The Best and the Brightest (114 page)

Nor was Johnson’s instinct to use force tempered in April by the experience in the Dominican Republic. When the frail political legitimacy of the Dominican government began to fall apart, and when leftist rebels began to make a challenge, Johnson moved quickly to stop another Cuba. Presidents in the past had been soft on Cuba and had paid for it. No one would accuse Lyndon Johnson of that. So despite the fact that the reports from the Dominican were remarkably unclear, with the American ambassador filing wildly exaggerated estimates on the amount of violence taking place, and totally unconfirmed reports on the extent of Communist subversion, Johnson moved swiftly. He would use force. No one at a high level in the Administration dissented, or suggested that the United States had no legal justification for moving in with force, or indeed that it did not even know what was happening. Force it was, overkill, not just the Marines, but the Airborne as well, 22,000 troops, and they went in, and whatever the uprising was—the Administration seemed unclear about that—it was put down. American muscle had determined the outcome. Oh, there had been protests from the left, and from people nervous about things like this, but Johnson had paid no attention and it had worked out—or seemed to work out. So if the same liberals were making the same soft sounds on Vietnam, why pay attention? People forgot about these things if they worked out, and there was no doubt what would happen when real men walked into one of these fourth-rate countries and set things right. So there was, out of the Dominican, an impression confirmed that if you just stood tall, why, things would come your way, though of course the difference between the depth and root of the insurgency in Vietnam and the sheer political frustration and chaos of the Dominican was very, very great. But the Dominican, whatever else, did not discourage Lyndon Johnson from the use of force. Nor, of course, the men around him.

The President was increasingly concerned about the situation in Vietnam, but he was less wary of the French experience than Taylor or Ball; he was more confident of what
Americans
could do. In addition, and this was to be important later as the question of enclave strategy versus search-and-destroy strategy arose, he was not a man to sponsor a defensive strategy, to send American boys overseas, to see American boys killed, and then yet be involved in a long, unrewarding war. He was not a man for that kind of war, a man to be charged with a no-win policy. The political trap of the Korean War was real to him: he knew what it was like to be attacked for failing to win a war, for getting in with a no-win policy. If Americans were going to be there, they had better be aggressive. Clean it all up and get home. Show Ho what Americans could do, and get him to the table. Consequently, when Taylor appeared almost querulous about Westmoreland’s April 10 request, McNaughton immediately explained that “highest authority” thought the situation was deteriorating, that something new was needed in the South, which included using the 173rd for security and for combat operations, as Westmoreland wanted. Taylor still thought it precipitous; he had cabled earlier saying that it went ahead of the planning agreed upon during his visit to Washington; then on April 17 he moved to block the deployment, which he could do by not clearing it with the Vietnamese government; he said he would not move to clear it with the government until he got further and more specific instructions from Washington. What he wanted, he said, was a sixty-day experimental period with forces already in the country; he was wary of what he called “hasty and ill-conceived proposals for deployment of more forces.” He was still trying to hold them off, but the pressure was building, and his position was preserved only by greater and greater concessions.

Which became very clear within a week as many of the principals gathered in Honolulu to go over strategy and troop commitments for the immediate future. Time was running out on them. They had in the past done everything to prevent sending ground troops to Vietnam; since 1954 that had been a primary objective; now, eleven years later, it was all coming to an end. They had bombed in order not to send troops, in order to make Hanoi talk, but it was clear that the bombing was having very little effect (McCone of the CIA was reporting that it wasn’t really hurting Hanoi at all). Rather the result might be the opposite; there were now reports of at least one North Vietnamese regiment in the country and a second poised on the border. There were indications that more might be coming down the trails. The bombing had failed, just as the counterinsurgency commitment had failed. The erosion of the anti-ground-troops position could be seen through the changes in Taylor; he was at once committed to winning the war (or saving South Vietnam), remaining a player in good standing with the other players, loyalty to the traditions of the U.S. Army, and at the same time keeping the U.S. ground forces out and preventing a repeat of the French experience. As the pressure increased, his position would change degree by degree, his resistance to U.S. troops diminishing.

