The CIA in Vietnam

The chapter begins with a survey of the various declassified volumes from numerous strands of the US Government that detail events from the mid-1950s onwards in relation to South East Asia. It then moves on to consider the role that CIA officer, Ed Lansdale had in the late 1950s and 1960s in establishing intelligence networks and paramilitary activities in South Vietnam. As the war developed, however, it became increasingly difficult to gain any kind of meaningful strategic intelligence from Hanoi. And despite notable advances, the US was prone to being surprised. This chapter discusses these issues in the context of the Tet Offensive. Document: Intelligence Warning of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam.

American Power and the New Mandarins Redux

Noam Chomsky's landmark essay collection American Power and the New Mandarins was published about five decades ago, just after the Tet Offensive marked a turnaround in the Vietnam War. His superb debunking expedition, along with other early volumes At War In Asia and For Reasons of State, remains disturbingly relevant in its dissection of professional conceits, institutional deceits and booster attitudes in sectors of academe where everyone, says ‘we’ when referring to US foreign policy.

10. The Vietnam War

This chapter focuses on US involvement in the Vietnam War. Lyndon B. Johnson inherited the Vietnam conflict in difficult circumstances. He had not been elected president in his own right and so, perhaps, believed that he should carry on with John F. Kennedy’s policies. It was unclear what exactly Kennedy would have done in Vietnam, but Johnson retained his predecessor’s foreign policy team and did not question the basic principle of America’s foreign policy, which called for communism to be resisted. The chapter first considers the escalation of US involvement in Vietnam during the period 1963–5 before discussing the conflict between the US and North Vietnam in the succeeding years, along with the Tet offensive and its implications. It concludes with an assessment of Richard Nixon’s decision to restart large-scale US bombing of North Vietnam.

Hound Bitch in Heat

Chapter One revolves around President Lyndon Johnson in the winter of 1968. He delivers the State of the Union speech and fails to inspire the American people. He weathers criticism from both the Right and Left over the Great Society. He endures a “credibility gap” over the Vietnam War, and the Tet Offensive stirs mainstream doubts about the war. The chapter ends with his March announcement that he will not run for re-election.

Wise Man?

In the final chapter I widen the chronology to consider Taylor’s advice and commentary into the 1980s. Taylor appeared as a “Wise Man” in deliberations on Vietnam; he was one of the final holdouts who thought the president should stay the course even after the Tet Offensive. He remained a liberal Cold War hawk in his public commentaries throughout the 1970s, when he became a member of the Committee on the Present Danger. In his 1984 testimony before a congressional committee that would ultimately craft the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, Taylor stated that the JCS could not be reformed—the committee needed to be torn down. He remained consistent: he preferred one general to command the armed forces and offer powerful advice aligned with the president’s foreign policy.