CIA WAS RIGHT AFTER ALL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300360121-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 121
• Publication Date: June 20, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

STATINTL
Approved For Rele~1!G, 991Q l~~ ri4 IA-RDP80-01601 R00030
19-.20 June 1971
w .. s rig
Among the ninny items of useful in-
formation in the now-banned secret
;Army report on Vietnam, this fact
emerges: The intelligence services
were a great deal more right than the,
little clique around President Joi nso13
who weighed ---- and disregarded ----
their information. The fact should be
duly recorded in all fairness, since in-
telligence --- Army, Navy and CIA --
has been criticized long and often for
real or,presunhed. bloopers in Vietnam.
There was, for example, the period
in early I964 when the administration
became convinced that the Viet Cong
was the creature of the Hanoi govern-
i rerrt. Its conclusion was that by
bombing North Vietnam, it could stop
the guerrillas in the South.
Intelligence countered that the. Viet
Cong was basically an indigenous
movement and could not be strongly
affected by punishing North Vietnam.
President Johnson and most of his key
advisers rejected the intelligence ad-
vice, and. proceeded with plans to "un-
dermine" the Viet Cong by bombing
North Vietnam.
The CIA was also early in rejecting
the domino theory, contending that the
fall of South Vietnam would not lead
to the fall of other nations in the area
,(with the possible exception of Cam-
bodia) and an inexorable spread of,
communism. Again, the, President and
his advisers disregarded the, in-
telligence estimates and clung to the
theory that they were fighting a war
to prevent the Chinese takeover of the
whole subcontinent.
"The Aa ierican intelligence commu-
nity;" says the report,. "repeatedly`
provided the policymakers with what
proved to he accurate warnings that'
desired goals were either unattainable
or likely to provoke costly reactions
from the enemy," but the, policyniak-
ers wefrt on serenely overruling the
CIA and other intelligence services.
Objective analysis is the business of,
. intelligence, and it must have been
disillusioning to the professionals to
find their. best efforts constantly
spurned by the highly placed atria
teurs in the White House. The report.'
should drive home the lesson that,
wishful thinking is a poor foundation,
on which to build national policy.
_Approved-Fo-r--Re+ease- 2001103104- C1A-RDP80-01601 R000300360121-9
 ? NEW YORK TiME-S
JIr11IN III-
Approved F&TikiI~ a 20A831~ra ) Y 1&-RDP'80-0160"
L? t t rs on
a;
' To the Editor: study affords stri!{in.*i. evidence of the
':ful reader of The Times. I appreciated ceeded: I can only hope that this, dis- To the Editor: `
your paper's role as the "newspaper of closure will serve to awaken the It is hardly a source bf -satisfaction,
Lrecord,"-printing "all the news that's American public to the threat to our 'but it should serve as ri lesson; that`
fit to print." democratic process which is involved everything the radical` left has' said'!
However, in the last few years I in the substitution by Government of about the Vietnam war finds support
l of been dismayed by the appearance deceit for the frank presentation to
f of yellow-tinged journalism in your the electorate of the issues with which In the Pentagon study published by
i good gray pages: editorializing and it is confronted, The Times, In -fact, as in so many
7slanting' of news have been evident Only an aroused public opinion, to other aspects " of American politics
-in your news stories;-frivolous feature which The Times has made a notable (government surveillance, for 'exam-
stories have appeared on page one; contribution, can insure a return to ple) things turn out to be substantially
Tom Wicker seems to,have become a the integrity of the democratic process worse than the left imagined.
hippie; a gossip column- graces your in which we have been brought up to In this case, the. Vietnam escalation
pages; and the generally "hip" liberal believe. FRANK ALTSCHUL was planned even earlier than the
attitudes that characterized the last New York, June 16, 1971 summer of 1964, and the "prepara-
days of The New York Herald Tribune , - .i tion" of public opinion was even more
-seem to have been adopted as your o consummate, the reliance on military,
;editorial policy. force to destroY an admittedly P Ini
remained a daily Times buyer and The intended balance of power he- tar, mass-based peasant movement
reader--but no longer. Your publica- tween branches of our Government can even?niore cynical, and the torpedoing
tion of an admittedly "secret" Gov- be badly upset, perhaps fatally, by an of possibilities for a negotiated seftle-
y imbalance of information. For one ment even more deliberate than the
ernment report seems to me utterly dissenting writers on Vietnam as-
unethical, if not treasonable. branch can enforce its prejudices and, When. the American people elect a will on another by withholding facts sumed.,, . ; . ;
Government, it is given the responsi- and distorting events, the knowledge I wonder what Impact all of this
bility for conduct of foreign affairs of which it is privy to.- will have on '`objective" social scien-
and national security matters. by what I refer of course to the w'ar in Vict- tilts who dismiss leftist critiques of
mandate does The 'Times act? Who has nam and to the specific facts and American society as "paranoid"' and
intelligence estimates withheld by the excessively oriented toward "
given your paper the right to put our
tive from the Congress and the
e
th
"
i
R
D
B
B
Ex
cu
acv
eor
es.
