On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was tragically assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Aboard Airforce One from Dallas to Washington, vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson was hurriedly sworn in as the thirty-sixth president of the United States. This abrupt transition made Johnson the most powerful leader of the free world. But it plunged him into the prolonged struggle in Vietnam that would ultimately crush his political life. The Vietnam War, in which Johnson played a crucial role, was the primary cause of the destruction of his presidency. The war itself was the most disputed conflict of arms in American history.
President Johnson’s general policy on Indochina and Vietnam was to continue Kennedy’s policy of deterring international communist aggression, preventing communist domination of South Vietnam, and promoting the creation of a viable and increasingly democratic society in South Vietnam by supporting its government with political, psychological, economic and military aid. Some Kennedy aides had argued that the elimination of Ngo Dinh Diem would produce a leadership in South Vietnam better at fighting the communists in order to achieve these common objectives, both serving the interests of the U.S. and promoting freedom in Vietnam. After the death of President Diem and his brother, the United States learned the coup did neither. On the contrary, the political instability of the unconstitutional government in Saigon coupled with the acceleration of NVA infiltration from Laos to South Vietnam, aggravated the situation and dogged the United States for the next several years.
In his first address to the nation, President Johnson pledged to heal the wounds of the assassination of President Kennedy and to build a “Great Society” for the American people. He proposed to concentrate his efforts to solve racial issues, poverty, malnutrition and education. Vietnam was still abstract to the president. However, within twenty-four hours, the abstraction of Vietnam gave way to the painful reality as the president considered how to reconcile the nightmare of Vietnam with his dream of a Great Society. He seemed determined to handle both issues: resolve the chaos in Vietnam while realizing the American dream of a better society. This would consolidate his position in America’s history. He could not let Vietnam be lost and to become the target of blame previously assigned to one of his predecessors, a Democrat who had lost China to the communists in 1949. On the second day of his presidency, Johnson announced that the United States’ military support for the Saigon military junta would continue.
The concept of a “limited war” was said to be a philosophical legacy of the Kennedy administration that was left to the Johnson administration. Military historian Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr., as related by Robert L. Hewitt in the June 1993 issue of Vietnam Magazine, suggested that the theories and policies of Kennedy administration’s policy-makers who committed U.S. combat troops to Vietnam initially were irrevocably linked to a “defensive strategy.” Summers quoted the words of McNamara: “The greatest contribution Vietnam is making—right or wrong is beside the point—is that it is developing the ability in the United States to fight a limited war, to go to war without the necessity of arousing the public ire.” Hewitt’s own view was: “When President Johnson escalated the war to the intensity he did, it precipitated a crisis for those theorists. A strategy for a prolonged, ‘low-profile’ defensive war was replaced by a strategy for a prolonged, ‘high-profile’ defensive war.”1 Hewitt also quoted Bernard B. Fall, that: “As soon as American advisers were engaged in combat operations, the fact that there were 20,000 under Kennedy and 400,000 under Johnson becomes of a little importance.”2
Johnson’s concept of “escalation” of a “high-profile defensive war”—to the point that historians name it the “Americanization” of the war—was just an imitation of the Kennedy administration’s concept of a “low-profile defensive war.” “Escalation” thus would be defined as a “development” of the current strategy, which was being applied in Vietnam by the Kennedy administration. Johnson’s continuation of Kennedy’s policies and theories would be explained by the fact that President Johnson had maintained almost all of Kennedy’s team of advisers who had formulated war strategies for Vietnam.
Many American historians have observed that the result of these experts’ advice to consecutive presidents of the United States from Kennedy on, was to demolish American foreign policy and hope in Indochina and Vietnam, and led to the defeat of the US Armed Forces in an illogical and negative war of defense and attrition. Indeed, John Dellinger has remarked: “Such was certainly the case in the Vietnam War, a hotbed of political intrigue. Civilians directly influenced presidential decisions or made decisions that had enormous consequences on the battlefield. Those decisions most often came from the ambassador to South Vietnam, the secretary of defense and the national security adviser.”3 According to Dellinger, these key “experts” were Henry Cabot Lodge, Maxwell Taylor, Robert McNamara, Clark Clifford, and Henry Kissinger. Four of them, except Kissinger, were Kennedy-Johnson aides. Historian Norman B. Hannah adds to that list Averell Harriman and William Sullivan. Hannah proved that their policy of “neutralization of Laos” and their concept to “condone the extensive use of the Laotian border” for the NVA to exploit the Ho Chi Minh Trail led to the “so-called McNamara Line.”4 The concept of a “defensive war” also grew out of Harriman and Sullivan’s theories and applications in Laos, which helped lose the war.
