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                          Vain Hopes, False Dreams

                                Noam Chomsky
                        Z Magazine, September 1992

 Note: For a much expanded version of this essay, see Rethinking Camelot.

In the July/August issue of Z, several articles dealt with the
deterioration of conditions of life in American society and the loss of
hope, trust, or even expectations for the political system. Reviewing some
of these all-too-obvious elements of the current scene, I wrote that "The
public is not unaware of what is happening, though with the success of the
policies of isolation and breakdown of organizational structure, the
response is erratic and dangerous: faith in ridiculous billionaire saviors
who are little more than `blank slates' on which one can write one's
favorite dreams, myths of past innocence and noble leaders, conspiracy
cults..., unfocused skepticism and disillusionment -- a mixture that has
not had happy consequences in the past."

At times of general malaise and social breakdown, it is not uncommon for
millenarian movements to arise to replace lost hopes by idle dreams: dreams
of a savior who will lead us from bondage, or of the return of the great
ships with their bounty, as in the cargo cults of South Sea islanders. Some
may yearn for a lost golden age, or succumb to the blandishments of the new
Messiahs who come to the fore at such moments. Those more cognizant of the
institutional causes of discontent may be attracted to an image of hope
destroyed by dark and powerful forces that stole from us the leader who
sought a better future. The temptation to seek solace, or salvation, is
particularly strong when the means to become engaged in a constructive way
in determining one's fate have largely dissolved and disappeared.

The billionaire savior has retreated from the scene. But it is surely
striking that his challenge to the one-party, two-faction system of
business rule, with its broad popular appeal, should have coincided so
closely with the revival of fascination with tales of intrigue about
Camelot lost. The audiences differ, but the JFK-Perot enthusiasms are
similar enough to raise the question whether the imagery of the leader
maliciously stolen from us has more of a claim to reality than the promise
of the figure who suddenly appeared, quickly to fade away. The question is
an important one, particularly to the left (broadly construed), which has
devoted much of its valuable energy and resources to the Kennedy revival at
a time when it has been successfully removed from the political arena,
along with the large majority of the public that is its natural
constituency.

The core issue in the current Kennedy revival is the claim that JFK
intended to withdraw from Vietnam, a fact suppressed by the media; and was
assassinated for that reason, it is prominently charged. Some allege
further that Kennedy was intent on destroying the CIA, dismantling the
military-industrial complex, ending the Cold War, and opening an era of
development and freedom for Latin America, among other forms of class
treachery that led to his downfall. This 1991-2 drama proceeded at several
levels, from cinema to scholarship, engaging some of the best-known Kennedy
intellectuals as well as substantial segments of the popular movements that
in large part grew from opposition to the Vietnam war. Much as they differ
on parts of the picture and other issues, there is a shared belief across
this spectrum that history changed course dramatically when Kennedy was
assassinated in November 1963, an event that casts a grim shadow over all
that followed.

It is also striking that the withdrawal thesis, which is at the heart of
the Camelot revival of 1991-2, gained its prominence just on the 30th
anniversary of Kennedy's steps to escalate the Indochina conflict from
international terrorism to outright aggression. The anniversary of
Kennedy's war against the rural society of South Vietnam passed virtually
without notice, as the country mused over the evil nature of the Japanese,
who had so signally failed to plead for forgiveness on the 50th anniversary
of their attack on a military base in a US colony that had been stolen from
its inhabitants, by force and guile, just 50 years earlier.

There are several sources of evidence that bear on the withdrawal thesis:
(1) The historical facts; (2) the record of public statements; (3) the
internal planning record; (4) the memoirs and other reports of Kennedy
insiders. In each category, the material is substantial. The record of
internal deliberations, in particular, has been available far beyond the
norm since the release of two editions of the Pentagon Papers (PP). The
recent publication of thousands of pages of documents in the official State
Department history provides a wealth of additional material on the years of
the presidential transition, 1963-4, which are of crucial significance for
evaluating the thesis that many have found so compelling. What follows is
an excerpt from a much longer review of the four categories of evidence in
a broader context (Year 501, South End, forthcoming).

While history never permits anything like definitive conclusions, in this
case, the richness of the record, and its consistency, permit some
unusually confident judgments. In my opinion, the record is inconsistent
with the withdrawal thesis throughout, and supports a different conclusion.
In brief, basic policy towards Indochina developed within a framework of
North-South/East-West relations that Kennedy did not challenge, and
remained constant in essentials: disentanglement from an unpopular and
costly venture as soon as possible, but after victory was assured (by the
end, with increasing doubt that US client regimes could be sustained).
Tactics were modified with changing circumstances and perceptions. Changes
of Administration, including the Kennedy assassination, had no large-scale
effect on policy, and not even any great effect on tactics, when account is
taken of the objective situation and how it was perceived.

Kennedy's War

When JFK took over in 1961, the US client regimes faced collapse in both
Laos and Vietnam, for the same reason in both countries: The US-imposed
regimes could not compete politically with the well-organized popular
opposition, a fact recognized on all sides. Kennedy accepted a diplomatic
settlement in Laos (at least on paper), but chose to escalate in Vietnam,
where he ordered the deployment of Air Force and Helicopter Units, along
with napalm, defoliation, and crop destruction. US military personnel were
sharply increased and deployed at battalion level, where they were
"beginning to participate more directly in advising Vietnamese unit
commanders in the planning and execution of military operations plans"
(PP). Kennedy's war far surpassed the French war at its peak in helicopters
and aerial fire power. As for personnel, France had 20,000 nationals
fighting in all of Indochina in 1949 (the US force level reached 16,700
under JFK), increasing to 57,000 at the peak.

As military operations intensified, concerns arose over the effects of
"indiscriminate firepower" and reports "that indiscriminate bombing in the
countryside is forcing innocent or wavering peasants toward the Viet Cong"
(PP). Kennedy's more dovish advisers, notably Roger Hilsman, preferred
counterintersurgency operations. The favored method was to drive several
million peasants into concentration camps where, surrounded by barbed wire
and troops, they would have a "free choice" between the US client regime
(GVN) and the Viet Cong. The effort failed, Hilsman later concluded,
because it was never possible to eliminate the political opposition
entirely. Other problems arose when the wrong village was bombed, or when
bombing and defoliation alienated the peasants whose hearts and minds were
to be won from the enemy whom they supported.

Kennedy's war was no secret. In March 1962, US officials announced that US
pilots were engaged in combat missions (bombing and strafing). In October,
a front-page story in the New York Times reported that "in 30 percent of
all the combat missions flown in Vietnamese Air Force planes, Americans are
at the controls," though "national insignia have been erased from many
aircraft...to avoid the thorny international problems involved." The press
reported further that US Army fliers and gunners were taking the military
initiative against southern guerrillas, using helicopters with more
firepower than any World War II fighter plane as an offensive weapon. Armed
helicopters were regularly supporting operations of the Saigon army (ARVN).
The brutal character of Kennedy's war was also no secret, from the outset.

The specialist literature, notably province studies, generally agrees that
the US-imposed regime had no legitimacy in the countryside, where 80% of
the population lived (and little enough in the urban areas), that only
force could compensate for this lack, and that by 1965 the VC had won the
war in much of the country, with little external support.

At first, JFK's 1961-2 aggression appeared to be a grand success: by July
1962, "the prospects looked bright" and "to many the end of the insurgency
seemed in sight." The US leadership in Vietnam and Washington "was
confident and cautiously optimistic," and "In some quarters, even a measure
of euphoria obtained" (PP).

