The Military And Diplomatic Course Of The Vietnam War Essay, Research Paper

David L Anderson

The

Vietnam War was the longest deployment of U.S. forces in hostile action in the history of

the American republic. Although there is no formal declaration of war from which to date

U.S. entry, President John F. Kennedy’s decision to send over 2,000 military advisers to

South Vietnam in 1961 marked the beginning of twelve years of American military combat.

U.S. unit combat began in 1965. The number of US. troops steadily increased until it

reached a peak of 543,400 in April 1969. The total number of Americans who served in South

Vietnam was 2.7 million. Of these, more than 58,000 died or remain missing, and 300,000

others were wounded. The US. government spent more than $140 billion on the war. Despite

this enormous military effort, the United States failed to achieve its objective of

preserving an independent, noncommunist state in South Vietnam. This failure has led to

searching questions about why and how the war was fought and whether a better diplomatic

and military outcome was possible for the United States.

Escalation. By 1961, guerrilla warfare was widespread in South Vietnam.

Communist-led troops of the National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Vietnam, commonly

referred to as Vietcong, were initiating hundreds of terrorist and small unit attacks per

month. Saigon’s military, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), was not able to

contain this growing insurgency. During the administration of President Dwight D.

Eisenhower, a small U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), never numbering more

than 740 uniformed soldiers, had provided training and logistics assistance to the ARVN.

The Kennedy administration determined that the size and mission of the U.S. advisory

effort must change if the U.S.-backed government of Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon was to

survive. Some of Kennedy’s aides proposed a negotiated settlement in Vietnam similar to

that which recognized Laos as a neutral country. Having just suffered international

embarrassment in Cuba and Berlin, the president rejected compromise and chose to

strengthen U.S. support of Saigon.

In May 1961, Kennedy sent 400 U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) troops into South

Vietnam’s Central Highlands to train Montagnard tribesmen in counterinsurgency tactics. He

also tripled the level of aid to South Vietnam. A steady stream of airplanes, helicopters,

armored personnel carriers (APCs), and other equipment poured into the South. By the end

of 1962, there were 9,000 U.S. military advisers under the direction of a newly-created

Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), commanded by U.S. Army Gen. Paul Harkins.

Under U.S. guidance, the Diem government also began construction of "strategic

hamlets." These fortified villages were intended to insulate rural Vietnamese from

Vietcong intimidation and propaganda.

U.S. and South Vietnamese leaders were cautiously optimistic that increased U.S.

assistance finally was enabling the Saigon government to defend itself. On 2 January 1963,

however, at Ap Bac on the Plain of Reeds southwest of Saigon, a Vietcong battalion of

about 320 men inflicted heavy damage on an ARVN force of 3,000 equipped with

troop-carrying helicopters, new UH- I ("Huey") helicopter gunships, tactical

bombers, and APCS. Ap Bac represented a leadership failure for the ARVN and a major morale

boost for the antigovernment forces. The absence of fighting spirit in the ARVN mirrored

the continuing inability of the Saigon regime to win political support. Indeed, many South

Vietnamese perceived the strategic hamlets as government oppression, not protection,

because people were forced to leave their ancestral homes for the new settlements.

While Vietcong guerrillas scored military successes, leaders of Vietnam’s Buddhist

majority protested against what they saw as the Diem regime’s religious persecution. In

June, a monk dramatically burned himself to death at a busy Saigon intersection. The

"Buddhist crisis" and dissatisfaction with Diem by top Vietnamese Army leaders

made U.S. officials receptive to the idea of a change in South Vietnam’s leadership.

Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not interfere as a

group of ARVN officers plotted a coup. On 1 November 1963, the generals seized power, and

Diem and his unpopular brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were murdered. Three weeks later, President

Kennedy was assassinated, and U.S. policy in Vietnam was again at a crossroads. If the new

government in Saigon failed to show progress against the insurgency, would the United

States withdraw its support from a lost cause, or would it escalate the effort to preserve

South Vietnam as an anticommunist outpost in Asia?

