Choosing War, Logevall - A*

                                          Like many of my era, my foreign policy assessments are haunted by Vietnam, the war that killed classmates, friends, 58,000 Americans, and millions of Asians. In the long run, our failure there did not change our strategy, nor did it prevent us from prevailing in the Cold War.  Nonetheless, the world, and certainly the United States would have been far better off had we not tried to 'save' Vietnam.
                                          This book, which was published by a Swedish-born University of California, Santa Barbara professor in 1999 goes to the top of my personal bibliography on Vietnam.  'The Best and the Brightest' by David Halbertstam, 'The Fire In The Lake' by Frances Fitzgerald, 'A Bright And Shining Lie' by Neil Sheehan and this author's 'The Embers Of War' have, heretofore, been the foundations of my opposition to Vietnam.  Much of the writing about the war focuses on the three years from March 1965 until March 1968, when LBJ initiated and then, gave up on the war that, among other things, destroyed his presidency.  There is another body of work that focuses on the Nixon years.  This book is about the run-up to those fateful years, and covers the time frame from August 1963 until March 1965. This is when, in the face of near unanimous international condemnation and significant domestic opposition, we decided to 'man up'  and fight another ground war in southeast Asia.  The author emphasizes the abject hopelessness of trying to fight a war upon the foundation of a war-weary south lacking the political will, structure, or even desire to compete with the north. It is as if we parachuted onto the Titanic as it hit the iceberg and spent years bailing water before the inevitable end.
                                           The opening chapter of the book highlights the prescient, perhaps brilliant, observations of a man few Americans had any interest in paying any attention to.  Charles de Gaulle called for a reopening of the Geneva Conference and assured Americans that neutralization of Vietnam was the only course to pursue.  It would be impossible to prevail militarily when there was no political desire in the south. Apparently, he had learned the lesson that Vietnam was a war of independence against colonial masters, with the US replacing the French.  However, we continued to view the communists in the context of the Cold War.  The Sino-Soviet split and the historic animosity between China and Vietnam did not impact our views of monolithic communism.  For JFK, and later LBJ, it was about credibility with the Soviets and the Republicans.  Neither president could 'lose' Vietnam.  In April of 1963, Kennedy told a reporter, "We don't have a prayer of staying in Vietnam. Those people hate us. They are going to kick our asses out of there at any point. But I can't give up a piece of territory like that to the communists and get the people to re-elect me".
                                            Before JFK's death,  Diem fell in a coup, primarily because the Kennedy administration was fretful that his brother-in-law, Nhu, would negotiate a neutralization deal with the north and boot us out.  The political instability is highlighted by the fact Diem was followed first by Khanh, then Huong, then a Khanh-Buddhist alliance and finally Ky in the next year and-a-half.
                                             Unfortunately, one of LBJ's first decisions was to continue with the policy he inherited, and he assured all that he would not 'lose' Vietnam.  1964 was suppose to be an 'off' year as  LBJ did not want Vietnam to figure into the election mix.  He could stop neither the continued failure of the south's government and armed forces, nor the world's desire for another conference. Even the 'dominoes' we were protecting opposed our policies.  In March, MacNamara  wrote up a National Security Advisory Memorandum encouraging escalation, particularly bombing the north.  The severe irony is that there was international and domestic consensus that bombing the north would have zero impact.  The cynical conclusion was that it was no worse than doing nothing.
                                             Throughout the year and even after Tonkin, there was major opposition to escalation in the Senate, on the editorial pages of the Times and from America's most revered columnist, Walter Lippmann.  Johnson told Bundy "I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out."  The author  points to  the election as the pivotal, missed opportunity.  Johnson thumped Goldwater after painting him as a bomb-thrower and repeatedly saying "I am not going to send American boys to fight for Asian boys."  Why he passed up the opportunity in November and December to stand down is attributed by Longevall to his ego and
insecurity.
                                              In February 1965, while Kosygin was in Hanoi and Bundy in Saigon, the Vietcong attacked the Americans at Pleiku, inflicting over 100 casualties.  With American blood shed, the die was cast. The bombing began, Marines came in March to protect the airbases, and, by the end of the year, 180,000 Americans were in Vietnam. Almost a decade later, a Navy Lt. who had received the Navy Cross told a Congressional committee that no one wanted to be the last man to die for a "mistake'.