Another American historian, H.R. McMaster, explained how these “civilian experts” so trusted by United States presidents, especially Kennedy and Johnson, led to defeat. In a Vietnam Magazine article of August 1997, he wrote: “Dismissed JSC [Joint Chiefs of Staff] access to the president reflected Kennedy’s opinion of his senior military advisers…. The Old Guards in the Pentagon were relegated to a little influence.”5 After the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy told his brother Robert Kennedy, “If we listen to them, and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive to tell them that they were wrong.”6 President Kennedy also warned Johnson: “To watch the generals and to avoid feeling that just because they were military men their opinion[s] on military matters were worth a damn.”7 Like his predecessor, President Johnson also relegated his Joint Chiefs of Staff to the background. Both Kennedy and Johnson appreciated civilian advisers such as McNamara, Harriman, and the Bundy brothers. Particularly, under Johnson administration, the Oval Office “Lunch Bunch” decided every important political and military decision in Indochina and Vietnam. Every Tuesday the president held a luncheon at the White House with a group of aides included the secretaries of state and defense, some national security advisers, his press secretary, and some more congressional figures or Washington’s bureaucrats. They discussed and decided strategies, and even tactics that would be applied in Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam battlefields. No military commanders, not even the Joint Chiefs nor the JCS’s chairman, were present at any of these luncheons. Thus, the “civilian experts,” or bureaucrats, and not the generals, decided how to wage the war. American media and historians name them the “Lunch Powers.” McMaster concluded: “The war was lost in Washington, D.C., even before Americans assumed sole responsibility for the fighting in 1965 and before they realized the country was at war: indeed, even before the first American units were deployed.”8
Among Kennedy and Johnson’s top aides was a unique military expert, General Maxwell Taylor. According to McMaster and Dellinger, Taylor was author of the “limited war” strategy. Dellinger named Taylor “the foot-dragging” general, remarking: “Taylor was willing to up the ante, but he was never willing to win the pot.”9 General Taylor was brought back from retirement, first to serve as Kennedy’s military adviser and then as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in October 1962. He played an essential role in U.S. political and military decisions in Indochina and South Vietnam. Other historians have identified Robert McNamara as the most important aide of presidents Kennedy and Johnson. McMaster writes, “Defense Secretary McNamara would dominate the [Vietnam] policy-making process because of three mutually reinforcing factors: the Chiefs’ ineffectiveness as an advisory group, Johnson’s profound insecurity, and the president’s related unwillingness to entertain divergent views on the subject of Vietnam…. He would become Lyndon Johnson’s ‘oracle’ in Vietnam.”10 A careful study proved that McNamara was neither the “brain” nor the “wisdom” of White House policy on Vietnam, but a masterfully political swindler who lied to the American people and the U.S. Congress by his deceptive notion of trying “to fight a war, to go to war without the necessity of arousing the public ire.” McNamara’s deceptive notion, however, pleased President Johnson, who was seeking such a solution to deceive the American people and the Congress.
Perhaps the most devastating aspect of Johnson’s policy in Vietnam was the public revelation that America was suddenly plunged into a serious war in Vietnam. In the beginning, the president was influenced by the advice of Kennedy aides. He listened to their arguments and theories carefully before he decided to hold South Vietnam and escalate the war. Historian Norman B. Hannah described President Johnson: “The image of L.B.J. is not one of a man spoiling for a fight but of a man in agony over the necessity of pouring billions into a strange kind of bloody fighting he does not like or understand.”11 Just a few weeks into his presidency, the president found himself dealing with the political degeneration of the new military junta in Saigon and the serious increase of communist activities in Laos, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and throughout South Vietnam. The war would be lost, as Colby had estimated. Johnson had to choose either to renege on Kennedy’s commitment in Vietnam and withdraw, or to increase the intensity of commitment to respond to the gloomy situation, and possibly dump South Vietnam in the very near future. Finally, he chose the latter.