In his semi-official history of Kennedy's presidency, Arthur Schlesinger
observes that by the end of 1961, "The President unquestionably felt that
an American retreat in Asia might upset the whole world balance" (A
Thousand Days, 1965). "The result in 1962 was to place the main emphasis on
the military effort" in South Vietnam. The "encouraging effects" of the
escalation enabled Kennedy to report in his January 1963 State of the Union
message that "The spearpoint of aggression has been blunted in South
Vietnam." In Schlesinger's own words: "1962 had not been a bad year:
...aggression checked in Vietnam."

Recall that Kennedy and his historian-associate are describing the year
1962, when Kennedy escalated from extreme terrorism to outright aggression.

Turning briefly to the second category of evidence, public statements, we
find that Schlesinger's report of the President's feelings is
well-confirmed. JFK regularly stressed the enormous stakes involved, which
made any thought of withdrawal unacceptable. To the end, his public
position was that we must "win the war" and not "just go home and leave the
world to those who are our enemies." We must ensure that "the assault from
the inside, and which is manipulated from the North, is ended" (Sept., Nov.
1963). Anything less would lead to the loss of Southeast Asia, with
repercussions extending far beyond. As the "watchman on the walls of world
freedom," he intended to tell his Dallas audience on Nov. 22, the US had to
undertake tasks that were "painful, risky and costly, as is true in
Southeast Asia today. But we dare not weary of the task." The internal
record, to which we turn next, shows that he adopted the same stance in his
(limited) involvement in planning.

JFK and Withdrawal: the Early Plans

The optimistic mid-1962 assessment led Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara, the primary war manager for Kennedy and Johnson, to initiate
planning for the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam, leaving to the
client regime the dirty work of cleaning up the remnants. Kennedy and
McNamara recognized that domestic support for the war was thin, and that
problems might arise if it were to persist too long. Similarly, in November
1967, General Westmoreland announced that with victory imminent, US troops
could begin to withdraw in 1969 (as happened, though under circumstances
that he did not anticipate); that recommendation does not show that he was
a secret dove. Advocacy of withdrawal after assurance of victory was not a
controversial stand.

In contrast, withdrawal without victory would have been highly
controversial. That position received scant support until well after the
Tet offensive of January 1968, when corporate and political elites
determined that the operation should be liquidated, in large part because
of the social costs of protest.

The question to be considered, then, is whether JFK, despite his 1961-2
escalation and his militant public stand, planned to withdraw without
victory, a plan aborted by the assassination, which cleared the way for
Lyndon Johnson and his fellow-warmongers to bring on a major war. If so,
one may inquire further into whether this was a factor in the
assassination.

The withdrawal decisions were reported at once in the press with fair
accuracy, and the basic facts about the internal deliberations lying behind
them became known 20 years ago when the Pentagon Papers appeared. In July
1962, the analyst writes, "At the behest of the President, the Secretary of
Defense undertook to reexamine the situation [in Vietnam] and address
himself to its future -- with a view to assuring that it be brought to a
successful conclusion within a reasonable time." McNamara declared himself
impressed with the "tremendous progress" that had been made, and called for
"phasing out major U.S. advisory and logistic support activities." General
Paul Harkins (commander of the US military mission) estimated that the VC
should be "eliminated as a significant force" about a year after the
Vietnamese forces then being trained and equipped "became fully
operational." McNamara, however, insisted upon "a conservative view":
planning should be based on the assumption that "it would take three years
instead of one, that is, by the latter part of 1965." He also "observed
that it might be difficult to retain public support for U.S. operations in
Vietnam indefinitely," a constant concern. Therefore, it was necessary "to
phase out U.S. military involvement." The Joint Chiefs ordered preparation
of a plan to implement these decisions. The operative assumption was that
"The insurgency will be under control" by the end of 1965.

On January 25, 1963, General Harkins' plan was presented to the Joint
Chiefs, stating that "the phase-out of the US special military assistance
is envisioned as generally occurring during the period July 1965-June
1966," earlier where feasible. A few days later, the Chiefs were reassured
that this was the right course by a report by a JCS investigative team
headed by Army Chief of Staff Earle Wheeler that included leading military
hawks. Its report was generally upbeat and optimistic. The anticipated
success of current plans to intensify military operations would allow a
"concurrent phase-out of United States support personnel, leaving a
Military Assistance Advisory Group of about 1,600 personnel" by 1965. All
of this was considered feasible and appropriate by the top military
command.

Wheeler then reported directly to the President, informing him "that things
were going well in Vietnam militarily, but that `Ho Chi Minh was fighting
the war for peanuts and if we ever expected to win that affair out there,
we had to make him bleed a little bit'." The President "was quite
interested in this," General Wheeler recalled in oral history (July 1964).
His dovish advisers were also impressed. In April 1963, Hilsman proposed to
"continue the covert, or at least deniable, operations along the general
lines we have been following for some months" against North Vietnam with
the objective of "keeping the threat of eventual destruction alive in
Hanoi's mind." But "significant action against North Vietnam" is unwise on
tactical grounds: it should be delayed until "we have demonstrated success
in our counter-insurgency program." Such "premature action" might also "so
alarm our friends and allies and a significant segment of domestic opinion
that the pressures for neutralization will become formidable"; as always,
the dread threat of diplomacy must be deflected. With judicious planning,
Hilsman said, "I believe we can win in Viet-Nam."

Hilsman was not quite as optimistic as the military command. A few days
before the President heard Wheeler's upbeat report, he received a
memorandum from Hilsman and Forrestal (Jan. 25) that was more qualified.
They condemned the press for undue pessimism and underplaying US success,
and agreed that "The war in South Vietnam is clearly going better than it
was a year ago," praising ARVN's "increased aggressiveness" resulting from
the US military escalation, and reporting that GVN control now extended to
over half the rural population (the VC controlling 8%), a considerable gain
through late 1962. But "the negative side of the ledger is still awesome."
The VC had increased their regular forces, recruiting locally and supplied
locally, and are "extremely effective." "Thus the conclusion seems
inescapable that the Viet Cong could continue the war effort at the present
level, or perhaps increase it, even if the infiltration routes were
completely closed." "Our overall judgment, in sum, is that we are probably
winning, but certainly more slowly than we had hoped." They made a variety
of technical recommendations to implement the counterinsurgency program
more efficiently, with more direct US involvement; and to improve the
efficiency of the US mission to accelerate the "Progress toward winning the
war."

We thus learn that in early 1963, in an atmosphere of considerable to great
optimism, the military initiatives for withdrawal went hand-in-hand with
plans for escalation of the war within South Vietnam and possibly
intensified actions against North Vietnam. We learn further that such
"intelligence and sabotage forays" into North Vietnam were already underway
-- since mid-1962 according to McGeorge Bundy. On December 11, 1963, as the
new Administration took over, Michael Forrestal (another leading Kennedy
dove) confirmed that "For some time the Central Intelligence Agency has
been engaged in joint clandestine operations with ARVN against North
Vietnam." Journalist William Pfaff reports that in the summer of 1962, at a
Special Forces encampment north of Saigon he observed a CIA "patrol loading
up in an unmarked C-46 with a Chinese pilot in civilian clothes," taking
off for a mission in North Vietnam ("possibly into China itself"), with
some "Asians, some Americans or Europeans."

The connection between withdrawal and escalation is readily understandable:
successful military actions would enable the GVN to take over the task from
the Americans, who could then withdraw with victory secured, satisfying the
common intent of the extreme hawks, war manager McNamara, and JFK.

