to manufacture "scholarship" that promotes the right-wing talking points so that they appear objective,
3. leveraging the perception of liberal bias in the media to demand "equal time" for presentation of the laundered right-wing media talking points as news.

Gene

I see. I suspect your mind was already made up before you began posting. You did not address any of the evidence that Elegant and Turner present, yet you say you are not "moved" by their theses. 

I said you somehow only seem to find left-wing sources because, well, you somehow only seem to find left-wing sources, as evidenced by your reply, in which you quote David Brock, a long-time ultra-liberal and founder of Media Matters. Pray tell, what are Brock's qualifications for judging Vietnam War scholarship? 

The news media and the anti-war movement played an enormous role in misrepresenting and undermining the war effort. Even North Vietnamese sources admit this.

You might read journalist Peter Braestrup's book The Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington (Yale University Press, Anchor Book edition, 1978). Braestrup was the Washington Post's bureau chief in Saigon from 1968 to 1973. No one could accuse him of being a conservative, but he was profoundly bothered by the media's misleading coverage of the Tet Offensive. He correctly noted that the warped coverage helped lose the war.

Finally, your description of Dr. Robert Turner's qualifications is rather incomplete. For starters, Dr. Turner served as in intelligence officer in South Vietnam for several years, after serving there as a news correspondent in 1968. After the war, he was a professor of international law and national security at the University of Virginia, and a professor at the Naval War College. He is the author of two best-selling books on the Vietnam War, and the co-author of two other books on the war. He worked as Senator Robert Griffin's national security adviser and helped author the language of the measure that created the Church Committee. He also served three terms as chairman of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security. His experience and qualifications dwarf those of David Brock.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gene Kelly]

Michael

My mind is far from made up ... and Dr. Turner's qualifications are indeed impressive.  I did have a hard time following Robert Elegant's writing, and simply don't agree with his premise about the press.  My mention of Brock is only because I came across references to his book; the strategy described to promote conservative views reminded me of the tenor in your posts.  I am not interested in debating left-wing versus right-wing beliefs, nor do I appreciate being typecast in that context. I am interested in facts, and learning about the origins and political decisions that shaped the war. Bigger picture, it was a central topic in JFK's short tenure as president and his influence is of particular interest to me ... recall that the original thread topic (begun almost 4 months ago) is the Top Five Books on JFK and Vietnam.  

I lived through Vietnam and have friends and family who served; very few of them describe it as a "noble cause" nor do they characterize it as a conflict that we "won".  Not sure yet what to conclude about the Domino Theory but it doesn't seem to have panned out (opinions seem divided on that as well). Vietnam is obviously a complex story, and there's quite a lot written about it to digest.  I have only begun my reading and study, and I will take a look at Peter Braestrup's book.  

Gene

[Michael Griffith]

As I've said, Dr. Sorley is certainly not the only scholar who has noted that by 1971 we were clearly winning the war in South Vietnam. Indeed, the same thing can be said about the war in South Vietnam for the first three months of 1972 and from September until the end of the year (the interval being the first four months of the NVA's Easter Offensive, which began on March 30: the offensive was battered to a halt by May, and ARVN began to counter-attack in June, driving the NVA from most of the areas they had seized). John Collins, an expert in military strategy, likewise made the point that by 1972 we had effectively won the war in South Vietnam. 

Collins served in Vietnam from 1967-1968 and retired from the U.S. Army as a Colonel in 1972. After retiring from the Army, he served as the Senior Specialist in National Defense for the Congressional Research Service. In addition to being a Vietnam veteran, he was a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College and of the Armed Forces Staff College. During his last few years in the Army, he was appointed as the director of Military Strategy Studies at the National War College and then as the chief of the college's Strategic Research Group. His book Grand Strategy: Principles and Practices was published by the U.S. Naval Institute Press in 1973. 

