John T. McNaughton and Vietnam: The Early Years as ... - Viet-studies

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BENJAMIN T. HARRISON AND CHRISTOPHER L. MOSHER 509 the answer’. 72 At least he and his boss agreed on something. By June 1965, McNaughton’s comments on the war revealed his innermost reservations about American involvement. It is in that month that he wrote a hand-written note which summarized what he described as the ‘minuses’ of American involvement in Vietnam. As previously mentioned, it spelled out brilliantly why he was a dove. Moreover, not only did his wit stand out as in so many of his memos but his wording also reflected the times: 1. Wrong ‘sphere of influence.’ 2. Overthrow by force ‘accepted’ where no other means. 3. The ‘spirited’ should prevail over the ‘slobs.’ 4. The ‘peeful’ should prevail over the ‘elite.’ 5. The country should be unified. 6. Yellow men should settle yellow men’s trouble. 73 He noted that there were no ‘pluses’. Vietnam was not in our ‘sphere of influence’, the western hemisphere was, and even there he had wanted military aid ended. The government in Hanoi may have been established by force, but that is acceptable because no other means existed for coming to power in that country given the absence of a fair election. The dedication and determination of the enemy should prevail over a Saigon government that did not seem to care if it won or lost. The ‘little man’ in Vietnam struggled against the ‘elite’ landlords and wealthy colonial collaborators, and deserved victory. He believed no one could argue against Vietnamese national unity and independence. Last but certainly not least, McNaughton insisted that the Vietnamese should settle their own troubles without any outside power being involved. Few doves have ever articulated the opposition to the war better, even if the wording was far from politically correct. In June 1965 McNaughton had a conversation with U. Alexis Johnson, a notable ‘hawk’ who served at various times as deputy undersecretary of political affairs and other times as deputy ambassador to Vietnam. The two used to ‘argue very vigorously’ 74 about Vietnam and on this occasion McNaughton asked Johnson if more American troops in Vietnam would make a positive difference. When the reply was in the negative, McNaughton asked if he thought some current troops should be withdrawn and again the response was negative. At that point, McNaughton asked Johnson, ‘What if you are wrong about whether Vietnam has gone downhill over the last year, how would that affect your judgment about deploying more U.S. troops?’ Johnson must have been a little exasperated as he replied once again, ‘It is still doubtful that more U.S. troops would 72 Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: 1995), p. 183. 73 JTM Papers, Box 1, File IV, #59 LBJL. His son, Alex McNaughton, confirmed that this was his father’s handwriting and the penmanship matches that of his journal. 74 Oral Interview of Alexis Johnson by Paige Mulhollan, 14 July 1969, LBJL. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.
510 JOHN T. MCNAUGHTON AND VIETNAM make the difference.’ 75 Neither person stated what he thought could make a real difference or even if there existed such a possibility. It is always strange to see how hawkish state department officials generally were during the Vietnam War versus McNaughton in the war department! Secretary of State Dean Rusk often advocated military solutions for problems in Vietnam, while McNamara often called for diplomatic negotiations. However, convinced that no number of American troops would be able to turn the tide in Vietnam, McNaughton had reached the end of his rope. That summer his aide, Daniel Ellsberg, said his boss was furious with the war. At one point he reportedly pounded his fists on his desk screaming, ‘you don’t understand Dan. I don’t want to be in Vietnam six months from now! I want out! Out! Out! Out!’ 76 The story illustrates well McNaughton’s frustration, which contrasted so vividly with McNamara’s views at the time. Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper’s Magazine, described the defense secretary’s bombing policy as ‘bomb-ograms’ in the summer of 1965. Furthermore, he argued that McNamara ‘defined the bombing raids that eventually murdered upwards of two million people north of Saigon as a means of communication. Bombs became metaphors meant to win the North Vietnamese to a recognition of America’s inevitable victory’. 77 McNaughton believed, however, that the bombing alienated the people of Vietnam and was counter-productive. In July 1965, McNaughton plotted behind the scenes for a way out of Vietnam. In effect, McNamara generally urged military escalation, while his assistant urged withdrawal. However, on 1 July, the secretary of defense drafted a memo urging escalation to force a favourable settlement. The alternative, McNamara concluded, was to ‘lower our sights considerably’, which one scholar said was a ‘bow, in all probability, to McNaughton’s views’. 78 McNamara would eventually come to the realization that US sights in Vietnam had to be lowered totally, but in the summer of 1965, he still echoed the president’s determination to achieve victory. The next day McNaughton wrote to the assistant to the chairman of the JCS, General Andrew Goodpaster, that ‘winning’ in Vietnam was simply a stalemate. The analysts of the Pentagon Papers concluded that McNaughton was asking the ‘key question’ in this memo as to ‘whether or not we would become involved more deeply in a war which could not be brought to a satisfactory conclusion’. 79 On 13 July 1965, McNaughton considered that the Vietnam ‘situation is worse than a year ago (when it was worse than a year ago before that) . . . the DRV/VC seem to believe 75 JTM Papers, 25 June 1965, Box 1, File IV, #62, LBJL. 76 Ellsberg, Secrets, pp. 86–7. Clearly Ellsberg’s credibility is open to question because of his leaking the Pentagon Papers to the press; it would support his actions if he could have argued that other government officials shared his views. Nonetheless he worked closely with McNaughton and there is no way to confirm or deny Ellsberg’s assertions on such conversations. 77 Lewis Lapham, Waiting for the Barbarians (1997), pp. 29–30. 78 David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge, Mass., 2000) [hereafter Kaiser, American Tragedy], p. 459. 79 GPP, iv. 291–3. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.
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