In the following months, the withdrawal plans were carried forward under
the same optimistic assumptions, with the agreement of the military,
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and General Maxwell Taylor, JFK's most
trusted military adviser. The "fundamental objective" remained unchanged,
Michael Forrestal advised the President on August 27: the US must "give
wholehearted support to the prosecution of the war against the Viet Cong
terrorists," and "continue assistance to any government in South Vietnam
which shows itself capable of sustaining this effort."

The reference to "any government" relates to increasing Administration
concerns over the Diem regime. One factor was that its repression was
evoking internal resistance, which was interfering with the war effort.
Another was that Diem and his brother Nhu were pressing their demands for
US withdrawal with increasing urgency, sometimes in public, including a
front-page interview in the Washington Post in May in which Nhu called for
withdrawal of half the American military. Administration planners feared
that GVN pressures for withdrawal of US forces would become difficult to
resist, a danger enhanced by exploratory GVN efforts to reach a diplomatic
settlement with the North. The skimpy political base for Kennedy's war
would then erode, and the US would be compelled to withdraw without
victory. That option being unacceptable, the Saigon regime had to get on
board, or be dismissed.

JFK and Withdrawal: the DΘnouement

By the end of August, JFK and his most dovish advisers (Averell Harriman,
Roger Hilsman, George Ball) agreed that the client government should be
overthrown. On August 28, the President "asked the Defense Department to
come up with ways of building up the anti-Diem forces in Saigon," and
called on his advisers to devise actions in Washington or "in the field
which would maximize the chances of the rebel generals." Harriman said that
without a coup, "we cannot win the war" and "must withdraw." Hilsman
"agreed that we cannot win the war unless Diem is removed," as did Ball,
while Robert Kennedy also called for efforts to strengthen the rebel
generals. Secretary Rusk warned JFK that "Nhu might call on the North
Vietnamese to help him throw out the Americans."

Hilsman urged that if Diem and Nhu make any "Political move toward the DRV
(such as opening of neutralization negotiations)," or even hint at such
moves, we should "Encourage the generals to move promptly with a coup," and
be prepared to "hit the DRV with all that is necessary" if they try to
counter our actions, introducing US combat forces to ensure victory for the
coup group if necessary. "The important thing is to win the war," Hilsman
advised; and that meant getting rid of the Saigon regime, which was
dragging its feet and looking for ways out. The President concurred that
"our primary objective remains winning war," Rusk cabled to the Saigon
Embassy.

The basic principle, unquestioned, is that we must "focus on winning the
war" (Hilsman). On September 14, Harriman wrote to Lodge that: "from the
President on down everybody is determined to support you and the country
team in winning the war against the Viet Cong...there are no quitters
here."

In particular, JFK is no quitter. There is not a phrase in the internal
record to suggest that this judgment by a high-level Kennedy adviser, at
the dovish extreme, should be qualified in any way.

On September 17, President Kennedy instructed Ambassador Lodge to pressure
Diem to "get everyone back to work and get them to focus on winning the
war," repeating his regular emphasis on victory. It was particularly
important to show military progress because "of need to make effective case
with Congress for continued prosecution of the effort," the President
added, expressing his constant concern that domestic support for his
commitment to military victory was weak. "To meet these needs," he informed
Lodge, he was sending his top aides McNamara and Taylor to Vietnam. He
emphasized to them that the goal remains "winning the war," adding that
"The way to confound the press is to win the war." Like Congress, the press
was an enemy because of its lack of enthusiasm for a war to victory and its
occasional calls for diplomacy.

McNamara and Taylor were encouraged by what they found. On October 2, they
informed the President that "The military campaign has made great progress
and continues to progress." They presented a series of recommendations,
three of which were later authorized (watered down a bit) in NSAM 263: (1)
"An increase in the military tempo" throughout the country so that the
military campaign in the Northern and Central areas will be over by the end
of 1964, and in the South (the Delta) by the end of 1965; (2) Vietnamese
should be trained to take over "essential functions now performed by U.S.
military personnel" by the end of 1965, so that "It should be possible to
withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time"; (3) "the Defense
Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans
to withdraw 1000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963" as "an initial
step in a long-term program to replace U.S. personnel with trained
Vietnamese without impairment of the war effort."

Their report stressed again that the "overriding objective" is victory, a
matter "vital to United States security," but that withdrawal could not be
too long delayed: "any significant slowing in the rate of progress would
surely have a serious effect on U.S. popular support for the U.S. effort."
They anticipated victory by the end of 1965. The withdrawal plans were
crucially qualified in the usual way: "No further reductions should be made
until the requirements of the 1964 campaign become firm," that is, until
battlefield success is assured.

Note that lack of popular support for the war was not perceived by JFK and
his advisers as providing an opportunity for withdrawal, but rather as a
threat to victory.

The NSC met the same day to consider these proposals. The President's role
was, as usual, marginal. He repeated that "the major problem was with U.S.
public opinion" and, as he had before, balked at the time scale. He opposed
a commitment to withdraw some forces in 1963 because "if we were not able
to take this action by the end of this year, we would be accused of being
over optimistic." McNamara, in contrast, "saw great value in this sentence
in order to meet the view of Senator Fulbright and others that we are
bogged down forever in Vietnam." The phrase was left as "a part of the
McNamara-Taylor report rather than as predictions of the President," who
thus remained uncommitted to withdrawal, at his insistence.

A public statement was released to the press, and prominently published,
presenting the essence of the McNamara-Taylor recommendations. The
statement repeated the standard position that the US will work with the GVN
"to deny this country to Communism and to suppress the externally
stimulated and supported insurgency of the Viet Cong as promptly as
possible," continuing with "Major U.S. assistance in support of this
military effort," which is needed only until the insurgency has been
suppressed or until the national security forces of the Government of South
Viet-Nam are capable of suppressing it."

These decisions were encapsulated in NSAM 263 (Oct. 11), a brief statement
in which "The President approved the military recommendations" 1-3 cited
above, weakened by one change: that "no formal announcement be made of the
implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the
end of 1963." The final provision of NSAM 263 is JFK's personal instruction
to Ambassador Lodge to step up the military effort along with training and
arming of new forces, so as to enhance the prospects for victory, on which
withdrawal was conditioned.

Note that read literally, NSAM 263 says very little. It approves the
McNamara-Taylor recommendations to intensify the war and military training
so that "It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel" by
the end of 1965, and includes JFK's personal instructions to Lodge to
intensify military action. It does not call for implementing a 1,000 man
withdrawal, but rather endorses the third point of the McNamara-Taylor
proposal concerning plans for such withdrawal "as an initial step in a
long-term program" to be conducted "without impairment of the war effort,"
deleting their call for formal announcement of these plans.

Presumably, the intent was to implement the withdrawal plans if military
conditions allow, but that intent is unstated. The fact might be borne in
mind in the light of elaborate later efforts to read great significance
into nuances of phrasing so as to demonstrate a dramatic change in policy
with the Kennedy-Johnson transition. Adopting these interpretive
techniques, we would conclude that NSAM 263 is almost vacuous. I stress
that that is not my interpretation; I assume the obvious unstated
intention, only suggesting that other documents be treated in the same
reasonable manner -- in which case, widely-held beliefs will quickly
evaporate.

The picture presented in public at the time requires no significant
modification in the light of the huge mass of documents now available,
though these make much more clear the President's unwillingness to commit
himself to the withdrawal advocated by his war managers for fear that the
victory might not be achieved in time, his concerns that domestic opinion
might not stay the course, his insistence that withdrawal be conditioned on
military victory, and his orders to step up the military effort and to
replace the Diem regime by one that will "focus on winning" and not
entertain thoughts of US withdrawal and peaceful settlement.

