How the Vietnam War was Hijacked by the Press

I recently attended a presentation by Ron Kovic at the Manhattan Beach, California Library for his new book called Hurricane Street.  Kovic is one of the best known Vietnam War critics and activist;  he is also one of the casualties of the Vietnam War.  He has been a paraplegic since 1968 when he was critically wounded in combat. The book is about Kovic's struggle with the VA in the 1970s to get adequate medical treatment for his wounds.   Steve Lopez, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a nice piece on Kovic recently.

How much does the average American know about the Vietnam war?  I would guess not very much.  A new book I just finished called The Lost Mandate of Heaven, The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, by Canadian historian Geoffrey Shaw is a powerful testimony of how the United States got involved in Vietnam; it deals with the crucial events leading to war, from 1959 to the murder of Diem, in a 1963 coup orchestrated and sponsored by the Kennedy Administration.

As you can see by this blog, history is one of my interests.  Vietnam history is a special interest to me since I'm a Vietnam War veteran, having served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from May of 1968 to May of 1969.  As I read "The Lost Mandate of Heaven" my anger and disgust grew exponentially.  I would close the book and scream about how incompetent President John Kennedy and his advisers were; to my wife's dismay.  A personal note: I have been an admirer of John Kennedy since 1960, and still have a picture of him in my home.  The day he was killed was one of worst days of my life. Camelot, however, became a big nightmare, as I studied the history.   Here are the main points that pop out from the book:

• The Kennedy Administration was stacked with one of the most snobbish Ivy League elites ever, headed by the the strong-willed and arrogant Averell Harriman, a former Governor of New York, who turned out to be wrong on everything, and a complete disaster for our history.  There were wise advisers but Kennedy, himself ill informed, dismissed their advice and deferred to Harriman, a man he looked up to with a childlike wonder,
• The Americans were totally clueless about the culture and people of Vietnam, nor did they care to learn,
• The American press, led mainly by New York Times reporters, and by David Halberstam in particular, purposely slanted their reporting to fit their agenda and ignore all positive developments. South Vietnamese leaders bitterly complained about the negative reporting,
• The Americans were bent on making all decisions about the war to the exclusion of the Vietnamese who knew best; to disagree with them would incur their bitter wrath,
• The Kennedy Administration ignored the best advise from their own military and political advisers such as their ambassador in Vietnam, Frederick Nolting, CIA Saigon Station Chief, William Colby, Secretary of Defense  Robert McNamara, and General Maxwell Taylor, Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as those who were qualified for such advice such as the British, the French and many other nations who had direct experience with the situation in Vietnam,
• The critical event leading to the coup that killed Diem was the Buddhist uprising in the Spring of 1963, which we learned later, was incited and supported by the North Vietnamese, but promoted by the U.S. press in order to discredit Diem and get him removed from power, for which they pushed for forcefully by their negative reporting,
• President Kennedy was more worried about his re-election in 1964 and the bad press about the situation in Vietnam than following the right advice - advice that was put to him in no uncertain  terms by top leaders of his administration and others.

The Vietnam war was lost before one American combat soldier arrived in Vietnam.  How so?  The answers are complex but let me summarize.  Strike one was the ineffective and bone-headed advice from his trusted advisers, referred to as the Harriman Group, led by the bull-headed Averell Harriman .  The Harriman Group consisted of Chester Bowles, Michael Forrestal, John Kenneth Galbraith, Roger Hilsman, Paul Kattenburg, Joseph Mendenhall, William Sullivan, and James Thomson.  Strike two was the equally uninformed and senseless Laos Neutrality Agreement signed by Kennedy in 1962, which proved to be a complete farce.  Strike three was the Buddhist uprising of 1963 which led to the military coup that murdered Diem and his brother.  This, without a doubt, was the biggest gift to the North Vietnamese.  They never foresaw being so lucky.  With Diem dead, chaos ensued and defeat was insured.  The facts are that no other South Vietnamese leader had any success as Diem had.  This was foretold by Kennedy's advisers whom he had ignored.  They had explained this very scenario.  Kennedy did not listen.  The Americans, basically shot themselves in both feet.  In the Forward to "The Lost Mandate" the author, Geoffrey Shaw,  puts it this way:  

The character of Diem is consistent, noble, and aware of the slander waged against him.  The members of the State Department - Averell Harriman, Roger Hillsman, Henry Cabot Lodge, and others are seen a vain and vindictive, ideological   and poorly informed.  Laos' neutrality was dealt with in such a way that the North Vietnamese could use the country as a conduit to bypass the northern border of South Vietnam.  This Laotian "neutrality" was the work of Harriman and made defending South Vietnam almost impossible.  North Vietnamese units came into South Vietnam.

Chapter four of the book adds this about the failed policy of the Laos Neutrality Agreement: "Kennedy's leading advocates for a new policy toward Laos had strayed into serious error.  They had believed that neutrality would succeed where arms and the best efforts of the more experienced French had been unsuccessful.  Further proof that Kennedy's men failed at what they set out to do in Laos manifested itself years later when the Americans were heavily engaged with their own forces in South Vietnam.  By then, according to Douglas Pike, the NVA totally controlled the Pathet Lao."

