Afghanistan & Vietnam-- via my Dad
Dec. 4th, 2009 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseEverything behind the cut is something my Dad sent me on Monday. I think there might be interest. He gave me permission to post it. He also gave me permission to edit it, but I haven't.
DAD:
I am writing this BEFORE President Obama makes his long awaited and potentially disappointing statement on Afghanistan. Rumor/leaks point to a statement long on discussions of the ‘end game’ and short on plans for the more immediate future. I have resisted the facile comparisons pundits make between Iraq/Afghanistan and Vietnam, but the President is making a fateful decision that has uneasy parallels with similar decisions made by JFK, LBJ and Nixon in the 60s and early 70s that put us on an inevitable path towards escalation and open ended commitments.
I told my students recently that the two greatest constraints on
Presidential leadership are:
[1] The actions of his predecessors – you cannot appear to be less
robust/decisive/all knowing than those who went before - and
[2] His own campaign/inauguration/State of the Union’promises where as
George Will has said: ‘Candidate Obama has now met President Obama.‘
As you may recall I served three tours of duty in Vietnam and was the
Vietnam ‘desk officer’ for the Defense Intelligence Agency [1965-1967]
and the Army Intelligence Staff [1970-73] in the between years. I don’t
claim expertise on Vietnam but I watched three Presidents yield to the
temptation of outdoing their predecessors.
In my view we dug ourselves deeper into the Vietnam swamp by consistent
Presidential one-upmanship. President Obama has a distinct advantage
over Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon in that he replaced a President so
thoroughly disliked that he should have a freer hand. But in this case
he is victim of his own repeated statements that he would place his
emphasis on Afghanistan, that he would reduce our commitment and end it
honorably and that he had a winning strategy. That is why his statement
on December 1st will be disappointing both to those who want a phased
withdrawal and those who want to win by strengthening our commitment
beyond what the President finds acceptable.
Kennedy wanted to show our commitment to Vietnam [then a side show to
Laos] by increasing the ‘Advisory’ role. I was in that original
‘escalation’ of 600 and I know for certain that the advice given the
Taylor - Rostov team when they visited Saigon in the fall of 1961 was
‘get out now’ or ‘commit three US Divisions now.’
No military man on the ground in 1961-62 advocated the gradual increase
in the advisory role that Kennedy undertook. The MAAG Vietnam position
was: [1] that the Diem regime was not only hopelessly inept and corrupt
but sadly out of touch; [2] that the military forces of SVN mirrored the
above mentioned weaknesses from top to bottom; and [3] that by
‘neutralizing’ Laos and giving the Pathet Lao the area contiguous to
South Vietnam we were allowing the NVA/Viet Cong consortium a fairly
secure line of infiltration and supply that would allow them to control
the ebb and flow of the war.
Kennedy to a certain extent was blinded by his own earlier relationship
with Diem. He had hosted and escorted Diem on his visit to the US. There
was also very strong pressure from Cardinal Cushing to prop up the sole
Catholic political leader in Asia at the time. Diem’s brother was the
Arch Bishop of Vietnam and had rather strong ties to the Vatican. The
fact that Catholics made up less than 10% of the population of Vietnam
was never discussed outside a relatively small group of Southeast Asia
specialists.
Johnson was committed to fulfilling the dream of Kennedy and ironically
did commit the three divisions + but in a piecemeal fashion. That policy
allowed NVA forces to be ahead of us by three to four months with each
escalation. In my view Johnson’s primary mistake was in keeping the
Kennedy national security team in place. Rusk, MacNamara and Bundy were
so focused on the Kennedy legacy that they lost objectivity. They also
were part of the Kennedy ‘image over substance’ process that caused them
to choose the ‘squared away’ Westmoreland over the rumpled but smarter
Creighton Abrams as chief of MACV and to accord such stock in the advice
of the handsome, intellectual and suave general - Maxwell Taylor. I
worked with Westmoreland, briefed Abrams and Taylor and admired
Westmoreland and Taylor for past accomplishments. Abrams had the best
grasp of the problems and a realistic approach to an unrealistic
situation.