I quote from Collins' famous essay "Vietnam Postmortem: A Senseless Strategy," in Parameters: Journal of the U.S. Army War College, 40:4 (Winter 2010):  

          All the same, a spectacular shift in strategic balance occurred by 1972, even though an arbitrary timetable transferred power to our ally too quickly.

          Insurgency was inert [lifeless/motionless], for all practical purposes. Its causes were kaput. Pacification programs, including Operation Phoenix, took care of hard-core Vietcong who were spared by the Tet offensive.

          US ground combat operations ceased. Air and naval support for the ARVN continued, but on a low-key basis.

          Antiwar demonstrations in the United States were sporadic after the Vietnam Moratorium in October 1969 and massive rallies one month later. The Cambodian incursion caused a very brief revival in the spring of 1970.

          South Vietnam was politically stable, compared with the previous 10 years. President Thieu was scarcely a Jeffersonian democrat--the tiger cage scandal and charges of corruption cost him dearly in this country--but he sat still for several social changes that solidified his constituency and undercut the Communists.

          Socioeconomic woes, such as rampant inflation and a rash of refugees, were never really controlled. However, major roads reopened; resettlement began; land reforms took root; and rice bowls were filled.

          Our side had won at counterinsurgency and could cope with conventional conflict, which is what it then came down to.

          Giap, striving to reseize initiative, struck in great strength at Eastertime in 1972, ignoring all rules of revolutionary war. Some commentators in the United States compared that surge with the Tet offensive four years earlier, but Tet had been a Vietcong show. This was a naked invasion, and the Communists "crapped out" because they had lost their strength in the South. The popular uprising they expected didn't come. There were no Dien Bien Phus. 

          Bled white, blocked on the battlefield, and battered at home, Ho's successors sued for peace, and unskilled US statesmen gullibly snapped at the bait. (p. 12, available at https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA510934.pdf and https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol40/iss4/5/)     

[Michael Griffith]

Below are excerpts from another source that is available online: Colonel Harry Summers’ famous book On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context (U.S. Army War College, 1982) (LINK). Among other things, Summers was a Vietnam veteran and a professor at the Army War College.

General Jack Merritt, the commander of the Army War College at the time, noted in the book’s foreword that Summers’ study had received “overwhelmingly favorable” reviews from both active-duty senior officers who were middle-grade officers during the Vietnam War and from retired officers who were involved with war planning and strategy during the war:

          As a critical strategic analysis, I believe that this book is firmly on the mark. This conviction is reinforced by the overwhelmingly favorable comments that the War College has received since the book was originally published in the spring of 1981. They came not only from the current leadership of the Army (who, it must be remembered, were captains, majors and colonels during the 1960s, primarily concerned with tactical operations), but also from many retired general officers who were intimately involved in the strategies and plans of the war at the highest level.

The War Was Winnable

          Writing after the US withdrawal from Vietnam, Brigadier Shelford Bidwell, editor of RUSI, the distinguished British military journal of the Royal United Services Institute, commented on the view that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable. "This is rubbish," he said, blaming our failure on our election of a strategy which "not only conferred on the North Vietnamese the privilege of operating on safe exterior lines from secure bases but threw away the advantages of a tactical and strategic initiative." He went on to note that by "using firepower of crushing intensity" we succeeded in defeating both the insurgency and the 1972 North Vietnamese offensive. . . .

          In Vietnam as in Korea our political objectives dictated a strategic defensive posture. While this prevented us from destroying the "root" at the source through the strategic offensive, Korea proved that it was possible to achieve a favorable decision with the strategic defensive. It restored the status quo ante, prevented the enemy from achieving his goals with military means, and provided the foundation for a negotiated settlement. All of this was within our means in Vietnam. (pp. 76-77)

The Negative Impact of Not Invading North Vietnam, of the Failure to Fully Use Our Air Power, and of Allowing the North Vietnamese Sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia

          Unlike the China sanctuary which at least made some strategic sense in avoiding a wider war against a major adversary, the sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia were a self-inflicted wound. The myth of their neutrality gave North Vietnam an immense tactical and strategic advantage that plagued us throughout the war. (p. 66)

          The North Vietnamese, on the other hand, had a clear appreciation of the relationship between the strategic and tactical dimensions of the offensive. . . . After their initial attempt to gain their objective with guerrilla forces alone, they launched a tactical offensive in 1964 with the commitment of regular forces. Frustrated by the massive commitment of US combat ground forces, and their defeat in the battle of the Ia Drang in November 1965, they reverted to the tactical defensive. As they had done earlier against the French, their objective was to wear us down. This time, however they had an added advantage. Because of our public decision not to invade North Vietnam they were able to accomplish this with an economy of force effort-Viet Cong guerrillas supplied and augmented by selected North Vietnamese regular units-while preserving the bulk of their regular forces in their homeland sanctuary. (p. 69)

          As we will see, our so-called strategic offensive in the South was never more than a tactical offensive, since we were unable to carry the war to the enemy's main force-the North Vietnamese Army-and instead expended our energies against a secondary force-North Vietnam's guerrilla screen. Admiral Sharp's second strategic element-the nation building effort in South Vietnam was a task that could only be accomplished by the South Vietnamese themselves. While US forces could provide a shield against external aggression from North Vietnam behind which this activity could take place, "nation building" itself was clearly an inappropriate military task. As we will see in a subsequent chapter on Coalition Warfare, it was not until we "Vietnamized" this task after 1967 that nation building became a reality. His third strategic element-our air and naval offensive against North Vietnam-was faulted by Admiral Sharp himself. As he said:

          “From a military standpoint, both air and naval programs were inhibited by restrictions growing out of the limited nature of our conduct of the war... The bombing of North Vietnam was unilaterally stopped by the United States a number of times, for varying periods of time, in the hope that the enemy would respond by stopping his aggressive activities and reducing the scope and level of conflict. In every case the Communists used the bombing pause to rush troops and supplies to reinforce their army in South Vietnam. Such unilateral truce efforts, while judged politically desirable, accrued some temporary military disadvantages to successful prosecution of the war.”

          But these bombing halts were more than "temporary military disadvantages." They were fatal flaws. As Clausewitz had warned:

          “If the enemy is to be coerced you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make. The hardships of the situation must not of course be merely transient-at least not in appearance. Otherwise, the enemy would not give in but would wait for things to improve...."

          Ironically, the air offensive did have a strategic impact, but its impact was not on North Vietnam. The debate over the nature of our bombing campaign produced a strategic theory that was to have a devastating effect on American offensive operations--the theory of graduated response. In his analysis of the Vietnam war, Brigadier General Dave Palmer tells how this came about:

          “Within the larger framework of the debate over whether to bomb had raged an argument over how to go about it ... civilian planners wanted to start out softly and gradually increase the pressure by precise increments which could be unmistakenly recognized in Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh would see the tightening pattern, the theory went, and would sensibly stop the war against South Vietnam in time to avoid devastation of his homeland. Assistant Secretary of Defense John T. McNaughton dubbed the strategy "slow squeeze" and explained it in musical terms-an orchestration of activities which would proceed in crescendo fashion toward a finale. "The scenario," he wrote, "would be designed to give the United States the option at any point to proceed or not, to escalate or not, and to quicken the pace or not."

          “The Joint Chiefs of Staff did not like McNaughton's tune. The generals argued that if force were to be used at all it should be applied hard and fast to obtain maximum impact with minimum loss. To start lightly and escalate slowly, they held, would be like pulling a tooth bit by bit rather than all at once and getting it over with. If the purpose were to affect Hanoi's will, the Joint Chiefs said, the United States would have to hit hard at vital points and demonstrate a willingness to apply unlimited force....

          “The intelligence community--a panel comprising members of the C.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency, and State's Bureau of Intelligence--entered the debate strongly on the side of the military....

