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Intervention: How America Became Involved In Vietnam
Traces the roots of American involvement in Vietnam and offers a provocative portrayal of Lydon Johnson's role in the Vietnam War
- GenresHistory
550 pages, Hardcover
First published April 12, 1986
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About the author
George McTurnan Kahin
33 books10 followersGeorge McTurnan Kahin was an American historian and political scientist. He was one of the leading experts on Southeast Asia and a critic of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
After completing his dissertation, which is still considered a classic on Indonesian history, Kahin became a faculty member at Cornell University. At Cornell, he became the director of its Southeast Asia Program and founded the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project.
After completing his dissertation, which is still considered a classic on Indonesian history, Kahin became a faculty member at Cornell University. At Cornell, he became the director of its Southeast Asia Program and founded the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project.
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March 30, 2021
Well, it was definitely worth reading, but certainly not the best thing Professor Kahin ever wrote. Not by a long shot. That is most likely, in my view, because he was a South-East Asia specialist, and this book (as the title indicates) is primarily about the decision-making process of the U.S. Government, with only relatively cursory coverage of the machinations within the various Republic of Viet Nam governments (and/or other Vietnamese political actors) of the mid-to-late 1960s.
For those who may be unfamiliar with this author, the late Professor George McTurnan Kahin was not only a brilliant and transformational figure within the field of Asian history, he has been described, and rightfully so, as the "father of area studies". There were, of course, other notable scholars senior to him, particularly during the first decade of his career, but I know of none more influential. Although Professor Lauriston Sharp founded and was the first director (1950-1960) of Cornell University's groundbreaking Southeast Asia Program, he recruited Kahin (then a newly hired assistant professor) as executive director in 1951, when the program had existed for less than a year. Professor Kahin became the SEAP's second director in 1961, and held the position until 1970. He had also founded the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project in 1954, and served as its director until his retirement in 1988. Professor Kahin's influence on the development of South-East Asia area studies, specifically, quite literally cannot be overstated. As one of the most prominent & influential personalities in the newly minted post-war generation of scholars within the English-speaking world, he not only added to the attraction of Cornell's SEAP and further influenced all the many students who studied there, but as the years went by, his influence was amplified by the scholarship & teaching of those he had mentored, the most important of whom would undoubtedly be the late Professor Benedict Anderson, whose doctoral advisor he had been. Professor Anderson, who was arguably even more brilliant than his mentor, had an enormous influence in his own right both within South-East Asia studies and beyond; his surprisingly slim 'Imagined Communities: Reflections On The Origin And Spread Of Nationalism' has a well-deserved reputation as a classic work of scholarship, and is regularly read by both graduate & undergraduate students in areas well beyond not only SEA but even area studies generally, into political philosophy, psychology, and all manner of both arts & sciences. It also happens to be one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read, and I highly recommend it. I'm getting a bit off-track in terms of the present book, though.
This was actually Professor Kahin's second book on the conflict in Viet Nam; the first, co-written with his then Cornell University colleague Professor John W. Lewis, was 'The United States In Vietnam'. Now, I fully realise that during the late 1960s everyone and their proverbial kid sister wanted to offer their 2¢ worth of "wisdom" on the Indo-China conflict, and on the surface it probably looked as though these two scholars would have far better background knowledge as a starting point, as well as the academic and writing skills to come up with something much better than average. Unfortunately, the actual facts were that a specialist in Indonesian political history and a specialist in Chinese politics, neither of whom had any more expertise regarding the nations of former French Indo-China than the average undergraduate or, more pertinently, the U.S. Government officials who were making the majority of decisions on relevant foreign policy generally & bilateral relations with the nations of South-East Asia specifically, were writing a book ostensibly about the Indo-China conflict. Once again, although that book did in fact cover the French Indo-China War (and other international complications affecting events in Viet Nam), it was primarily the U.S. Government that was covered (and criticised), in a fashion not dissimilar to the present book.
It may seem, after reading the above paragraphs, that I am getting ready to (figuratively) light this book on fire and stomp the ashes into the gutter. Nothing could be further from the truth- I gave it three stars for a reason, and as anyone knows who has read more than a few of my reviews here on GR, I tend to be fairly stingy with those stars. I simply wanted to make it clear that Professor Kahin was actually stepping outside of his particular area of specialisation with this book. South-East Asia is an enormous and incredibly diverse part of the world, and although there is a great deal of apparent commonality of culture & historical experience throughout the region, much of that has a decidedly superficial character. In other words, while most nations of South-East Asia (all except Thailand) were formerly colonial territories, in most cases their inherent cultural & experiential differences render nearly any attempt at comparison into an apples & oranges (or, perhaps, calamansi & durian) style dichotomy.
