A Vietnam Book That Haunts the US in Afghanistan

Last year a, young author named Gordon Goldstein wrote a book entitled Lessons In Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam outlining the numerous missteps taken by successive US governments that eventually led to America's getting stuck in the morass of Vietnam. It is a chilling study and now is one that Washington policymakers are paying close attention to for fears we are repeating a similar folly in Afghanistan. The book is centered on Mr. Bundy, who was one of the key strategic Ivy-educated operatives justifying the rush into Vietnam.

The Vietnam war has long faded from the news but its memory is still a deeply troubling one. Over 55,000 Americans died in this futile cause. In retrospect, America's national interest was never at stake and US aims in the conflict were never clear. But, while for thousands of young men, it was ostensibly a fight to stem the tide of Communism, in fact, this was a war to suppress a nationalist uprising by Vietnamese seeking to reunite a divided country -- and all of this happening some 3,000 miles from our borders. This turned out to be a war the US could never win.

Lessons in Disaster is an insightful book about how America slowly got involved in this debacle, and how the "best and the brightest" -- as symbolized mainly in the person of McGeorge Bundy -- led us into it. Bundy served as National Security Advisor to Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from 1961-1965. He was one of the most brilliant young men of his time. It was he (along with the Democratic administration's other "whiz kid", Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara) who largely provided the intellectual heft behind the crusade in Southeast Asia that Washington pursued to its bloody end.

Gordon Goldstein, the book's author, was recruited by Bundy late in his life to help him organize his memoirs. Goldstein worked closely with Bundy, but, before the project could be finished in the mid-1990s, Bundy died. With the venture still-born, Goldstein decided to write his own account of his stint with Bundy, of how he watched Bundy gradually awaken to his mistakes in Vietnam and how Bundy attempted to come to terms with his failures, and the ultimate sense of loss he felt over what had happened. Using fragmentary personal notes that Bundy left behind, Goldstein's own interviews with the man and the official papers and memos that Bundy had gathered, Goldstein offers a tale of an unusual man's rise to power, his precipitous downfall and his eventual reckoning with his life.

Bundy was always a man of supreme self-confidence. At a young age, he became Dean of the Harvard faculty, managing the egos and extraordinary minds of the university's academics with aplomb. Kennedy plucked him out of Harvard to be his chief foreign policy advisor. From the start, Bundy displayed a mastery of facts and an ability to impress his boss. But Bundy's judgment on global issues proved to be curiously suspect. For example, he supported the Bay of Pigs invasion - but not because he had closely analyzed it as National Security advisor - but because of his friendship with the CIA man who ran the operation, a fellow graduate of Groton and Yale. On the Cuban missile crisis, Bundy took three different positions during the deliberations over what Washington should do about the Soviet missiles, ultimately dismaying JFK.

On Vietnam, Bundy favored the dispatch of US troops to the country because of his apprehensions over a Communist takeover and the subsequent "domino" effect that Vietnam's fall might have on the rest of SouthAsia. But Bundy never bothered to learn the history of Vietnam and never probed very deeply into the reasons for the Communist's popularity there. JFK, for his part, opposed a wider US involvement because, having once visited IndoChina, he had observed at first hand how Vietnamese nationalism was the motivating factor that ousted the French colonials. However once Kennedy was killed and Johnson took over, a new calculus took over in the White House. Bundy, no longer restrained by JFK's caution, pressed LBJ to enlarge the American presence in Vietnam but at the same time never provided Johnson realistic objectives for the US mission there or a plausible exit strategy.

In his old age, Bundy realized he had been wrong. He confessed to Goldstein, "the doves were right." Bundy's error was his neglect of making any hard inquiries and evaluations about the Asian trouble spots with which Washington was dealing -- but especially with Vietnam. On the latter, as Goldstein writes, Bundy had been "the one senior official in the Johnson Administration with both the institutional mandate and intellectual gravitas to force a real examination of the military implications of an open-ended deployment of US combat forces to South Vietnam. That exercise did not occur. In fact, it was never attempted." Bundy, it turns out, apparently possessed everything but a sense of humility and a dollop of common-sense. Now the question is: do we have the necessary sobriety, humbleness and wisdom in our current times in Washington to weigh appropriately our next moves on Afghanistan?

 

 

Comments

[codycap]

Without the support of the people the survival of a guerrilla movement becomes extremely vulnerable.