ICriARn
ore
.
u
national security in possibly jeopardy?
.Who elected you? (Or is the press public. Two outstanding examples are Associate Professor of Economics
the Tonkin Gulf incident and the C.I.A. Bryn Mawr College
above democratic institutions?) Your report that the Vietcong was -largely
circulation may rise for a while as a ~'._ b Bryn Mawr, Pa., June' 14,.1971
~- ? "? Y
damaged I will no o lon ldnger r spoend nd fifteen . the Executive would. have rallied the
To the Editor:
cents a day for a publication I cannot support it did for our warlike actions, It. is with great sadness that I have
'respect; but I mourn the passing of Another related point---the majority been reading your paper while back '
the great tradition of the Good Gray of people in any nation, be it Germany,. here fora brief visit:
Times. J. P. DAVrs Russia or the. U.S. or Vietnam, will I find your slanting of the. news ?in
Teaneck, N. J., June 14, 1971 believe what its government tells The Herald Tribune in difficult
it about dan
ers from `,aside and
g
cltildreri of "the en em in the name Inc Times on vleulam are not only
To the Editor: y'. irresponsible, but detrimental to our
of patriotism Thus the
overnment
g
country, in my opinion
When I was a boy in California, my
father was then President of;the Cal- plays the 'dual'role of creator. of an
hernia Bankers Association and `in attitude and user of the attitude. When we move- back to Greenwich
When the public attitude `is based I can assure you The Times' will no
this capacity he stumped the state for longer be our newspaper.: ;
McKinley in the McKinley-Bryan elec- on lies and distortions, its lrse as a DOROTHY B. MooRr.
tion. Returning from his speaking en- justification for actions or policy is Greenwich, Conn., June 15. 1971
gageiients, he used to tell me that contrary to the basic principles of our '
i
never LV 1V16et --?iL allssue Was hilly - h .. 1
presented to the American people, they approach of our present Adminisfra-. To the Editor:
.could be counted on to reach a sound tion is in its use; with the knowledge Perhaps if the television networks'
conclusion. This, after all, was funda- ,'that the majority has been deceived. would have done what you are now
d t
th
i
i
in
d
o your carry
e
ng,
n regar
g
mental to the democratic process as '` The Times is to be' congratulated for o
.he understood it?` its true. patriotisiii and conformance story of the Vietnam war and what'
h drew up in this belief until in re- with our ideals in bringing the facts of went on behind thescenes,.the Bill of
our Vietnam interference to light. You Rights, especially the First Amend-
cent years- I found that issues were
no longer fairly presented. In fact, are correctly carrying out the role of a merit, would be alive and well and
they were often misrepresented, and free press in our system, and there is undisputed in the United States.
-under these circumstances a funda- no "substitute for this `necessary func- The Times Is pursuing its usual
mental aspect of the democratic 'tiori. 'MILLARD M. BRENNER course in publishing, in full, important
process as 'we knew it was in danger ? . Philadelphia, June 1'6, 1971 documents and speeches. This is surely'
the most important story you have,
of being underr fined. d
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 20 JUN 1971
tortes awaiting Supreme Court cold-blooded stud of the deci-
ments of ph
i
l s
u
it
ys
ca
ec
r
~ j
y review. J
entafi3lo. - Papers: abroad, between the rights of the s}on-making process-by no
citizen and the rights f society. The issue now was the free- means complete or definitive,
don] oP th
e press itselfthi h b bd
-e rtutase u on the textual au-
o Politically, it was the climax g p
to speak out, regardless of te
h
i
f
Or nse- t
or
ty o
more secret govern-
two years of tension between quence, under the First Amend- ment papers, minutes, cables and
the Nixon Administration and ntent of the Constitution. That even first-draft proposals than
the dominant instruments of
extraodi
rnary d
and doe usually appear' in public even
es" communication. The use of the trine of liberty has already been long after the events they de
espionage laws to inhibit arid ; interpreted by the supreme Court scribe.