Having said that, and in fairness to Professor Kahin, he did make several research trips to Viet Nam during the 1960s & 1970s, and he also filed hundreds of FOIA requests for the many U.S. Government documents he used during the course of his work in preparation of this book. This was, if I am not mistaken, the very first time that the FOIA was "leveraged", so to speak, in that way for purposes of scholarly research (as opposed to journalism or legal action, etc.) into events which were at the time still quite recent. Although John Prados should probably be credited with regularising, or perhaps even perfecting that type of research, Professor Kahin was certainly a pioneer in that regard.
The book begins with an explanation and analysis of the evolving attitude of the U.S. Government toward what was then still referred to as French Indo-China, both during the Second World War and in the years immediately following, to 1949. There is also some explication of relationships and pressures within the international arena during the early post-WWII years, and how the developing cold war, post-war European financial crises, and a Eurocentric orientation of not only the U.S. Department of State, but also foreign ministries and diplomats throughout the world, affected the situation in South-East Asia and tended to keep international attention focused primarily on Europe. The first three chapters are essentially a prologue, and roughly 100 pages into the book Professor Kahin is already into coverage of the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm and his family. Out of the entire sixteen chapters in this book, there are exactly four which are ostensibly focused on the events and interactions actually taking place in Viet Nam (as opposed to the U.S. view of and reaction to those events & interactions) during the first half of the 1960s, when U.S. military personnel were supposed to be in advisory & support roles only, rather than actual combat. These four chapters, ‘IV - Diem and the Rise of the NLF’, ‘V - The Decline of Diem’s Regime’, ‘VI - The Overthrow of Diem’ and ‘VIII - The Rise and Decline of General Khanh’ do provide a reasonably good basic narrative of the extremely complicated political maneuvering, etc. within the Republic of Viet Nam during that time, but once again, almost exclusively from the perspective of the U.S. Government. In 1986, when this book was published, there were admittedly not many books available that covered in detail aspects of those events such as the liaison role of C.I.A. officer Lucien Conein between General Trần Văn Đôn, General Dương Văn Minh & the other coup plotters and the U.S. Mission led by Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. While that is true, however, it does not mitigate the fact that the emphasis here is clearly much more on the story of U.S. Government decision-making processes and how the various actions and interactions of cabinet-level officials (as well as many U.S. officials at lower levels) tended to impact, and to some extent actually drive, those decision-making processes. In relation to that story, arguably the most interesting and indeed useful aspect of the book is the extensive comparison and close reading presented by Professor Kahin of contemporary accounts written by cabinet officials (and/or members of their individual staffs) as a record of the meetings in which they participated. In some cases the president chaired these meetings; sometimes they took place in the president’s absence for the purpose of preparing options and/or policy recommendations for his consideration. Either way, the reports kept by the various participants provide a fascinating view of the different perspectives brought to the table by cabinet officials, and how this impacted the day-to-day management of the situation in Indo-China.
Like I said at the beginning of this review, this is certainly not the best thing Professor Kahin ever wrote. It is, however, still well worth reading not only for Indo-China specialists or those interested in the entanglement of the U.S. with Viet Nam, Laos & Cambodia, but also for anyone interested in the history of either the so-called “Cold War Era” or of U.S. foreign policy during the late 20th century.
For those who may be unfamiliar with this author, the late Professor George McTurnan Kahin was not only a brilliant and transformational figure within the field of Asian history, he has been described, and rightfully so, as the "father of area studies". There were, of course, other notable scholars senior to him, particularly during the first decade of his career, but I know of none more influential. Although Professor Lauriston Sharp founded and was the first director (1950-1960) of Cornell University's groundbreaking Southeast Asia Program, he recruited Kahin (then a newly hired assistant professor) as executive director in 1951, when the program had existed for less than a year. Professor Kahin became the SEAP's second director in 1961, and held the position until 1970. He had also founded the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project in 1954, and served as its director until his retirement in 1988. Professor Kahin's influence on the development of South-East Asia area studies, specifically, quite literally cannot be overstated. As one of the most prominent & influential personalities in the newly minted post-war generation of scholars within the English-speaking world, he not only added to the attraction of Cornell's SEAP and further influenced all the many students who studied there, but as the years went by, his influence was amplified by the scholarship & teaching of those he had mentored, the most important of whom would undoubtedly be the late Professor Benedict Anderson, whose doctoral advisor he had been. Professor Anderson, who was arguably even more brilliant than his mentor, had an enormous influence in his own right both within South-East Asia studies and beyond; his surprisingly slim 'Imagined Communities: Reflections On The Origin And Spread Of Nationalism' has a well-deserved reputation as a classic work of scholarship, and is regularly read by both graduate & undergraduate students in areas well beyond not only SEA but even area studies generally, into political philosophy, psychology, and all manner of both arts & sciences. It also happens to be one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read, and I highly recommend it. I'm getting a bit off-track in terms of the present book, though.
