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Planning A Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam
"Takes an historically important decision, places it in its immediate stream of policy development, perceptions and events and adds what was missing from the Pentagon Papers."―Richard E. Neustadt, Harvard University "A thoroughly researched and highly perceptive study of the decisions that turned the tribal struggle in Vietnam into an American war. Berman's book fully documents the role of domestic policy in our tragic involvement. As one who watched the process at firsthand. I commend Professor Berman's book for its fairness and insight."― George W. Ball
- GenresHistoryAmerican History
203 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 10, 2022
In his short book, Larry Berman examines President Lyndon B. Johnson's 28 July 1965 decision to commit 125,000 ground troops to Vietnam. Actually, as Berman argues, Johnson had already made up his mind not to consider any alternative, so the thorough review of American policy toward Vietnam Johnson and his advisers conducted in July was used simply to legitimize their decision to both political elites and the general public. According to the author, Johnson was so afraid that if America lost in Vietnam in the summer of 1965, the Great Society would do down as well that he chose to take an unwise military action.
Was Vietnam only "Mr. Johnson's War", though? Drawing upon recently declassified documents in the Johnson Library, Berman attempts to unravel how the disastrous decision was made and by whom. He analyzes the role of each major and minor decision-maker in Johnson's inner circle, often in their own words through lengthy quotes from the documents, to tell a story of egregiously incompetent decision-making at one of the most important moments in modern history. He details numerous deficiencies in the thinking of the President's advisers, most notable of them being their worldview.
Having learned a totally wrong lesson from history, they believed that to stand up to Ho Chi Minh they only had to avoid the mistakes Neville Chamberlain committed in Munich in 1938. They drew a short-sighted analogy between the Nazis conquering Europe and the Vietnamese fighting for independence and control of their own country in the 1960s, and they never questioned this analogy. This put them in a position to change the destiny of the world, for they also assumed that some sort of, in Berman's words, "standing up on Chamberlain's part would have prevented World War II." As Secretary of State Dean Rusk put it, Americans had to be willing to "see things through to the end." Few of the advisers had a clear idea what sort of an "end" they should aim for, since victory was ruled out for domestic political reasons and because the advisors were scared of China. They were left with the prospect of losing South Vietnam slowly, although they failed to realize this at the time just as they failed to realize that what they were doing was planning the tragedy that was to unfold for the next ten years.
Johnson, meanwhile, lacked the self-confidence to oppose the chief war-mongers in his administration, Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, because they were seconded by the whole national security apparatus that had developed during the Cold War. As Berman aptly describes it, Johnson and the people around him were convinced that they were acting, like scientists, in response to data, but in reality they were aping each other's opinion and acting in response to what they believed the President's expectations were. Because Johnson, having inherited John Kennedy's commitment to the American policy in South Vietnam, would not lose Vietnam by running away, a decision was made to lose Vietnam slowly. The President and his advisors, of course, did not see it this way, but in retrospect it is clear that the United States had little chance of achieving its limited goal against a country waging total war.
As Berman notes, Johnson did have his doubts about the wisdom of the chosen course despite his advisers' virtual unanimity – Undersecretary of State George Ball was the only one who questioned whether Americans could effectively fight the Viet Cong in jungle rice paddies. What then prompted Johnson to escalate without giving it a second thought? I was delighted to read that Berman traces the answer to this important question back to South Vietnam's Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem's assassination in November 1963. As the author correctly observes, after Washington acquiesced to the rebel generals' overthrow of Diem, getting out of South Vietnam without dooming it to a quick downfall was impossible.
However, the author argues that there was more to the story than this: Johnson's advisers' arrogance and ignorance of the enemy's motivations and strategy. They simply could not believe that the North Vietnamese would dare to keep fighting after a superpower had announced that it was making a massive military commitment to the struggle. So many things flowed from the mistaken assumption that Hanoi would realize the folly of trying to defeat America. The troop decision was only the beginning. The escalation of the air campaign, and, most importantly, the fear of public dissent at home followed suit. McGeorge Bundy summarized the administration's views in one sentence: "The world, the country, and the Vietnamese people would have alarming reactions if we got out” America's domestic and international prestige was at stake. Not to mention that Johnson was more worried about protecting his image in history textbooks than with anything else, and going by Cold War standards, he believed that he would be judged much more for indecisiveness than for a rash intervention.
