Part 5.
Six Myths of the Vietnam War.
There are at least six myths about the Vietnam War which remain operative for a large number of people. It is my belief that a challenge to each of them is in order and moreover will do a lot of good in preparing people to think clearly about what we did in Vietnam.
1. Myth: U.S. Naval ships were attacked in international waters of the Tonkin Gulf in August of 1964.
2. Myth: Johnson not Kennedy escalated the war in Vietnam.
3. Myth: We forced our military to fight with their "hands tied".
4. Myth: The U.S.A. did not commit "war crimes".
5. Myth: Vietnam holds (or held) living American Prisoners of War after 1973.
6. Myth: Our motives were honorable; the destruction was mutual.
For this lesson, I would hand out a copy of each “myth” to a group of 3-4 students and ask them to evaluate the statement for its truth value. I would also give them a list of sources for each claim and ask them to investigate the claim.
I provide a brief description of my position on the debate, but do not show this to the students until after they do their investigation. I am including one document for each of the claims, but students should dig for more information. Checks books and web sites.
1. Myth: U.S. Naval ships were attacked in international waters of the Tonkin Gulf in August of 1964.
Sources:
Marolda, Edward J. and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959- 1965. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1986. (Chapters 14 and 15.) This is the official U.S. Navy version of the events.
Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995. (Chapter 6.)
Stockdale, James and Sybil. In Love and War. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. (Stockdale gives an eye-witness account of both August incidents.)
2. Myth: Johnson not Kennedy escalated the war in Vietnam.
Sources:
Chomsky, Noam. Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture. Boston: South End Press, 1993.
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
3. Myth: We forced our military to fight with their "hands tied".
Sources:
Chomsky, Noam. Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture. Boston: South End Press, 1993.
Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. (Lewy thinks we were restrained in Vietnam.)
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
4. Myth: The U.S.A. did not commit "war crimes".
Sources:
Chomsky, Noam. Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture. Boston: South End Press, 1993.
Gettleman, Marvin E., Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, editors. Vietnam and America, second edition. New York: Grove Press, 1995
Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. (Lewy argues that we were not guilty of war crimes.)
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Westing, Arthur H. and E.W. Pfeiffer. "The Cratering of Indo-China" Scientific American. Volume 226, Number 5. (May, 1972)
pp. 20 - 29.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
5. Myth: Vietnam holds (or held) living American Prisoners of War after 1973.
Sources:
Franklin, H. Bruce. M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America. New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. (This is the best source I know of on this subject. Franklin is a former air force pilot.)
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
6. Myth: Our motives were honorable; the destruction was mutual.
Sources:
Gettleman, Marvin E., Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, editors. Vietnam and America, second edition. New York: Grove Press, 1995.
Kolko, Gabriel. Anatomy of a War. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
1. Myth: U.S. Naval ships were attacked in international waters of the Tonkin Gulf in August of 1964.
Truth: Two events. In the first event the destroyer Maddox was attacked inside the territorial waters of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam while on a DeSoto patrol. It was on a hostile, electronic warfare mission. DRV confirmed this event. The second "event" with Maddox and the other destroyer, Turner Joy, was a delusion based on faulty radar and sonar reports and crew hysteria. DRV did not confirm, and in fact denied, this event. The USA provoked the DRV. See: Oplan 34-A activities and DeSoto patrols.
Sources:
Marolda, Edward J. and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959- 1965. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1986. (Chapters 14 and 15.) This is the official U.S. Navy version of the events.
Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995. (Chapter 6.)
Stockdale, James and Sybil. In Love and War. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. (Stockdale gives an eye-witness account of both August incidents.)
2. Myth: Johnson not Kennedy escalated the war in Vietnam.
Truth: Every president since Truman escalated the war in Vietnam. John F. Kennedy greatly expanded the U.S. role and he left the men in place who guided Lyndon Baines Johnson. McNamara, Rusk and Robert F. Kennedy were all active planners in the escalation. LBJ was following JFK's policy and listening to JFK's advisers. JFK's plans for American withdrawal seem to be tied to a "Vietnamization" strategy, not an abandonment of the effort to perpetuate the Republic of Vietnam. The death of Diem was not used by Kennedy to declare an end to our involvement.