The opposite is true if the people do not support the government; a guerrilla movement becomes extremely effective.

With the last corrupt election we should take a hard look at whether war would be the best politics.

We lost our chance at Tora Bora to do what we originally went to Afghanistan for right at the beginning. We cannot turn back the clock.

Biden is right,

“Vice President Joe Biden, who attended the meeting, has been reluctant to support a troop increase, favoring a strategy that directly targets al-Qaida fighters who are believed to be hiding in Pakistan.”

That was our goal before mission creep, and we should return to it.

[wadenelson1]

Well said!

[saami]

Hubris continues to be our downfall.

[mcmchugh99]

The roots of the disaster go back to 1946, when the US began to assist France in getting its colony back instead of supporting its independence as FDR had wanted. Ho Chi Minh even offered an alliance with the US if it agreed to assist him in gaining independence, but never got a response. He was prepared to accept a UN trusteeship, as long as the French were out.

It was always a huge mistake to see him as a mere pawn of the Russians or Chinese--especially the Chinese! I have always thought that a major factor in this was domestic political considerations in the US, fear of "losing" another country and all that, even if the US never had it in the first place.

[TWKT]

Little mention fact is the US troops mutinied when told to take the French back in.

[wadenelson1]

100% correct.

>The roots of the disaster go back to 1946, when the US began to assist France in getting its colony back instead of ....

helping Ho Chi Minh establish his country as a nation.

[bighat]

Education is failing in America. Even to those with multiple degrees from what we call our best universities.

Everyone in congress must have failed history.

What has to happen in Afghanistan for us to declare the war a win? Is there one short of destroying the entire country possibly including Pakistan.

I do not believe there is a way to call a win in Afghanistan. Should we start being successful in eliminating taliban and al queda (w/o killing the innocent then these people will simply move (cross borders and wait for us to leave.

If we eliminate the taliban will those replacing them be any better or will their newfound power corrupt them as well

[carolinefx]

As Count Vizzini said in "The Princess Bride" Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia.

Even though it was a silly movie, wiser words were never spoken.

[Roses]

I agree whole heartedly and agree sadly.
Please try and remember, people.
Whatever, there are many who won't remember.

I hope those making the descisions (hear this Hillary and Barack?) will or have read the book. I suspect they haven't.

As Mondvi on the Daily Show said "Afghanistan is the gold standard of quagmires".

[Henry]

I lived through this era and only later came to find out that after DienbienPhu (54) there was a Geneva Agreement (of course not signed by the US) which required a national election for Vietnam to establish the government of the country. It was believed that the people of the country would vote Ho Chi Minh and it would have been game over. It is strange, strange, strange when you discover that Diem was catholic and the war is referred to as Spelly's War (cardinal Spellman) and the Kennedy and McNamara were Irish Catholic. Face it the dominoe theory was the slam dunk device to that generation that the wmd was to this current generation. Salesmanship unites a ship of fools, there are defined narrow interests who gain from and advocate military invasion of other countries. (I read in the economist, for example that the Catholic Church was the biggest land owner in Viet nam...imagine that and what could i t be in Afganistan same old same old)

[oldvet]

Robert McNamara was a Presbyterian.

[WilliePilgrim]

I hope they read it, but more importantly I hope the "get it". After all, who has't read "Bright and Shining Lie" or "Best and the Brightest" but yet are consistently misinterpreted for what they say not just about Vietnam but about how leadership becomes obsessed with "honor" which it confuses with power and controll. Sadly, the people keep electing images more than substance (I hope Obama is different) and then tolerating them...and being distracted by the media's distortion inducing framing of the issues at hand in order to extract the highest viewership and therefore the greatest ad revenues.

[WYHKTai-Tai]

In it's long history, Viet Nam, like Afghanistan is truly the 'Graveyard of Empires'

I will definitely look for this book.

[nkhogan]

Excellent article. I will have to read the book.

I did research as an MA student in the 1980's on causes of the Vietnam War and reached the same conclusion. Of course, I did not have access to Bundy like this man did, but even then it was clear from documents and history available in 1985 to anyone with an open mind, that the Vietnam struggle was a nationalist one starting well before 1945. Had the US insisted the French grant Vietnam independence in 1954 or as early as the end of WWII, the US would have never gotten involved in a war it cannot win.

