American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War

by David E. Kaiser

Fought as fiercely by politicians and the public as by troops in Southeast Asia, the Vietnam War--its origins, its conduct, its consequences--is still being contested. In what will become the classic account, based on newly opened archival sources, David Kaiser rewrites what we know about this conflict. Reviving and expanding a venerable tradition of political, diplomatic, and military history, he shows not only why we entered the war, but also why our efforts were doomed to fail. American Tragedy is the first book to draw on complete official documentation to tell the full story of how we became involved in Vietnam--and the story it tells decisively challenges widely held assumptions about the roles of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. Using an enormous range of source materials from these administrations, Kaiser shows how the policies that led to the war were developed during Eisenhower's tenure and nearly implemented in the closing days of his administration in response to a crisis in Laos; how Kennedy immediately reversed course on Laos and refused for three years to follow recommendations for military action in Southeast Asia; and how Eisenhower's policies reemerged in the military intervention mounted by the Johnson administration. As he places these findings in the context of the Cold War and broader American objectives, Kaiser offers the best analysis to date of the actual beginnings of the war in Vietnam, the impact of the American advisory mission from 1962 through 1965, and the initial strategy of General Westmoreland. A deft re-creation of the deliberations, actions, and deceptions that brought two decades of post-World War II confidence to an ignominious end, American Tragedy offers unparalleled insight into the Vietnam War at home and abroad--and into American foreign policy in the 1960s.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, Politics

576 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2000

About the author

David E. Kaiser, born June 7, 1947, is an American historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. He was a Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the Naval War College from 1990 until 2012 and has also taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College(2006-7 and 2012-3), and Harvard University.

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

In his book, David E. Kaiser aims to give explanations for American policy choices in the Vietnam War. 

According to him, the underlying causes of the war were the communist insurgency in South Vietnam and the superficial policies of the U.S Departments of State and Defense, as well as the personalities of Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. War in 1965 was "a logical, but not essential, consequence of the previous thirty years of American history." 

As the author argues, Ike Eisenhower belonged to the "lost generation," which had undergone the Great Depression and the Second World War that allowed them to face horrible scenarios "with relative equanimity" yet without changing their assumptions. John Kennedy and most of his advisers belonged to the "GI generation," which accepted without questions the need to fight Communism all over the world, distrusted negotiations, and preferred team play even when it yielded identical proposals over and over again. Journalists such as David Halberstam belonged to the "silent generation," which criticized the policies of the "GI generation." What exactly Kaiser wants to convey by dividing policy-makers into generations is not clear, though, and Kennedy, for example, often took decisions that differed from the stereotype of the GI generation – his views bridged generations. That is why, I think, this part of the author's argument fails to persuade. 

Kaiser's other main idea is that foreign policy directly depends on presidential power. President Eisenhower made several critical decisions and statements that set the stage for subsequent American relations with Vietnam – mainly, he gave leaders in developing countries a stark choice between the United States and the Soviet Union. Kaiser asserts that where weak countries were allowed to remain neutral, American interests were served better in the long term, but Eisenhower and his Departments of State and Defense ignored political and military realities. 

By the time Kennedy entered the White House, the American commitment to defending Southeast Asia was relatively firm and the options limited. As a sign that the course of events might have been different had Kennedy stayed alive, the new President is shown single-handedly stirring his whole administration away from almost unavoidable intervention in Laos. For Kaiser, Kennedy is clearly a hero. The author approvingly cites George Kennan's scathing remarks in regard to Eisenhower's non-intellectualism and desire to seek escape in golf. Kennedy, in contrast, is portrayed as having an uncanny ability to disassociate himself from the most challenging problems to gain perspective. 