Through October 1963, problems with the GVN continued to mount. Nhu called
openly for the Americans to get out completely, only providing aid. Another
problem was the lack of "effectiveness of GVN in its relation to its own
people." Asked about this, Ambassador Lodge responded in an "Eyes only for
the President" communication that "Viet-Nam is not a thoroughly strong
police state...because, unlike Hitler's Germany, it is not efficient" and
is thus unable to suppress the "large and well-organized underground
opponent strongly and ever-freshly motivated by vigorous hatred." The
Vietnamese "appear to be more than ever anxious to be left alone," and
though they "are said to be capable of great violence on occasion," "there
is no sight of it at the present time," another impediment to US efforts.

Small wonder that JFK was unwilling to commit himself to the
McNamara-Taylor withdrawal proposal. Note that the same defects of the US
clients underlie the critique of the strategic hamlet program by Kennedy
doves.

Washington's coup plans continued, with Ambassador Lodge in operational
command. The only hesitation was fear of failure. When the coup finally
took place on November 1, replacing Diem and Nhu (who were killed) by a
military regime, the President praised Lodge effusively for his "fine job"
and "leadership," an "achievement...of the greatest importance." With the
generals now in power, "our primary emphasis should be on effectiveness
rather than upon external appearances," the President added. We must help
the coup regime to confront "the real problems of winning the contest
against the Communists and holding the confidence of its own people." The
"ineffectiveness, loss of popular confidence, and the prospect of defeat
that were decisive in shaping our relations to the Diem regime" are now a
thing of the past, the President hoped, thanks to Lodge's inspired
leadership and coup-management, with its gratifying outcome (Nov. 6).

Two weeks before Kennedy's assassination, there is not a phrase in the
voluminous internal record that even hints at withdrawal without victory.
JFK urges that everyone "focus on winning the war"; withdrawal is
conditioned on victory, and motivated by domestic discontent with Kennedy's
war. The stakes are considered enormous. Nothing substantial changes as the
mantle passes to LBJ.

The post-coup situation had positive and negative aspects from the point of
view of the President and his advisers. On the positive side, they hoped
that the ruling generals would now at last focus on victory as the
President had demanded, gain popular support, and end the irritating calls
for US withdrawal and moves towards a peaceful settlement. On the other
hand, there was disarray at all levels, while at home, advocacy of
diplomacy was not stilled. Furthermore, evidence that undermined the
optimistic assessments was becoming harder to ignore. The new government
confirmed that the GVN "had been losing the war against the VC in the Delta
for some time because it had been losing the population." A top-level
meeting was planned for Honolulu on November 20 to consider the next steps.
The US mission in Vietnam recommended that the withdrawal plans be
maintained, the new government being "warmly disposed toward the U.S." and
offering "opportunities to exploit that we never had before." Kennedy's
plans to escalate the assault against the southern resistance could now be
implemented, with a stable regime finally in place. McNamara, ever
cautious, was concerned by a sharp increase in VC incidents and urged that
"We must be prepared to devote enough resources to this job of winning the
war."

At the Honolulu meeting, a draft was written by McGeorge Bundy for what
became NSAM 273, adopted after the assassination but prepared for JFK with
the expectation that he would approve it in essentials, as was the norm.
Top advisers agreed; Hilsman made only "minor changes." The State
Department history states correctly that the draft "was almost identical to
the final paper," differing only in paragraph 7.

Both documents reiterate the basic wording of the early October documents.
On withdrawal, the version approved by Johnson is identical with the draft
prepared for Kennedy. It reads: "The objectives of the United States with
respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel remain as stated in
the White House statement of October 2, 1963," referring to the statement
of US policy formalized without essential change as NSAM 263. As for
paragraph 7, the draft and final version are, respectively, as follows:

Draft:

     With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a
     detailed plan for the development of additional Government of
     Vietnam resources, especially for sea-going activity, and such
     planning should indicate the time and investment necessary to
     achieve a wholly new level of effectiveness in this field of
     action.

NSAM 273:

     Planning should include different levels of possible increased
     activity, and in each instance there should be estimates of such
     factors as: A. Resulting damage to North Vietnam; B. The
     plausibility of denial; C. Possible North Vietnamese retaliation;
     D. Other international reaction.

     Plans should be submitted promptly for approval by higher
     authority.

There is no relevant difference between the two documents, except that the
LBJ version is weaker and more evasive, dropping the call for "a wholly new
level of effectiveness in this field of action"; further actions are
reduced to "possible." The reason why paragraph 7 refers to "additional" or
"possible increased" activity we have already seen: such operations had
been underway since the Kennedy offensive of 1962, apparently with direct
participation of US personnel and foreign mercenaries.

No direct US government involvement is proposed in NSAM 273 beyond what was
already underway under JFK. The plans later developed by the DOD and CIA
called for "Intensified sabotage operations in North Vietnam by Vietnamese
personnel," with the US involved only in intelligence collection (U-2,
electronics) and "psychological operations" (leaflet drops, "phantom covert
operations," "black and white radio broadcasts").

These two NSAMs (263 in October, 273 on Nov. 26 with a Nov. 20 draft
written for Kennedy) are the centerpiece of the thesis that Kennedy planned
to withdraw without victory, a decision at once reversed by LBJ (and
perhaps the cause of the assassination). They have been the subject of many
claims and charges. Typical is Oliver Stone's Address to the National Press
Club alleging that a "ten-year study" by John Newman (JFK and Vietnam)
"makes it very clear President Kennedy signaled his intention to withdraw
from Vietnam in a variety of ways and put that intention firmly on the
record with National Security Action Memorandum 263 in October of 1963,"
while LBJ "reverse[d] the NSAM" with NSAM 273; Kennedy was assassinated for
that reason, Stone suggests. Zachary Sklar, the co-author (with Stone) of
the screenplay JFK, also citing Newman's book, claims further that the
draft prepared for Kennedy "says that the U.S. will train South Vietnamese
to carry out covert military operations against North Vietnam" while "In
the final document, signed by Johnson, it states that U.S. forces
themselves will carry out these covert military operations," leading to the
Tonkin Gulf incident, which "was an example of precisely that kind of
covert operation carried out by U.S. forces" (his emphasis). Arthur
Schlesinger claims that after the assassination, "President Johnson,
listening to President Kennedy's more hawkish advisers..., issued National
Security Action Memorandum 273 calling for the maintenance of American
military programs in Vietnam `at levels as high' as before -- reversing the
Kennedy withdrawal policy." As further proof he cites a paragraph from NSAM
273: "It remains the central objective of the United States in South
Vietnam to win their contest against the externally directed and supported
communist conspiracy." He highlights these words to show that LBJ was
undertaking "both the total commitment Kennedy had always refused and the
diagnosis of the conflict" that Kennedy had "never quite accepted."

These alleged facts are held to establish the historic change at the
assassination.