The Laos Neutrality Agreement was the work of Averell Harriman.  He failed to see that a signed piece of paper and reality on the ground was quite another.  Once the agreement was signed by Kennedy, Harriman met with Diem in Saigon and told him, in no uncertain terms that he must sign it.  From this meeting on both men took to a deep hate for the other.  Diem knew that this agreement was pure folly, Harriman believed that a signed piece of paper could solve the communist insurgency in Laos.  This naiveté, basically defined the whole Vietnam American experience.

From the beginning, the Americans went into South Vietnam with a smug, superior attitude, as if only they knew best how to handle the war against the Viet Cong (VC).  Diem, on the other hand, was a very savvy, cultured and revered leader of his people.  He understood his people and his culture.  The Americans, could care less.  Unless you toed their line, you were summarily dismissed and, as was the case, even murdered for not following their orders.

Just about everyone understood the value of Diem; the French, who had ruled Vietnam for centuries, realized this.  The VC certainly knew it.  Many American leaders knew this too such as Ambassador Nolting, top military leaders, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, even Vice President Johnson. One of North Vietnamese main tools in undermining the South Vietnamese was to undermine Diem.  The preface to the book puts it this way: "Ngo Dinh Diem, possessed the Confucian Mandate of Heaven, a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by the South Vietnamese."

The U.S. news media played a huge role in destroying Diem. In Chapter two of the book, it is described like this:  "The role of the American liberal news media played in destroying the relations between Ngo Dinh Diem and the U.S. government should not be underestimated.  According to William Colby, Diem's fatal error was that he did not realize the impact of the news media."

The role of the American press cannot be overstated.  Although there were many successes in the country by the Diem government, the American press chose to give another view. The American press was staffed by young, green ideologues, such as New York Times reporter 27 year-old David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan of United Press International.  These "journalists," instead of focusing on what was going right in Vietnam, took it upon themselves to demonize Ngo Dinh Diem and accused him of corruption and being an authoritarian (seems that theses young punks knew better than the savvy Vietnamese on how to run their county. These clueless young Americans knew nothing about Vietnam).  CIA station chief, William Colby, recognized this right away as being totally wrong.

The press started causing all kinds of havoc, to the point of sabotaging the work of U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Frederick Nolting.  Halberstam's daily drip of negative reporting seems to have mirrored the New York Times editorial line.  Halberstam, a gifted writer, began the conditioning of American public opinion which proved too much for a naive new President Kennedy, worried about his re-election in 1964.   In Chapter Eight, the author says it like this,   "Later in August 1963, Nolting's suspicions that Halberstam was catering to New York Times editorial bias were reinforced.  He received reports from a trusted colleague that Halberstam had been at the Caravelle Bar (a popular place for American reporters to congregate) "proudly displaying a telegram from his newspaper in New York, which said in substance: "Good going. Keep it up.  State Department is beginning to see it our way."   In the 1960s, when there were only three TV networks, they followed the lead of the New York Times; whatever the Times said was what they presented in their nightly news.  This still happens today, although to a lesser extent.

The Buddhist Crisis of 1963 was the smoking gun that the American press needed to sabotage the American effort in Vietnam.  They seized this as the final proof that Diem was corrupt and too authoritarian and he must be removed. This crisis, it was later learned, was instigated and supported by the North Vietnamese and VC.  The North Vietnamese were very savvy about what would disturb Americans the most.  They played this crisis like a violin masterpiece.  The U.S. media fell for it, as did the Kennedy administration.  "The communists concluded that the Vietnamese president's weakest point was American reluctance to continue supporting an undemocratic leader.  They were astute enough to realize that the tail wagging the dog of U.S. foreign policy was American public opinion."  The NY Times, basically won.  They snowballed a weak administration and took over the narrative. The author continues in Chapter 10:  "The Buddhist protests therefore would seem to have been masterfully planned acts of political manipulation carefully directed at American public opinion in order to destroy U.S. policy in South Vietnam."  

With allies like the NY Times, who needs enemies?  Chapter 10 of the book continues: "According to journalist John Mechlin, the American press in South Vietnam during the Buddhist crisis had been guilty of inaccurate or even biased reporting.  In a scathing article (September 20, 1963) that led to the protest resignation of Charles Mohr, its chief correspondent for Southeast Asia, Time asserted: "the press corps on the scene is helping to compound the very confusion that it should be untangling for its readers at home...They pool their convictions, information, misinformation and grievances...The have covered a complex situation from only one angle, as if their own conclusions offered all the necessary illumination." 

To this day, the NY Times has not taken responsibility for stabbing America in the back on Vietnam.  I'm sure they think that they did America a favor.  The lives of 60,000 American dead cry out.  The lives of thousands and thousands of American soldiers like Ron Kovic, left maimed cry out.  Shame, Shame: you worked for the enemy not your country.

The price paid for the Vietnam war - American only - not including financial costs:

Dead:  58,193
Wounded: 150,000
Missing: 1,600

Vietnamese Deaths:
Military:  444,000
Civilian:  587,000