The Super Summary of World History (95 page)

Not only was the United States not using the atomic bomb, it was not using its conventional war-making ability to its full potential. Somehow, using all the military power available was unpopular in the Johnson administration. Even though the war was costing American lives at the rate of five hundred per month (at the peak), President Johnson seemed to believe world opinion would turn against him if he bombed the “off target” areas. In fact, all he did was drag out a brutal war. The air force wanted an early all-out bombing effort with no restraint, and they wanted the effort continued unabated until the North stopped sending troops and supplies south. Johnson’s restrictions were a grave error, and it set another dreadful precedent for the future. When America later decided how to use its war-making potential the idea of a limited conventional response was adopted over and over again. It seems American military lives were less important than looking good to the international community.

The communists were ruthless in their suppression of villagers, and this was a key element in their maintaining control of the countryside. Murder, kidnapping, and theft were major components of communists’ efforts to control the peasants of Vietnam. In 1961, before the US intervention, the communists killed
four
thousand
village
officials
in
that
year
alone.
There was also the constant indoctrination of the young people and new recruits who were told they had to expel foreign invaders and tyrants from their land. Communist propaganda stressed how the kindly “Uncle Ho” would look after them as a grandfather might after the capitalist devils were driven off. All lies of course. After the communist takeover there was murder and imprisonment on a grand scale. Even though Ho Chi Minh died before South Vietnam fell, it is clear his followers did exactly what he would have done.

Tet Offensive

1968

In 1968, communist leaders Ho Chi Minh and General Giap
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decided to launch a massive offensive with the goal of capturing the cities of South Vietnam and causing a popular uprising against the unpopular South Vietnamese government. The communists assembled their forces and managed to move them south without being detected by American intelligence. On January 30, 1968, Giap launched the
Tet
Offensive
which managed to capture some cities in South Vietnam (most notably Hue), but no popular uprising resulted. In the end, Ho’s offensive was a decisive and multiphase
defeat
. The local Vietcong organizations were wiped out, effectively ceasing to exist, while the regular divisions sent from North Vietnam were extensively damaged. As a military operation the Tet Offensive was an unmitigated disaster for the communists
.

But something else was in play during the Tet Offensive. The
American
press
corps
had decided the Vietnam War was wrongheaded, and their reporting became nothing more than communist propaganda. The TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC), the major newspapers (
New
York
Times
,
LA
Times
,
Washington
Post
,
Chicago
Tribune,
etc.), and liberal weekly news magazines (
Time
,
Newsweek
) all reported the Tet Offensive was a
comprehensive
American
defeat.
To do this, the reporters had to lie about what they saw all around them, and they had to disregard US Army reports about the extent of the enemy defeat. In essence, they denounced the reports from the US Army and State Department while publishing communist propaganda from North Vietnam as true.

Figure 82 Marines in Vietnam

These press reports discouraged the American public. In any war, if the press tells of defeat the general population becomes demoralized. At the start of WWII the press reports were repeats of American propaganda, but as the war went on, with the cooperation of the US Military, the press reports became more realistic. The turning point was Guadalcanal where the navy decided to report just how things were really going there, and the possibility that the Americans might lose to the Japanese. The American public responded well to the truth, and it became common to report what was actually going on.

The activities and reporting of the mainstream news outlets about Vietnam unnerved the American military. Being negative was bad enough, but outright lying and repeating communist propaganda was outrageous. Mistrust began to grow between the military and the mainstream press organizations. The gap grew wider as the war went on, and at war’s end the military abhorred the press and began systematically excluding the mainstream press from obtaining operational information. This mistrust continues to this day as US military leadership thinks the mainstream media is uniformly liberal, anti-military, and opposed to ideals the military reveres. History tells us that a lack belief in the nation results in defeat for the armed forces (Austria-Hungarian empire, Rome, France 1940). The media consistently leak secret or classified information to the world endangering military lives. The media also downplay military accomplishments. This current lack of trust between the military and the media started with how the War in Vietnam was reported.

President Johnson was toppled because his Vietnam War strategy failed. As major voices in the Democratic Party came forward and objected to the war, challengers appeared in 1968 to run against President Johnson for the nomination of the Democratic Party. Because of the pressure to step aside Johnson announced he would not seek another term as president. It is perhaps fitting that the man who committed the United States to the Vietnam War for foggy reasons at best, and fought the war demanding restraints impossible to understand, had to step aside. Johnson’s unfathomable total political commitment to the war, his irresponsible constraints on the military, and the expansive social welfare programs enacted during the fighting, displayed incompetence in war, economics, and international affairs unparalleled in modern American history.