The claims, however, have no known basis in fact, indeed are refuted by the
internal record, which gives no hint of any intention by JFK to withdraw
without victory -- quite the contrary -- and reveals no "reversal" in NSAM
273. Newman's book adds nothing relevant. The call for maintenance of aid
is in the draft of NSAM 273 prepared for Kennedy, and was also at the core
of his tentative withdrawal plans, conditioned on victory and "Major U.S.
assistance" to assure it. Furthermore, Kennedy's more dovish advisers
approved and continued to urge LBJ to follow what they understood to be
JFK's policy, rejecting any thought of withdrawal without victory. The
final version of NSAM 273 does not state that US forces would carry out
covert operations in any new way; nor did they, in the following months.
There were covert attacks on North Vietnamese installations just prior to
the Tonkin Gulf incident, but they were carried out by South Vietnamese
forces, according to the internal record. Schlesinger's highlighted words
appear regularly in both the public and private Kennedy record, as does the
diagnosis, along with JFK's insistent demand that everyone must "focus on
winning the war." The hidden meanings are in the eye of the beholder.

The two versions of NSAM 273 differ in no relevant way, apart from the
weakening of paragraph 7 in the final version. Furthermore, the departure
from NSAM 263 is slight, and readily explained in terms of changing
assessments. Efforts to detect nuances and devious implications have no
basis in fact, and if pursued, could easily be turned into a (meaningless)
"proof" that LBJ toned down Kennedy aggressiveness.

The call in NSAM 273 (both the draft and the weakened LBJ version) for
consideration of further ARVN operations against the North is readily
explained in terms of the two basic features of the post-coup situation:
the feeling among Kennedy's war planners that with the Diem regime gone,
the US at last had a stable base for Kennedy's war in the South, with new
"opportunities to exploit"; and the increasing concern about the military
situation in the South, undermining earlier optimism. The former factor
made it possible to consider extension of ARVN operations; the latter made
it more important to extend them. In subsequent months, Kennedy's planners
(now directing Johnson's war) increasingly inclined towards operations
against the North as a way to overcome their inability to win the war in
the South, leading finally to the escalation of 1965, undertaken largely to
"drive the DRV out of its reinforcing role and obtain its cooperation in
bringing an end to the Viet Cong insurgency," using "its directive powers
to make the Viet Cong desist" (Taylor, Nov. 27, 1964).

LBJ and the Kennedy Doves

Kennedy's more dovish advisers recommended the policies that Johnson
pursued, and generally approved of them until the 1965 escalation, often
beyond. They lost no time in making clear that JFK's commitment to victory
would not be abandoned. On December 10, Forrestal, Ball, Harriman and
Hilsman, reiterating JFK's consistent stand, assured Lodge that "we are
against neutralism and want to win the war." The same unwavering commitment
was reiterated by Ball, who informed Lodge on Dec. 16 that "Nothing is
further from USG mind than `neutral solution for Vietnam.' We intend to
win." A year later (Nov. 1964), Ball held that the Saigon regime must
continue to receive US aid until the Viet Cong is defeated and that "the
struggle would be a long one, even with the DRV out of it." Ball and other
doves continued to support Johnson's policies, which they regarded as a
continuation of Kennedy's. On May 31, 1964, Ball praised "the President's
wise caution" and refusal to "act hastily."

Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, later portrayed as an advocate of
withdrawal, had raised only tactical objections to JFK's escalation. He
advised JFK to abandon "rhetorical flourishes" about the great stakes
(advice that the President rejected, as noted). And recognizing that Diem
was not fighting the war effectively, he advised withdrawal of some
advisors "as a symbolic gesture, to make clear that we mean business when
we say that there are some circumstances in which this commitment will be
discontinued." Mansfield generally supported Johnson's policies. At an NSC
meeting on April 3, 1964, LBJ rejected Senator Morse's proposal for "using
SEATO and the UN to achieve a peaceful settlement" in favor of McNamara's
view that withdrawal or neutralization would lead to a Communist takeover
and therefore remain unacceptable options. Mansfield agreed, urging "that
the President's policy toward Vietnam was the only one we could follow." He
firmly rejected the withdrawal option and the diplomatic moves counselled
by Morse. In January 1965, Mansfield publicly supported "the President's
desire neither to withdraw nor carry the war to North Vietnam" (PP). Later,
he bitterly condemned critics of Johnson's escalation.

Quite generally, Kennedy's most dovish advisers sensed no change at the
transition and lent their support to Johnson. Some praised his "wise
caution," while others called for more aggressive action. By mid-1964,
Forrestal was coming to support escalation of actions against the North.
Hilsman's position was similar. In a March 14 memorandum he stressed the
need "to take whatever measures are necessary in Southeast Asia to protect
those who oppose the Communists and to maintain our power and influence in
the area," including "whatever military steps may be necessary to halt
Communist aggression in the area" (crucially, VC "aggression"). We should
station a Marine battalion in Saigon on the pretext of protecting American
dependents. Attacks against the North might be "a useful supplement to an
effective counterinsurgency program," but not "an effective substitute" for
it. We must "continue the covert, or at least deniable, operations" against
the North in order to keep "the threat of eventual destruction alive in
Hanoi's mind." Recall that he had made the same recommendations in April
1963, in virtually the same words, including the advice to "continue" the
ongoing covert operations against the North with their implicit threat of
destruction.

The support for LBJ among the Kennedy doves comes as no surprise, given
their familiarity with the internal record, which shows no deviation on the
President's part from Harriman's judgment that "there are no quitters
here." As the optimistic predictions of 1962-3 collapsed after the coup
that overthrew Diem, undermining the precondition for withdrawal, they
advocated a change of tactics to achieve the "fundamental objective" always
sought.

We might note, at this point, that the military leadership was divided over
the war. General Douglas MacArthur and his successor as Army Chief of
Staff, Matthew Ridgway, were strongly opposed to the use of combat troops.
The top US military commander in Vietnam, MAAG Chief General Lionel McGarr,
informed JFK on February 22, 1962 that "in providing the GVN the tools to
do the job," the US "must not offer so much that they forget that the job
of saving the country is theirs -- only they can do it." General Taylor and
Pacific Commander Admiral Henry Felt shared these qualms about combat
troops. As plans to overthrow the Diem-Nhu regime were underway in
September 1963, Taylor expressed his "reluctance to contemplate the use of
U.S. troops in combat in Vietnam," while agreeing with the President and
his other top advisers that "our sole objective was to win the war." A year
after the assassination, agreeing with McGarr, Taylor continued to urge
that the US keep to the "principle that the Vietnamese fight their own war
in SVN" (Nov. 3, 1964). He therefore opposed sending logistical forces for
flood relief because that would require dispatch of "US combat troops in
some numbers to provide close protection." Two weeks later, he informed
President Johnson directly that he was now "quite certain [US combat
troops] were not needed...as the estimates of the flood damage diminish."
In September 1964, Taylor had explained that the military command "did not
contemplate" committing combat forces because Commanding General
Westmoreland, also echoing McGarr, felt that use of American troops "would
be a mistake, that it is the Vietnamese' war."

In later years, great import has been attributed to JFK's public
reiteration of the McGarr-Westmoreland-Taylor "principle" in his Sept. 1963
statement that "In the final analysis it is their war. They have to win it
or lose it." It is, therefore, worth stressing that the "principle" was
standard throughout in internal and public discussion, through 1964,
including LBJ's public statements.

General David Shoup, Marine Commandant through the Kennedy years, reports
that when the Joint Chiefs considered troop deployment, "in every
case...every senior officer that I knew...said we should never send ground
combat forces into Southeast Asia." Shoup's public opposition to the war
from 1966 was particularly strong, far beyond anything said by the civilian
leadership, media doves, or others who later presented themselves as war
critics.

These observations add further weight to the conclusion based on the record
of internal deliberations, in which JFK insists upon victory and considers
withdrawal only on this condition. Had he intended to withdraw, he would
have been able to enlist respected military commanders to back him, so it
appears, including the most revered figures of the right. He made no effort
to do so, preferring instead to whip up pro-war sentiment with inflammatory
rhetoric about the awesome consequences of withdrawal.