harass
]eThe"hew ' okTt - to protect even the publication it is it chilling record of diplo-- , of "~ 9 f00, an the was interpreted ingtn Postome more lies about public figures and, duplicity recently, private citizens our and cantary Administrations'
bas thentrltimates expression ppersistent re- in public roles, provided only even t those Who doom the case
Vic
e ti a-. p ? that the accuser could not d
sentment of those newspapers onstrato the presence of an more just than that of the Cori t-
J and Vice President Agnew's overwhelming malice. monist adversaries. The Pontes
,`~ V OUglI c9 roundhouse denunciations of To. the gon study of 47 volumes states
them. persistent question in in its analyses and demonstrates
court last week --- who elected The Pentagon's own best ac But it was not Republican In- The Times to define the national in its texts that the American
count of how the United States terests that Attorney General security or to deterntino which war errro at
d to coati ,yn shot
count itself into a war it could John N. Mitchell had to defend, secrets could be published?--the war avent every stage
o will began t appear it could except in the broadest sense that ' paper's answer was, simply, the every conventional consideration
not
and
The New York Tames last more aRe c e nu bli cans than Demo. Constitution. It acknowledged, la v,dof] thec rights of t Congi ess, :
week . , .. but only philosophically and by- the requirements of the Consti-
>mtil The Time. was of the current social conflict pathetically, that there could
ordered to stop, America. develop a risk of injuryor na- the fate of individual personali-
The articles published in The tional peril so great as to justify ties, the rights of American eiti?
prove that further publication Times in the first three instal}- an- effort by the courts or Con- tens, and the most elementary
would cause "irreparable" in ut means about the Pentagon papers
J Y gross to enjoin publication of standards of truth.
to the national defense and have already been universally in- certain information before the There can be no doubt that the
C ought to be enjoined court terpreted as thc.severest possible fact. But it conceded no such publication of such a record, order, presumably forevby indictment of the Johnson Ad- risk or justification at this time. much as the misery of the war
Thus came into being the case ministration and the officials This odd chapter In the saga itself, will rem oraril embarrass
of the United ntotbs of the case brought to eminence and power P y
y. The New York Times Com by John F. Kennedy's Eastern of American journalism began in the United States Government in
For the first tune,' as far as much so that a common first height of battle in Vietnam and Own citizens, and it may darnagc
anyono could tell, an American reaction of many reactors was to the height of frustration with that the professional reputations of
newspaper of general circulation suspect a deliberate leak of Gov- battle in the Pentagon. Defense some of the principal actors.
was restrained by prior court ernment secrets and documents Secretary Robert S. McNamara, The tonic value of such an
order from publishing articles by the Nixon Administration, privately disillusioned and guilt- orgy of truth-telling remains to
and documents whose content ridden about the war, but still be seen. All other issues aside,
"Tomorrow: the Kennedy Ad- publicly stalwart, was persuaded the publication of this record will
could only be surmised by the ministration increases the stalees," to commission a massive history finally test the real benefit of
Government and whose damag- said The Times before it was of decision-making about Indo- the truth-that-hurts-as well as
:ing properties therefore could forced to sus d t1
en
V
Approve&~g T ase 20 % 4':'t RDP80-016
p
to
ietnam . china. He . said he wanted to - the maturity of a democratic pr
only be e.
assumed. For The Times series last Tuesday. leave a record of what went 'pie and the philosophical uucier.
refused to let either judge or The Tinges refused to divulge wrong, although he knew it Pinning of the First Amendment,
general, or even President, in. the sources of its materials. It would also be a record of how both of which will be simultane-
spect or edit the articles before refused to state how it carne by many other governments and of- otlsly tested in the courts.
