The March of Folly_ From Troy to Vietnam - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [193]
This could have been the opening to “jump at the chance” of a possible negotiated settlement, as Galbraith had once advised. De Gaulle was offering an out if Washington had been wise enough to want one. “Wide annoyance,” however, was reported in the American government, a frequent reaction to de Gaulle’s pomposities. Yet, given political disintegration and military inadequacy and lack of any real progress in South Vietnam, and the hints from Hanoi, the American government could have used the opportunity of Diem’s coming collapse and de Gaulle’s implied good offices to say it had done all it could by way of support; it could not do more; the rest was up to the Vietnamese people to settle for themselves. This would have meant sooner or later a Communist take-over. With the future not foreseen, and with the confidence of 1963 in American power, that outcome was still unacceptable.
Matters proceeded on the chosen course toward coup d’état. That it violated a basic principle of foreign relations did not bother the realists of the Kennedy school. That it made nonsense of the reiterated American insistence that Vietnam’s conflict was “their” war does not seem to have been considered. “Their” war was a ceaseless refrain; Dulles said it, Eisenhower said it, Rusk said it, Maxwell Taylor said it, all the Ambassadors said it, Kennedy himself said it many times: “In the final analysis it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it.” If it was their war, it was also their government and their politics. For the defenders of democracy to conspire with plotters of a coup d’état, no matter how cogent the reasons, could not be hailed in the history books as the American way. It was a step in the folly of self-betrayal.
Troubled by his role and the smell of the swamp he was getting into, Kennedy resorted to another fact-finding mission, the now traditional Washington substitute for policy. A rapid but intensive four-day tour was made by General Victor Krulak, special adviser to Maxwell Taylor, who was now Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Joseph Mendenhall of State, an old Vietnam hand with a large acquaintance among Vietnamese civilians. Their reports to the White House on return, one hearty and promising from military sources, the other caustic and gloomy, were so at variance as to evoke the President’s puzzled query “You two did visit the same country, didn’t you?” On their heels followed another mission at the highest level, General Taylor himself and Secretary McNamara with the assignment to find out how far the political chaos had affected the military effort. Their report on 2 October, while positive on military prospects, was full of political negatives that belied their hopes. All contradictions were muffled by McNamara’s public announcement, with the President’s approval, that 1000 men could be withdrawn by the end of the year and that “The major part of the United States military task can be completed by the end of 1965.” The confusion and contradiction in fact-finding did nothing to clarify policy.
On 1 November the generals’ coup took place successfully. It included, to the appalled discomfort of the Americans, the unexpected assassinations of Diem and Nhu. Less than a month later, President Kennedy too was in his grave.
5. Executive War: 1964–68
From the moment he took over the presidency, according to one who knew him well, Lyndon Johnson made up his mind that he was not going to “lose” South Vietnam. Given his forward-march proposals as Vice-President in 1961, this attitude could have been expected, and while stemming from cold war credos it had even more to do with the demands of his own self-image—as became overt at once. Within 48 hours of Kennedy’s death, Ambassador Lodge, who had come home to report on post-Diem developments, met