Along with Roger Hilsman, James Forrestal, the CIA's Samuel Adams, and U.S Army adviser John Paul Vann, Kennedy realized that the Viet Cong's strength derived from popular support in the countryside. The South Vietnamese government was incapable of devising reform programs that would attract the people, and its army was unable to eradicate the Viet Minh gierrillas or even maintain at least partial combat effectiveness. In his instructions, queries, and private communication, John F. Kennedy emphasized the civil nature of the war, the importance of the political, social, and economic aspects, and the need for Vietnamese self-reliance. He "never regarded Southeast Asia as a propitious place to deploy American power" and was annoyed when George Ball publicly suggested an "irrevocable commitment" or that withdrawal was "unthinkable." Kaiser's Kennedy is not someone determined to "pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and success of liberty," but rather a wise leader, who recognized when the cost of a policy would outweigh all its potential benefits. However, the author does not offer any new evidence to convince the reader Kennedy was actually doubting the American policy towards Vietnam.

As Kaiser further argues, Johnson did not consider seriously any alternative to general war. He made Vietnam his top priority issue, but unlike his predecessor, he did not challenge his advisers' assumption that the United States needed to intervene to battle Communism in Vietnam. All of this came to a head on December 7 1964, when a late draft of a national security action memorandum (NSAM) was changed to include the phrase "such troops as necessary" to justify American commitment. According to the author, just as Johnson had little idea how to defeat poverty when he launched the War on Poverty, so he decided to go to war in Southeast Asia with the stroke of a pen and "without investigating the situation very thoroughly." Johnson was a superficial student of the war, so even when information was available, he was not that good at comprehending it. Having studied newly available U.S army reports, Kaiser concludes that nothing the United States did made significant progress in breaking the enemy's morale, holding territory populated by South Vietnamese sympathetic to the Communists, or cutting off Viet Cong support, and Washington should have come to terms with this fact much earlier than it did. 

David E. Kaiser blames the war mainly on the Eisenhower and Johnson administrations and persistent miscalculations of the National Security advisers in regard to the importance of Vietnam and the capability of the United States to enforce its will there. He points out that the Eisenhower administration made war plans for the defense of Southeast Asia, and particularly South Vietnam, that involved the use of nuclear weapons. These plans then guided American military thinking on Vietnam toward Johnson's decision to send troops to Vietnam, and the Johnson administration followed them meticulously, to the letter, up to the point where nuclear weapons would be used. 

AMERICAN TRAGEDY is an interesting and well-researched work, which, however, does not live up to its author's sweeping preliminary claims. Some of David E. Kaiser's arguments do not seem to serve any purpose in upholding his main thesis, and he regards President John F. Kennedy much too idealistically even in my opinion (I am a Kennedy admirer.) I expected more.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaiser's book has much to commend it. It does a great job at placing Vietnam decisionmaking in a broader foreign policy context, and he does better than those who have preceded him in linking Vietnam decisions to the ongoing crises in Laos. He is also very good on the 1964 coup that brought Nguyen Khanh to power, confirming George Kahin's arguments about the centrality of U.S. involvement in that important but little known episode. He sees the Pentagon's acceptance of gradual escalation in 1964 as necessitated by the hard facts of logistic life--the military could not have escalated the war more rapidly even if given civilian approval because of the primitive infrastructure in Vietnam. He plays down the importance of the much-studied July 1965 discussions that scholars have generally seen as producing Johnson's decisions for war. Rather, he insists-- and on this Logevall agrees--LBJ made his decisions for war in Vietnam "in principle" in December 1964 and implemented them early the following year. He so effectively concealed from the public what he was doing, Kaiser goes on, that he has also misled a whole generation of historians. Similarly, the importance of Gen. William C. Westmoreland's May 1965 ground troop request is minimized. Its principal significance was to force the administration to go public with its decisions for war. When he finally revealed his hand in July 1965, Kaiser concludes, LBJ still brilliantly obscured the extent and the magnitude of the commitment he was making.