Interpretations: the Early Version

The final source of evidence on JFK's plans is the memoirs and other
comments of his advisers. These come in two versions: before and after the
Tet offensive. We review these in the next two sections, then turning to
the 1991-2 revival and revisions. This survey only adds conviction to what
we have already found.

Kennedy's commitment to stay the course was clear to those closest to him.
As noted, Arthur Schlesinger shared JFK's perception of the enormous stakes
and his optimism that the military escalation had reversed the "aggression"
of the indigenous guerrillas in 1962. There is not a word in Schlesinger's
chronicle of the Kennedy years (1965, reprinted 1967) that hints of any
intention to withdraw without victory. In fact, Schlesinger gives no
indication that JFK thought about withdrawal at all. The withdrawal plans
receive one sentence in his voluminous text, attributed to McNamara in the
context of the debate over pressuring the Diem regime. There is nothing
else in this 940-page virtual day-by-day record of the Kennedy
Administration by its quasi-official historian. Far more detail had
appeared in the press in October-December 1963.

These facts leave only three possible conclusions: (1) the historian was
keeping the President's intentions secret; (2) this close JFK confidant had
no inkling of his intentions; (3) there were no such intentions.

By 1966, it was becoming clear that things were not going well in Vietnam.
In his Bitter Heritage (1966), Arthur Schlesinger expressed concern that
the US military effort had dubious prospects, though "we may all be
saluting the wisdom and statesmanship of the American government" if it
succeeds. Referring to Joseph Alsop's predictions of victory, Schlesinger
writes that "we all pray that Mr. Alsop will be right," though he doubts
it. The only qualms are tactical: what will be the cost to us? Schlesinger
describes himself as holding high the spirit of JFK. He flatly opposes
withdrawal, which "would have ominous reverberations throughout Asia," and
again gives no hint that Kennedy ever considered such a possibility.

Another close associate, Theodore Sorenson, also published a history of the
Administration in 1965. Sorenson was Kennedy's first appointed official,
served as his special counsel and attended all NSC meetings. He makes no
mention of withdrawal plans. Quite the contrary. Kennedy's "essential
contribution," he writes, was to avoid the extremes advocated "by those
impatient to win or withdraw. His strategy essentially was to avoid
escalation, retreat or a choice limited to these two, while seeking to buy
time...." He opposed withdrawal or "bargain[ing] away Vietnam's security at
the conference table." Sorenson's conclusion is that JFK "was simply going
to weather it out, a nasty, untidy mess to which there was no other
acceptable solution. Talk of abandoning so unstable an ally and so costly a
commitment `only makes it easy for the Communists,' said the President. `I
think we should stay'." So his account ends. Again, we may choose among the
same three conclusions.

No one was closer to JFK than his brother Robert. He had expressed his
position in 1962: "The solution lies in our winning it. This is what the
President intends to do.... We will remain here [in Saigon] until we do."
In 1964 oral history, RFK said that the Administration had never faced the
possibilities of either withdrawal or escalation. Asked what JFK would have
done if the South Vietnamese appeared doomed, he said: "We'd face that when
we came to it." "Robert's own understanding of his brother's position," his
biographer Arthur Schlesinger reports, was that "we should win the war"
because of the domino effect. The problem with Diem, RFK added, was that we
need "somebody that can win the war," and he wasn't the man for it.
Accordingly, it is no surprise that RFK fully supported Johnson's
continuation of what he understood to be his brother's policies through the
1965 escalation.

The last of the early accounts of the Kennedy Administration was written by
Roger Hilsman in late 1967, shortly before the Tet offensive and well after
severe doubts about the war were raised at the highest levels. He takes it
for granted that the goal throughout was "to defeat the Communist
guerrillas." He writes that had JFK lived, "he might well have introduced
United States ground forces into South Vietnam -- though I believe he would
not have ordered them to take over the war effort from the Vietnamese but
would have limited their mission to the task of occupying ports, airfields,
and military bases to demonstrate to the North Vietnamese that they could
not win the struggle by escalation either" -- the enclave strategy that had
been advocated by Ball and Taylor in early 1965, then by others. The
question of how to respond to a collapse of the Saigon regime was delayed,
he writes, in the hope that it would not arise. Hilsman feels that LBJ
"sincerely even desperately wanted to make the existing policy work,"
without US combat forces, citing his statement of Sept. 25, 1964 that "We
don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys." He cites
the White House statement announcing the adoption of the McNamara-Taylor
October 1963 recommendations, adding nothing of substance to what was
published in the press at the time. His only comment is that the optimistic
predictions on which withdrawal was predicated would come "to haunt
Secretary McNamara and the whole history of American involvement in
Vietnam."

The internal record of 1964 shows that Kennedy doves saw matters much as
described in the 1964-67 memoirs, and therefore continued to support
Johnson's policies, some pressing for further escalation, others (Ball,
Mansfield) praising Johnson for choosing the middle course between
escalation and withdrawal.

We have now reviewed all the crucial evidence: the events themselves, the
public statements, the record of internal deliberations and planning, the
opinions of the military, the attitudes of the Kennedy doves, and the
pre-Tet memoirs and commentary. The conclusions are unambiguous,
surprisingly so on a matter of current history: President Kennedy was
firmly committed to the policy of victory that he inherited and transmitted
to his successor, and to the doctrinal framework that assigned enormous
significance to that outcome; he had no plan or intention to withdraw
without victory; he had apparently given little thought to the matter
altogether, and it was regarded as of marginal interest by those closest to
him. Furthermore, the basic facts were prominently published at the time,
with more detail than is provided by the early memoirs.

The Record Revised

After the Tet Offensive, major domestic power sectors concluded that the
enterprise was becoming too costly to them and called for it to be
terminated. President Johnson was, in effect, dismissed from office, and
policy was set towards disengagement. The effect on the ideological system
was dramatic. The liberal intelligentsia felt the "need to insulate JFK
from the disastrous consequences of the American venture in Southeast
Asia," Thomas Brown observes in his study of Camelot imagery. "Kennedy's
role in the Vietnam war is unsurprisingly...the aspect [of his public image
and record] that has been subjected to the greatest number of revisions by
Kennedy's admirers.... The important thing was that JFK be absolved of
responsibility for the Vietnam debacle; when the need for exculpation is so
urgent, no obstacles -- including morality and the truth -- should stand in
the way" (JFK: History of an Image, 1988).

The latter comment relates specifically to one of the earliest post-Tet
efforts to revise the image, the 1972 memoir by White House aide Kenneth
O'Donnell, whose stories have assumed center stage in the post-Tet
reconstruction. He writes that Kennedy had informed Senator Mansfield that
he agreed with him "on the need for a complete military withdrawal from
Vietnam," adding that he had to delay announcement of "a withdrawal of
American military personnel" until after the November 1964 election to
avoid "another Joe McCarthy scare." In 1975, Mansfield told columnist Jack
Anderson that Kennedy "was going to order a gradual withdrawal" but "never
had the chance to put the plan into effect," though he had "definitely and
unequivocally" made that decision; in 1978, Mansfield said further that
Kennedy had informed him that troop withdrawal would begin in January 1964
(which does not fit smoothly with the O'Donnell story).