Lyndon B. Johnson inherited the Vietnam dilemma. As Senate majority leader in the 1950s

and as vice-president, he had supported Eisenhower’s and Kennedy’s decisions to aid South

Vietnam. Four days after Kennedy’s death, Johnson, now president, reaffirmed in National

Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 273 that the U.S. goal was to assist South Vietnam in

its "contest against the externally directed and supported communist

conspiracy." U.S. policy defined the Vietnam War as North Vietnamese aggression

against South Vietnam. North Vietnam infiltrated troops and materiel into South Vietnam by

sea and along the so-called Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. Throughout his administration,

Johnson insisted that the only possible negotiated settlement of the conflict would be one

in which North Vietnam recognized the legitimacy of South Vietnam’s government. Without

such recognition, the United States would continue to provide Saigon as much help as it

needed to survive.

The critical military questions were how much U.S. assistance was enough and what form

it should take. By the spring of 1964, the Vietcong controlled vast areas of South

Vietnam, the strategic hamlet program had essentially ceased, and North Vietnam’s aid to

the southern insurgents had grown. In June, Johnson named one of the army’s most

distinguished officers, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, then commandant of West Point, as

commander U.S. MACV. Westmoreland immediately asked for more men, and by the end of 1964

U.S. personnel in the South exceeded 23,000. Increasingly, however, the U.S. effort

focused on the North. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of State Dean

Rusk, and other key White House aides remained convinced that the assault on South Vietnam

originated in the ambitious designs of Hanoi backed by Moscow and Beijing.

Throughout 1964, the United States assisted South Vietnam in covert operations to

gather intelligence, disseminate propaganda, and harass the North. On the night of 2

August, North Vietnamese gunboats fired on the USS Maddox a destroyer on an

intelligence-collecting mission, in the same area of the Gulf of Tonkin where South

Vietnamese commandos were conducting raids against the North Vietnamese coast. Two nights

later, under stormy conditions, the Maddox and another destroyer, the Turner

Joy, reported a gunboat attack. Although doubts existed about these reports, the

president ordered retaliatory air strikes against the North Vietnamese port of Vinh. The

White House had expected that some type of incident would occur eventually, and it had

prepared the text of a congressional resolution authorizing the president to use armed

force to protect U.S. forces and to deter further aggression from North Vietnam. On 7

August 1964, Johnson secured almost unanimous consent from Congress (414-0 in the House;

88-2 in the Senate) for his Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which became the principal

legislative basis for all subsequent military deployment in Southeast Asia.

Johnson’s decisive but restrained response to the Gulf of Tonkin incidents helped him

win the 1964 election, but Saigon’s prospects continued to decline. The president wanted

to concentrate on his ambitious domestic program, the Great Society, but his political

instincts told him that his leadership would be damaged fatally if America’s client state

in South Vietnam succumbed. Instability mounted in South Vietnam as rival military and

civilian factions vied for power and as Vietcong strength grew. A consensus formed among

Johnson’s advisers that the United States would have to initiate air warfare against North

Vietnam. Bombing could boost Saigon’s morale and might persuade the North to cease its

support of the insurgency. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) favored a massive bombing

campaign, but civilians in the State and Defense Departments preferred a gradual

escalation.

Using as a pretext a Vietcong attack on 7 February 1965 at Pleiku that killed eight

American soldiers, Johnson ordered retaliatory bombing north of the Demilitarized Zone

along the 17th parallel that divided North and South Vietnam, Within a week, the

administration began ROLLING THUNDER, a gradually intensifying air bombardment of military

bases, supply depots, and infiltration routes in North Vietnam. Flying out of bases in

Thailand, U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers–primarily F-105 Thunderchiefs and later F-4

Phantoms–joined U.S. Navy Phantoms and A-4 Skyhawks from a powerful carrier task force

located at a point called Yankee Station, seventy-five miles off the North Vietnamese

coast in the Gulf of Tonkin. In 1965, U.S. aircraft flew 25,000 sorties against North

Vietnam, and that number grew to 79,000 in 1966 and 108,000 in 1967. In 1967 annual

bombing tonnage reached almost a quarter million. Targets expanded to include the Ho Chi

Minh Trail in Laos and factories, farms, and railroads in North Vietnam.