In my view Kennedy had no intention of pulling out of Vietnam after
being re-elected. Hilsman was the only close associate who claimed that
was in Kennedy’s mind and he was hardly an objective reporter. Kennedy’s
actions up to his death [particularly in authorizing the Coup against
Diem] suggest that escalation to intimidate North Vietnam was the plan
not withdrawal. Kennedy’s death left Johnson without a free hand until
after the Tet Offensive in early ’68.
By publicly offering a phased withdrawal and a negotiated settlement
Johnson effectively created the ‘end the war with honor’ mindset that
Nixon inherited and embraced. Johnson’s dual
‘Pacification-Vietnamization’ programs were re-invigorated and expanded
by Nixon. When negotiations in Paris were having some success it was
inevitable that Nixon would up the ante militarily and as a tradeoff
offer the phased withdrawal of US forces. US units could go home as
South Vietnamese forces proved themselves ready to undertake a greater
part in the defense of their homeland. Benchmarks were set to ensure
that the Government of South Vietnam was supportive.
By setting a schedule for a phased withdrawal of combat forces Nixon
inadvertently created massive pressure on those US Military advisors
assigned to Army of Vietnam Divisions to declare them ready so that US
Divisions could be sent home. Several senior advisors to Vietnamese
divisions were relieved when they reported honestly that their
respective divisions were not yet ready. Replacements miraculously found
their predecessors mistaken and declared their divisions ready on the
scheduled date for the handover. The same situation obtained in the US
Embassy as the Government of South Vietnam met all of the established
benchmarks – most by unquestioned self-declaration.
The total withdrawal of US Combat forces was completed in 1973. The US
military presence was reduced to a Defense Attaché Office consisting of
two generals, ten senior officers, 25 field grade officers and thirteen
enlisted men. Twenty-five officers were logistical support specialists
assigned to keep a steady flow of supplies and weapons to South
Vietnamese forces. There were also three intelligence officers, three
combat arms officers and a single officer assigned to liaison with the
North Vietnamese in Hanoi. Half of the officers had no previous Vietnam
experience and with two exceptions had never worked at the level they
were now called upon to perform.
When I arrived as the Assistant Defense Attaché for Intelligence
Collection in March of 1974 I was struck by our total dependence on
self-serving and inflated reports of successful operations by
Vietnamese forces. It was as Yogi Berra once said ‘deja vous’ all over
again as it was the same situation I had encountered in 1961 on my
first tour of duty in Saigon. I now had 10 civilians observers – all
former military or CIA officers - deployed throughout Vietnam. These
observers were simply visiting their counterparts each day and
collecting – uncritically – their reports of daring victories and
superior combat readiness.
I immediately tasked each field operative to assess the South Vietnamese
combat units in their regions as to their states of readiness and
morale. The consequent reports painted a bleak picture of a demoralized
military, at half or lower of their reported strength and in some cases
using military vehicles for private commercial uses and in other cases
selling off their supplies on the black market. With one exception – the
Vietnamese Marine Division – no combat unit in Vietnam came close to
measuring up to the assessments they had received from their US advisors
The picture that emerged was not pleasing to either Ambassador Martin or
to the Washington security policy staffs. The Ambassador tried to
suppress my reports and when that didn’t work he then tried to discredit
me. My assessment that the South Vietnamese Army would ‘fold like a
cheap tent’ when faced with a determined enemy attack proved in the end
to be alarmingly accurate but extremely underappreciated.
A prophet in his own land is neither popular nor respected. I emerged
from the experience with out too much damage. I made full colonel on
time but was assured privately that I would not make general – that had
been a long shot at best. To my surprise I later was commended in
official CIA documents for being one of the few intelligence officers in
Vietnam to consistently provide honest reporting.
