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The Decline in Generalship during the Vietnam War.
I know many of you are well read on Vietnam and we do/have had a number of active duty and former military personnel who have further served in several of our more recent wars. In addition, we obviously have a well read and most intelligent group of shockernetters on this board. Many of you may or may not be aware of some of the behind the scenes actions that were unfortunately taken, or more appropriately, not taken, by both our very top civilians and military leaders in Vietnam. Actions which lead to the disastrous large number of unnecessary deaths to our young soldiers. Following are some selected excerpts from an article, The Generals: American Military Command from WWII to Today. Pulitzer Prize winning author and military affairs analyst, Thomas El Ricks, examines the decline in generalship during the Vietnam War. Comments in Italics are mine.
"During WWII, determined leaders who put mission above all else, were unafraid to speak truth to power. They further firmly believed that failure by commanders was not accepted. Among them was General George C. Marshall, who brought forward a stable of legendary generals who remain the hallmarks of American military leadership, the likes of Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, and Omar Bradley. By the time of Vietnam, however, the qualities ingrained in this cohort of military leaders had greatly diminished, having profound consequences."
"Under President Johnson, the discourse between civilian leaders and top generals, which had already been strained under President John F. Kennedy, now began to break down further. President Johnson's distrust of his generals extended well beyond the possibility of being challenged or misled by General William Westmoreland. 'That's why I am suspicious of the military' Johnson told the most intimate of his biographers, Doris Goodwin, 'They're always so narrow in their appraisal of everything. They see everything in military terms.'
"Policy is best formulated by using straightforward, candid dialogue to uncover and explore differences. But LBJ was afraid of those differences and used the process designed to formulate policy instead to obscure and minimize differences. Many military, active and retired, strongly believe that the senior civilians were too involved in the handling of the war. Perhaps the problem was not that civilians participated too much in decision making, but that the senior military leaders participated too little." The reasons they were not allowed to will be clarified a little later.
"President Johnson, General Maxwell Taylor, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara treated the Joint Chiefs of Staff not as military advisers, but as a political impediment, a hurdle to be overcome, through deception, if necessary. They wanted to keep the Chiefs on board with policy without keeping them involved in making it or ever necessarily informed about it. Under LBJ, the US government pursued a policy of graduated pressure which General Westmoreland summarized this way."
"The campaign of escalating pressure through bombing continued in the hope that ground and air action together would prompt Hanoi to negotiate. Appropriate pauses were to be made in the air war to signal American intent and to allow time for a North Vietnamese response." This never worked. Instead our tactics turned into attrition and body count to try and persuade LBJ and fellow Americans that we were winning.
"General Taylor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from Oct 1962 through June 1964, further eroded the quality of civil-military discourse by playing down to McNamara the misgivings the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had about the policy of attrition. McNamara, in turn, downplayed those concerns further when talking to LBJ. The Chiefs, for their part, allowed themselves to be kept in the dark, cut off from the President, McNamara and Taylor actually worked to reduce communication between civilian and military officials, cutting off back channels between the military and the White House."
"The Joint Chiefs did not fail utterly in their duty. Irked by the gradualist approach, they came close to rebelling against General Taylor near the end of his time as Chairman in June 1964. On May 30, they met without Taylor and produced a statement for the SECDEF that expressed their concern over the lack of definition, even confusion in respect to the objectives and courses of action of the war. The Chiefs intended that their message be read by McNamara, before he joined Taylor and Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other high officials in Honolulu for a meeting about the war. But Taylor directed the memo to be withdrawn on the grounds that he was unsure that its wording accurately reflected the views of the Chiefs. Or was he afraid he would look like an idiot? Incensed, the Chiefs met again, revised some of the language, and sent the new version to Hawaii, with an explicit request that Taylor give it to McNamara. But Taylor refused to do so."