From the beginning of the bombing, American strategists debated the effectiveness of

air power in defeating a political insurgency in a predominantly agricultural country.

Despite the American bombs, dollars, and military advisers, the Vietcong continued to

inflict heavy casualties on the ARVN, and the political situation in Saigon grew worse. By

June 1965, there had been five governments in the South since Diem’s death, and the

newest regime, headed by General Nguyen Van Thieu and Air Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky, inspired

little confidence. To stave off defeat, the JCS endorsed Westmoreland’s request for

150,000 U.S. troops to take the ground offensive in the South. When McNamara concurred,

Johnson decided to commit the forces. The buildup of formal U.S. military units had begun

on 8 March 1965, when two battalions of Marines landed at Da Nang. In June, Marine and

army units began offensive unit operations—"search and destroy" missions.

On 28 July, Johnson announced that 50,000 U.S. troops would go to South Vietnam

immediately. By the end of the year, there were 184,300 U.S. personnel in the South.

Although Johnson’s actions meant that the United States had crossed the line from

advising the ARVN to actually fighting the war against the Vietcong, the president

downplayed the move. The JCS wanted a mobilization of the reserves and National Guard, and

McNamara proposed levying war taxes. Such actions would have placed the United States on a

war footing. With his ambitious social reform program facing crucial votes in Congress,

the president wanted to avoid giving congressional conservatives an opportunity to use

mobilization to block his domestic agenda. Consequently, he relied on other means. Monthly

draft calls increased from 17,000 to 35,000 to meet manpower needs, and deficit spending,

with its inherent inflationary impact, funded the escalation.

With U.S. bombs pounding North Vietnam, Westmoreland turned America’s massive

firepower on the southern insurgents. Johnson’s choice of gradual escalation of bombing

and incremental troop deployments was based upon the concept of limited warfare. Risks of

a wider war with China and the Soviet Union meant that the United States would not go all

out to annihilate North Vietnam. Thus, Westmoreland chose a strategy of attrition in the

South. Using mobility and powerful weapons, the MACV commander could limit U.S. casualties

while exhausting the enemy, that is, inflicting heavier losses than could be replaced.

Escalation of the air and ground war in 1965 provoked Hanoi to begin deploying into the

South increasing units of the regular North Vietnamese Army (NVA), or People’s Army of

Vietnam (PAVN), as it was called. In October, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the PAVN commander,

launched a major offensive in the Central Highlands, southwest of Pleiku. Westmoreland

responded with the 1st Air Cavalry Division (Air Mobile). Through much of November, in the

Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, U.S. and North Vietnamese forces engaged each other in

heavy combat for the first time. The Americans ultimately forced the NVA out of the valley

and killed ten times as many enemy soldiers as they lost. Westmoreland used helicopters

extensively for troop movements, resupply, medical evacuation, and tactical air support.

USAF tactical bombers and even huge B-52 strategic bombers attacked enemy positions. The

battle convinced the U.S. commander that "search and destroy" tactics using air

mobility would work in accomplishing the attrition strategy. Soon after the PAVN departed

the battlefield, however, so too did the American air "cavalry." Clearly,

control of territory was not the U.S. military objective.

During 1966 Westmoreland requested more ground troops, and by year’s end the U.S.

ground force level "in country" reached 385,000. These were organized into seven

divisions and other specialized airborne, armored, special forces, and logistical units.

