Brian M Downing
As the war in Iraq drags on, much as a previous American war did, one might be forgiven for wondering just how unpopular and seemingly inconclusive wars are ever brought to a close. Some thought on the Vietnam War might provide some insight.
The Vietnam War, at least the American phase of it, did not end with a decisive victory by either side. Throughout much of the war, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces recognized the superiority of American airmobility, firepower, and discipline and diligently avoided large-scale engagements. No major engagement, no decisive battle. Decisive victory came for the North Vietnamese only two years after the last American troops left the country. But this gets ahead of the question, How did the US come to disengage?
Nor was the antiwar movement a significant factor in disengagement, fierce and self-congratulatory though its claims often are. Many alumni of the cause, having benefited from the intervening decades that brought better perspective (and a little embarrassment), will admit that the rallies on campuses and at Washington and the Pentagon were attended less for the political cause and more for the attendant social opportunities to meet people and . . . well, the goings-on after demonstrations call for no elaboration.
By 1968, the antiwar movement had resorted to violence and, as with the Weathermen, even to terrorism. The movement went on for a while, reached its peak at large rallies in Washington in 1970, then fell into disarray and mythology. Owing to the passions of the time, most were unaware that American elites, who by and large had little regard for student protesters, had decisively turned on the war and were disengaging from Vietnam at a pace, which in retrospect at least, was relatively fast.
Almost anyone who remembers the period will say that the Tet Offensive of early 1968 led to a collapse of support for the war. The Offensive swept across South Vietnam, wreaking great havoc and with a scope and intensity the communist forces were not thought capable of. Polling data show no evidence of decline associated with Tet. Support for the war had been fading steadily since the casualties of the Ia Drang Valley in late 1965, and by late 1967, just before Tet, more Americans opposed the war than supported it. Tet had little effect on that decline. In fact, support went up slightly, possibly on hopes that a decisive battle was underway that would bring the war to an end. Soon thereafter, support declined once more, but no more precipitously as before.
Many political elites, however, had soured on the war and began to look for a way to disengage or left government. McGeorge Bundy, Johnson’s national security adviser, was among the first to sour on the war. He left his position in 1966. Around that time, defense secretary McNamara read a report concluding that the bombing campaign over the North could not halt the inflow of men and materiel along the Ho Chi Minh. McNamara, too, soured on the war and announced his departure from government in late 1967.
Tet had far greater impact on the foreign policy elite than on the general public. Grumblers and groaners, in and out of government, men disinterested in polling data and disdainful of rallies put on by children, coalesced into a force for a change in war policy. George F. Kennan, as seasoned a foreign policy expert as this nation has produced, the architect of our containment policy, said that the war was “a massive miscalculation and error of policy, an error for which it is hard to find any parallels in our history.” Clark Clifford, who offered strong doubts about the war at its inception in 1965, had become the new defense secretary and was building a group of people at the Pentagon who wanted to change the course. Outside of government (though not for long), Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger looked upon the war and the changed elite opinion of it and, independently, developed plans to disengage.
Throughout his war, President Johnson sought the advice of a group of jurists, retired generals, bankers, and former statesmen. The Wise Men had guided the country through World War Two, after which they became architects of containment. They met every six months or so, listened to briefings, then offered their assessments of the war’s progress. Unswayed by polls or protests, the Wise Men supported the administration’s war policy.
As Tet subsided, Johnson convened the Wise Men once more. The listened to official briefings for several days, studied the reports, then gave their judgments. Four expressed strong doubts about the war; seven favored fundamental change in the Vietnam policy. Only three expressed confidence in the current policy. Former secretary of state Dean Acheson told LBJ that the generals had not been leveling with him and that a change of course was needed. Johnson was stunned and began a reappraisal, of the war as well as his presidency. Shortly thereafter, in an address to the nation, he announced a bombing halt and a new effort to seek a diplomatic end to the war. In a few sentences, added at the last moment unbeknownst even to close advisers, he announced he would not seek re-election.
Copyright 2006 Brian M Downing