One might question first why he begins his study with Eisenhower. The outlines of Vietnam policy, as numerous scholars have pointed out, go back at least to the Truman administration, and decisions made under FDR had a great impact on subsequent policies. Kaiser appears to see himself as a lonely voice in the wilderness standing forth boldly against the powerful forces of Eisenhower revisionism. He seems grandly unaware that, at least on Vietnam, Eisenhower revisionism has long been discredited. Kaiser notes the "paradox" between Eisenhower's decisions not to go to war during the Dien Bien Phu crisis in 1954 and his subsequent plans for war in Indochina. In fact, there is no paradox at all. War in support of a decadent and recalcitrant France was one thing; war in defense of U.S. strategic objectives quite another. He overemphasizes the importance of Ike's "secret" war plans. What is really crucial in terms of U.S. involvement in Vietnam is Eisenhower's political decision in late 1954 to buck the admittedly bad odds and assist South Vietnam. It is hard to believe, moreover, that even in a hidebound military establishment war plans drawn up in the heyday of the New Look would continue to exercise such sway through Sputnik, Flexible Response, and the Cuban missile crisis.

Kaiser's depiction of Kennedy is quite interesting. He shows him to be quite intelligent and knowledgeable about foreign affairs, skeptical about the policies suggested by the Pentagon and State Dept., and very good at encouraging diverse opinions among his advisors. At the same time, Kaiser presents considerable documentation that many policymakers fundamentally misunderstood events in Southeast Asia. From a diplomatic point of view, they overemphasized the importance of Vietnam. From a military point of view, completely misunderstanding the nature of the challenge posed by the insurgency in South Vietnam. Kennedy's confidence and skepticism led him to resist suggestions for major American involvement and Kaiser makes a good case he would have continued in this vein in a second term in office.

Johnson is quite different. Johnson wanted to be a great domestic president, and almost achieved that status. Johnson, however, was less experienced in foreign policy, more doctrinaire in his anti-communism, and more deferential to the Pentagon and the State Dept., ultimately accepting the case for a major US involvement in Vietnam. Kaiser has a nice description of the relatively deceitful manner in which the Johnson administration went about proceeding to war, something that would have major consequences later on.

In all, a great book.

[Billy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daivd Kaiser’s book agrees with Logevall in that it stresses Johnson’s choices. Kaiser specifically argues that Kennedy would have avoided war if not assassinated. He shows that from the beginning, JFK was open to diplomatic approaches to Indochina. To Kaiser, however, JFK was not a containment Cold Warrior, but a proponent of détente who worked to reduce tensions between the superpowers. His contention that the Vietnam conflict had no discernable effect on the course of the Cold War flies in the face of Lee Kwon Yew that the war gave SE Asia a “breathing period” in which they bolstered their defenses against communist aggression.

[John Devlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A revealing look at how Kennedy's involvement in Vietnam had a lot more to do with later U.S. policy than many would have America think.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazon blurb

Fought as fiercely by politicians and the public as by troops in Southeast Asia, the Vietnam War--its origins, its conduct, its consequences, is still being contested. In what will become the classic account, based on newly opened archival sources, David Kaiser rewrites what we know about this conflict. Reviving and expanding a venerable tradition of political, diplomatic, and military history, he shows not only why we entered the war, but also why our efforts were doomed to fail.

American Tragedy is the first book to draw on complete official documentation to tell the full story of how we became involved in Vietnam--and the story it tells decisively challenges widely held assumptions about the roles of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. Using an enormous range of source materials from these administrations, Kaiser shows how the policies that led to the war were developed during Eisenhower's tenure and nearly implemented in the closing days of his administration in response to a crisis in Laos; how Kennedy immediately reversed course on Laos and refused for three years to follow recommendations for military action in Southeast Asia; and how Eisenhower's policies reemerged in the military intervention mounted by the Johnson administration. As he places these findings in the context of the Cold War and broader American objectives, Kaiser offers the best analysis to date of the actual beginnings of the war in Vietnam, the impact of the American advisory mission from 1962 through 1965, and the initial strategy of General Westmoreland.

A deft re-creation of the deliberations, actions, and deceptions that brought two decades of post-World War II confidence to an ignominious end, American Tragedy offers unparalleled insight into the Vietnam War at home and abroad, and into American foreign policy in the 1960s.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting piece of history but too long for my taste