Nixon
Gets
the
United
States
Out

1973

The winner in 1968 for president of the United States was Republican
Richard
Nixon,
an old name in politics and Kennedy’s rival for the presidency in 1960. Nixon was back, and he was going to show the United States and the world his excellence in foreign affairs.

President Nixon clearly understood the American public wanted out of Vietnam, but a lot of them did not want to leave with a “loss.” Through the process of “Vietnamization” he would turn the war over to the South Vietnamese, and while doing so he would reduce the number of American units in Vietnam.
[380]
This was an obvious concept and should have been the policy from the inception. In fact, that was the role of the original US Advisors: show the South Vietnamese how to fight while the United States improved their equipment and training. The war should never have been a mainly US enterprise where the United States bore the brunt of the fighting. Clearly, if a nation cannot defend itself the United States cannot commit itself to eternal conflict on its behalf. Nixon simply implemented the simple solution, but he was restrained by time and a discontented democratic Congress. Somehow, he had to make progress immediately or he would fail in his endeavors to extract the United States while preserving South Vietnam’s freedom (such as it was). Nixon wanted what he termed “Peace with honor.” To this end, he wanted a peace treaty with the communist North which would guarantee the South’s sovereignty.

To achieve these goals, Nixon allowed the military more latitude in prosecuting the war. Hanoi’s Haiphong Harbor was mined which cut off supplies flowing to the communist capital by sea. He authorized bombing formerly off-limits military targets, and he authorized the carpet bombing of Hanoi by B-52 bombers. Diplomatically, he sent Henry Kissinger to Paris to talk with the North Vietnamese, and he began to open doors to normalization of relations with China. Nixon knew that between China and North Vietnam hostility was historically common, so his plans were to drive a wedge between them. Nixon realized China was not going to abandon the North in its war against America and the South; however, the mere threat of China
reducing
its aid would cause the North pause. Neither communist China nor the USSR had thriving economies, and the massive aid being sent to North Vietnam was a drag on their own economic positions; thus, a way out of the war would benefit them as well.

Nixon’s moves were exceptional. By releasing the military to do their job he was able to inflict significant economic and military harm on North Vietnam. He allowed military raids into Cambodia to destroy communist supply dumps, and his bombing of Hanoi inflicted significant and costly damage on its infrastructure. By allowing a quick increase in military pressure, while at the same time opening negotiations with China, he managed to get the North Vietnamese to sign a peace treaty agreeing to leave the South alone.

As the United States began its withdrawal from Vietnam Nixon got himself into the political tar pit of Watergate which ended his presidency. Nixon decided to resign from office in December of 1973, and the
unelected
vice president
Gerald
Ford
took his place. At the same time, Congress, being controlled by huge democratic majorities that despised President Nixon, banned all US help to South Vietnam.

In 1972, before the last of the American units were removed from Vietnam, the North gathered together a large invasion force and attacked South Vietnam from Cambodia and Laos in a fierce Spring Offensive. This force included large numbers of tanks and armored vehicles. Some American troops and advisors were still in the country, along with helicopters and other aircraft. With help from these few Americans and their air power, the South Vietnamese drove the invading units back to their start points and inflicted heavy losses (over 100,000 dead) on the communists. At this point, many in the US military took heart. The partially trained South Vietnamese had done well. Maybe they could hold on after all.

The
South
Falls

1975

In 1975, after Nixon was out of office and Congress had cut off all aid, military and financial, to South Vietnam the communists invaded again. This time, they came from the north across the DMZ and from the west across the central highlands with an enormous force of more than 22 divisions. They began to attack down toward Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. The invasion began in April of 1975, two years after the last US Units had been removed.
[381]
During those few years the South Vietnamese had not received military aid from America because of congressional legislation halting such aid. Now the aircraft and tanks the United States left in South Vietnam needed parts. When the South Vietnamese government approached the World Bank for a loan they had to deal with Robert McNamara
[382]
who was by then the head of the World Bank. They never had a chance with the ex-defense secretary. McNamara quickly refused their request. Another powerful American, in a new and important international role, turned his back on South Vietnam.

In spite of the odds against them in 1975, the South Vietnamese army initially fought well and held up the communist invasion. Then the president of South Vietnam issued a fateful order. He told some of the troops engaging the communists in the north to fall back to a predetermined line above the capital where a stronger defense could be mounted. Once the troops began to fall back the retreat turned into a rout, and the communists were in Saigon without delay (looks as if he should have issued a Hitler “no retreat” order). Pleas for help to American fell on deaf ears. The South fell to the Reds.