they appeared in print. And it them, through the "investigative ficials had been wrong before For most of this massive his-
vowed to fight to the Supreme reporting" of Neil Sheehan, a re- his time. tor, including Court, if necessary, to beat back Y. b much of its doe-
, porter in the Washington bureau. Leslie Gelb, on Mr. McNa- umentation, came into the pos-
the Governments attempt at It refused, despite the persistent session of The Times, then other
mara's staff, assembled a scholar- "censorship." please of the Court and the Fed- ly team of 30 to 40 civilian and. newspapers, individuals and
posslblecase
conflict enwooll purest ral Government to give any military officials, inside and out- members of Con, ess. It Stilt
more than the sketchiest de- side government, all of - them come out.:
vidual freedom and national Sc- scriptions of the documents in familiar with some aspect of the After months of painstaking
entity. Its possession. And it refused to
o Legally, Vietnam history. They were research, analysis and
It was a contest be- surrender the materials. To yield given e tion, and weeks of internal ade-
tween the First Amendment free- gi - t access to all the fig 's
an any of these points, it ar- the Pentagon and many docu- - bate about the proper- method.
dams of speech and press against g1ed would risk betrayal of its of presentation, The Times bean
the Government's right to ro- ments of the State Department,,/,
g
P sources and the loss of confi- the Central Intelligence Agency ast Sunday to give its readers a]
tect itself by court injunction. dence by all other potential and other offices, but not to the" more orderly, though also more
o Symbolically, it was typical sources of information-inside as personal papers of the Presi- concise, rendering of the histor
of the conflicts of the Vietnam well as outside government. This dents. y than the study itself, along tivit.lt"
era, between the rule of law right to stand mute had al-
ancl the necessity for order,c> Oda9Z~ be re,}~' ee t Al may[ Within a year t r,~y g 0300360121-9
tween the de) r~We~ require, 0, 41 t'f"f.`, 4s.:
justice
at home n the - well, and resulted in court via authority
scholarly, monumental and 8011$ i.xruad
 STATINTL
sive actions. This was the be-
ginning of an offensive com-
bat role for U.S. ground
troops.
The first public hint of
this change came on June 8
when a State Department;
spokesman said that "Ameri-
cau forces would be availa-
ble for combat support."
The next clay, the White
.House put out a statement
asserting:
"There has been no
change in the mission of
United States ground com-
bat units in Vietnam In re-
cent days or weeks. The
president has issued no
order of any kind.in this re-
gard to Gen. Westmoreland
recently or at any other
time."
This appears to be the lie
direct. But the statement
continued:
';The primary mission of
these troops is to secure and
-safeguard important mil.i-_
'tary Installations like the
.airbase at Danang. They
have the associated mission
of actively patrol]if g and se-
curing action in and near
the areas thus safeguarded."
"If help is requested by
appropriate Vietnamese
commanders, Gen. West-
;nioreland also has authority
within the as.' ?~ry
_------.-_to= employ--tl e~'tto~bl7, ii'i
support of. .Vietnamese.
STATINTL
Y! i SII+GTw::; POST
Washington Post Staff Writer Aetcs 14naly'sis
A. comparison of the John- :forces acbTdViih agg.ressitie
?son - administration's public attack ... "
remarks with the material Thus, the last two para.
that has been published graphs, although stilt avoid-
ing the full truth, soften the
.from the Pentagon's private impact of the first and pat-
:study of the Vietnam war ently.?false paragraph.
discloses a public record Again iii late November
marked by half-truths, care- ; 1964 the Aministration's top-
Jill ambiguities, and mislead- '-most circle,' 'accordingg to
Ing and- deceptive state- ? -
ments rather than flatfooted 1?Llblishecl materiial., agreed
`?untruths. to adopt a "determined ac-
What appears at first iron program" aimed at put-
? glance to be the grossest ting pressure on. Hanoi and
'.misstaternent in public fre- raising South Vietnamese
quently turns out, on close morale. A draft position
exairiinatiofi to contain a
phrase or word that saves it paper of Nov. 29 charts a
from the label "lie." 'tyro-phase bombing program
For example, on April 1, as a key element in this
1965, according to the pub- , Ulan---.possible- r e'p r I s a 1
lish.ed documents, President strikes against I~ ortlz Viet
Johnson secretly made a
fateful decision, ordering the.: nam and a U.S. readiness to
3,500 Marines in Vietnam to conduct sustained bombing
shift from a static defense of against the North.
At a press conference on
Nov. 28, a prescient reporter
asked the President:
"Is expansion of the Viet-
nam war into Laos or North
Vietnam a live possibility at
this point?"
