The Other McCain, dead Kennedys, and the lessons of Vietnam

In an otherwise excellent blog post, explaining why the late Ted Kennedy is a proper object of ridicule, The Other McCain falls into error and a deadly trap.

Lambasting Kennedy on foreign policy, The Other McCain writes:

Ted Kennedy led the movement in 1973 to deny U.S. assistance to the pro-American government in Saigon, abandoning a U.S. ally to whom leaders of his own party – remember JFK and LBJ? – had solemnly pledged our support. The result? Not only the communist conquest of South Vietnam, and the exodus of thousands of desperate refugees, but also the collateral damage in neighboring Cambodia, bringing to power the Marxist maniac Pol Pot. The infamous “killing fields” – the mountains of skulls of innocent civilians slaughtered by the brutal Khmer Rouge death squads – there is the legacy of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

I’ve written here about the Vietnamese way of war, and of my own family’s involvement. In brief, by the time the American war began in earnest, the Vietnamese had nearly two thousand years experience fighting powerful foreign interlopers. Kennedy’s vote saved American money and lives, which I regard as a Good Thing (in Ted’s case, perhaps the only one).

I want to focus here on our “allies” and our “solemn pledge of support” to them.

• 1954: The French citadel at Dien Bien Phu falls. The Geneva Accords temporarily end hostilities, partition Vietnam into North and South, limit the introduction of foreign troops into the region, and call for free elections to unify the country by July, 1956. The US government endorses the Accords. The North is under Communist control, led by Ho Chi Minh. Bao Dai, the hereditary Emperor and former French puppet, rules the South. Ngo Dinh Diem, a career bureaucrat, returns from French-imposed exile to assume the post of Prime Minister.
• 1955: French control of South Vietnam ends. A referendum is held to determine the future of South Vietnam’s government. Bao Dai calls for a restoration of the monarchy, while Diem runs on a republican platform. Diem’s brother Nhu, the head of the family’s Can Lao party, organizes and supervises the election. It is an interesting exercise in democracy, as it is illegal to campaign for Bao Dai. Diem’s opponents are threatened, physically beaten, and jailed. Diem declares victory with 98.2% of the vote. Diem’s friend and CIA advisor, the legendary Edward Lansdale, tries unsuccessfully to persuade Diem to revise the number downward to a more believable figure. Nhu is named vice president. Bao Dai goes into exile. Diem puts the reunification election on permanent hold.
• November 11, 1961: President John F. Kennedy increases the number of US troops in Vietnam above the level allowed by the Geneva Accords. Although American pilots and soldiers are actively participating in combat, President Kennedy lies to the American public and says they are just “advising.” Vietnam is becoming an American colony, just as Ho Chi Minh, seven years earlier in Geneva,  predicted it would: “[The Americans] are stronger than the French, but they know us less well. It make take us ten years to get rid of them.”
• 1963: Both Vietnamese and American dissatisfaction with the Diem regime reach critical mass. Diem has already survived two coup attempts, in 1960 and 1962; in the latter attempt, two South Vietnamese Air Force pilots bombed the presidential palace. Diem, a Catholic, has disenfranchised and suppressed Vietnam’s majority Buddhists. Protests erupt in Saigon, the capital, and in the central city of Hue, where Diem’s elder brother, Thuc, is Archbishop. Buddhist schools are ordered closed by the government. Pagodas are invaded and sacked, and revered monks’ graves and corpses desecrated. Monks and teachers are arrested. Unarmed protestors, many of them high school and college students, are fired on by security forces. Monks set themselves ablaze in the streets in protest of the regime’s treatment of Buddhists. Diem’s Foreign Minister, Vu Van Mau, resigns in protest; Diem has him arrested. A military coup, headed by General Duong Van Minh, is plotted. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff are unanimously against a coup; the White House is ambivalent, but ultimately assents.
• November 1, 1963: The generals launch their coup. The next morning, Diem and Nhu are captured while trying to escape and, despite previous assurances of safe conduct, are murdered in the back of an American-made armored personnel carrier. Minh establishes a military junta to govern South Vietnam. There is wild elation in the South: Diem’s portraits and slogans are destroyed; political prisoners, many scarred by torture, are released from Diem’s “tiger cages”; nightclubs reopen; strategic hamlets are dismantled. In the North, Ho Chi Minh “can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid.” The North Vietnamese Politburo is more explicit, predicting: “The consequences of the 1 November coup d’état will be contrary to the calculations of the U.S. imperialists … Diem was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communism. Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diem. Diem was one of the most competent lackeys of the U.S. imperialists … Among the anti-Communists in South Vietnam or exiled in other countries, no one has sufficient political assets and abilities to cause others to obey. Therefore, the lackey administration cannot be stabilized. The coup d’état on 1 November 1963 will not be the last.”
• November 22, 1963: President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson assumes the presidency.
• January, 1964: Gen. Nguyen Khanh topples the junta of General Minh.