          “President Johnson overrode the objections of his intelligence and military advisors. Indeed, it is not at all clear whether Secretary McNamara ever even bothered to convey their arguments to him. Ambassador Taylor, still addressed as "General," had given his blessings to their theory, approval which apparently cancelled the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thus was born the strategy of "graduated response.'"" (pp. 72-73)

I might add that even Colin Powell said that the strategy of gradual escalation and repeated bombing halts was a "disaster."

Edited August 2, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gene Kelly]

8 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Below are excerpts from another source that is available online: Colonel Harry Summers’ famous book On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context (U.S. Army War College, 1982) (LINK). Among other things, Summers was a Vietnam veteran and a professor at the Army War College.

          As we will see, our so-called strategic offensive in the South was never more than a tactical offensive, since we were unable to carry the war to the enemy's main force-the North Vietnamese Army-and instead expended our energies against a secondary force-North Vietnam's guerrilla screen. From a military standpoint, both air and naval programs were inhibited by restrictions growing out of the limited nature of our conduct of the war... The bombing of North Vietnam was unilaterally stopped by the United States a number of times, for varying periods of time, in the hope that the enemy would respond by stopping his aggressive activities and reducing the scope and level of conflict. In every case the Communists used the bombing pause to rush troops and supplies to reinforce their army in South Vietnam. Such unilateral truce efforts, while judged politically desirable, accrued some temporary military disadvantages to successful prosecution of the war.”    But these bombing halts were more than "temporary military disadvantages." They were fatal flaws. As Clausewitz had warned:

          “If the enemy is to be coerced you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make. The hardships of the situation must not of course be merely transient-at least not in appearance. Otherwise, the enemy would not give in but would wait for things to improve...."

  Ironically, the air offensive did have a strategic impact, but its impact was not on North Vietnam. The debate over the nature of our bombing campaign produced a strategic theory that was to have a devastating effect on American offensive operations--the theory of graduated response. In his analysis of the Vietnam war, Brigadier General Dave Palmer tells how this came about:

          “President Johnson overrode the objections of his intelligence and military advisors. Indeed, it is not at all clear whether Secretary McNamara ever even bothered to convey their arguments to him. Ambassador Taylor, still addressed as "General," had given his blessings to their theory, approval which apparently cancelled the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thus was born the strategy of "graduated response.'"" (pp. 72-73)

 

Michael

I am finding Colonel Harry Summers’ book an insightful read.  It draws a lot from the classic writing of Clausewitz in understanding North Vietnam's actions. I also don't live far from Carlisle and have visited the War College.  I found the following excerpt - about Clausewitz's wisdom of not only having the right strategy but the importance of "mobilizing the will of the people" - of interest:

By an ironic twist of fate, the animosity of the Officer Corps was drained off to a large extent by General William C. Westmoreland. On his shoulders was laid much of the blame for our Vietnam failure. According to a 1970 analysis, "For the older men, the villains tend to be timorous civilians and the left-wing press; for the younger men, they are the tradition-bound senior generals and the craven press. For one group, it is the arrogance of McNamara; for the other the rigidity of Westmoreland." Those then "younger men" now make up the majority of the Army's senior officers. For example, the Vietnam experience of the Army War College Class of 1980 was mostly at the platoon and company level. As will be seen in subsequent chapters, placing the blame on General Westmoreland was unfair, but, unfair or not, it did spare another innocent victim-the American people. The main reason it is not right to blame the American public is that President Lyndon Baines Johnson made a conscious decision not to mobilize the American people-to invoke the national will-for the Vietnam war.