The lesson that should be learned is that once dates certain are
announced the system will do what it must to meet those deadlines. That
is not to say those who provided their reports to Washington were
deliberately dishonest. Familiarity – especially with people you like –
causes reporters to approach information given uncritically. To be fair
many members of the US ‘Country Team’ in Vietnam had zero to minor prior
knowledge of the area or of the Vietnamese penchant towards ‘giving us
what they knew we wanted.’ I was the only one of the 50 who spoke
Vietnamese, had had two previous tours of duty there and had academic
credentials as a ‘specialist.’
I have no illusions that had my reports been better accepted the outcome
would have been any different. However, if we could anticipate better
what was happening we might have handled the last days there in better
fashion.
The point after this rather long-winded prologue is that artificial
benchmarks and phased withdrawal schedules tend to distort the realities
on the ground. The combination of political pressure and personal career
goals can be a very toxic mix. There is yet another concern I have from
prior experience with the so-called ‘end game’ strategies.
When I was a student at the Army War College in 1979 I was in a seminar
of 12 Officers from all services and from two foreign countries. We soon
discovered that all of us had served in or in the waters contiguous to
Vietnam and that our personal experiences covered the entire period from
1961 to 1975. We had to undertake a single seminar research topic that
would go for half of our grade. I recommended that we do a compendium of
individual experiences and then see what conclusions we might reach from
the group effort. To my surprise, my recommendation was rejected by the
staff without any immediate explanation of why.
At graduation our supervising officer explained that the
‘powers-that-be’ didn’t want us to do the study for fear we might come
to the conclusion that the entire Vietnam adventure was a mistake. He
then said ‘I cannot live with a negative position on Vietnam because I
lost so many friends there it would mean they died in vain.’ In my view
that is the worst argument to be made for continuing the effort in
Afghanistan is that we owe those who have died there an honorable end to
the conflict. Unfortunately I have already heard that argument and it
will be difficult for the President to overcome that particular mindset.
I am pessimistic that we can ‘win’ [what ever that means] or that we can
affect real change in the region.
DAD:
I am writing this BEFORE President Obama makes his long awaited and potentially disappointing statement on Afghanistan. Rumor/leaks point to a statement long on discussions of the ‘end game’ and short on plans for the more immediate future. I have resisted the facile comparisons pundits make between Iraq/Afghanistan and Vietnam, but the President is making a fateful decision that has uneasy parallels with similar decisions made by JFK, LBJ and Nixon in the 60s and early 70s that put us on an inevitable path towards escalation and open ended commitments.
I told my students recently that the two greatest constraints on
Presidential leadership are:
[1] The actions of his predecessors – you cannot appear to be less
robust/decisive/all knowing than those who went before - and
[2] His own campaign/inauguration/State of the Union’promises where as
George Will has said: ‘Candidate Obama has now met President Obama.‘
As you may recall I served three tours of duty in Vietnam and was the
Vietnam ‘desk officer’ for the Defense Intelligence Agency [1965-1967]
and the Army Intelligence Staff [1970-73] in the between years. I don’t
claim expertise on Vietnam but I watched three Presidents yield to the
temptation of outdoing their predecessors.
In my view we dug ourselves deeper into the Vietnam swamp by consistent
Presidential one-upmanship. President Obama has a distinct advantage
over Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon in that he replaced a President so
thoroughly disliked that he should have a freer hand. But in this case
he is victim of his own repeated statements that he would place his
emphasis on Afghanistan, that he would reduce our commitment and end it
honorably and that he had a winning strategy. That is why his statement
on December 1st will be disappointing both to those who want a phased
withdrawal and those who want to win by strengthening our commitment
beyond what the President finds acceptable.
Kennedy wanted to show our commitment to Vietnam [then a side show to
Laos] by increasing the ‘Advisory’ role. I was in that original
‘escalation’ of 600 and I know for certain that the advice given the
Taylor - Rostov team when they visited Saigon in the fall of 1961 was
‘get out now’ or ‘commit three US Divisions now.’