"Later in 1964, the Chiefs made another run at expressing dissent. General Earle Wheeler, who replaced Taylor, told McNamara that the Chiefs were prepared to state to the president that unless the war was taken vigorously to North Vietnam, they wanted to withdraw American forces from South Vietnam. McNamara met with the Chiefs and kept them from bolting by promising that he was willing to entertain the possibility of a series of major escalatory actions like heavily bombing the North.” Had the Air Force and Navy been permitted to bomb the dams throughout North Vietnam, it was estimated by top level military planners, from all services, that over 1/3rd of the country would have been flooded, basically paralyzing the North completely. Additionally, we were never permitted to completely destroy their power and electrical plants, nor to mine Hanoi Harbor where they received a tremendous amount of their war supplies. Like Korea, another war fought with one hand tied behind our back. Had we done this, we would have virtually brought the North to their knees. And had the war ended shortly thereafter, we would likely have saved over upwards of 40,000 American lives. Be aware, our build-up of troops, which eventually reached nearly 500,000, did not start til late 1965.
Yes, there would have been countless numbers of North Vietnam soldiers and civilians killed from these bombings. But when did this country adopt the mistaken policy that it is more acceptable that our young soldiers die, in lieu of the enemy's military and civilian POPULATIONS?
"LBJ is [generaly] recognized certainly as a poor wartime commander-in chief. Finally in Nov 1965, General Wheeler and the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff got up the nerve to . . present LBJ with a united front. They called for an end to his policy of gradual escalation and lobbied to replace it with a major military offensive against North Vietnam. They wanted to pound the North hard from the air with both Air Force and Navy jets, to bomb the dams, and also to mine and blockade its harbors. Furthermore, they wanted this application of overwhelming naval and air power to be done quickly.
"Johnson (would naturally have been aware of what they were going to present - you don’t pull surprises on the POTUS, and he made it clear that this was not a welcome meeting. He did not offer them seats, though he listened attentively as they presented their recommendations.
"When the Chiefs finished, the president turned his back on them for about a minute, leaving them standing. Then he whirled on them in a fury."
"He screamed obscenities, he cursed them each personally, he ridiculed them, belittled them, and attacked their manhood. Among the names the president spewed were” ... cuss words that would get me kicked off this board for life which ranged from A-Z, and back again.
"After the Army Chief of Staff and the Marine Commandant confirmed their support for a sharp swift escalation of the war, Johnson again yelled at them - and it got even worse . . . . . . . culminating in “You’re trying to get me to start World War III with your idiot BS. Your idiot wisdom."
"Then he ordered them to 'get the hell out of here right now."
The war went on for another 8 plus years. During this time, the vast majority of our deaths and casualties occurred.
NOT A SINGLE MEMBER of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs resigned. Although, many years later, a couple of the Chiefs expressed guilt and regret for not doing so.
On one hand, this completely destructive approach to leadership by a President of the United States identifies a leader totally out of control with little to no understanding of what is actually happening. It further resulted in a terrible and totally unworkable situation in that we then clearly had a complete lack of honesty, trust, faith, and understanding between our civilian and military leadership during a Time of War FOR 8 YEARS.
Which was more grievous to this nation?
1. President Johnson's actions. Which basically browbeat his military leadership into nodding 'Yes' men.
2. The actions of SECDEF McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor in hiding information from President Johnson.
3. The failure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff not to resign in total, thereby bringing their grievances with how this war was being fought to the attention of the American populace. One later stated that he thought it would be better to stay on as he was at least familiar with the situation. It is easy to Monday morning quarterback, but I think this was a total copout and the wrong decision.
I was going to add another choice of "All of the above" but I think that is a copout.
A very interesting caveat to this is that General Norman Schwarzkoph, our brilliant Desert Storm Commander, was a Battalion Commander during Vietnam. Fortunately, he learned his lessons well as how not to fight a war.
Prior to his taking over command for Desert Storm he reached an understanding with President Bush that he would run the war as he saw fit with little to no interference from the civilian side. It is to be noted, that everything went like clockwork until after he had completely destroyed the Iraqi military, in the ‘Mother of Battles’. And then the politicians decided to get back into the action.