In the meantime, Senator Mike Mansfield and American columnist Walter Lippmann proposed neutralization of South Vietnam. Lippmann’s theory of neutralization particularly made the President worry. It was: “a) SEA [Southeast Asia] is destined to become a zone of Chinese control; b) we could not halt Chinese communist expansion; and c) that our best hope was to slow that expansionism down and make it less brutal.”12 The Johnson administration rejected Mansfield and Lippmann’s proposals of neutralization of South Vietnam. However, Lippmann’s theory became a very important “account” that would affect Johnson’s aptitude and application in formulating political and military strategy for Indochina. Johnson’s concept of war envisioned “an intensively defensive war” to stop Communist North Vietnam’s expansion into the South but with “limits” so as not to provoke Red China to intervene in Indochina and transform it into a total war in Southeast Asia. Johnson’s conduct of the war would later prove this remark. Johnson’s concept therefore became his “own theory” rather than the one of the foot-dragging general, Taylor, or the bureaucrat McNamara. These experts were Johnson’s “hands” but not Johnson’s “brain.” Thus—in my opinion—President Johnson owned the Second Indochina War with his own strategic and tactical modus operandi.
Using this approach, Johnson led his team into the war in Indochina having an apparent political goal of continuing Kennedy’s policy and the enforcement of American will in Vietnam. His military strategy would be seen as a perilous adventure. Dellinger names Johnson’s concept of war as some kind of war of attrition: “Escalating the number of American troops to more than a half-million while fighting a restricted war until the enemy could be defeated by attrition.”13 The United States had never experienced a protracted war. On the contrary, such a war was one designed by the communists of North Vietnam to fight their stronger enemy.
At the beginning of 1964, Johnson faced two difficult fronts in Indochina: (1) The tacit war in Laos, and (2) the second offensive phase of the communist revolutionary war in South Vietnam. The connection between these two fronts was the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Consequently, the trail was really a critical problem for Johnson’s war team. It became the main cause of the American “escalation” in Vietnam. To face these threats, the Johnson administration developed a strategy of concentration of air-power efforts and MACV-SOG’s secret operations to cut off North Vietnamese troop and supply movement to the South along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. American combat troops were sent to South Vietnam in order to protect the long border between South Vietnam and Laos. On the other hand, MACV held command over all “pacification” ground operations to search and destroy the VC National Liberation Front’s army and guerrilla units while they improved the ARVN to secure the countryside.
In order to carry out these main military goals in Indochina, Johnson appointed his best men to the region. In Laos, at Harriman’s urging, William Sullivan was assigned as ambassador to Vientiane to conduct the tacit war against the NVA and the Pathet-Lao and to support the Laotian Royal Army of General Nosavan. In South Vietnam, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell Taylor, was assigned as ambassador to Saigon, and General William Westmoreland was made post commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV). Although the problems in the U.S. Command in Indochina were presumed resolved this was not the case. Sullivan did not get along with Taylor and Westmoreland. The “Harriman Line” and the “Sullivan Speedway” still existed, frustrating U.S. strategy in South Vietnam. Meanwhile, in Washington, the Johnson administration prepared military support for the war. However, escalation of the “defensive” war was the United States’ fourth paradox.
In South Vietnam, on January 6, 1964, the military junta commissioned the national power to the troika comprised of Big Minh, Tran van Don, and Tran Thien Khiem. Big Minh was on top but he was a suspected neutralist. On January 30, 1964, General Nguyen Khanh, II Corps Commander, with the help of Lt. General Tran Thien Khiem, Major General Nguyen Van Thieu and the Dai Viet Party, overthrew General Big Minh, dissolved the old troika and replaced it with a new one composed of himself, General Big Minh, and Lt. General Tran Thien Khiem. Khanh proclaimed himself chief of state and secured American support. In the meantime, General Khanh arrested five generals of the junta; Don, Kim, Xuan, Dinh, and Vy, whom he suspected of being inclined toward a neutralist solution for South Vietnam. These generals were confined at Dalat City for months. General Big Minh was kept as titular chief of state, but in the following months Minh continued to struggle to gain control of national power with General Khanh; he failed twice. On May 4, 1964, in a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Saigon, Khanh suggested the latter to convey to Washington his opinion that the war could not be won in South Vietnam except by an invasion of North Vietnam. He also demanded an immediate bombing of Hanoi and a reinforcement of 10,000 American Special Forces to seal the border.