Noting Mansfield's (partial) confirmation of O'Donnell's report, Brown
points out that "one need not reject this story out of hand...to doubt that
it was a firm statement of Kennedy's intentions in Vietnam. Like many
politicians, JFK was inclined to tell people what they wanted to hear."
Every authentic historian discounts such reports for the same reason:
"Kennedy probably told [Mansfield] what he wanted to hear," Thomas Paterson
observes. The same holds for other recollections, authentic or not, by
political figures and journalists.

Whatever else he may have been, Kennedy was a political animal, and knew
enough to tell the Senate Majority Leader and other influential people what
they wanted to hear. He was also keenly sensitive to the opposition to his
policies among powerful Senators, who saw them as harmful to US interests.
He also was aware that public support for the war was thin, as was McNamara
and others. But JFK never saw the general discontent among the public,
press, and Congress as an opportunity to construct a popular base for
withdrawal; rather, he sought to counter it with extremist rhetoric about
the grand stakes. He hoped to bring the war to a successful end before
discontent interfered with this plan. Had he intended to withdraw, he would
also have leaped at the opportunity provided by the GVN call for reduction
of forces (even outright withdrawal), and its moves toward political
settlement. As for the right-wing, a President intent on withdrawal would
have called upon the most highly-respected military figures for support, as
already noted. There is no indication that this reasonable course was ever
considered, again confirming that withdrawal was never an option.

The O'Donnell-Mansfield story is hardly credible on other grounds. Nothing
would have been better calculated to fan right-wing hysteria than
inflammatory rhetoric about the cosmic issues at stake, public commitment
to stay the course, election on the solemn promise to stand firm come what
may, and then withdrawal and betrayal. Furthermore, Mansfield's actual
positions differed from the retrospective version, as noted. Far more
credible, if one takes such reconstructions seriously, is General Wheeler's
recollection in 1964 (not years later) that Kennedy was interested in
extending the war to North Vietnam.

Despite such obvious flaws as these, the O'Donnell-Mansfield stories are
taken very seriously by Kennedy hagiographers.

The Camelot memoirists proceeded to revise their earlier versions after
Tet, separating JFK (and by implication, themselves) from what had
happened. Sorenson was the first. In the earlier version, Kennedy was
preparing for the introduction of combat troops if necessary and intended
to "weather it out" come what may, not abandoning his ally, who would have
collapsed without large-scale US intervention. Withdrawal is not discussed.
Diplomacy is considered a threat, successfully overcome by the overthrow of
the Diem government. But post-Tet, Sorenson is "convinced" that JFK would
have sought diplomatic alternatives in 1965 -- with the client regime in
still worse straits, as he notes. The October 1963 withdrawal plan,
unmentioned in the old version, assumes great significance in the post-Tet
revision, with significant omissions: notably, the precondition of military
success.

Arthur Schlesinger entered the lists in 1978 with his biography of Robert
Kennedy. Unlike Sorenson, he does not confine himself to speculation about
JFK's intent. Rather, he constructs a new history, radically revising his
earlier account. Thus, while the pre-Tet versions gave no hint of any
intent to withdraw without victory, in the post-Tet biography of Robert
Kennedy, JFK's alleged withdrawal plans merit a full chapter, though RFK's
"involvement in Vietnam had been strictly limited before Dallas,"
Schlesinger observes. This startling difference between the pre- and
Post-Tet versions is not attributed to any significant new information,
indeed is not mentioned at all. In 1992, in a review of Newman's book,
Schlesinger went a step further, claiming that he had put forth the JFK
withdrawal thesis all along.

Post-Tet, the October 1963 decisions, emerging from their earlier
obscurity, become "the first application of Kennedy's phased withdrawal
plan." Unmentioned before, this plan now serves as prime evidence that
Kennedy had separated himself from the two main "schools": the advocates of
counterinsurgency and of military victory. The plan shows that JFK was
opposed to "both win-the-war factions, ...vaguely searching for a
nonmilitary solution." His public call for winning the war is apparently to
be understood as a ploy to deflect the right-wing.

Pre-Tet, it was JFK and Arthur Schlesinger who rejoiced over the defeat of
"aggression" in Vietnam in 1962. Post-Tet, it is the New York Times that
absurdly denounces "Communist `aggression' in Vietnam," while "Kennedy was
determined to stall." And though RFK did call for victory over the
aggressors in 1962, he was deluded by "the party line as imparted to him by
McNamara and Taylor," failing to understand the huge gap between the
President's views and the McNamara-Taylor party line -- which Schlesinger
had attributed to the President, with his own endorsement, in the pre-Tet
version. In the post-Tet version, the Joint Chiefs join the New York Times,
McNamara, and Taylor as extremists undermining the President's moderate
policies. Commenting on JCS Chairman General Lyman Lemnitzer's invocation
of the "well-known commitment to take a forthright stand against Communism
in Southeast Asia," Schlesinger writes sardonically that it may have been
"well-known" to the Chiefs, but they "failed in their effort to force it on
the President" -- who regularly voiced it in still more strident terms,
including several cases that Schlesinger had cited, pre-Tet: e.g., JFK's
fears of upsetting "the whole world balance" if the US were to retreat in
Vietnam. Or, we may add his summer 1963 statement that "for us to withdraw
from that effort [to secure the GVN] would mean a collapse not only of
South Vietnam but Southeast Asia," which Schlesinger quoted and praised as
"temperate," pre-Tet (902-3).

This book and later Schlesinger efforts are so replete with
misrepresentation and error as to defy brief comment. I will return to them
elsewhere. They illustrate the seriousness of the post-Tet endeavor, and
its dim prospects.

The third early Kennedy memoirist, Roger Hilsman, has written letters to
the press responding to critics of the withdrawal thesis in which he takes
a stronger stand on JFK's intent to withdraw than in his highly qualified
1967 comments. His factual references are misleading, but a close reading
shows that Hilsman is careful to evade the crucial questions: in
particular, the precondition of victory. He cites Kennedy's statement that
"it is their war" to win or lose as proof of his plan to withdraw, claiming
without evidence that Johnson at once reversed that intent. He had said
nothing of the sort pre-Tet; quite the contrary, as we have seen (including
the internal record). Furthermore, if JFK's statement demonstrates his
intent to withdraw, we would have to draw the same conclusions about
McGarr, Taylor, Westmoreland, and LBJ. That, of course, is precisely why
Hilsman makes no such claim in his 1967 memoir, in which he emphasizes
LBJ's statement that "We don't want our American boys to do the fighting
for Asian boys" to show his "sincere" and "desperate" effort to carry out
JFK's plans. The same holds of efforts by Schlesinger and others to read
great significance into JFK statements that were conventional and mean
little.

However informative they may be with regard to the duties and
responsibilities of cultural management, the post-Tet revisions by leading
Kennedy intellectuals have no value as history. Rather, they constitute a
chapter of cultural history, one that is of no slight interest, I believe.

The Hero-Villain Scenario

The withdrawal-without-victory thesis is typically understood to subsume a
second one: that LBJ was responsible for an immediate reversal of policy
from withdrawal to escalation. The major effort to establish the dual
thesis is Newman's book, which has received much attention and praise over
a broad spectrum. It was the basis for the influential Oliver Stone film
JFK, and is taken by much of the left to be a definitive demonstration of
the twin theses. The book was strongly endorsed by Arthur Schlesinger, who
describes it as a "solid contribution," with its "straightforward and
workmanlike, rather military...organization, tone and style" and
"meticulous and exhaustive examination of documents." Former CIA Director
William Colby, who headed the Far East division of the CIA in 1963-64,
hailed Newman's study of these years as a "brilliant, meticulously
researched and fascinating account of the decision-making which led to
America's long agony in Vietnam"; America's agony, in accordance with
approved doctrine.