Regarding John Kennedy's role and decisions, the following was of interest:

In the Vietnam war the problem was not so much coordination of effort toward a common objective as it was determining that objective in the first place. Contributing to this deficiency was the erosion of the NSC structure. According to Hoopes, "President Kennedy...scrapped the entire structure of the NSC." Instead he chose to rely on "irregular meetings at the White House attended by the President, [Secretary of State] Rusk, [Secretary of Defense] McNamara, and [National Security Advisor] Bundy, augmented from time to time by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of Central Intelligence, and others..." President Johnson inherited "this somewhat amorphous set of arrangements for foreign policy formulation, coordination, and control."

Just to show you that I am of an open mind ...

Gene

 

 

[Michael Griffith]

For those who want to better understand the news media's conduct during the Vietnam War, here is an informative article by two men who were in a position to speak with authority on the subject: "The Culpability of the Media," by Charles Wiley and Dolf Droge (LINK).

Wiley did four tours as a journalist in South Vietnam. He covered the 1968 Tet Offensive and the 1972 Easter Offensive.

Droge served in the U.S. Information Service and in the diplomatic corps in Thailand, Laos, Poland, and Vietnam during part of the war. He also worked with the National Security Council’s Vietnam Information Group under LBJ and Nixon. 

Wiley and Droge discuss numerous examples of severe media bias and false reporting during and after the war. 

[Gene Kelly]

Michael

Wiley and Droge's 2004 interview didn't much impress me ... the former makes apologies for the Gulf of Tonkin chicanery and the latter wasn't really a journalist, but rather a government employee who worked for the Agency for International Development.

I did come across a 2020 paper by Brock J. Vaughan, Wilfrid Laurier University that examines the role that media played in coverage of Vietnam, and its effect in shaping the ultimate outcome of the Vietnam War.  Entitled "War, Media, and Memory: American Television News Coverage of the Vietnam War", it references quite a few sources and writers on this subject. Here is a link:

https://scholars.wlu.ca/bridges_contemporary_connections/vol4/iss1/5

The author states that:

" ... (media's) role is often "grossly overestimated yet should still not be discounted entirely". Television news war coverage was nonlinear in that it reflected the complexities of battle, thus revealing the complexities of war itself. Although American public support and military policy were not directly influenced by television news coverage, our collective memories of Vietnam were."

American military policy concerning Vietnam was influenced by public opinion (Mandelbaum 1982). However, there is little evidence that television positively or negatively affected public support for the war. McClancy (2013) notes that combat footage is widely believed to have negatively influenced public opinion, yet this simplistic view is “based on assumptions contradicted by any study of news footage of the time”. Bailey (1976) points out that critics often rely on “anecdote and impressionistic memory” for their claims that media coverage of Vietnam had a profound impact on public opinion and military conduct, without “systemic research” to back up their assertions. Many Americans claim that had the war in Vietnam not been televised, the U.S. would not have lost. According to Mandelbaum (1982), “this has become a truism, a part of conventional wisdom about recent American history”. Even President Johnson criticized the news media at the time. Those arguing that television was to blame for declining public support, resulting in America’s withdrawal, turn to supposed issues of bias in the press. The main problem with their assertions is that there was little, if any, bias in media coverage during the war.

Russo (1971) mentions the fact that what may be considered “fair” or “unfair” coverage will vary from person to person. Still, major networks did not favor any particular stories that would paint the U.S. government as incompetent and incapable of winning the war. Hallin (1984) concludes that the basic structure, level of integrity, and objective nature of journalism throughout the war was consistent and remained “more or less unchanged”. It is imperative to mention that investigative journalism was seldom featured in Vietnam news coverage, as most journalists relied on official government sources. After the highly controversial Tet Offensive, press coverage did become more skeptical. Some media reports brought to light the struggles American troops were having with guerrilla warfare, although Huebner (2005) is quick to note that these reports “did not question the professionalism or courage” of the soldiers, but rather revealed the difficulties faced in “their ability to get the job done in [a] particular locale of Vietnam”. To claim the media was pushing an agenda is foolhardy and does not do the complexity of the situation in Vietnam any justice.