Sources:
Chomsky, Noam. Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture. Boston: South End Press, 1993.
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
3. Myth: We forced our military to fight with their "hands tied".
Truth: All military operations of the United States, under the United States Constitution, are carried out under the control of the President. Military commanders are under the control of the Department of Defense. This was true in Vietnam. No war (including the Gulf War) has ever been fought with a free hand given to the military. The U.S. sought a limited war, and it feared a Chinese intervention, as in Korea, and the possibility of a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union.
The basic problem was that we were seeking a political goal with a military policy. We were looking to win hearts and minds with blood and iron. If we had allowed the Vietnamese political elections of 1956 to proceed, we would not have had a military war.
The only weapons that were not used in Vietnam by our side were
nerve gas and nuclear weapons. Every other weapon was used, including: napalm, agent orange, tear gas, bullets, shells, bombs, anti-personnel bombs, computer guided weapons, etc. The war in Vietnam was an opportunity to test all kinds of weapons systems including many of the devices unleashed in the Persian Gulf War. See: the CBU-55, an aerosol gasoline bomb and the 15,000 pound bomb, the "daisy-cutter".
Sources:
Chomsky, Noam. Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture. Boston: South End Press, 1993.
Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. (Lewy thinks we were restrained in Vietnam.)
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
4. Myth: The U.S.A. did not commit "war crimes".
Truth: The war was unconstitutional in that it was not declared by Congress. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution of August, 1964, which served as the legal basis for the war was based on fraud and not given a thorough debate. The international law status was on a par with the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
The United Nations, the Pope and most of the world's population asked us to stop the slaughter. The Hague and Geneva Conventions have specific rules for warfare which the U.S. systematically violated. The CIA and the White House approved the overthrow, if not the assassination, of Diem. B-52 raids were not "surgical" strikes. Large numbers of civilians were killed by the massive American firepower. Individual units did murder civilians intentionally. Lt. Calley and his My Lai massacre is the most famous of these. Free fire zones were essentially murder zones.
Sources:
Chomsky, Noam. Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture. Boston: South End Press, 1993.
Gettleman, Marvin E., Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, editors. Vietnam and America, second edition. New York: Grove Press, 1995
Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. (Lewy argues that we were not guilty of war crimes.)
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Westing, Arthur H. and E.W. Pfeiffer. "The Cratering of Indo-China" Scientific American. Volume 226, Number 5. (May, 1972)
pp. 20 - 29.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
5. Myth: Vietnam holds (or held) living American Prisoners of War after 1973.
Truth: There is no evidence to support this claim and there is considerable evidence to regard it as a fabrication. The DRV always released the names of the POW's it captured. This was official policy. They wanted the world to know that they were being bombed and the U.S. government was at times denying that it was in fact bombing. Some pilots may have been killed by angry people on the ground, but official policy was to get as many of them alive and back to Hanoi for display. The U.S. government, for a period, denied that it lost pilots or planes over Laos and Cambodia. Those numbers were reported for Vietnam. Lost pilots were all presumed to be missing in action. Under Nixon, all missing in action were presumed to be prisoners of war. An MIA was a POW according to Nixon's logic. In fact, a number of the missing were killed. A 500 mph jet aircraft loaded with bombs and fuel is highly likely to explode if hit. There will be no trace of any crew. If one parachute did deploy, the entire crew of the aircraft was listed as missing, since no one knew who was in the parachute.Nixon did not want thetrue costs of the air war he was waging to be known to the American people. Many of the planes crashed, with full crews on board, into rain-forest, oceans and lakes. They either exploded on impact or plowed deep into the ground. In either case, no remains would be found. (Eventually, some may be dug up.) The inflated numbers of "missing" are the reason that many people wondered where some of the "prisoners" had disappeared. Vietnam has no rational reason to keep some prisoners. It denies having them and it has never asked ransom for them.