Mr. Johnson, In a lengthy
reply, Allowed that his top
advisers were then meeting,
but in the operative part of
his response said:
"I anticipate that there
will be no dramatic an-
`nounceulent (emphasis add-
ed) to come out of these
meetings except in the form
of your speculation."
This was literally true but
substantively misleading. No
dramatic announcement was
made but the meetings all
but scaled the dramatic de-
nil }GIA-RDP80-01
7 4 ' lie 1 ' n , Z I , tai/ ti-.ir' lb l1i'L ' "r,",
too- in Feliruary,'1968, Chairman Fvlbright asked
The Committee was ex- Wheeler whether in the pe-
'ploring the origius of the Hod around July 1964 the -~,
..+,j'gnkin Gulf Resolution, the military had, recommended
.;authority' on which the extending the war to the
Johnson regime relied to en- north by bombing or other
large the war. Sen. William 'means. ?'
Fulbright (D-Ark.), the . Gen. Wheeler replied:
chairman, was attempting to "I don't believe so, Mr.
discover whether the admin- Chairman. I think that the
istration had decided well in proper answer would be
advance of the August inci- that there were certain in-
dents in. the Tonkin Gulf to , telligence activities (deleted)
ask Congress for a broad , but to the best of my knowl-
grant of authority, The dia- edge and belief during that
logue went like this: period there was no thought
The Chairman: Mr. Secte of extending the war into
tary did you see the contin-
gency draft of what became
the Southeast Asia resolu-
tion before it was ready?
Secretary McNamara: Mr.
Chairman, I - read in the
newspaper a few weeks ago
.there had been such a con-
tingency draft. I don't be-
lieve I ever saw it ... But I
can't testify absolutely that
'.I didn't. My memory is not
clear on that. -
the North in the sense of
our participation in such ac-
tions, activities."
Then, for the record, the
.Pentagon supplied art inser-
tion:
the period about which Fill-
bright vas inquiring ----- the
top brass sent McNamara a
lengthy memo saying:
"Accordingly, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff consider that
the United States must
"We have identified no
such recommendation. A
check of the records of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff is con-
tinuing."
In fact, published records
-show, as early as Jan. 22,
1964 -- six months before
'.In fact, the Executive
Committee of the National
Security Council -- which
included 1`MIcNalnara -- had
,decided after its meetings
on May` 24 aiid 25, 1964 to
seek a Congressional resolu-
tion authorizing "all meas-
ures" to assist South Viet-
nam. Thus, McNamara and
the others had approved a
draft of the Tonkin Gulf res-
olution nearly ten weeks be-
fore the attack on the Amer-
lean destroyers in those wa-
STATINTL -
makeready to conduct In-
creasingly bolder actions in
Southeast Asia to: .
". ? - h. Conduct aerial
bombing of key North Viet- `;
nam targets, using U.S. re-
sources under. Vietnamese
cover, and with the Viet-
narnese openly assuming re-
sponsibility for the actions
11j. Commit U.S. forces as
necessary in direct actions
.Even here, McNamara's
'.choice of-words to the Sen-
ate Committee is artful. He
says he didn't believe he
saw the 'draft and it is con-
ceivable that ]le approved
the substance without read-
ing all the language. Moreo-
cision to launch the two-
phase - bombing program
that began in February.
Administration leaders
rarely made outright mis-
statements about the crucial
events in the 20 months up
to July 1965 when, as the al that a local "to
ready published Pentagon that his memory isn't .clear argue ,~ proposal
documents say, the' United, on the crucial point and he make ready northward ac-
States entered into an open- won't "absolutely" deny hav- i tions is less than a recom-
ing seen It. ,menclation and that he
ended commitment and - At the same hearing, Gen. - equates "thought" with all
war.
Asian land
Perhaps Defense Secre?:Earle Wheeler, chairman of unqualified proposal.
tary Robert S. McNamara'- the Jount 'Chiefs of Staff, The gap between public
came as close as any to com- skirted perilously close to ;oratory and private belief is
he ' strikingly illustrated byMr.
plete falsificcation} in his test'- untruth. t- - Whether
i
Ko l r~ n s'. fz t 7iialhri! irf~?i~ beV ~5r~9 WOO 014.
Wheeler was stretching
the truth to say the Chiefs
harbored "no thought" of
extending the war North. .