The Vietnam War, Hallin (1993) states, “was the first war in which reporters were routinely accredited to accompany military forces yet were not subject to censorship”. Although, the Nixon Administration still “retained a good deal of power to ‘manage’ the news” (Hallin 1993). Huebner (2005) points to the lack of press censorship and “official control” of the media during the Vietnam Era, which was certainly not the case during WWII and the Korean War. However, journalists sometimes faced requests to withhold information regarding troop movements, and television networks had policies which governed the release of any footage that had the potential to upset the families of dead and wounded soldiers (Huebner 2005). Despite this, television correspondents did not attempt to shield viewers from the reality of life on the ground.

Gene

[Michael Griffith]

19 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

 

Wiley and Droge's 2004 interview didn't much impress me ... the former makes apologies for the Gulf of Tonkin chicanery and the latter wasn't really a journalist, but rather a government employee who worked for the Agency for International Development.

I notice you did not address any of the many examples of biased and/or inaccurate reporting that Wiley and Droge discuss. Peter Braestrup discusses many more examples in his book The Big Story.

BTW, Droge also worked for the U.S. Information Service and spent years on the NSC's Vietnam Information Group, so he was in an excellent position to talk about news media coverage of the war. 

Are you denying that there was an attack on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964? I agree that the reported August 4 attack was a case of jittery nerves, a rookie radar operator, and pressure from Washington to provide a quick confirmation or denial, but no credible scholar denies that the North Vietnamese attacked our ships on August 2. 

I did come across a 2020 paper by Brock J. Vaughan, Wilfrid Laurier University that examines the role that media played in coverage of Vietnam, and its effect in shaping the ultimate outcome of the Vietnam War.  Entitled "War, Media, and Memory: American Television News Coverage of the Vietnam War", it references quite a few sources and writers on this subject. Here is a link:

https://scholars.wlu.ca/bridges_contemporary_connections/vol4/iss1/5 [SNIP]

Yes, I have read Vaughan's article. It is one of many attempts by liberal scholars to deny that the major news media behaved badly during the war. Did you notice that Vaughan does not address a single one of the examples of biased and/or inaccurate reporting discussed by Wiley and Droge, not to mention the examples documented in Braestrup's seminal book?

In fact, Vaughan does not even mention Braestrup's massive book. How can any article that pretends to discuss the issue of media bias during the Vietnam War not even mention, much less fail to address, Braestrup's 630-page work on the subject?

I do give you credit for being willing to read the other side of the story. However, if you read the other side with a determination to disbelieve it no matter what, the value of the effort declines considerably. 

Speaking of sources available online, I should mention The Boston Manifesto, written and published in 2004 by the Vietnam Veterans for Factual History (formerly known as Vietnam Veterans to Correct the Myths) (LINK). Several noted Vietnam War scholars helped write the 186-page book, including Dr. Peter C. Rollins, Dr. Robert F. Turner, and Stephen Sherman.

The Boston Manifesto deals with the following issues, among others: 

-- John Kerry and the Winter Soldier Investigation

-- Operation RAW

-- Drug use among U.S. forces in Vietnam

-- Undermining efforts to get humane treatment for American POWs

-- Treasonous conduct by some leaders in the anti-war movement

-- The brutal, mass-murdering nature of the North Vietnamese and Cambodian Communists

-- How and why the Vietnam War started

-- The insane restrictions placed on our air operations during most of the war

-- The insane restrictions placed on our ground operations throughout the war

-- LBJ and McNamara's mistreatment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

-- Hanoi's propaganda campaign and the American anti-war movement

-- The evidence that we had the war won in South Vietnam by 1972

-- The media's conduct during the war

-- The liberal myths about Ho Chi Minh

-- The issue of elections and the 1954 Geneva Accords

-- South Vietnam's government compared to North Vietnam's government

-- The Phoenix Program

-- The Domino Theory

-- The reign of terror imposed on the South Vietnamese after the war

Edited August 4, 2023 by Michael Griffith