General Nguyen Khanh was probably unaware that Washington had already prepared a bombing plan against North Vietnam. In the first two months of 1964, when French president Charles de Gaulle, who may have had special contacts with both Duong van Minh and Ho Chi Minh, strongly appealed for a neutralist solution for Vietnam, and Prince Sihanouk announced that he would continue to accept U.S. military and economic aid providing Cambodia’s neutrality could be respected. At the same time, William Bundy, assistant secretary of state for Far East Asia (replacing Roger Hilsman), reported to Johnson that since early 1964 North Vietnam had been continuously sending large number of arms and troops to South Vietnam and it appeared that it had already won the war. In March, President Johnson sent McNamara to South Vietnam when communist guerrillas moved their attacks closer to Saigon. In Saigon, McNamara cabled the president that the dangerous neutralist sentiments persisted. Johnson cabled back, ordering U.S. authorities to stop “neutralist talk” wherever possible by whatever means. After returning to Washington, McNamara proposed that South Vietnam begin general mobilization, that the ARVN receive the most modern of U.S. equipment, and finally, that an exact plan to take the war to North Vietnam be prepared. On March 17, 1964, President Johnson convened an extraordinary session of the National Security Council (NSC) and McNamara informed the NSC that South Vietnam was on the verge of a total collapse. The president immediately authorized war preparations and planning of the strategy for the bombing of North Vietnam. While the bombing Operation Plan 37-64 was being prepared, Johnson made his first direct and instantaneous combat moves, ordering the U.S. Navy and Air Force jets to fly reconnaissance support missions for the T-28 air operations that had been used years ago in Laos, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He also ordered the intensification of covert secret missions on land, sea, and air against North Vietnam by MACV-SOG, and signed the OPLAN-34A.
A week after President Johnson’s orders, the Operation Plan 37-64 bombing scenario to North Vietnam was completed with a large target list. However, before the United States began its real war in Indochina, the president sent his senior aide, secretary of state Dean Rusk, to South Vietnam for a final assessment of the political and military situation in the region. On May 17, 1964, when Rusk flied to Saigon, in Laos the Pathet-Lao launched a new phase of attack against the Laotian Royal Army. The three-year-old neutralist government of Laos would be disregarded at any time.
The outgoing ambassador in Saigon, Henry Cabot Lodge, who was speculated to be a possible Republican candidate for the presidency, was briefed by Dean Rusk on the OPLAN 37-64 bombing of North Vietnam. Lodge advised Rusk that the United States could use the “solution” as a “stick and carrot” policy toward Hanoi. Rusk shared Lodge’s idea. After his return to Washington, Rusk reported Lodge’s advice to Johnson. The president and Dean Rusk agreed that the “bombing” should go along with the “dialogue” with Hanoi. Rusk called that a “psychological struggle” and he believed that the threat or initial use of the bombing would bring Hanoi to the conference table.
Actually, the “stick and carrot” approach would appear as follows: The United States declared it would initiate action by air and naval means against North Vietnam until Hanoi agreed to stop the war. If hostilities ceased, the U.S. would then undertake: (1) to obtain the agreement of Saigon to a resumption of trade between North and South, (2) to initiate a program of food assistance to North Vietnam, (3) to reduce control on U.S. trade with North Vietnam, (4) to recognize North Vietnam diplomatically and, if Hanoi were interested, undertake an exchange of diplomatic representatives, and (5) to remove U.S. forces from South Vietnam, on a phased basis, reducing the number of military advisors or trainers to the level of 350, as permitted under the Geneva Accords. In addition, the peace package required a guarantee of full amnesty for all Southern guerrillas, then estimated to number 103,000, and it proposed, that the DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) could repatriate Viet Cong from South Vietnam over whatever period the DRV desired.
This peace package “message” versus the threat of a wider war was to be carried to Hanoi by a Canadian diplomat arranged by President Johnson and Canadian prime minister Lester Pearson on May 28, 1964 in New York. The “messenger” was the chief of the Canadian International Control Commission (ICC) delegation in Vietnam, James Blair Seaborn, who had the right to rotate between Saigon and Hanoi according to the Geneva Accords. Seaborn went to Hanoi twice. The first trip, on June 16, 1964, he met North Vietnam’s prime minister Pham van Dong. After two hours of conversation, Dong suggested Seaborn convey to Washington the resolute determination of North Vietnam to pursue the war even if the United States increased aid to South Vietnam to wage war against the North. With his answer went a counter-proposal composed of three pre-requisites: (1) American withdrawal from South Vietnam, (2) peace and neutrality for South Vietnam—in the Cambodian manner—with the participation of the Liberation Front, such that the people of the South could arrange the affairs of South Vietnam without third-party involvement, and (3) a “just solution,” meaning re-unification of the country, which was seen as fundamental. Pham van Dong’s reply meant that communist North Vietnam would accept the “stick” but not the “carrot.”