This was actually Professor Kahin's second book on the conflict in Viet Nam; the first, co-written with his then Cornell University colleague Professor John W. Lewis, was 'The United States In Vietnam'. Now, I fully realise that during the late 1960s everyone and their proverbial kid sister wanted to offer their 2¢ worth of "wisdom" on the Indo-China conflict, and on the surface it probably looked as though these two scholars would have far better background knowledge as a starting point, as well as the academic and writing skills to come up with something much better than average. Unfortunately, the actual facts were that a specialist in Indonesian political history and a specialist in Chinese politics, neither of whom had any more expertise regarding the nations of former French Indo-China than the average undergraduate or, more pertinently, the U.S. Government officials who were making the majority of decisions on relevant foreign policy generally & bilateral relations with the nations of South-East Asia specifically, were writing a book ostensibly about the Indo-China conflict. Once again, although that book did in fact cover the French Indo-China War (and other international complications affecting events in Viet Nam), it was primarily the U.S. Government that was covered (and criticised), in a fashion not dissimilar to the present book.
It may seem, after reading the above paragraphs, that I am getting ready to (figuratively) light this book on fire and stomp the ashes into the gutter. Nothing could be further from the truth- I gave it three stars for a reason, and as anyone knows who has read more than a few of my reviews here on GR, I tend to be fairly stingy with those stars. I simply wanted to make it clear that Professor Kahin was actually stepping outside of his particular area of specialisation with this book. South-East Asia is an enormous and incredibly diverse part of the world, and although there is a great deal of apparent commonality of culture & historical experience throughout the region, much of that has a decidedly superficial character. In other words, while most nations of South-East Asia (all except Thailand) were formerly colonial territories, in most cases their inherent cultural & experiential differences render nearly any attempt at comparison into an apples & oranges (or, perhaps, calamansi & durian) style dichotomy.
Having said that, and in fairness to Professor Kahin, he did make several research trips to Viet Nam during the 1960s & 1970s, and he also filed hundreds of FOIA requests for the many U.S. Government documents he used during the course of his work in preparation of this book. This was, if I am not mistaken, the very first time that the FOIA was "leveraged", so to speak, in that way for purposes of scholarly research (as opposed to journalism or legal action, etc.) into events which were at the time still quite recent. Although John Prados should probably be credited with regularising, or perhaps even perfecting that type of research, Professor Kahin was certainly a pioneer in that regard.
The book begins with an explanation and analysis of the evolving attitude of the U.S. Government toward what was then still referred to as French Indo-China, both during the Second World War and in the years immediately following, to 1949. There is also some explication of relationships and pressures within the international arena during the early post-WWII years, and how the developing cold war, post-war European financial crises, and a Eurocentric orientation of not only the U.S. Department of State, but also foreign ministries and diplomats throughout the world, affected the situation in South-East Asia and tended to keep international attention focused primarily on Europe. The first three chapters are essentially a prologue, and roughly 100 pages into the book Professor Kahin is already into coverage of the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm and his family. Out of the entire sixteen chapters in this book, there are exactly four which are ostensibly focused on the events and interactions actually taking place in Viet Nam (as opposed to the U.S. view of and reaction to those events & interactions) during the first half of the 1960s, when U.S. military personnel were supposed to be in advisory & support roles only, rather than actual combat. These four chapters, ‘IV - Diem and the Rise of the NLF’, ‘V - The Decline of Diem’s Regime’, ‘VI - The Overthrow of Diem’ and ‘VIII - The Rise and Decline of General Khanh’ do provide a reasonably good basic narrative of the extremely complicated political maneuvering, etc. within the Republic of Viet Nam during that time, but once again, almost exclusively from the perspective of the U.S. Government. In 1986, when this book was published, there were admittedly not many books available that covered in detail aspects of those events such as the liaison role of C.I.A. officer Lucien Conein between General Trần Văn Đôn, General Dương Văn Minh & the other coup plotters and the U.S. Mission led by Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. While that is true, however, it does not mitigate the fact that the emphasis here is clearly much more on the story of U.S. Government decision-making processes and how the various actions and interactions of cabinet-level officials (as well as many U.S. officials at lower levels) tended to impact, and to some extent actually drive, those decision-making processes. In relation to that story, arguably the most interesting and indeed useful aspect of the book is the extensive comparison and close reading presented by Professor Kahin of contemporary accounts written by cabinet officials (and/or members of their individual staffs) as a record of the meetings in which they participated. In some cases the president chaired these meetings; sometimes they took place in the president’s absence for the purpose of preparing options and/or policy recommendations for his consideration. Either way, the reports kept by the various participants provide a fascinating view of the different perspectives brought to the table by cabinet officials, and how this impacted the day-to-day management of the situation in Indo-China.
Like I said at the beginning of this review, this is certainly not the best thing Professor Kahin ever wrote. It is, however, still well worth reading not only for Indo-China specialists or those interested in the entanglement of the U.S. with Viet Nam, Laos & Cambodia, but also for anyone interested in the history of either the so-called “Cold War Era” or of U.S. foreign policy during the late 20th century.
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