No military man on the ground in 1961-62 advocated the gradual increase
in the advisory role that Kennedy undertook. The MAAG Vietnam position
was: [1] that the Diem regime was not only hopelessly inept and corrupt
but sadly out of touch; [2] that the military forces of SVN mirrored the
above mentioned weaknesses from top to bottom; and [3] that by
‘neutralizing’ Laos and giving the Pathet Lao the area contiguous to
South Vietnam we were allowing the NVA/Viet Cong consortium a fairly
secure line of infiltration and supply that would allow them to control
the ebb and flow of the war.
Kennedy to a certain extent was blinded by his own earlier relationship
with Diem. He had hosted and escorted Diem on his visit to the US. There
was also very strong pressure from Cardinal Cushing to prop up the sole
Catholic political leader in Asia at the time. Diem’s brother was the
Arch Bishop of Vietnam and had rather strong ties to the Vatican. The
fact that Catholics made up less than 10% of the population of Vietnam
was never discussed outside a relatively small group of Southeast Asia
specialists.
Johnson was committed to fulfilling the dream of Kennedy and ironically
did commit the three divisions + but in a piecemeal fashion. That policy
allowed NVA forces to be ahead of us by three to four months with each
escalation. In my view Johnson’s primary mistake was in keeping the
Kennedy national security team in place. Rusk, MacNamara and Bundy were
so focused on the Kennedy legacy that they lost objectivity. They also
were part of the Kennedy ‘image over substance’ process that caused them
to choose the ‘squared away’ Westmoreland over the rumpled but smarter
Creighton Abrams as chief of MACV and to accord such stock in the advice
of the handsome, intellectual and suave general - Maxwell Taylor. I
worked with Westmoreland, briefed Abrams and Taylor and admired
Westmoreland and Taylor for past accomplishments. Abrams had the best
grasp of the problems and a realistic approach to an unrealistic
situation.
In my view Kennedy had no intention of pulling out of Vietnam after
being re-elected. Hilsman was the only close associate who claimed that
was in Kennedy’s mind and he was hardly an objective reporter. Kennedy’s
actions up to his death [particularly in authorizing the Coup against
Diem] suggest that escalation to intimidate North Vietnam was the plan
not withdrawal. Kennedy’s death left Johnson without a free hand until
after the Tet Offensive in early ’68.
By publicly offering a phased withdrawal and a negotiated settlement
Johnson effectively created the ‘end the war with honor’ mindset that
Nixon inherited and embraced. Johnson’s dual
‘Pacification-Vietnamization’ programs were re-invigorated and expanded
by Nixon. When negotiations in Paris were having some success it was
inevitable that Nixon would up the ante militarily and as a tradeoff
offer the phased withdrawal of US forces. US units could go home as
South Vietnamese forces proved themselves ready to undertake a greater
part in the defense of their homeland. Benchmarks were set to ensure
that the Government of South Vietnam was supportive.
By setting a schedule for a phased withdrawal of combat forces Nixon
inadvertently created massive pressure on those US Military advisors
assigned to Army of Vietnam Divisions to declare them ready so that US
Divisions could be sent home. Several senior advisors to Vietnamese
divisions were relieved when they reported honestly that their
respective divisions were not yet ready. Replacements miraculously found
their predecessors mistaken and declared their divisions ready on the
scheduled date for the handover. The same situation obtained in the US
Embassy as the Government of South Vietnam met all of the established
benchmarks – most by unquestioned self-declaration.
The total withdrawal of US Combat forces was completed in 1973. The US
military presence was reduced to a Defense Attaché Office consisting of
two generals, ten senior officers, 25 field grade officers and thirteen
enlisted men. Twenty-five officers were logistical support specialists
assigned to keep a steady flow of supplies and weapons to South
Vietnamese forces. There were also three intelligence officers, three
combat arms officers and a single officer assigned to liaison with the
North Vietnamese in Hanoi. Half of the officers had no previous Vietnam
experience and with two exceptions had never worked at the level they
were now called upon to perform.
