Vietnam: The trail not taken

Jewish World Review ^ | May 24, 2002 | Lou Marano

[CatoRenasci]

Bump. Yes.

War is to important to be left to the politicians.

[leadpenny]

"Johnson made a quite firm decision not to let American troops outside the borders of (South) Vietnam, and in my view that was the wrong way to fight the war," Rostow said.

I won't comment on the rest of the article, right now, but as for the quote above, I'll just say that Johnson was a liar and Rostow is swearing to that lie. We were trying desperately to cut the trail with everything from mercenaries (including American SF advisors) to B-52's in 67 during my first tour in Pleiku. What we were doing way out west of Dak To in Southern Laos in November 67 is as clear today as it was then.

[donozark]

Operation Lam Son 719 in 1971 involving the use of US aerial assests and arty and S. VN grunts only points out how true this article is. The NVA fought like tigers. Why? The area around Tchepone, Laos was critical to their survival. Key supply lines. Staging areas, munitions dumps, etc. Huge tunnel complexes. It was in essence the "jugular vein" for the NVA positioned S. of that point.

The South Viets suffered staggering losses...

Article posted last week (bookmarked by me) states in addition to upwards of one million Viets lost in these DEATH CAMPS (or fleeing from same), approx. 3 million indigenous people have been murdered by the Communists. H'Muang,Meo,Montagnard,Christians,etc. The war continues, hardly "ended" as the war protestors and professorial pinheads maintain.

[Pylot]

Johnson was a coward, terrified of engaging the Chinese and preferring to implement his socialist policy instead.

Rather than rise to the occasion he shirked his duty and killed 50,000 Americans in the process.

The real eye opener is to contemplate what effect a Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, flourishing under capitalism, would have on the region today if we had followed through and not let the communists take over.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The other major error in McNamara's thinking was that the South Viets were no different than South Koreans.
The Koreans wanted to be saved from the Communist north. That was not completely true in South Viet Nam.

[lentulusgracchus]

Good article, Jewish World Review is a good online site.

They also have another good article posted about the high stresses on military personnel from fighting child soldiers in e.g. Sierra Leone, there are apparently some unusual psych factors there -- which, however, U.S. personnel experienced once before when fighting the Hitlerjugend in Germany in 1944-45. There was an SS Panzergrenadier division made up entirely of Hitler Youth that was completely fought out in Normandy by the Canadians and British, but Americans didn't encounter them in numbers until the Bulge.

[lentulusgracchus]

My impression is that Dean Rusk was the big ball and chain.....my father never liked him, said he thought that "Rusk squats to pee". I never got a medical opinion on the point, but having him around was a disaster in retrospect.

[lentulusgracchus]

That was "interdiction". They are talking about actually cutting the trail off by sending abundant heavy forces in there. Lots of armor, lots of mechanized infantry. Lots and lots, ladeled out by the corps and the army, until those trails and byways were just crawling with American heavy metal -- not tiny LRRPs and Ranger squads being chased through the jungle by NVA companies and HUK squads almost from the minute they were inserted. (Thus Larry Chambers, Death in the A Shau Valley: L Company LRRPs in Vietnam, 1969-70, Ivy Books, New York, 1998.)

[SJackson]

We were trying desperately to cut the trail with everything from mercenaries (including American SF advisors) to B-52's in 67 during my first tour in Pleiku. What we were doing way out west of Dak To in Southern Laos in November 67 is as clear today as it was then.

I think the author is talking about a massive, permanent ongoing presence on the ground.

[RLK]

JFK destroyed the south with his assassination of Diem. McNamara was essentially a high level subversive who undermined the war.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

McNamara oversaw the development of the Ford Falcon while he was at Ford Motor Co. He was one of JFK's "whiz kids." I forgot where Rusk came from...

