John M. Newman - JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power

JFK and Vietnam

JFK and Vietnam

Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power

SECOND EDITION

John M. Newman

Copyright 2016 John M. Newman
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 153047793X
ISBN 13: 9781530477937
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016904381
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
North Charleston, South Carolina

To those who served,
and their families.

Acknowledgments

A s an academic who has for twenty-five years studied and taught East Asian history, and as a military man with many East Asian assignments, this subject would appear to be one with which I should be comfortable. That did not turn out to be the case. Although the material was often electrifying, it was just as often depressing, tragic, and frightening. There were times when I worried whether I should go forward with it. I took solace in the works of other active-duty Army officers who are also scholars in this field. Among them, Andrew Krepinevichs The Army and Vietnam and Charles Parkers Vietnam: Strategy for a Stalemate were particularly inspiring for their courage in handling controversial theses with bold candor.

My own military background should not be construed in any way to mean that the views in this work represent those of the Army, the Department of Defense, or any government organization. Also I would like to saybecause I am so often asked about itthat never in the more than ten years of working on this subject (or at any other time in my eighteen years of service) has the Army or anyone in my chain of command criticized me for pursuing this subject or in any way attempted to influence me against it. My experience has been quite the contrary, and I thank them now for their encouragement and trust.

To those who helped early on and throughout the process of putting this account together, like, Bill Benedict, Don Blascak, Jim Drummond, Roland Dutton, Sam Dowling, Hal Ford, Jimmy Harris, Jerry King, Daniel Porter, and George Allen, I thank them all from the bottom of my heart. Much of this work would not have been possible without the benefit of their insights and their willingness to share what, in some instances, were painful recollections. For some, it was their wish that young soldiers and officers learn what happened during the early years of the Vietnam War in the hope that this might help prevent any repeat of their unsavory experience. My thanks go also to the many other former Army advisors and intelligence specialists whose contributions were useful to this work. To McGeorge Bundy, William Bundy, Walt Rostow, and especially Bill Colby, I thank them for the time they gave from their busy schedules for interviews.

For documents I am indebted to the Armys Center for Military History in Washington and at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, for their untiring help in the declassification of documentslong overdue but for which there has never been enough manpower to make the effort. They will shortly be, along with the taped interviews and transcripts, at the John F. Kennedy Library where future historians and researchers may use them. Special thanks go to the Army historian Vince Demma, whose help and advice were indispensable. I thank the staffs at the Kennedy and Johnson libraries for their help locating documents, especially to William Johnson at the Kennedy Library for all of the services he provided.

Don Blascak, Dan Ellsberg, Peter Dale Scott, David Lifton, and John Bardi read early versions of either the entire manuscript or major portions of it. They provided useful criticisms, insights, and sound advice. To Patricia Lambert, who painstakingly and efficiently edited the work, provided written and verbal improvements to the text on technical and conceptual points, I am especially grateful. I am also grateful for the help given by Oliver Stone and Eric Hamburg. I deeply appreciate their genuine and continuing interest in research on the Vietnam War.

What prompted this endeavor and sustained me through it all is the academic side of my life. Dr. Richard Thornton of George Washington University has been my teacher, dissertation advisor, and friend for the last fifty years; he always provided unfailing support and wise counsel. I am thankful to Lieutenant General William Odom, who was a strong advocate for choosing this subject for my dissertation. To Jiyul Kim and Charles Hooper I am indebted for the kind of friendship and encouragement that only someone who is very nearly in the same shoes that you are can give.

To my wife and children, with whom I have spent too little time in the course of this project, please forgive me. Future historians are indebted to Alexandra, Mary sue, and John, whose little hands did so much work to help sort and stamp the 15,000 pages of documents so that they may be easily found, used and cited. Special credit should be given to my oldest daughter, Alexandra, who did an amazing amount of work on documents and helped on special research topics.

It goes without saying, all the contributions aside, I alone accept responsibility for any shortcomings in this work. In some ways it would have been easier to sit on this material for several more years, to wait for the declassification of more documents, to do more research, fine-tuning, and polishing. It is my hope that in publishing this work now others will have access to the material earlier, and that the attention of many will make the process of reconstructing the history of the Vietnam War a better one.

2017 Addendum

I want to thank James Galbraith for his many years of contributions on Kennedys Vietnam decisions. I thank him for helping me get back my copyrights from what we now know was a hostile buy by Warner Books. I also thank him for putting his recollections of that unfortunate episode in writing for this volume (Appendix Three). I want to acknowledge the tremendous amount of assistance that I received from two important research associates: Jay Harvey and Alan Dale. Their support was crucial for the editing and publishing of this manuscript. Thanks also to my wife, Sue, who, once again, gave time liberally to the editing of this manuscript. I also want to thank Peter Dale Scott for motivating me to add the Eisenhower portion (on Laos) to Chapter One of this edition.

Table of Contents

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Foreword:
Secretary McNamara and Major Newman

General William E. Odom

T he genesis of JFK and Vietnam occurred on a small Army jet in 1988 in which my boss, Lieutenant General Odomthe Director of the National Security Agency at the timeand I were on our way to a U.S. Navy School where he was to give a presentation on Soviet Military doctrine. I was a U.S. Army Major and my job title at that time was Military Assistant to the Director, NSA. I was also a Ph.D. candidate in Modern Far Eastern History at George Washington University. I was preparing to begin work on my dissertation on the political succession to Mao Zedong. For much of the two-hour flight, the Directors face was buried in his New York Times but, at length, he put down his newspaper and asked me what the topic of my dissertation was.

Realizing that I was about to receive a regular counseling session, I told him what it was. His reaction was negative and surprising: Oh, come on! Why dont you do something more imaginativereally tackle something important. Step outside of your safety box and show some mettle. For a moment I was speechless. There is a tradition in American academe where one is encouraged at the Ph.D. level to do just what the general was suggesting: to overturn an orthodoxy or break new ground, or both. I realized that he was right. And without careful consideration for how best to respond, I replied: Look, what if I told you that President Kennedy was pulling out of Vietnam at the time he died?