Seaborn’s second trip occurred on August 18, 1964. Again he met Pham van Dong. The meeting occurred 16 days after the “Maddox Crisis” and 2 weeks after the Operation Plan 37-64 bombing against Hanoi had been performed by the U.S. 7th Fleet. Dong was furious and did not forget to deliver to Washington his Communist Party’s warning that if the war came to North Vietnam, it would come to the whole of Southeast Asia. Returning to Washington, Seaborn reported that Hanoi had noticeably changed. People were ordered to conduct air-raid drills, dig street trenches, and constructing brick bunkers all around the city. All of these meant that North Vietnam had decided to continue the war at any price, both in the North and in the South of Vietnam. The United States’ “stick and carrot” policy clearly affected the North Vietnamese communists psychologically. They accepted “the ante in order to win the pot” as it was demonstrated later. Reliably, the leaders in Hanoi had speculated the risks they might have faced while confronting an enormous adversary like the United States. However, they, and especially General Vo Nguyen Giap, had learned from the North Korean Army how a weak nation can vanquish modern American troops when a long war occurred through, as Giap named it, the “political psychological shortcoming” of the democratic system. The crucial weaknesses of the United States in a prolonged war, as Giap estimated, were: “Public opinion in the democracy will demand an end of the ‘useless bloodshed,’ or its legislature will insist on knowing for how long it will have to vote astronomical credits without a clear-cut victory in sight. This is what eternally compels the military leaders of democratic armies to promise a quick end—to bring the boys home by Christmas—or force the democratic politicians to agree to almost any kind of humiliating compromise.”14 Under the clear-sighted leadership of Hanoi the war would continue, at any price, until Vietnam could be reunified and a socialist regime could be established, not only in Vietnam, but in the whole of Indochina.
James Blair Seaborn’s historic mission was never disclosed to the American public. All details of the “stick and carrot” policy were engulfed by the mysterious circumstances in the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, the U.S. Honolulu Pacific Command reported to Washington that the U.S.S. destroyer Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese PT-boats at thirty miles offshore North Vietnam in “international” waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. The U.S.S. Maddox was described as having been on a routine mission in international waters offshore Vietnam since July 31, 1964. It was midnight of August 2 in Washington; the joint chiefs aroused President Johnson. Immediately the president ordered another destroyer, the U.S.S. C. Turner Joy, to join Maddox in the region. Two days later, on August 4, also in the dark of midnight, Washington received the alert of a second North Vietnamese PT boats’ attack against U.S.S. Maddox and U.S.S. C. Turner Joy when these two American destroyers linked up. This time the attack occurred at fifty to fifty-five miles off the coast of North Vietnam. Within minutes later, the National Security Council convened and President Johnson decided immediately to start phase one of the Operation Plan 37-64 bombing scenario against North Vietnam.
At 10:30 August 5, 1964, while American bombers from the 7th Fleet were in the air, President Johnson told the nation: “Renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply.”15 Thus, the United States directly entered the war in Vietnam without declaration at 11 A.M., August 5, 1964. The first American air strike on North Vietnam, by sixty-four U.S. naval aircraft, targeted Vinh, a northern province of the DMZ. Three days later, on August 7, 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed first by the House by 416–0, then the Senate by 88–2. The resolution authorized the president of the United States to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against U.S. forces in Southeast Asia and approved in advance all necessary steps, including armed forces in meeting any requests by the SEATO nations for assistance.
The claim that the Johnson administration intentionally triggered the Vietnam War by orchestrating the Maddox incident and deluding the Congress has remained a topic of discussion. At least two books and more than one hundred newspaper and magazine articles have been written about this unimportant matter. The important point was that the United States had entered into a non-essential war in Vietnam that was supposed to be fought by the South Vietnamese themselves. President Johnson himself knew that he should not commit ground forces to Vietnam. At his birthday party on August 27, 1964, he said: “I’ve had advice to load our planes and bomb certain areas that I think would enlarge and escalate the war and result in our committing a good many American boys to fight a war I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia.”16
Serious political and military problems in Indochina were thought to have changed Johnson’s initial intentions. Washington policy-makers had their own reasons for taking new measures to hold onto United States goals in Southeast Asia. First, the political situation in South Vietnam was a burden for the United States. There were consecutive coups d’état and the national power consecutively changed hands after the death of President Ngo Dinh Diem. This situation eroded the vital force of the ARVN to fight a war and created irremediable problems. The clashes between Buddhists and Catholics in the last week of August 1964 killed almost a hundred people. The Buddhists initiated anti-government riots in Saigon and Hue. In Saigon, students of the Buddhist university and elsewhere organized several riots against the military junta, demanding “peace for Vietnam” and “GIs go home.” On August 27, 1964, thousands of student demonstrators tried to attack the ARVN headquarters near Tan-Son-Nhut airport for the same reasons. In addition, during the last two weeks of November 1964, tens of thousands of people of divergent nationalist clans rioted in Saigon to demand “reforms” and “elections.” In this chaos, only the ARVN’s junior officers held their units in safe order. As the generals tried to purge each other for power, the fighting against the communists at that time was dubbed “La Guerre des Capitaines” by the French press.