• August 2, 1964: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. President Johnson lies to the American people and Congress about an attack on American warships in international waters off the Gulf of Tonkin. He lies again to Congress in claiming that the Tonkin Gulf Resolution only authorizes a limited, one-time reprisal. 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 – 4 million Vietnamese will pay with their lives for Johnson’s lies.
• August 21, 1964: Faced with massive domestic opposition and internal plotting, Gen. Khanh meets with Buddhist leaders Tri Quang and Tram Chau. Khanh virtually admits his puppet status when he tells the two men he will not discuss their complaints with US Ambassador Maxwell Taylor. For his part, Taylor already has told Khanh not to give in to any minority demands.
• August 25, 1964: With a crowd of 25,000 protestors gathered outside his office, Gen. Khanh resigns. The military revolutionary council meets the next day and appoints a compromise triumvirate of Khanh, Minh, and Khanh’s ally in the January overthrow of Minh, now turned rival, General Tran Thien Kiem. Khanh goes on vacation to Da Lat, leaving Harvard-educated economist Nguyen Xuan Oanh as acting prime minister. Oanh is widely viewed as an American puppet, a view American officials in Saigon only encourage by referring to him as “Jack Owen.” Oanh’s term as prime minister lasts a mere five days: Khanh returns from Da Lat and displaces Oanh, promising to resign after stabilizing the government.
• September 13, 1964: General Lam Van Phat, recently dismissed as Minister of the Interior, and General Duong Van Duc, due to be relieved as military commander in the Mekong Delta, launch a coup against Khanh. The coup collapses in less than 24 hours when Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky orders his planes into the sky over rebel headquarters and threatens to blow them to bits if they do not immediately stand down. Many Vietnamese see the whole episode as an American ploy to allow younger officers like Ky to upstage Khanh. This emphatically is not what the American government wants: Secretary of State Dean Rusk sends a letter to the American Embassy staff stating, “The United States has not provided massive assistance to South Vietnam, in military equipment, economic resources, and personnel in order to subsidize continuing quarrels among South Vietnamese leaders.”
• October 20, 1964: Khanh has kept his promise and resigned as prime minister. He also has kept real power for himself, by assuming the post of commander in chief of the armed forces and exiling his two main rivals, Kiem and Minh: Kiem is made ambassador to the US, while Minh is sent abroad on a “good will” tour. A rubber-stamp council proclaims a civilain government, with a couple of elderly dignitaries, Phan Khac Suu and Tran Van Huong, as chief of state and prime minister, respectively. Chaos soon erupts again in the streets of Saigon. Huong declares martial law; Khanh and Ky interpret this as a bid to return Minh to power.
• November, 1964: LBJ is elected to his first full term as President. During the campaign, he succeeded in painting his Republican opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater, as a war monger who would embroil America in far-off conflicts and bring nuclear destruction to the country. In response to already mounting concerns about his escalation in Vietnam, Johnson solemnly promises, “I will not send young American boys to do what young Vietnamese boys should be doing for themselves.” Johnson is using the war as political cover for the Great Society welfare state, which he envisions as his political legacy. He hopes to deprive Republican opponents of the charge that the Democrats “lost” Vietnam, as a similar charge against the Truman administration with respect to China proved disastrous for the Democrats of that era. In fact, George Kennan, the architect of America’s containment policy against the Soviet Union, already has said that mainland Asia should be excluded from the containment concept, since the United States was “greatly overextended in its whole thinking about what we can accomplish and should try to accomplish” in the region.
• December 8, 1964: Over dinner at General Westmoreland’s villa, Taylor tells Ky, army chief of staff General Nguyen Van Thieu, and several other young officers, “Enough with the coups, already!”
• December 20, 1964: The Ky group arrest Minh and four other “old guard” generals at their homes, and fly them to confinement in Pleiku. They also arrest 30 other generals and civilian politicians. The Armed Forces Council, with Khanh as its head, takes power in Saigon.
• December 21, 1964: Taylor screws the pooch. He summons Khanh and the Armed Forces Council to a meeting; only Ky, Thieu, and two others attend. Behaving every bit like the colonialist Ho Chi Minh and the Communists accuse him of being, Taylor berates, scolds, and humiliates the young officers. Khanh fires back in the pages of the New York Herald Tribune: he denounces Taylor for interfering in South Vietnam’s domestic politics and warns that if Taylor “does not begin acting more intelligently, the United States will lose Southeast Asia and we will lose our freedom.” Taylor demands Khanh’s resignation and exile. Khanh threatens to expel Taylor. Taylor threatens to cut off American aid. The Vietnamese call Taylor’s bluff. They understand that American prestige, not Vietnamese freedom, is Washington’s true concern: “Our big advantage over the Americans is that they want to win the war more than we do.”