When I arrived as the Assistant Defense Attaché for Intelligence
Collection in March of 1974 I was struck by our total dependence on
self-serving and inflated reports of successful operations by
Vietnamese forces. It was as Yogi Berra once said ‘deja vous’ all over
again as it was the same situation I had encountered in 1961 on my
first tour of duty in Saigon. I now had 10 civilians observers – all
former military or CIA officers - deployed throughout Vietnam. These
observers were simply visiting their counterparts each day and
collecting – uncritically – their reports of daring victories and
superior combat readiness.
I immediately tasked each field operative to assess the South Vietnamese
combat units in their regions as to their states of readiness and
morale. The consequent reports painted a bleak picture of a demoralized
military, at half or lower of their reported strength and in some cases
using military vehicles for private commercial uses and in other cases
selling off their supplies on the black market. With one exception – the
Vietnamese Marine Division – no combat unit in Vietnam came close to
measuring up to the assessments they had received from their US advisors
The picture that emerged was not pleasing to either Ambassador Martin or
to the Washington security policy staffs. The Ambassador tried to
suppress my reports and when that didn’t work he then tried to discredit
me. My assessment that the South Vietnamese Army would ‘fold like a
cheap tent’ when faced with a determined enemy attack proved in the end
to be alarmingly accurate but extremely underappreciated.
A prophet in his own land is neither popular nor respected. I emerged
from the experience with out too much damage. I made full colonel on
time but was assured privately that I would not make general – that had
been a long shot at best. To my surprise I later was commended in
official CIA documents for being one of the few intelligence officers in
Vietnam to consistently provide honest reporting.
The lesson that should be learned is that once dates certain are
announced the system will do what it must to meet those deadlines. That
is not to say those who provided their reports to Washington were
deliberately dishonest. Familiarity – especially with people you like –
causes reporters to approach information given uncritically. To be fair
many members of the US ‘Country Team’ in Vietnam had zero to minor prior
knowledge of the area or of the Vietnamese penchant towards ‘giving us
what they knew we wanted.’ I was the only one of the 50 who spoke
Vietnamese, had had two previous tours of duty there and had academic
credentials as a ‘specialist.’
I have no illusions that had my reports been better accepted the outcome
would have been any different. However, if we could anticipate better
what was happening we might have handled the last days there in better
fashion.
The point after this rather long-winded prologue is that artificial
benchmarks and phased withdrawal schedules tend to distort the realities
on the ground. The combination of political pressure and personal career
goals can be a very toxic mix. There is yet another concern I have from
prior experience with the so-called ‘end game’ strategies.
When I was a student at the Army War College in 1979 I was in a seminar
of 12 Officers from all services and from two foreign countries. We soon
discovered that all of us had served in or in the waters contiguous to
Vietnam and that our personal experiences covered the entire period from
1961 to 1975. We had to undertake a single seminar research topic that
would go for half of our grade. I recommended that we do a compendium of
individual experiences and then see what conclusions we might reach from
the group effort. To my surprise, my recommendation was rejected by the
staff without any immediate explanation of why.
At graduation our supervising officer explained that the
‘powers-that-be’ didn’t want us to do the study for fear we might come
to the conclusion that the entire Vietnam adventure was a mistake. He
then said ‘I cannot live with a negative position on Vietnam because I
lost so many friends there it would mean they died in vain.’ In my view
that is the worst argument to be made for continuing the effort in
Afghanistan is that we owe those who have died there an honorable end to
the conflict. Unfortunately I have already heard that argument and it
will be difficult for the President to overcome that particular mindset.
I am pessimistic that we can ‘win’ [what ever that means] or that we can
affect real change in the region.