Some ruthless and unscrupulous American and Vietnamese individuals have made money off of the scam of supposedly looking for the MIAs and POWs. Most honest scholars and students have concluded that at best only some human remains might be found.
Sources:
Franklin, H. Bruce. M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America. New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. (This is the best source I know of on this subject. Franklin is a former air force pilot.)
Prados, John. The Hidden History of the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
6. Myth: Our motives were honorable; the destruction was mutual.
Truth: I do not agree with either of these claims. Individual soldiers may have intended to do the right thing by serving their country in Vietnam, but I am not concerned with individuals here. I want to assess the foreign policy of the United States. Our policy in Vietnam was as wrong as it was in Guatemala in 1954 and Iran in 1953. In both of those countries, we violated our own democratic principles. We flagrantly disregarded the democratic processes that had duly elected the leadership of Mossadegh in Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala. These events were successful in that we (the CIA) got away with them for awhile. In 1979, Iran exploded and Guatemala has been a continuing nightmare of violence and poverty and U.S. military "assistance" for the last twenty years.
Diem and the Republic of Vietnam were also American creations. They were not the popular choices of the people. If we had allowed the elections of 1956 to be held, Ho Chi Minh would have been elected and we would have been spared the necessity of fighting for Diem and democracy.
We did not blunder into Vietnam. We walked in at the invitation of the French and stayed after they got kicked out. We installed Diem and financed his entire operation. We armed his soldiers with American military equipment and trained his generals and officers. By putting most of Saigon on the American payroll, we won the hearts and minds of those Vietnamese who were for sale or rent.
The great fear of the 1964 period seems to have been that the north and south of Vietnam would unite on one basic point and that would have been neutralization. This of course was seen as a "setback", a "loss" and "unacceptable" by the United States. Johnson and his advisers worked feverishly to prevent this. No American President since Truman wanted to be blamed for "losing" even one nation to Communism. This was true even if it happened by democratic elections. Chile and the election of the socialist Allende in 1970 is an example. He was overtrown in 1973.
58,000 American soldiers died of accidents, wounds or disease in the war. No one knows how many Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians died. It is estimated that about 4 million were killed during the war years. No Vietnamese attacks against the U.S. civilian population took place.
Sources:
Gettleman, Marvin E., Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, editors. Vietnam and America, second edition. New York: Grove Press, 1995.
Kolko, Gabriel. Anatomy of a War. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars: 1945 - 1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
Documents for each of the six (6) myth claims:
#1:
Michael Beschloss, editor. Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963 - 1964. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. pp. 493 - 494.
MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 1964
ROBERT ANDERSON
9:46 A.M.
THE PREVIOUS DAY, at 3:40 A.M. Washington time, the U.S. destroyer Maddox, on reconnaissance patrol, was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The Maddox, joined by aircraft from the nearby aircraft carrier Ticonderoga, damaged two of the boats and left the third dead in the water. Concerned that the assault might have been a local commander's caprice,* suspecting that it was in response to United States-backed covert operations, Johnson did not retaliate. Instead he protested the attack to Hanoi. The Maddox and the destroyer C. Turner Joy were ordered to assert the right of freedom of the seas.1 As this morning's papers reported, Secretary of State Dean Rusk downplayed the incident: "The other side got a sting out of this. If they do it again, they'll get another sting." During a conversation about which corporation leaders might be willing to support Johnson's election campaign, the President relates [to Anderson] what happened.
LBJ: There have been some covert operations in that area that we have been carrying on 2 --blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads and so forth. So I imagine they wanted to put a stop to it. So they. . . fired and we respond immediately with five-inch [artillery shells] from the destroyer and with planes overhead. And we . . . knock one of 'em out and cripple the other two.
Then we go right back where we were with that destroyer and with another one, plus plenty of planes standing by....
ANDERSON: ...You're going to be running against a man who's a wild man on this subject. Any lack of firmness he'll make up....You've got to do what's right for the country.... But whatever you can do to say, when they shoot at us from the back, we're not soft...we're going to protect ourselves, we'll protect our boys ... I think it's all to the good.