With U.S. aid, the ARVN also expanded to eleven divisions, supplemented by local and

irregular units. While MACV was getting men and munitions in place for large-unit search

and destroy operations, army and marine units conducted smaller operations. Although the

"body count"–the estimated number of enemy killed–mounted, attrition was not

changing the political equation in South Vietnam. The NLF continued to exercise more

effective control in many areas than did the government, and Vietcong guerrillas, who

often disappeared when U.S. forces entered an area, quickly reappeared when the Americans

left.

In 1967, Westmoreland made his big push to win the war. With South Vietnam’s forces

assigned primarily to occupation, pacification, and security duties, massive U.S. combat

sweeps moved to locate and destroy the enemy. In January, Operation Cedar Falls was a

30,000-man assault on the Iron Triangle, an enemy base area forty miles north of Saigon.

From February through April, Operation Junction City was an even larger attack on nearby

War Zone C. There was major fighting in the Central Highlands, climaxing in the battle of

Dak To in November 1967. U.S. forces killed many enemy soldiers and destroyed large

amounts of supplies. MACV declared vast areas to be "free-fire zones," which

meant that U.S. and ARVN artillery and tactical aircraft, as well as B-52 "carpet

bombing" could target anyone or anything in the area. In Operation RANCH HAND, the

USAF sprayed the defoliant Agent Orange to deprive the guerrillas of cover and food

supplies. Controversy about the use of Agent Orange erupted in 1969 when reports appeared

that the chemical caused serious damage to humans as well as to plants.

Late in 1967, with 485,600 U.S. troops in Vietnam, Westmoreland announced that,

although much fighting remained, a cross-over point had arrived

in the war of attrition; that is, the losses to the NVA and Vietcong were greater than

they could replace. This assessment was debatable, and there was considerable evidence

that the so-called "other war" for political support in South Vietnam was not

going well. Corruption, factionalism, and continued Buddhist protests plagued the Thieu-Ky

government. Despite incredible losses, the Vietcong still controlled many areas. A

diplomatic resolution of the conflict remained elusive. Several third countries, such as

Poland and Great Britain, offered proposals intended to facilitate negotiations. These

formulas typically called upon the United States and DRV to coordinate mutual reduction of

their military activities in South Vietnam, but both Washington and Hanoi firmly resisted

even interim compromises with the other. The war was at a stalemate.

De-escalation. The decisive year was 1968. In the early morning of 30 January,

Vietcong forces launched the Tet Offensive, named for the Vietnamese holiday then being

observed. In coordinated attacks throughout South Vietnam, the Vietcong assaulted major

urban areas and military installations in an attempt to spark a popular uprising against

the Saigon regime and its American backers. Heavy fighting ensued for three weeks, some of

the most brutal at Hu?. Westmoreland claimed victory because no cities were lost and

thousands of casualties were inflicted upon the attackers. Indeed, the Vietcong lost so

many soldiers that thereafter the PAVN took over much of the conduct of the war. The Tet

Offensive, however, was a great strategic gain for North Vietnam and its southern

adherents. U.S. and ARVN losses were high, and the fighting generated thousands of

refugees that further destabilized the South. Most importantly, as a result of the massive

surprise attack and the pictures from Saigon, the U.S. press and public began to challenge

the Johnson administration’s assurances of success and to question the value of the

increasingly costly war.

At the same time as the Tet Offensive, the siege of Khe Sanh underscored the image of

the war as an endless, costly, and pointless struggle. From 20 January to 14 April 1968,

30,000 to 40,000 NVA forces surrounded 6,000 U.S. Marines and ARVN at the remote hilltop

outpost of Khe Sanh in the northwest corner of South Vietnam. Using artillery and air

power, including B-52 strikes, the United States eventually broke the siege and forced an

NVA withdrawal. At the end of June, however, the Marines abandoned the base to adopt a

more mobile form of fighting in the DMZ area. Once again, a major engagement left

seemingly intangible results.