Berman cites another reason, supported by virtually all Johnson biographers I have read so far, to explain Johnson's escalation decision. The President was afraid that reaching a different decision in 1965 would be a political suicide, whose domestic repercussions would be too great for a four-year president ever to correct. Congress, Johnson feared, would turn him, and he would not be able to pass his ambitious domestic reforms. In other words, Johnson was overwhelmed, juggling a war, the Great Society, and his hopes for the future.
PLANNING A TRAGEDY is a well-written study, which highlights the factors, thinking, and circumstances needed to produce a major disaster such as the Johnson administration's decision to escalate the American involvement in Vietnam. This book has well-constructed arguments and plenty of supporting evidence that compensate for its lack of groundbreaking findings. Berman is by far not the first to reach similar conclusions about Johnson. In his book The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam explained Johnson's reasoning behind the July 1965 decisions with arguments like Berman's, and much of the same story, while more extensively detailed by Berman, was written several years earlier by Leslie Gelb in his book The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked. Nevertheless, Berman's work is a worthy contribution to the existing Vietnam scholarship, and it will be informative if one is unfamiliar with other studies on the same topic.
Was Vietnam only "Mr. Johnson's War", though? Drawing upon recently declassified documents in the Johnson Library, Berman attempts to unravel how the disastrous decision was made and by whom. He analyzes the role of each major and minor decision-maker in Johnson's inner circle, often in their own words through lengthy quotes from the documents, to tell a story of egregiously incompetent decision-making at one of the most important moments in modern history. He details numerous deficiencies in the thinking of the President's advisers, most notable of them being their worldview.
Having learned a totally wrong lesson from history, they believed that to stand up to Ho Chi Minh they only had to avoid the mistakes Neville Chamberlain committed in Munich in 1938. They drew a short-sighted analogy between the Nazis conquering Europe and the Vietnamese fighting for independence and control of their own country in the 1960s, and they never questioned this analogy. This put them in a position to change the destiny of the world, for they also assumed that some sort of, in Berman's words, "standing up on Chamberlain's part would have prevented World War II." As Secretary of State Dean Rusk put it, Americans had to be willing to "see things through to the end." Few of the advisers had a clear idea what sort of an "end" they should aim for, since victory was ruled out for domestic political reasons and because the advisors were scared of China. They were left with the prospect of losing South Vietnam slowly, although they failed to realize this at the time just as they failed to realize that what they were doing was planning the tragedy that was to unfold for the next ten years.
Johnson, meanwhile, lacked the self-confidence to oppose the chief war-mongers in his administration, Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, because they were seconded by the whole national security apparatus that had developed during the Cold War. As Berman aptly describes it, Johnson and the people around him were convinced that they were acting, like scientists, in response to data, but in reality they were aping each other's opinion and acting in response to what they believed the President's expectations were. Because Johnson, having inherited John Kennedy's commitment to the American policy in South Vietnam, would not lose Vietnam by running away, a decision was made to lose Vietnam slowly. The President and his advisors, of course, did not see it this way, but in retrospect it is clear that the United States had little chance of achieving its limited goal against a country waging total war.
As Berman notes, Johnson did have his doubts about the wisdom of the chosen course despite his advisers' virtual unanimity – Undersecretary of State George Ball was the only one who questioned whether Americans could effectively fight the Viet Cong in jungle rice paddies. What then prompted Johnson to escalate without giving it a second thought? I was delighted to read that Berman traces the answer to this important question back to South Vietnam's Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem's assassination in November 1963. As the author correctly observes, after Washington acquiesced to the rebel generals' overthrow of Diem, getting out of South Vietnam without dooming it to a quick downfall was impossible.
However, the author argues that there was more to the story than this: Johnson's advisers' arrogance and ignorance of the enemy's motivations and strategy. They simply could not believe that the North Vietnamese would dare to keep fighting after a superpower had announced that it was making a massive military commitment to the struggle. So many things flowed from the mistaken assumption that Hanoi would realize the folly of trying to defeat America. The troop decision was only the beginning. The escalation of the air campaign, and, most importantly, the fear of public dissent at home followed suit. McGeorge Bundy summarized the administration's views in one sentence: "The world, the country, and the Vietnamese people would have alarming reactions if we got out” America's domestic and international prestige was at stake. Not to mention that Johnson was more worried about protecting his image in history textbooks than with anything else, and going by Cold War standards, he believed that he would be judged much more for indecisiveness than for a rash intervention.