 STATINTL WASHINGTON 8080
Approved F&T1k@bh a 2001-/ O yq RDP80-01
IIy.'Leslie :H. Gelb
A forlnner Pentagon official, Gelb is
now a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution, writing a history of U.S.
involvement in Vietnam from 1940 to
11965. Ile was director of the Pentagon
analytical compilation of documents on
Vietnam which were the basis for re-
cent articles in The New York Times
and The Washington Post. The article
below is excerpted with permision from
Foreign Policy quarterly. Gelb's con-
clusions are based on two years of in-'
dependent research since leaving gov-
ernment service. They are documented
in the historical section of his Foreign
Policy article which we are not reprint-
ing.
~}+ iHIE STORY OF U.S. policy toward.
:ti Vietnam is either far better or far
worse than generally supposed. Our
Presidents and most of those who in-
fluenced their decisions did not stum
ble step by step into Vietnam, unaware
of the quagmire. U.S, involvement did
not stem from a failure to foresee con-
sequences.
Vietnam was indeed a quagmire, but
most of our leaders knew it. Of course
there were optimists and periods where
.many were genuinely optimistic. But
those periods were infrequent and
short-lived and were Invariably fol-
lowed by periods of deep pessimism.
Very few, to be- sure, envisioned
what the Vietnam situation would be.
,like by 1968. Most realized, however,'
that "the light at the end of the tun-
nel" was very far away---if not finally.
unreachable. Nevertheless, our Presi--
dents persevered. Given international
compulsions to "keep our word" and
"save face," domestic prohibitions
against "losing," and their personal
stakes, our.' leaders did ".what was nee-
essary," did it about, the way they
A t +1,
a
t
d
'of why U.S. leaders considered that It
was vital not to lose Vietnam by force
to communism. Our leaders believed
Vietnam to be vital not for itself, but
for what they thought its "loss" would
mean internationally and domestically.
Previous Involvement made Luther in-
volvement more unavoidable, and, to
this extent, commitments were inher-
ited. But judgments of Vietanam.'s
"vitalness"---beginning with the Ko-
rean War---were sufficient in them-
selves to set tile. course for escalation.
Second, our Presidents were' never
actually seeking a military victory in
Vietnam. They were doing only what
they thought was minimally necessary
at each stage to keep Indochina, and
later South Vietnam, out of Commu-
nist hands. This forced our Presidents
-to be brakemen, to do less than those
who were urging military -victory and
to reject proposals for disengagement.
It also meant that our Presidents
wanted a negotiated settlement with-
out fully realizing (though realizing
more than their critics) that a civil war
cannot be ended by political compro-
mise.
Third, our Presidents and most of'
their lieutenants were not deluded by
optimistic reports of progress and (lid,
not proceed on the basis of wishful
thinking about -Pinning a military vic-
tory in South Vietnam. They recog-
nized that the steps they were taking
were not adequate to win the war and
that unless Hanoi relented, they would
have to do more and more. Their strat-
egy was to persevere in the hope that
-their will to continue-If not the prac-
tical effects of their actions-would
cause the Communists to relent:
Each of these propositions Is ex-
plored below. - .
1. "We Can't Afford lo Lose"-,
, were pr. epare a p
wan
e
y e -IIOSE WHO LED the United
costs, and plowed on with a mixture of
States into Vietnam did so with .
`hope- and coon, They "saw" no accept- their eyes open, knowing why, and be-
able alternative. lieving they had the will to succeed.
Three propositions suggest why the The deepening involvement was not in-
`-United States became Involved in Viet- advertent, but mainly deductive. It
gam, why the process was gradual, and flowed with sureness from the per-
what the real expectations of our lead- ceivecl stakes and attendant high
ers were: -
objectives.
meats. Each extended these commit
ments. Each administration from 1947
to 1969 believed that it was necessary
to prevent the loss of Vietnam and,
after 1954, South Vietnam by force to
the Communists. -
The reasons for this varied from per-
son -to person, from bureaucracy to bu-
reaucracy, over time and in emphasis.
? For the most part, however, they had
little to do with Vietnam itself. A few
men argued that Vietnam had intrinsic
-strategic military and economic im- -
portance, but this view never pre-!
vailed. The reasons rested on broader
international, domestic, and buPeau-
eratic considerations. -
Our leaders gave the international
repercussions of "losing" as their domi-
nant explicit reason for Vietnam's im-
portance. During the Truman adminis-
tration, Indochina's importance was
measured in terms of French-Anerican
relations and Washington's desire to
rebuild France into the centerpiece of
future European security. After the
cold war heated up and after the fall
of China, a French defeat in Indochina
was also seen as a defeat for the policy
of containment. In the Eisenhower
years, Indochina became a "testing
ground" between the Free World and
Communism and the basis for the fa-
mous "domino theory" by which the
fall of Indochina would lead to the de-
terioration of - American security
around the globe.
President Kennedy publicly reaf-
firmed the falling domino concept. His
primary concern, however, was for his
"reputation for action" after the Bay
of ,Pis fiasco, the Vienna meeting
with Khrushchev,? and the Laos crisis,
and in meeting the challenge of "wars
of national liberation" by counterin-
surgency warfare. Under President
Johnson, the bode-word rationales be-
came Munich, credibility, commitments
and the' U.S. word, a watershed test of
wills with communism, raising the. -
costs of aggression, and the principle
that armed aggression shall not be al-
lowed to succeed. There is every rea
First, U.S. involvement in Vietnam is U.S. policy displayed remarkable son to assume that our leaders actually
not mainly or mo t1 a stOP l tl 1 it believed what they said tven both the
step, inaclvel-le AA&W% 111 e~'~ tej~i~i 1l~ t 1 ~ fo 80t~Ot11 1 E 3DQ$ D~li -~9tre
seen quicksand. It is??primarily a story President inherited previous. commit - -
 ST T NTL WASHINGTON STA1
Approved For Release 2001 /b3 Q 3&Iit DP80-01601
~"`~ s ~~~ ervations about escalating such a fraud, how come lily
ii ..~' X13 ~, the. war. kid just got killed over there,
"At the end of a lengthy inter- . or i rl . nepli-w has to go next
n
By JAMES DOYLE
Star Staff writer
Leading Democrats find them-
selves once again sifting the politi-
cal wreckage of the Vietnam war.
Most agree that the party has been
.hurt by the massive disclosure of
secret Pentagon papers on the esca-
lation of the war.
The leading candidates for the
p a r t y 's presidential nomination
have moved, almost in unison, to
separate themselves further from
former President Lyndon B. John-
son, who presided over much of the
history that is being revealed.
Democrats to Lose More
And, perhaps in an attempt to
salvage a side issue, they have criti-
cized the Nixon administration's at-
tempts in court to block further
disclosures.
It was the unanimous view of
candidates and top advisers inter-
viewed by The Star that President
Nixon stands to gain little or noth-
ing from the Vietnam revelations,
.but that the Democrats probably
will lose more because the focus has
shifted again to the alleged decep-
tions and recriminations of the
,Johnson administration.
Sen. Harold Hughes of Iowa re-
ferred in an interview to the new
indications that Vietnam escalations
were planned as far back as the
slimmer of 196-1.
"If the president was aware of
it during the ('61) campaign, it is
one of the greatest acts of hypocrisy
and deception in history," Hughes
said.
Can't Blame Party
He added, "I really don't think
anyone can blame the party for the
,planning of the Pentagon or the
actions of a president.
"Bad decisions are not a matter
of political philosophy. They are the
'result of bad advice, and bad advis-
`ers."
Frank Mankiewicz, the former
;'press secretary to the late Robert
Kennedy who now advises the cam-.
paign of Sen. George S. McGovern,
D-S.D., said, "There are only two
gainers in this thing-McGovern and
J::the Central Intelligence Agency.
_:;. IIe was referring to McGovern's
wn h
long-s tan ding disagreement view, riunhphrey was asked
with the war, dating hack to how the revelations might af- Sell. EOnnund Muskie was
1963, and the revelations that fect his future ambitions. "I'm one of the slowest to react to
the CIA was the most accurate not Sure I want any extra poll- the disclosures, but by the
predictions tics, he replied. I ve got a weekend he was actively
in its analyses and
,
throughout the period of es- good~~ job here (ill the Sell- pressing for declassification of
caiat.ion. i ate). the 4J-volume Pentagon study.
Gary Hart, another Me- The Infighting
Govern campaign aide, said.
"McGovern benefits only in a The potential candidates are
tangential way but not in any
real sense.
"He's the guy who said we
shouldn't have done it. Now he
can say I told you so, but he
won't.
"The entity which suffers is
government, not party. It's not
Nixon or Humphrey who loses
the most, but (lie presidency.