Second, the NVA activities along the Ho Chi Minh Trail markedly increased. During the last six months of 1964, the number of infiltrators increased to 34,000 and the trail itself developed. Communists attacked the CIDG and ARVN outposts along the border of the Central Highlands and in the Mekong Delta. The VC guerrilla circle approached the Capital Special Zone (Biệt-Khu Thủ-đô, composed of Saigon, Cholon and Gia-Dinh Province) and VC sabotage was targeted at American installations in Saigon and at U.S. air bases around the country.
Third, North Vietnam had advanced in conducting retaliation in South Vietnam, after the first phase of U.S. bombardment at Vinh. The Joint Chiefs of Staff alerted President Johnson that Hanoi leaders had changed the ground rules in South Vietnam and MACV commander General Westmoreland reported that North Vietnamese troops had engaged into the war directly. Four NVA divisions had been sighted in South Vietnam.
General Maxwell Taylor, as ambassador in South Vietnam, advised Washington of a “gradual” bombing of North Vietnam. He convinced President Johnson that a bombing strategy would raise the morale of Saigon leaders and give South Vietnamese people the feeling of trust toward the United States’ strong support; second, it would, if not totally cut off the manpower and equipment activities of North Vietnam to South Vietnam, at least slow down these infiltrations; and, finally it would convince Hanoi leaders that the cost of the war could be too great to pay, including the obliteration of their capital, that could force them to come to the negotiating table for peace talks. MACV commander General William Westmoreland, on the contrary, argued that the bombing of North Vietnam would not be enough, but it would logically bring communist retaliation in South Vietnam. He requested U.S. Marines for South Vietnam. In supporting Westmoreland, the Joint Chiefs of Staff stressed that combat troops were needed to deter communist retaliation to the U.S. air strikes. Defense Secretary McNamara, who had promoted the bombing strategy, now supported General Westmoreland. Assistant secretary of state for the Far East William Bundy excited both strategies. President Johnson had to choose the “air war,” or the “land war,” or both.
While the Johnson administration in Washington considered strategy options for the war in Vietnam, in Saigon the political turmoil worsened by the day. The new leader of the “Armed Forces Council,” General Nguyen Khanh, having neutralized Big Minh’s power, went further by replacing Minh’s choice for prime minister, Nguyen Ngoc Tho, with his own choice. To consolidate power he appointed more of his men to key posts in the armed forces and the government. Lt. General Tran Thien Khiem was promoted to the rank of general and Major General Nguyen Van Thieu became lt. general. These two generals were respectively assigned commander in chief of the ARVN and chief of staff of the Joint General Staff. Khanh also rewarded a number of young colonels who had supported him for power with the rank of one-or two-star general. Colonel Cao Van Vien, commander of the Airborne Brigade, was promoted to major general after the brigade victoriously returned from the battle of Hong Ngu in the Mekong Delta in February of 1964. Navy Captain Chung Tan Cang, CNO of the VNN, was promoted to commodore and Colonel Nguyen Cao Ky, commander of the VNAF, to brigadier general. Ky was the most famous among the young, newly promoted one-star generals; others were Nguyen Chanh Thi, Le Nguyen Khang, Vinh Loc, Ngo Du, Nguyen Duc Thang and Nguyen Bao Tri. The American press referred to this group of young generals as the “Young Turks.” In the meantime, Khanh fired from his cabinet Dr. Nguyen Ton Hoan, the leader of the Ðại Việt Party and his deputy prime minister in charge of pacification, and did not reward several of this party’s members who served in the army. The main reason was that the two political parties, Ðại Việt and Cấp Tiến, had not supported Khanh in his desire to be “chief-of-state for life” after he proclaimed the “Vung Tau Constitution” (Hiến Chương Vṵng Tàu) that granted him this lifetime power. As a result, his constitution was dumped.