Berman cites another reason, supported by virtually all Johnson biographers I have read so far, to explain Johnson's escalation decision. The President was afraid that reaching a different decision in 1965 would be a political suicide, whose domestic repercussions would be too great for a four-year president ever to correct. Congress, Johnson feared, would turn him, and he would not be able to pass his ambitious domestic reforms. In other words, Johnson was overwhelmed, juggling a war, the Great Society, and his hopes for the future.
PLANNING A TRAGEDY is a well-written study, which highlights the factors, thinking, and circumstances needed to produce a major disaster such as the Johnson administration's decision to escalate the American involvement in Vietnam. This book has well-constructed arguments and plenty of supporting evidence that compensate for its lack of groundbreaking findings. Berman is by far not the first to reach similar conclusions about Johnson. In his book The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam explained Johnson's reasoning behind the July 1965 decisions with arguments like Berman's, and much of the same story, while more extensively detailed by Berman, was written several years earlier by Leslie Gelb in his book The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked. Nevertheless, Berman's work is a worthy contribution to the existing Vietnam scholarship, and it will be informative if one is unfamiliar with other studies on the same topic.
August 3, 2024
"This could be a quagmire. It could turn into an open-ended commitment on our part that would take more and more ground troops without a realistic hope of ultimate victory." pg 121
I was actively engaged throughout this entire narrative. In 155-pages Professor Larry Berman explained the intricacies, escalations, and discussions that led to America's involvement in Vietnam and the 28 July 1965 press conference to expand forces in Vietnam. The inevitable decision to go to & stay in Vietnam was explained with LBJ's personality, military advisors, and political climate of the time.
Berman gave a detailed history of Inchochina starting from the French and our inheritance from economic aid under Truman, commitment to containment under Eisenhower, increased military presence under JFK, and LBJ's elevation of anticommunist principle to military doctrine (pg 132) to result in full-scale ownership of the war: General Westmoreland stated
Overall this was an excellent overview of the escalation into combat roles in Vietnam. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the Vietnam War and our history there. Thanks!
I was actively engaged throughout this entire narrative. In 155-pages Professor Larry Berman explained the intricacies, escalations, and discussions that led to America's involvement in Vietnam and the 28 July 1965 press conference to expand forces in Vietnam. The inevitable decision to go to & stay in Vietnam was explained with LBJ's personality, military advisors, and political climate of the time.
Berman gave a detailed history of Inchochina starting from the French and our inheritance from economic aid under Truman, commitment to containment under Eisenhower, increased military presence under JFK, and LBJ's elevation of anticommunist principle to military doctrine (pg 132) to result in full-scale ownership of the war: General Westmoreland stated
were it not for our interference in political affairs [President Diem's overthrow] of South Vietnam and based on pragmatic consideration, we could in my opinion have justifiably withdrawn our support at a time that demonstrated lack of leadership and unity in South Vietnam." (pg 29)Each year that progressed showed the internal deterioration of South Vietnam; as economic aid & military advisors increased, the options of withdrawal or press the issue were at stake of America's showing face to the world and her promise of commitment to its Allies. The narrative gave evidence, written accounts, conversations, and planning leading up to LBJ's 28 July 1965 press conference that announced the increase of military troops & expanding military command and control into South Vietnam. The ripple effect of the decision to expand the military was the national tragedy of 1965 that would conclude with LBJ's personal tragedy of no seeking reelection in 1968.
Overall this was an excellent overview of the escalation into combat roles in Vietnam. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the Vietnam War and our history there. Thanks!
November 8, 2021
god I hate lbj so much what a dunce
June 25, 2013
I need to read more about LBJ. For what I have read, it sounds like he ran roughshod over anyone who opposed him. This book also states that. No one was willing to consistently disagree with him to his face about Vietnam except for George Ball, Undersecretary of State.
March 22, 2009
Great facts and hypotheses about what the cabinet knew and how they addressed the situation in Vietnam during the Johnson administration. An epic book.
April 19, 2013
Good book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews