The March of Folly_ From Troy to Vietnam - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [187]
With ARVN under American tutelage, increasing its missions, with the Viet-Cong defection rate rising and many of its bases abandoned, confidence recovered. Nineteen sixty-two was Saigon’s year, unsuspected to be its last. American optimism swelled. Army and Embassy spokesmen issued positive pronouncements. The war was said to be “turning the corner.” The body count of VC against ARVN was estimated at five to three. General Harkins was consistently bullish. Secretary McNamara, on an inspection trip in July, declared characteristically, “Every quantitative measurement we have shows we are winning this war.” At a military conference at CINCPAC (Commander in Chief, Pacific) headquarters in Honolulu on his way home, he initiated planning for a gradual phase-out of United States military involvement in 1965.
At the ground level, colonels and non-coms and press reporters were more doubtful. The most cogent doubter was J. K. Galbraith, who, on his way to India as Ambassador at the time of the Taylor report in November 1961, was asked by Kennedy to stop off at Saigon for yet another assessment. Galbraith received the impression that Kennedy wanted a negative one, and gave it unsparingly. The situation was “certainly a can of snakes.” Diem’s battalions were “unmotivated malingerers.” Provincial army chiefs combined military command with local government and political graft; intelligence on insurgent operations was “non-existent.” The political reality was “total stasis” arising from Diem’s greater need to protect himself from a coup than to protect the country from the Viet-Cong. The ineffectuality and unpopularity of his government conditioned the effectiveness of American aid. When Diem drove through Saigon, his movement, reminiscent of the Japanese Emperor’s, “requires the taking in of all laundry along the route, the closing of all windows, an order to the populace to keep their heads in, the clearing of all streets, and a vast bevy of motorcycle outriders to protect him on his dash.” The effort to bargain for reform with promises of aid was useless because Diem “will not reform either administratively or politically in any effective way. That is because he cannot. It is politically naive to expect it. He senses that he cannot let power go because he would be thrown out.”
Galbraith advised resisting any pressure for introducing American troops because “Our soldiers would not deal with the vital weakness.” He had as yet no solution to “the box we are now in,” except to dispute the argument that there was no alternative to Diem. He thought a change and a new start were essential, and though no one could promise a safe transition, “We are now married to failure.”
Again in March 1962 he wrote to urge that the United States should keep the door wide open for any kind of political settlement with Hanoi and “jump at the chance” if any appeared. He believed Jawaharlal Nehru would help and the Russians could be approached by Harriman to find out if Hanoi would call off the Viet-Cong in return for American withdrawal and an agreement to talk about ultimate unification. Returning home in April, he proposed to Kennedy an internationally negotiated settlement for a non-aligned government on the Laos model. By continuing to support an ineffectual government, he predicted, “We shall replace the French as the colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did.” In the meantime all steps to commit American soldiers to combat should be resisted, and it would be well to disassociate ourselves from such unpopular actions as defoliation and the “strategic hamlets.”
Galbraith’s proposal, put in writing, was squelched by the Joint Chiefs, who saw