Honolulu marked the end of an outlook on Vietnam. In the last four weeks Johnson had been slipping from being a peacetime President to a wartime one; more and more under the influence and pressure of the JCS; the civilians more and more on the defensive, trying to halve the requests of the JCS (which simply meant that the military would double whatever it really wanted), trying to limit the missions. Now at Honolulu this would become ever more clear. It was the crucial meeting to decide needs and strategies. It was attended by McNamara, Bill Bundy, McNaughton, Earle Wheeler, Admiral Sharp, Taylor and Westmoreland, and the military was now numerically beginning to dominate.

Now, for the first time, Westmoreland was the dominating figure. He was no longer the number-two man from Saigon, there to sit behind Taylor looking strong and supportive, there to say that the military situation wasn’t quite as bad as the political, there to say that the ARVN reserve forces were depleted. The bombing, which he had always doubted, had failed (although they were all too polite to say so; they said instead that it would not work within the proper time limit). Now it was his turn to play, and they would find that he was a forceful player who knew what he wanted, how much to ask for and how much not to ask for. At this meeting he would ask for troops and give in on strategy. It was in that sense Westmoreland’s conference. It was as if the change in President Johnson’s mind, the realization that more dramatic and aggressive measures were needed, had turned it to him. Since Westmoreland had in the past argued that the war was really in the South, that the North was a peripheral part, they had not turned to him, because if they had, it would have meant troops. Now that the bombing had failed, they had to listen to him. If Hanoi was to give up the war, he claimed, it would have to be beaten in the South; if Hanoi thought that victory was close in the South, it would be more than willing to bear the bombing. Thus the problem was on the ground, and success would only come on the ground. Otherwise it was an endless, open-ended war, which would see, despite the greater American role and input, an eventual South Vietnamese collapse and loss, or at best a long and bitter conflict which would barely stave off defeat.

Westmoreland did not specify how many ground troops were needed; he was not eager to scare off the civilians, and he did not talk at length about what the North Vietnamese reaction would be (that was not his job, to forecast Hanoi’s intentions. He knew it had the capability, but the discussion of intentions, that was for the intelligence community). He was pleased to find that McNamara was now more sympathetic to the use of troops, and this was what the President seemed to want. As for the bombing, it was helpful and we should continue to keep the pressure up; but it would not do the job alone. Taylor in particular said that it was important not to attack the North Vietnamese assets within what was now called the Hanoi-Haiphong doughnut. This, he said, would be killing the hostage. There would, however, have to be more ground troops; Westmoreland said it was basic to any kind of success, and there was complete agreement on this, that the ARVN could not do it; it was having a hard time filling up depleted units rather than creating new ones. The strategy, they agreed, was the Taylor enclave strategy. Essentially experimental. Sharp, Wheeler and Westmoreland wanted a grander, more aggressive strategy, but this was not the time to argue that. The thing to do was to get the troops in-country first, and then worry about strategy and use later.

So Westmoreland got almost all he wanted in terms of numbers. He had gone into the Honolulu meeting with 33,500 Americans in the country. At Honolulu, 40,000 more were committed, with others discussed and put on the preparation list. Westmoreland would get his Army brigade for Bien Hoa by May 1, his first Army troops. He would get three more Marine battalions, plus three tactical fighter squadrons, for Chu Lai, where an airstrip was being built. He would get an Army brigade for the Qui NhonNha Trang area by June 15, and he would get all the necessary logistical complement necessary. In addition, the United States would go ahead with plans for an Australian battalion to Vung Tau, and a Korean regimental combat team for Quang Ngai. This meant that the United States would have thirteen maneuver battalions and 82,000 men in-country, plus four Third Country battalions and 7,250 men. The men at Honolulu also discussed the need for, but did not yet recommend, further troop commitments. This included an Army airmobile division (nine battalions), which Westmoreland had always wanted and which despite the general agreement on the enclave strategy would go to the Central Highlands, as well as the remainder of the Marine expeditionary force, which was two battalions, and an Army corps headquarters; further, the Koreans would come up with a full division, consisting of six battalions. All this amounted to seventeen additional maneuver battalions, which would have brought the total for Westmoreland to thirty-four battalions. The planning and logistical problems of getting the divisions ready and pointed toward Vietnam had been taken care of. It was going Westy’s way.