I know many of you are well read on Vietnam and we do/have had a number of active duty and former military personnel who have further served in several of our more recent wars. In addition, we obviously have a well read and most intelligent group of shockernetters on this board. Many of you may or may not be aware of some of the behind the scenes actions that were unfortunately taken, or more appropriately, not taken, by both our very top civilians and military leaders in Vietnam. Actions which lead to the disastrous large number of unnecessary deaths to our young soldiers. Following are some selected excerpts from an article, The Generals: American Military Command from WWII to Today. Pulitzer Prize winning author and military affairs analyst, Thomas El Ricks, examines the decline in generalship during the Vietnam War. Comments in Italics are mine.
"During WWII, determined leaders who put mission above all else, were unafraid to speak truth to power. They further firmly believed that failure by commanders was not accepted. Among them was General George C. Marshall, who brought forward a stable of legendary generals who remain the hallmarks of American military leadership, the likes of Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, and Omar Bradley. By the time of Vietnam, however, the qualities ingrained in this cohort of military leaders had greatly diminished, having profound consequences."
"Under President Johnson, the discourse between civilian leaders and top generals, which had already been strained under President John F. Kennedy, now began to break down further. President Johnson's distrust of his generals extended well beyond the possibility of being challenged or misled by General William Westmoreland. 'That's why I am suspicious of the military' Johnson told the most intimate of his biographers, Doris Goodwin, 'They're always so narrow in their appraisal of everything. They see everything in military terms.'
"Policy is best formulated by using straightforward, candid dialogue to uncover and explore differences. But LBJ was afraid of those differences and used the process designed to formulate policy instead to obscure and minimize differences. Many military, active and retired, strongly believe that the senior civilians were too involved in the handling of the war. Perhaps the problem was not that civilians participated too much in decision making, but that the senior military leaders participated too little." The reasons they were not allowed to will be clarified a little later.
"President Johnson, General Maxwell Taylor, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara treated the Joint Chiefs of Staff not as military advisers, but as a political impediment, a hurdle to be overcome, through deception, if necessary. They wanted to keep the Chiefs on board with policy without keeping them involved in making it or ever necessarily informed about it. Under LBJ, the US government pursued a policy of graduated pressure which General Westmoreland summarized this way."
"The campaign of escalating pressure through bombing continued in the hope that ground and air action together would prompt Hanoi to negotiate. Appropriate pauses were to be made in the air war to signal American intent and to allow time for a North Vietnamese response." This never worked. Instead our tactics turned into attrition and body count to try and persuade LBJ and fellow Americans that we were winning.
"General Taylor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from Oct 1962 through June 1964, further eroded the quality of civil-military discourse by playing down to McNamara the misgivings the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had about the policy of attrition. McNamara, in turn, downplayed those concerns further when talking to LBJ. The Chiefs, for their part, allowed themselves to be kept in the dark, cut off from the President, McNamara and Taylor actually worked to reduce communication between civilian and military officials, cutting off back channels between the military and the White House."
"The Joint Chiefs did not fail utterly in their duty. Irked by the gradualist approach, they came close to rebelling against General Taylor near the end of his time as Chairman in June 1964. On May 30, they met without Taylor and produced a statement for the SECDEF that expressed their concern over the lack of definition, even confusion in respect to the objectives and courses of action of the war. The Chiefs intended that their message be read by McNamara, before he joined Taylor and Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other high officials in Honolulu for a meeting about the war. But Taylor directed the memo to be withdrawn on the grounds that he was unsure that its wording accurately reflected the views of the Chiefs. Or was he afraid he would look like an idiot? Incensed, the Chiefs met again, revised some of the language, and sent the new version to Hawaii, with an explicit request that Taylor give it to McNamara. But Taylor refused to do so."