In March 1968, Johnson decided that the size of the U.S. effort in Vietnam had grown as

large as could be justified. Prompted by a request from Westmoreland and JCS Chairman

General Earle G. Wheeler for 206,000 more men, the president asked his new secretary of

defense, Clark Clifford, for a thorough policy review. Johnson’s sense that a limit had

been reached seemed confirmed when the "Wise Men," a group of outside advisers

including such elder statesmen as former Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Gen. Omar

Bradley, recommended against further increases. The president authorized only 13,500 more

soldiers and bluntly informed Thieu and Ky that their forces would have to carry more of

the fighting. He then announced on television on 31 March 1968 that the United States

would restrict the bombing of North Vietnam and pursue a negotiated settlement with Hanoi.

Johnson also revealed that he would not seek reelection.

Meanwhile, combat raged in South Vietnam. Over 14,000 Americans were killed in action

in Vietnam in 1968, the highest annual U.S. death toll of the war. The worst U.S. war

crime of the conflict occurred on 16 March 1968 (although not revealed in the press until

6 November 1969) when American infantrymen massacred some 500 unresisting civilians,

including babies, in the village of My Lai. In April and May 1968 the largest ground

operation of the war, with 110,000 U.S. and ARVN troops, targeted Vietcong and NVA forces

near Saigon. Peace talks began in Paris on 13 May but immediately deadlocked. On 10 June

1968, Gen. Creighton Abrams succeeded Westmoreland as MACV commander. In the fall Abrams

began to shift U.S. strategy from attrition to a greater emphasis on combined operations,

pacification area security, and what was called "Vietnamization," that is,

preparing the ARVN to do more of the fighting.

When Richard M. Nixon became president in 1969, the U.S. war effort remained massive,

but the basic decision to de-escalate had already been reached. Nixon owed his political

victory to voter expectation that somehow he would end the war. He and his principal

foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger, rejected precipitate U.S. withdrawal. With the

ground war stalemated, the new administration turned increasingly to air bombardment and

secretly expanded the air war to neutral Cambodia. Publicly the White House announced in

June the first withdrawal of 25,000 U.S. troops and heralded Vietnamization as effective.

In fact, South Vietnam’s armed forces remained problem-plagued. To bolster the South, the

administration leaked to the press dire threats of a "go for broke" air and

naval assault on the North–possibly including nuclear weapons. Kissinger also began

secret meetings with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris hoping to arrange a

diplomatic breakthrough.

The morale and discipline of U.S. troops declined in 1969 as the futility of the ground

war and the beginnings of U.S. withdrawal became more obvious. After an intense ten-day

battle in May, infantrymen of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Mobile) took a ridge in the

A Shau Valley that they had dubbed Hamburger Hill. Having fought bravely and suffered

significant losses, the soldiers were bitter when the site soon was abandoned. Such

inability to see progress, and an awareness among the troops that politicians back home

were giving up on the war, helped undermine military effectiveness. Simple survival of

their twelve-month tour of duty became the only motivation for many soldiers. Incidents of

insubordination, mutiny, fatal assaults on officers, drug use, racial tensions, and other

serious problems increased.

Faced with mounting public dissatisfaction, the slow pace of Vietnamization, and

diplomatic frustration, Nixon boldly sent U.S. units into Cambodia in April 1970. U.S.

military leaders had long complained about the sanctuary that neutral Cambodia provided

Vietcong and NVA forces. This Cambodian incursion lasted until the end of June and

provided some tactical gains, but it also sparked sharp controversy and demonstrations by

the Vietnam antiwar movement in the United States over what seemed an expansion of the war

to another country. U.S. troop reductions continued with only 334,600 in the South as 1970

ended.