The strategy was of course still Taylor’s. It was less than what the military wanted, and it seemed to go along with what the President wanted, a little more than the past, but not yet a ground war. Taylor had a feeling that he had held the line again, and again the reverse was true. Those at the conference were agreed that the war would last longer than had previously been expected. In the past they had thought of the bombing producing results within six months, and when congressional critics such as Ernest Gruening had questioned the President about it, he had asked for six months. Six months to get them to the table. Everything cooled off by Christmas. Now they were prepared for more pessimistic estimates. McNaughton’s notes on the conference said that it would take more than six months, “perhaps a year or two to demonstrate Vietcong failure in the South.” This was the old American optimism and arrogance; the French had fought there inconclusively for eight years with an enormous expeditionary force, but the Americans fighting from defensive enclaves would do it in a year, maybe a little more. The phrasing here, summing up the meeting, was quite similar to Taylor’s cable of April 17: the idea was to use the enclaves to take the initiative away from the enemy, otherwise, he had cabled, ground war might “drag into 1966 and even beyond.” (On April 24 Taylor sent an “Eyes Only” cable to McNamara, where he said he wanted to modify his position as agreed upon in Hawaii. Where it had said that it might take a year or two to affect Hanoi’s will, Taylor wanted it to read “this process will probably take months—how many is impossible to estimate . . .” He was thus, in fact, becoming a little more optimistic.) After the meeting was over, selected correspondents from both the
New York Times
and the Washington
Post
were called in and given a deliberate leak. The judgment of the military, said the official spokesman, was that it would not be a short war after all. In fact, it might last as long as six months. The North would not be able to withstand the American pressure that long.

The conference was over, and the first major step toward combat troops had been taken. It was true that essentially the strategy was still to be enclave, and in that sense Taylor had held the line, but it was a frail line indeed. The strategy was agreed upon without direct Vietcong or North Vietnamese military ground pressure (which, when it came, given the extraordinary weakness of the ARVN, would mean even greater pressure to use the American troops as aggressively as possible). It was a “victory strategy,” in their own words. It did not call for victory in the classic military sense; it was a victory strategy because it would deny victory to the other side. The Vietcong, denied these vital enclaves, would realize that they could not win, and would thus sue for a negotiated peace. It was, in effect, brilliant planning which defied common sense. (Indeed, a few months earlier Mac Bundy had shown a member of his staff some of the planning for the escalation, particularly the bombing, and the aide had been impressed by how thorough it all was, lots of details. Bundy asked the aide what he thought, and he answered that though he didn’t know anything about the military calculations, “the thing that bothers me is that no matter what we do to them, they live there and we don’t, and they know that someday we’ll go away and thus they know they can outlast us.” Bundy considered the answer for a moment. “That’s a good point,” he said.) Now we would bring victory by fighting from enclaves. It was an extraordinary strategy because it meant that the Vietcong, having the United States pinned down in tiny enclaves, would be able to squeeze tighter and tighter on the rest of the country, take the rice and agricultural products, recruit at will, and yet somehow tire of a war with the United States, as they had not tired of a war with France. It was also a policy ill conceived for that particular President, because Lyndon Johnson, once committed, was not a man for half measures, for a stalled, drawn-out war, for a war policy that his critics could quite correctly seize on as a no-win policy. So it was one more half measure, one more item in the long list of self-delusion on Vietnam. We would once again try to do something on the cheap, and yet, even though it was at a bargain-basement price, we would be conveying to Hanoi the intensity of our will and commitment, and they would thus quickly come to their senses. Perhaps the greatest illusion was the idea that we cared more for what was going on than they did, that we would pay a higher price, that they would feel the threshold of pain before we did. It was of course an obvious lie; but the principals had, in their desire not to come to real decisions, painted themselves into a corner where lie followed lie.