• January, 1965: Buddhists again take to the streets, demanding Huong’s resignation. Militants sack a American library in Hue and stage a protest at the American embassy in Saigon. Khanh plays both sides against the middle. He offers Huong protection in return for naming Ky, Thieu, and two other officers to cabinet posts. At the same time, he is secretly encouraging the protests. On January 27, Khanh’s military colleagues stage a coup against Huong and restore Khanh to power. Khanh continues the pretense of civilian government by retaining the octogenarian Suu as chief of state, and pulling the hapless Oanh off the shelf once again as acting prime minister.
• February 16, 1965: Khanh shows Oanh the door yet again, naming Phan Huy Quat prime minister. A military coup, concocted by General Phat of the abortive September coup and Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao, marches into Saigon. Thao is an interesting character because he is, in fact, a Communist spy with a mission to stir up as much trouble as possible. He was a charter member of the anti-Diem coup. He had plotted against Khanh previously, causing Khanh to exile him to the South Vietnamese embassy in Washington, D.C. In addition to seizing the usual command and control points, the soldiers encircle Khanh’s house. Khanh escapes and calls Ky, who flies him to Da Lat. Ky tells the rebels he will bomb Saigon if they do not surrender.
• February 19, 1965: Minutes before Ky’s deadline expires, Phat and Thao meet with Ky. The coup still holds key positions in Saigon. Phat and Thao agree to surrender, on the condition that Khanh be removed from office and exiled. Ky is more than happy to grant their wish.
• February 20, 1965: The Army votes to strip Khanh of his power. As a face-saving measure, they name him ambassador at large.
• February 23, 1965: Khanh is given a farewell ceremony at Tan Son Nhut International Airport in Saigon. He boards a plane to begin an exile that, as events develop, becomes permanent.
• June, 1965: The pretense of civilian government again comes to an end, as Buddhists, Catholics, and other factions have gradually split off and taken to the streets in defiance of the government. The generals oust both prime minister Quat and chief of state Suu. Ky becomes prime minister, with Thieu as chief of state. William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, describes the combination as “the bottom of the barrel, absolutely the bottom of the barrel.” Realizing that he can’t rely on the South Vietnamese to achieve America’s aims in Vietnam, President Johnson orders large-scale troop deployments, including draftees.
• November 14 – 18, 1965: American troops engage in their first large-scale confrontation with North Vietnamese regulars at the Battle of Ia Drang. The Vietnamese civil war is now fully an American war. In his memoirs, Ky explains: “Always emphasizing the role of the Americans in Vietnam, they transformed the Vietnam war into a conflict between the United States and North Vietnam, relegating the people, the government and the armed forces of South Vietnam to a subordinate role. The government of South Vietnam thus became, in the eyes of the peoples of Vietnam and of the world, a puppet regime serving the interests of American imperialists.”
• December, 1965: US Marines come ashore at Da Nang.
• March 26 – June 8, 1966: The Buddhist Uprising. A Buddhist and military revolt erupts in the Da Nang – Hue area over the firing of Buddhist general Nguyen Chanh Thi. Thi is a devout Buddhist and a competent commander, two factors that cause Ky to perceive him as a threat. The mayor of Da Nang openly supports the rebellion. Ky personally takes command of two battalions of South Vietnamese Marines; the US military airlifts them to the American base at Da Nang. The Americans find it increasingly difficult to remain neutral and, on April 9, enter the battle on Ky’s side. The last Buddhist bastion falls on June 8.
• 1967: In what he later will describe as “the worst mistake of my life,” Ky decides not to run for the newly-created office of President. Thieu runs and names Ky as his running mate. The two win with 38% of the vote. The election is, of course, rigged: Ky already has stated that he will respond “militarily” if a civilian candidate wins. Ky serves as vice president until 1971. His squabbles with Thieu have left him isolated and marginalized. He intends to run against Thieu in the 1971 election, but he is outmaneuvered and forced from politics. Thieu’s regime is characterized by corruption, cronyism, and arrogation of power in the hands of the executive at the expense of the elected congress. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.
• 1968: Broken by the war, President Johnson decides not to run for reelection. Richard Nixon is elected President of the United States.
• 1971: Nguyen Van Thieu is re-elected President of South Vietnam. He is the only candidate, as opposition figures refuse to run in what they believe is a rigged election. Thieu’s margin of victory is a suspiciously high 94% on an 87% turnout.
• January – April, 1975: North Vietnam invades South Vietnam. Thieu asks the U.S. for $300 million in aid, which is refused. As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South, Ky returns as military commander. Many military men hope he will again be appointed prime minister but Thieu, still mistrustful, refuses. Ky’s efforts at defense are supported by the French, who hope to reenter Vietnam and supplant the US. 18th ARVN Division troops stage a valiant last stand at Xuan Loc, but are overwhelmed. Thieu flees the country for Taiwan on April 21, handing over power to vice-president Tran Van Huong. On April 28, Huong resigns as president and turns over the task of surrendering the government to General Duong Van Minh.
• April 30, 1975: Saigon falls to the NVA. Ky leaves Vietnam on USS Blue Ridge and flees to the US.