These political bounties and penalties, in addition to Khanh’s ineffectiveness in politics, generated discontent, displeasure, and indignation among party leaders, generals and colonels of long standing, who subsequently plotted military coups against Khanh. The first military conspiracy exploded on September 13, 1964. Lt. General Duong Van Duc, IV Corps commander; Major General Lam van Phat, former minister of the interior, Colonel Huynh Van Ton, 7th Infantry Division commander, and his chief of staff Lt. Colonel Pham Van Lieu; and Lt. Colonels Ly Tong Ba and Duong Hieu Nghia—both men armored unit commanders—had their infantry and armored regiments moved from the Mekong Delta to Saigon in the early morning, blocking several access routes to the city, occupying some unimportant places and encircling the Joint General Staff Headquarters at Tân Sơn Nhú.t, in which was located the residence of General Khanh. The conspirators sought to capture him but fortunately, just minutes before the siege began, Khanh escaped and rushed to General Ky’s home in Tân Sơn Nhú.t Air Base. Ky saved Khanh by flying him on a VNAF C-47 to Vung Tau. From there Khanh took another flight to Da Lat. General Ky flew back to Bien Hoa Air Base and called Lt. General Duc and Colonel Ton threatening to bomb and destroy their units if they did not withdraw back to the delta. By night, Colonel Ton took his troops back to My Tho. He was followed by General Duc and General Phat and the armored units of Ba and Nghia. The coup failed. Leaders of the coup and most unit commanders of the “revolutionary forces” were subjected to different levels of punishment.
Although the coup on September 13, 1964 had failed, it significantly impacted the political situation. General Khanh began to suspect even those who had supported him before. He dispatched General Tran Thien Khiem to the United States to serve as ambassador which led to the breaking up of the troika. After that, General Khanh forced a number of generals, who had pro–French backgrounds and just had been released from the house arrest in Da Lat, to retire. The most important point was that Khanh still continued to hold national power by keeping the position of president of the Armed Forces Council and the leader of Council of Generals. However, he delegated the role of administration of the country to a civilian government in October 1964.
In complying with the U.S. requests, General Khanh and the Council of Generals agreed to form a “National High Council” to oversee the activities of the civilian government. This council was composed of nine members who were well known politicians and was believed to have broad popular support in South Viet Nam. Phan Khac Suu was invited to become the president of the new council and also to assume the role of chief of state. Professor Tran Van Huong was also invited to be a member of this council, and at the same time, to serve as the new prime minister. In the meantime, General Khanh stepped back to the post of commander in chief of the armed forces. Only a short time later, on December 23, 1964, General Khanh called a number of the Young Turks into his office at the JGS headquarters and let them know there were four members of the National High Council who supported General Big Minh and were plotting to depose chief of state Phan Khac Suu and prime minister Tran Van Huong to take over the government. After a heated discussion, the young generals agreed to arrest these politicians and place them on detention in Pleiku. Also, they put prime minister Tran Van Huong under house arrest in Vung Tau for unknown reasons.
These events led to two important developments. First, the level of trust between the military leaders of Saigon and the United States suffered, affecting the relationship with Ambassador Maxwell Taylor and the U.S. State Department. This type of crisis had happened under President Diem’s administration, which led to the U.S.–sanctioned coup of November 1963. General Khanh’s fate seemed to be little different. Only a few days after the arrest of the four politicians and Prime Minister Huong, Ambassador Taylor invited General Khanh to the U.S. embassy. General Khanh declined and instead sent four generals, Thieu, Ky, Thi, and Cang, to see the ambassador. When the four generals arrived at the U.S. embassy, Ambassador Taylor addressed them using a superior tone of voice and condemned them for creating a “real mess” in the Saigon political arena. General Ky’s recollection of this evening as described in his memoir, Buddha’s Child: My Struggle to Save Viet Nam, was that he did not raise his voice but explained simply, “What is done is done. We can not return to the past.” This embarrassing occurrence was reported to General Khanh. An angry General Khanh immediately called a press conference the following day intending to declare Ambassador Taylor persona non grata. Instead of using these terms, General Khanh only said that Ambassador Taylor possessed a “colonist’s attitude.” Perhaps because of this event, Ambassador Taylor was called back to Washington and replaced by ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. Before he left Saigon, Ambassador Taylor followed the orders of the U.S. State Department requesting a civilian government in Saigon, despite the belief held by the Vietnamese generals that a civilian government was ineffective in directing the country’s effort in the war against the communists. The generals conceded and on January 27, 1965, invited Dr. Phan Huy Quat, another well-known political figure in Saigon, to become the new prime minister and to form a new cabinet. Phan Khac Suu remained as chief of state. Although still in power, Khanh lost the unconditional support of the United States.