"The m o r e apocalyptic
among us think it will be a
generation after you and I are
gone before the people will be-
lieve the president again." '
Hart - added, "If President
Nixon went on television and
said 'This photograph shows
the holes for missiles in Cuba
and I'm going to act,' the peo-
ple at their television sets
would say, 'no, Mr. Pres.ident.'
"That's what's happened in
eight years. People have al-
ways disbelieved politicians,
until John Kennedy made
them believable. That's all
gone now, and Kennedy will
probably be tarred with the
rest."
Kennedy Cites Brother
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy;
who was one of the first to
call for disclosure of the rest
of the story produced figures
from the Congressional Rec-
Ord Showing that 120 Ameri-
cans died in Vietnam while
his brother was in office. He
noted that now the figure is
well over 50,000.
And his office produced an
excerpt from a JFK news con-
ference on October 31, 1963,
less than a month before his
death. The President told re-
porters, "We -would expect to
withdraw a thousand men
from-South Vietnam before the
end of the year . . . if we are
able to do that, that would be
as
porters lie had not been in- pn, Missouri, paper and CSS ]candled I deplore. But I am
and NBC say L abeut the ori?i-
formed of the plans and ac- nal story. not in a position at this point
lions described in the New to judge the actions of particu-
York Times disclosures. the impression Coll)!))" lac people."
through in the country is that
A former aide told of how 1
among themselves.
A Kennedy aide pointed to
the stories about Ilturiphrey's
stated lack of involvement:
`'Apparently Hubert was not
vice president, as far as we
can tell."
A McGovern aide was re-
minded that Edward Kennedy
long ago disowned the war,
and that he was never a mem-
ber of his brother's adminis-
tration.
"He dined well off the war
and now he doesn't want to
pick up the check," the Mc-
Govern man replied.
A Muskie aide said, "It
doesn't help any of us. The
question is who gets hurt
most. The calls I make around
the country aren't to neutrals,
but they indicate Humphrey
gets hurt, and very badly."
Another McGovern partisan
with roots in the Robert Ken-
nedy campaigns: "Iltibert is
the only one who conies off as..
both a fool and a knave."
Nixon's Reaction
three lengthy Times reports
,had appeared, Mtskie said the
did not wish to comment at
that time.
Later he told Marvin Kalb of
CBS, "I am disappointed that
. these events should have been
taking place when my party
controlled the a dill ini,stration.
But what is more erious are
-the implications for the integ-
rity of our system . the
confidence of our People that
theirs is _ a government that
responds to their voice, to
their will and to their inter-
est."
Muskie's Supporters believo
that his own support for the
war through 1053 will be More
understandable in light of the
revelations, and that his r?epu.
tation as a plain-ta1k;;r will I
make him ,?t more attractive
candidate whoa the govern-
ment's credibility is under at-
tack. - - ? .
Using L73J Advisers
But his opponents remind re-
porters that, More than any
potential candidate e x c e p t
Humphrey, _ Mths'.:ie is using
Johnson administration advi
s-
This kind of internal feuding ens -as part of his brain trust,
apparently was being predict- Included In this group nrc
ed as the major effect of the Cyrus Vance, who rose to be
revelations at the White House Defense Secretary Itol'.ert -S,
early last week. . . McNamara's top assistant;
One of Nixon's political ad- Paul Warnke, former assistant
visers told an acquaintance secretary of defense and a hey
Thursday night, "We thought figure in the Pentagon stncly,
Nye wwould sit back art(] watch and Clark Clifford, former see-
the Democrats be destroyed." retary of defense and a
But, 'ac c o r d i n g to this hawk-turned-dove.
source, by Monday night the Muskie was asked by Kalb if
White House began to realize he felt "a personal sense of
that the ultimate discredit betrayal . . , in these ]eaders
might spread to the present following one course of action
government. at the same time as they were
"They learned the truth of telling the Ancerican people
,,,at they have been saying they were following another
for two years," says the course."
source. "The country- doesn't Muskie responded, ". - . the
read the New York Times. It result I d
l
ep
ore. The way in
Hubert Humphrey told re- li reads and hears what the Jo- which the policymaking w
Jtj e~' O4 O /04-: 00300360121-9
Appraved For
- y g"
t o he JaY,nso,r ad= einrnentalways lied.
............ . . .