Nixon stuck with more of the same in 1971. Responding to domestic critics, he continued

to order U.S. troops home, leaving only 156,000 by December. To support Vietnamization,

heavy U.S. air attacks continued against Communist supply lines in Laos and Cambodia, and

so-called protective-reaction strikes hit military targets north of the Demilitarized Zone

and near Hanoi and its port city of Haiphong. Tactical air support continued, with the

heaviest coming in March during a South Vietnamese assault into Laos. Code named Lam Son

719, this operation ended in a confused retreat by the ARVN that further sullied the

notion of Vietnamization.

During 1971, Kissinger made progress in the secret negotiations by offering to separate

the arrangement of a ceasefire from discussion of the future of the Saigon government. In

1972 Nixon traveled to China and the USSR in diplomatic initiatives, trying to isolate

Hanoi from its suppliers. With the shrinking American forces nearing 100,000 (only a small

portion being combat troops), General Giap launched a spring 1972 offensive by Communist

forces against the northern provinces of South Vietnam, the Central Highlands, and

provinces northwest of Saigon. In most of the battles, the ARVN was saved by massive B-52

bombing, Nixon also launched the heavy bombers against North Vietnam itself in a campaign

called Linebacker, and the United States mined the harbor at Haiphong. Over the course of

the war, total U.S. bombing tonnage far exceeded that dropped on Germany, Italy, and Japan

in World War II.

Wearied by the latest round of fighting, the United States and North Vietnamese

governments agreed in October on a ceasefire, return of U.S. prisoners of war (POWs), at

least the temporary continuation of Thieu’s government, and, most controversially,

permission for NVA troops to remain in the South. Objections from Thieu caused Nixon to

hesitate, which in turn led Hanoi to harden its position. In December, the United States

hit North Vietnam again with repeated B-52 attacks, code-named Linebacker II and labeled

the Christmas Bombing by journalists. On 27 January 1973, the United States, North

Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government representing the NLF

signed the Paris Peace Agreements Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, which

basically confirmed the October terms.

By 1 April 1973, U.S. forces were out of Vietnam (except for a few embassy guards and

attaches) and 587 POWs had returned home (about 2,500 other Americans remained missing in

action). Congress cut off funds for the air war in Cambodia, and bombing there ended in

August. Over Nixon’s veto, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in November 1973. It

limited presidential power to deploy U.S. forces in hostile action without congressional

approval.

Nixon characterized the Paris Peace Agreements of 1973 as "peace with honor,"

but primarily they allowed the U.S. military to leave Vietnam without resolving the issue

of the country’s political future. Without U.S. air and ground support, South Vietnam’s

military defenses steadily deteriorated. In the spring of 1975, an NVA thrust into the

Central Highlands turned into an ARVN rout. On 30 April, as NVA and Vietcong soldiers

entered the city, the last remaining Americans abandoned the U.S. embassy in Saigon in a

dramatic rooftop evacuation by helicopters.

The United States failure in Vietnam raised important questions. Should the United

States have fought the war at all? Did the United States fight the war the wrong way? Many

analysts believe that the strategic importance of Vietnam was vastly exaggerated and,

furthermore, that the nationalism driving Vietnam’s history and politics could not be

altered by U.S. military power, no matter how great. An alternative view is that even if

the odds were poor for U.S. success, the United States had to make the effort to maintain

its moral and strategic credibility in the world. On the question of how the war was

fought, the debate centers on whether the United States used its military power adequately

and effectively. Assuming that more is better, some critics argue that a greater use of

U.S. force, either against North Vietnam or to isolate the battlefield in South Vietnam,

would have produced victory. Throughout the conflict, however, the Saigon regime proved

incapable of translating military success into political success. Also, massive U.S.

assistance seemed to prove North Vietnam’s and the Vietcong’s claims that South Vietnam

was not a Vietnamese but an American creation. Finally, a larger war would have risked a

dangerous military conflict with China and the Soviet Union. Most scholars conclude that

the Vietnam War was a tragic event whose costs far exceeded any benefits for the United

States.

From The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Ed. John Whiteclay

Chambers II. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Copyright ? 1999 by Oxford UP.