The lessons that are applicable to Afghanistan are to examine the history of Afghanistan, the parties fighting in Afghanistan, etc. It may be that we need to stay in and fight or maybe not The thing is to have a clear analysis of the culture and history of Afghanistan and have a full appreciation and understanding of what the overriding will of the Afghan people might be. I think at this point they see the US as imperialist conquerors and not liberators. We have already lost the war for hearts and minds, so time to leave, methinks (my opinion only--I'm not an Afghan history expert)

[wadenelson1]

>it was clear from documents and history available in 1985 to anyone with an open mind, that the Vietnam struggle was a nationalist one starting well before 1945. Had the US insisted the French grant Vietnam independence in 1954 or as early as the end of WWII, the US would have never gotten involved in a war it cannot win.

100% correct.

American support of French Imperialism led us directly into the quagmire

It "only" took me 20 years of reading about Vietnam to reach the exact same conclusion.

The bogeyword "communism" was used to rally the masses just as "terrorism" was and is used today. Our government can justify ANYTHING if it helps defeat terrorism.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

"JFK, for his part, opposed a wider US involvement because, having once visited IndoChina, he had observed at first hand ..."

We are all affected by our experiences. But it is unlikely that JFK's single visit to IndoChina is the sole explanation for the divergent views that Kennedy and Johnson had with respect to Viet Nam.

Both of them had been in the Navy during WW II, but there was a difference in their experiences.

JFK's up-close-a­nd-persona­l experience may have been more of a factor in his opposition to a wider US involvement than his one-time visit to IndoChina. His other actions regarding other conflicts are consistent with his more reluctant actions. Just consider how he handled the CIA's planned Bay of Pigs invasion, the conflict at the Berlin Wall, and the Cuba Blockade.

In contrast, LBJ's WW II experience consisted of being in Naval Intelligence and flying as a passenger in the Pacific Theatre. The most important report that he filed with FDR resulted in a shift of more troops and supplies to the Pacific.

Time and time again, the generals who want peace and urge caution are generals who have actually been in combat and up close to the enemy. Just think of David M. Shoup. In contrast, generals who are willing to be reckless with other peoples' lives are the ones who have fought wars from a greater distance.

[Jannsmoor]

Its odd isn't it. Generally, those who are most willing to send others to fight and die rarely have the courage to do so themselves. And generally, those who have been in combat seem to give greater weight to the value of other people's lives than do the armchair generals.

We knew all this yet elected George Bush and Dick Cheney anyway. It's almost like the electorate got what they deserved - a poorly planned and executed, unending, probably unwinnable war in Afghanistan and a totally unnecessary war in Iraq.

[Stephen C. Rose - Huffpost Blogger]

I hope this is widely read. And I hope we remember other roots of the mentality that gave us Vietnam such as HUAC and McCarthy.

I see the Dulles Brothers as the fathers of the country we now live in. And I believe the current crisis is to be laid at the feet not merely of liberals who should have known better but of the country as a whole, for knowingly accepting a charade as the truth, and willingly paying the incredible costs involved in fomenting disaster here and far beyond our borders in the name of national security.

Hindsight may be 20/20 but I believe it is fair to say that men like Stanley Kubrick saw it while JFK was still alive. Perhaps JFK also saw it, though he befriended McCarthy. But the assassinations of the 1960s served the interests of the military-industrial complex and LBJ and Nixon were the perfect pair to escalate the death toll beyond belief and to our still festering shame.

We need to support President Obama now. And to ensure the slow process of going back to the start of this and removing its scabrous reality from the body politic. The force of today's media-assisted hate campaign cannot be allowed to win the day.

And to the virtues you evoke I would add national repentance, fully confident, sadly, that this is most unlikely.

[twofish]

We never have expressed national remorse over any of the terrible things we've done. Remember Reagan "It's morning in America?" But you don't get to morning until you've gone through the long, dark night of the soul, and that's exactly what we refuse to do as a nation. Any attempt to do so is immediately drowned out in the howls of the bully-boys and war profiteers.

But, hey, it took the Catholic Church almost 400 years to apologize to Galileo, so maybe we'll get it too, eventually...

[DreamerWeaver]

Yes, the howls of the bullies and the power of the war profiteers seem to carry us down the wrong road. Will the fast communication of the Internet help us get better informed or will it turn out not to be a factor in our healing and education but just another wasteland?