"Later in 1964, the Chiefs made another run at expressing dissent. General Earle Wheeler, who replaced Taylor, told McNamara that the Chiefs were prepared to state to the president that unless the war was taken vigorously to North Vietnam, they wanted to withdraw American forces from South Vietnam. McNamara met with the Chiefs and kept them from bolting by promising that he was willing to entertain the possibility of a series of major escalatory actions like heavily bombing the North.” Had the Air Force and Navy been permitted to bomb the dams throughout North Vietnam, it was estimated by top level military planners, from all services, that over 1/3rd of the country would have been flooded, basically paralyzing the North completely. Additionally, we were never permitted to completely destroy their power and electrical plants, nor to mine Hanoi Harbor where they received a tremendous amount of their war supplies. Like Korea, another war fought with one hand tied behind our back. Had we done this, we would have virtually brought the North to their knees. And had the war ended shortly thereafter, we would likely have saved over upwards of 40,000 American lives. Be aware, our build-up of troops, which eventually reached nearly 500,000, did not start til late 1965.
Yes, there would have been countless numbers of North Vietnam soldiers and civilians killed from these bombings. But when did this country adopt the mistaken policy that it is more acceptable that our young soldiers die, in lieu of the enemy's military and civilian POPULATIONS?
"LBJ is [generaly] recognized certainly as a poor wartime commander-in chief. Finally in Nov 1965, General Wheeler and the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff got up the nerve to . . present LBJ with a united front. They called for an end to his policy of gradual escalation and lobbied to replace it with a major military offensive against North Vietnam. They wanted to pound the North hard from the air with both Air Force and Navy jets, to bomb the dams, and also to mine and blockade its harbors. Furthermore, they wanted this application of overwhelming naval and air power to be done quickly.
"Johnson (would naturally have been aware of what they were going to present - you don’t pull surprises on the POTUS, and he made it clear that this was not a welcome meeting. He did not offer them seats, though he listened attentively as they presented their recommendations.
"When the Chiefs finished, the president turned his back on them for about a minute, leaving them standing. Then he whirled on them in a fury."
"He screamed obscenities, he cursed them each personally, he ridiculed them, belittled them, and attacked their manhood. Among the names the president spewed were” ... cuss words that would get me kicked off this board for life which ranged from A-Z, and back again.
"After the Army Chief of Staff and the Marine Commandant confirmed their support for a sharp swift escalation of the war, Johnson again yelled at them - and it got even worse . . . . . . . culminating in “You’re trying to get me to start World War III with your idiot BS. Your idiot wisdom."
"Then he ordered them to 'get the hell out of here right now."
The war went on for another 8 plus years. During this time, the vast majority of our deaths and casualties occurred.
NOT A SINGLE MEMBER of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs resigned. Although, many years later, a couple of the Chiefs expressed guilt and regret for not doing so.
On one hand, this completely destructive approach to leadership by a President of the United States identifies a leader totally out of control with little to no understanding of what is actually happening. It further resulted in a terrible and totally unworkable situation in that we then clearly had a complete lack of honesty, trust, faith, and understanding between our civilian and military leadership during a Time of War FOR 8 YEARS.
Which was more grievous to this nation?
1. President Johnson's actions. Which basically browbeat his military leadership into nodding 'Yes' men.
2. The actions of SECDEF McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor in hiding information from President Johnson.
3. The failure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff not to resign in total, thereby bringing their grievances with how this war was being fought to the attention of the American populace. One later stated that he thought it would be better to stay on as he was at least familiar with the situation. It is easy to Monday morning quarterback, but I think this was a total copout and the wrong decision.
I was going to add another choice of "All of the above" but I think that is a copout.
A very interesting caveat to this is that General Norman Schwarzkoph, our brilliant Desert Storm Commander, was a Battalion Commander during Vietnam. Fortunately, he learned his lessons well as how not to fight a war.
Prior to his taking over command for Desert Storm he reached an understanding with President Bush that he would run the war as he saw fit with little to no interference from the civilian side. It is to be noted, that everything went like clockwork until after he had completely destroyed the Iraqi military, in the ‘Mother of Battles’. And then the politicians decided to get back into the action.