[RLK]

It wasn't the Falcon, it was that other model that fell on it's behind. McNamara was a graduate student and Fellow at Harvard teaching statistics when the war broke oth. Dean Dornan sort of voulunteered McNamara for the defense department. Basically, Dean Dornan wasn't unhappy to see McNamara go and found a way to ease him out the door. McNamara went into the army with the advanced rank of captain and taught short statistics courses to DiD personnel in this country and in the UK. He was promoted to Lt. Colonel before leaving. He never picked up a rifle or saw action during his tenure.

If you look closely at McNamara's background, he was a blowhard with an agressive intimidating manner beneath which was very little talent.

[RLK]

McNamara was also rather far to the political left. He was a Berkeley graduate and is described in his own book, In Retrospect, as being an admirer of socialist Norman Thomas. That's one of the critical keys to understanding the real McNamara sympathy and commitment.

[leadpenny]

-- not tiny LRRPs and Ranger squads being chased through the jungle by NVA companies and HUK squads almost from the minute they were inserted.

Technically, I guess you are right about "regular" troop units not being used outside the borders of South Vietnam. However, I was in an Assault Helicopter Company (119th) that was assigned the job of moving small and large teams in and out of Laos. Many other units were assigned the same task on a rotating basis under the Johnson administration. We were regular American units of the 1st Aviation Brigade. LBJ was a liar and those who swear to his lies are liars, and I would urinate on his grave.

As for the comment above, I knew "snake-eater" types back in the 60's and 70's who, if the comment were made to them that way, might more than disagree with you. My experience in late 67 was that extracting units while under fire from the "trail" area was the exception rather than the rule.

[lentulusgracchus]

Actually, Macnamara and the other "whiz kids" got that name during the "Big Show", when they were coddled as part of a hothouse set up by Bernard Baruch to be staff hey-boys for Franklin Roosevelt's "brain trust". During the war, they were given various policymaking jobs. John Kenneth Galbraith got to be FDR's wage-and-price czar, e.g.: he was the guy in charge of the wage hold-down during the war that saw inflation jump 25% in 1946 as soon as the controls were taken off. I don't recall what Macnamara was doing, but he and the Bundy Brothers had jobs, and some of their creche-siblings went off to the OSS: William F. Buckley Jr., for example. They were all spoiled rotten (says me), and it showed later in life, too.

Macnamara's Ford "triumph" was the Edsel. I thought it was a nice-looking car, but it flopped. Basically, there wasn't room in the market between Ford's Fairlane 500 and the Mercury line.......and I also was told at the time that the Edsel had a Freudian front end design that didn't connote masculinity as well as it might (harrumph!). The model was withdrawn after the 1960 model year. Its "seagull" tail fins were echoed in the 1959 and 1960 Chevy and the 1960 Ford. Macnamara was also the originator of the idea for the TFX, which flopped as a joint Navy/Air Force light bomber but survived and had a decent career as the F-111 "Aardvark", which is still in service with Australia.

[lentulusgracchus]

I knew "snake-eater" types ....My experience in late 67....

The snake-eaters' beef is with my source (cited above). He was writing about his in-country experience from early 1969 to sometime in 1970. He emphasizes how quickly the insertion teams were picked up by the NVA (and they were regulars by that time) and talks about the pressure it put on the teams when they were trying to accomplish some task. Too, U.S. assets were well drawn-down by 1970, and he mentions that about half the fire bases that the U.S. had built by Tet had been abandoned in his operational area two years later. He discusses the impact that had on his group's operations.

[RLK]

I don't recall what Macnamara was doing---

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McNamara was an instructor in statistics. Period. In his book he tries to say his life was in danger during his duty for his country because a plane similar to one he occasionally traveled on crashed in Spain.

[RLK]

not tiny LRRPs and Ranger squads being chased through the jungle by NVA companies and HUK squads almost from the minute they were inserted.----

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The reason this happened was one of our top advisors was an Nort Vietnames agent, in fact a general in the North Vietnanese army. He gave away the operations and landing sites to the North ahead of time.