Whew!

So America’s Vietnamese allies were a collection of squabbling, wannabe military strongmen who never were able to rally the diverse factions of South Vietnam into a unified front against the North, and who were widely perceived as American puppets. And our government’s “solemn pledges of support” were rooted in lies told to the American public, and treatment of our allies as American puppets. I’m not sure what spending more lives and money under these circumstances would have accomplished, except to spend more lives and money.

The Other McCain repeats the currently popular charge that US withdrawal from Vietnam brought about the murderous regime of Pol Pot. It’s hard to see what one had to do with the other. Pol Pot’s rise to power had more to do with the intrigues of Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, especially after the National Assembly voted to remove Sihanouk from power in 1970. Sihanouk then made an alliance with the Khmer Rouge, who had dropped anti-Sihanouk rhetoric from their platform a year earlier. Sihanouk commanded the loyalty of many apolitical peasants who fought for the King, not for Communism. “Collateral damage” inflicted by Nixon’s secret (unless you were Cambodian) bombing of Cambodia supplied a useful recruiting tool for the Khmer Rouge. The North Vietnamese were supplied by Russia, while the Khemr Rouge were supplied by Vietnam’s old adversary, China. After the fall of Saigon in April, 1975, the Vietnamese did nothing to support the advance of the Khmer Rouge into Phnom Penh in September of that year. In 1978, after several years of cross-border raids by the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge from power.

Even if the US had remained mired in Vietnam, there is no evidence our government would have lifted a finger to interfere with Pol Pot’s program. The US probably would have had to make common cause with North Vietnam in order to do so, which would have been unthinkable. But the most damning evidence is this: after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the US and other Western governments blocked the seating of the new, pro-Vietnamese government of Cambodia in the United Nations. To this day, the US government regards the butchers of the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia.

The Other McCain falls into the neo-conservative error of believing that every problem in the world can be resolved by American arms, that there are no limits to American power, and that war is, by definition, the great patriotic adventure from which there can be no dissent. This is a trap that leads free people into penury, servility, and despotism.