A second coup to overthrow General Khanh took place on February 19, 1965. This time, it was led by Major General Lam Van Phat, Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao and Colonel Bui Dinh. The “revolutionaries” included an infantry regiment with some armored units under the command of Colonel Bui Dinh, a battalion of intelligence students of the An Nhon Center (a branch of the Military Intelligence School Cay Mai), and an Airborne Recon company under the command of Major Ho Van Kiet, commander of Intelligence Special Unit 924 of J2/JGS RVNAF. They occupied a number of places in Saigon and surrounded the JGS Headquarters and Tan Son Nhut Airbase with the intention of capturing General Khanh and General Ky. Although the latter two units belonged to the JGS/J2 under the command of Brigadier General Nguyen Cao, he was not aware of their plot. Later, it was revealed that the coup was planned by Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao and Professor Nguyen Bao Kiem. Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao, before 1954, was a communist battalion commander. After 1954 he returned to town and was trusted by Bishop Ngo Dinh Thuc. Under the Ngo Dinh Diem administration, Thao was made provincial chief of Ben Tre and promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. During the coup of November 1, 1963, Lt. Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao turned against President Ngo Dinh Diem and became one of the most devoted members of the coup. After that, Pham Ngoc Thao was promoted to full colonel and assigned to the Vietnam embassy in Washington, DC, as military attaché. After Khanh came to power, Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao was recalled to Saigon and was not entrusted with any position of power. His resentment led to his planning of the coup against Khanh. But who was the mastermind behind this coup, Hanoi or the United States? No one had the answer. According to General Ky, only a few hours after the armor units of General Phat were put on the move, Major General Robert Rowland, American advisor to the VNAF Headquarters, called General Ky at Bien Hoa and on behalf of the U.S. government asked whether General Ky would support General Phat. General Ky refused and let Rowland know he had sent a message to General Phat that if the latter had not withdrawn from Tan Son Nhut Air Base by 7 A.M. the next morning, he would have the place bombed. General Ky also requested General Rowland leave the place by then. By 6 P.M. General Rowland called General Ky again and told him that Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao would like to meet Ky. After dark, Thao and Colonel Samuel V. Wilson, a famous CIA spy, arrived at the Bien Hoa Airbase. Colonel Thao tried desperately to persuade General Ky to support the coup by saying that it was necessary for the country because the current government was incompetent. Ky refused and declared that Thao and General Phat must withdraw their troops or he would take action. After that, Ky let Thao and Wilson leave.
The next morning, February 20, at about 8 A.M. all units of General Phat and Colonel Thao withdrew. Both leaders escaped into hiding. Most of the unit commanders and officers who participated in the coup were punished. Later, Colonel Thao was captured after being wounded. He died in his cell at the ARVN Security Directorate. After April of 1975, the communists confirmed that Pham Ngoc Thao was one of their spies in the South and granted him the posthumous rank of army colonel.
Many people thought that even though General Khanh had escaped the coup safely, he would be unable to run the country. This came true sooner than expected. Immediately afterward, another coup deposed General Khanh and forced him to leave Viet Nam. In his memoir, General Ky did not mention this coup of the Young Turks. However, in a memoir by General Lam Quang Thi, The Twenty-Five Year Century, published in February 2002, General Thi briefly recollected the event. On February 21, 1965, Brigadier General Nguyen Bao Tri, commander of the 7th Division Infantry, told Thi that he was about to take an infantry regiment and one armored squadron to support General Ky in the coup to depose General Khanh. General Tri left with the troops to Saigon and Thi, then a full colonel and deputy commander of the 7th Division Infantry, stayed in My Tho to command the remaining troops of the 7th Division Infantry. General Thi wrote: “This time the coup was a success. On February 25, General Khanh left the country as ambassador-at-large after having been elevated to the rank of four stars general. Ultimately, Khanh ended up as a restaurateur in Paris.”17
History had turned to a new chapter. The national power was in the hands of the generals who were members of the Armed Forces Council. Chief of State Phan Khac Suu and Prime Minister Phan Huy Quat remained in their positions. The new leaders of the Armed Forces Council were Lt. General Nguyen Van Thieu and other senior generals. The Young Turks did not yet appear on the national political ground until the sudden break-up of the civilian government on June 19, 1965. Therefore, in the first three months of 1965, the political situation was temporarily settled while the military situation remained critical. Dean Rusk, American secretary of state, thought the South might be cut in two after the general elections in the United States. General Nguyen van Thieu, the new military and political “power” in Saigon said the communists had controlled seventy-five percent of the countryside and the Vietnamese government controlled only the chief towns, which meant the urban areas of provinces and districts.