The book is not without interest. It contains some new documentary
evidence, which further undermines the Newman-Schlesinger thesis when
extricated from the chaotic jumble of materials interlarded with
highlighted phrases that demonstrate nothing, confident interpretations of
private intentions and beliefs, tales of intrigue and deception of
extraordinary scale and complexity, so well-concealed as to leave no trace
in the record, and conclusions that become more strident as the case
collapses before the author's eyes. By the end, he claims that the National
Security Council meetings of 1961 "more than resolve the question" of
whether Kennedy would have sent combat troops under the radically different
circumstances faced by his advisers in 1965, a conclusion that captures
accurately the level of argument.

Newman's basic contention seems to be that JFK was surrounded by evil
advisers who were trying to thwart his secret plan to withdraw without
victory, though unaccountably, he kept giving them more authority and
promoting them to higher positions, perhaps because he didn't understand
them. Thus JFK thought that Taylor was "the one general who shared his own
views and that he could, therefore, trust to carry out his bidding."
Shamelessly deceived, JFK therefore promoted him to Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs and relied on him until the end, though Taylor was undermining him
at every turn; Taylor became "the second most powerful person in the White
House," Newman observes (180), with no attempt to resolve the paradox.
There are a few "good guys," but in the chaos, it is hard to be sure who
they are: perhaps Harriman, Forrestal, Hilsman, and McNamara, though even
they joined the malefactors who beset our hero on every side (Harriman and
Hilsman "mired Kennedy in a plot to overthrow Diem," etc.).

The withdrawal-without-victory thesis rests on the assumption that Kennedy
realized that the optimistic military reports were incorrect. Newman agrees
that through 1962 JFK accepted the optimistic reports, but asserts that by
March 1963, he had "figured out...that the success story was a deception."
There is "hard evidence" for this, he claims, referring to an NBC
documentary on the Diem assassination in November 1963 that questioned the
optimistic intelligence reports. The remainder of the evidence is that "in
his heart he must have known" that the military program was a failure.
Unlike his advisers (at least, those not in on the various "deceptions"),
he "had to notice when the military myth was shaken by Bowles and
Mendenhall in late 1962," and by Mansfield's pessimism. "When the drama of
the Wheeler versus Hilsman-Forrestal match ended up in his office in
February 1963, the implication that the story of success was untrue could
no longer be overlooked" (by Kennedy, uniquely); the "drama" is the
difference of judgment as to the time scale for victory, already reviewed.

Not a trace of supporting evidence appears in the internal record, or is
suggested here. Furthermore, the reports by Bowles and Mendenhall date from
before the time when JFK was still deceived, according to Newman's account,
and Mendenhall's at least never even reached him, he notes. As for Bowles,
who had been cut out of policymaking sectors much earlier, Newman does not
mention that after visiting Vietnam in July 1963, he sent a highly
confidential report to McGeorge Bundy (which, in this case, the President
may have seen), in which he wrote that "the military situation is steadily
improving" although "the political situation is rapidly deteriorating,"
repeating the standard view of military success, political failure,
recommending various escalatory steps, and expressing his hope that with "a
bit of luck," we may "turn the tide" and "lay the basis for a far more
favorable situation in Southeast Asia."

On this basis, we are to believe that JFK alone understood that official
optimism was unwarranted.

Curiously, there is one bit of evidence that does support the conclusion,
but Newman and other advocates of the thesis do not make use of it. Recall
that at the NSC meeting considering the McNamara-Taylor recommendations
that were partially endorsed in NSAM 263, Kennedy insisted on dissociating
himself even from the plan to withdraw 1000 personnel because he did not
want to be "accused of being over optimistic" in case the military
situation did not make it feasible. He allowed the sentence on withdrawal
to remain only if attributed to McNamara and Taylor, without his
acquiescence. In public too he was more hesitant about the withdrawal plan
than the military command. One might argue, then, that JFK did not share
the optimism of his advisers, and was therefore unwilling to commit himself
to withdrawal. This conclusion has two merits not shared by the thesis we
are examining: (1) it has some evidence to support it; (2) it conforms to
the general picture of Kennedy's commitment to military victory provided by
the internal record.

Newman's efforts to demonstrate the "far-reaching and profound nature of
this reversal" that changed the course of history when the iniquitous LBJ
took over are no more impressive. Thus he cites an alleged comment reported
by Stanley Karnow, in which LBJ privately told the Joint Chiefs: "Just get
me elected and then you can have your war." Putting aside the reliability
of the source (which, elsewhere, Newman dismisses as unreliable when Karnow
questioned the withdrawal thesis), the full context reveals that Karnow
attributes to Johnson very much what O'Donnell attributes to Kennedy;
assuage the right, get elected, and then do what you choose. What LBJ chose
was to drag his feet much as JFK had done.

Newman concedes that as of October 2, 1963, when the McNamara-Taylor
withdrawal recommendations were presented, "So far, it had been couched in
terms of battlefield success." But there was a "sudden turnabout of
reporting in early November." "As the Honolulu meeting approached the tide
turned toward pessimism as suddenly and as swiftly as the optimistic
interlude had begun in early 1962," Newman writes. The participants in the
Nov. 20 meeting received "shocking military news." "The upshot of the
Honolulu meeting," he continues, "was that the shocking deterioration of
the war effort was presented in detail to those assembled, along with a
plan to widen the war, while the 1,000-man withdrawal was turned into a
meaningless paper drill." The three components of the "upshot" are of
course related. The fact that prior to the "sudden turn toward pessimism"
the entire discussion of withdrawal had been "couched in terms of
battlefield success" thoroughly undermines Newman's thesis, as becomes only
more clear if we introduce the internal record that he ignores.

In the end, Newman relies almost exclusively on the virtually meaningless
O'Donnell-Mansfield post-Tet reconstructions, while ignoring the internal
record, briefly reviewed, which conforms closely to JFK's public stance.
His tale is woven from dark hints and "intrigue," with "webs of deception"
at every level. The military were deceiving Kennedy's associates who were
deceiving Kennedy, while he in turn was deceiving the public and his
advisers, and many were deceiving themselves. At least, I think that is
what the story is supposed to be; it is not easy to tell in this labyrinth
of fancy. We are invited to view the "unforgettable image of a President
pitted against his own advisers and the bureaucracy that served under him"
from the very outset, without a hint of evidence and no explanation as to
why he chose to rely on them in preference to others. Newman concedes that
JFK's public statements refute his thesis, but that's easily handled: JFK
was cleverly feinting to delude the right-wing by preaching about the high
stakes to the general public -- who largely didn't care or were uneasy
about the war, as JFK and his advisers knew, and could only be aroused to
oppose withdrawal by this inflammatory rhetoric.

By the end, we are wandering along paths "shrouded in mystery and
intrigue," guided by confident assertions about what various participants
"knew," "pretended," "felt," "intended," etc. The facts, whatever they may
be, are interpreted so as to conform to the central dogma, taken to have
been established. Given the rules of the game (deceit, hidden intent,
etc.), there can be no counter-argument: evidence refuting the thesis
merely shows the depths of the mystery and intrigue. I will put aside
further discussion here, returning to a fuller examination elsewhere.

Whatever genre this may be, any pretense of unearthing the facts has been
left far behind. As in the case of the post-Tet memoirs, the Newman study
and its reception are of considerable interest, but not as a contribution
to history: rather, as an interesting chapter of cultural history in the
late 20th century.
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