An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 (77 page)

By the middle of January 1962, two months after the Taylor program had been set in motion, reporters began to ask hard questions. Although only one American had been killed, restrictions on press freedom to cover combat missions aroused understandable suspicions that Washington and Saigon were hiding the truth about U.S. military operations in Vietnam. On January 15, when a reporter asked Kennedy at a news conference, “Are American troops now in combat in Vietnam?” he answered, “No.”

The press was justifiably not convinced. The presence of nearly thirty-five hundred U.S. military “advisers” in Vietnam encouraged the belief that they were actively engaged in the fighting. By the middle of February, the State Department’s public affairs officer warned that “we seem headed for a major domestic furor over the ‘undeclared’ war in South Viet-Nam and [over] US imposed ‘secrecy regulations’ that prevent American newsmen from telling our people the truth about US involvement in that war.” Although reporters had ferreted out enough information to describe the United States as “now involved in an undeclared war in South Vietnam,” the White House refused to ease its press restrictions. Pierre Salinger recalled that Kennedy was “particularly sensitive” about press accounts of U.S. involvement in combat. He “pushed hard for us to tighten the rules there under which correspondents would observe field operations in person.”

The State Department now instructed the embassy in Saigon to follow a policy of “maximum feasible cooperation, guidance and appeal to good faith of correspondents.” But the department laid down guidelines that tightened rather than eased restrictions: Reporters were told that critical stories about Diem “only make our task more difficult.”

At a February 14 press conference, a reporter asked Kennedy about his response to a Republican National Committee complaint that “you have been less than candid with the American people as to how deeply we are involved in Viet-Nam.” Kennedy’s answer, like the restrictions on the journalists in Saigon, was meant to obscure the truth. “We have increased our assistance to the government—its logistics; we have not sent combat troops there, although the training missions that we have there have been instructed if they are fired upon to—they would of course fire back, to protect themselves. But we have not sent combat troops in the generally understood sense of the word. We have increased our training mission, and we’ve increased our logistic support. . . . I feel that we are being as frank as we can be.”

Unconvinced by Kennedy’s explanation, the press continued to report on America’s growing involvement in the conflict. Relying on U.S. military and South Vietnamese government sources, NBC and
Time
correspondents learned about the combat operations of American air forces. The embassy believed that it would be increasingly difficult to keep such information under wraps. (Diem wanted to try by proposing to expel
Newsweek
and
New York Times
correspondents, but the U.S. embassy convinced him that it would do more harm than good.)

Two conditions made problems with the press irreducible. First, and most obvious, the U.S. role in the fighting was simply more than Kennedy was willing to admit. But second, and less clear, was the fact that U.S. personnel in Saigon were exceeding what Kennedy wanted them to do. On April 4, Harriman, who had become assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, cabled the Saigon embassy that press critics in Vietnam were describing the conflict as more of a U.S. than a Vietnamese war. The names of combat operations like “Sunrise” and “Farmgate” suggested “U.S. rather than GVN planning,” and Americans were making themselves too conspicuous in their advisory activities. Reports of a large group of American colonels and civilians inspecting a stockade in Operation Sunrise was a case in point. “Why do large groups of Americans inspect anything?” Harriman asked. Moreover, why were American officers talking so freely about their role in planning operations? “It cannot be over stressed,” Harriman declared, “that the conduct and utterances public and private of all U.S. personnel must reflect the basic policy of this government that we are in full support of Viet-Nam but we do not assume responsibility for Viet-Nam’s war with the Viet Cong.”

A week later, Rusk cabled Saigon reinforcing the need for U.S. personnel to adhere to America’s limited role in the fighting. The press was getting an “erroneous impression” that was “factually wrong and lacking perspective.” He urged all posts to make clear that “U.S. personnel are not participating directly in war nor are they directing war. Major U.S. effort is to train instructors rather than troops. However, given the fluidity and ubiquity of guerrilla warfare, necessarily Americans suffer occasional casualties in carrying out their training and logistical functions—e.g., taking part in training patrol exercises.”

Kennedy’s desire to limit U.S. involvement in the conflict by keeping it off the front pages made a certain amount of sense, since the aim was as much, if not more, to limit America’s part in the fighting as to maintain Saigon’s autonomy. But would it not have been better for the administration to acknowledge its ambivalence about involving U.S. ground forces in Vietnam and encourage public debate? Assertions that such a debate would have demoralized the Vietnamese are unpersuasive. As U.S. policy makers understood, if the Vietnamese were going to save themselves from a communist takeover, they would have to take prime responsibility for their fate. And as Kennedy knew from World Wars I and II and Korea, fighting a costly foreign war required steady public commitments that could only follow a national debate educating Americans about the country’s vital stake in the conflict. By obscuring America’s role and future choices in the conflict, Kennedy was making it impossible to fight in Vietnam—if that is what the country chose to do—with the backing necessary for a supportable war effort.

ALL THE ADMINISTRATION’S PRONOUNCEMENTS
and directives could not alter the reality of direct American involvement in the conflict. Kennedy understood that he could only deny this fact for so long, that as Saigon’s military failings increased pressure for more “advisers” and American casualties rose, public demands for an accounting would mount. Consequently, when Galbraith returned to Washington in early April to testify on India before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Kennedy welcomed a memo from him on how to escape the Vietnam trap. Galbraith’s advice was simple. He warned that the United States was in danger of becoming the new colonial force in the area and then bleeding as the French did. The U.S. should help forge a neutral coalition government in South Vietnam and then perhaps leave. He urged, above all, against combat commitments. “Americans in their various roles should be as invisible as the situation permits.”

On April 6, Kennedy discussed Vietnam with Harriman. He showed him Galbraith’s memo, then asked that it be forwarded to McNamara and that Galbraith be instructed to ask the Indian government to approach Hanoi about holding peace talks. “The President observed generally that he wished us to be prepared to seize upon any favorable moment to reduce our involvement, recognizing that the moment might yet be some time away.”

Indeed, Kennedy had no illusion that an end to the Vietnam conflict was in sight or that American involvement would not grow. In March, when asked by a reporter to assess “the subterranean war” in Vietnam, he replied, “I don’t think you can make a judgment of the situation. It’s very much up and down, as you know, from day to day, and week to week, so it’s impossible to draw any long-range conclusions.” Mindful, however, of the dangers Galbraith had described, he was eager for the earliest possible withdrawal. True, he had approved a declaration by Bobby during a visit to Saigon in February that “we are going to win in Vietnam. We will remain here until we do win.” But that was more an attempt to bolster Diem’s morale and discourage the communists than a reliable commitment to an unconditional policy. For the time being, Kennedy wished to impress Hanoi, Peking, and Moscow with his determination to save Vietnam, and most everyone else with the belief that he would keep Vietnam from turning into a draining land war. If a limited U.S. commitment could maintain South Vietnam’s independence for the immediate future, Hanoi might agree to a temporary settlement, which would allow an honorable exit for American troops. For all the reasons that had drawn him more fully into the conflict in November, Kennedy remained eager to preserve South Vietnam’s autonomy. But his higher priority was to avoid leading the United States into a Southeast Asian disaster that would weaken its international standing and play havoc with his domestic political power.

During a May 1 conversation at the White House, Kennedy asked Harriman and Roger Hilsman, State’s chief intelligence officer, if there was “any merit in J. K. Galbraith’s suggestion of negotiating a neutralized coalition government.” When the two “vigorously opposed this recommendation,” Kennedy decided against trying it. He was not about to weaken the impression that he intended to save Saigon from a communist takeover by proposing unrealizable talks. But his query revealed his ongoing reluctance to deepen U.S. involvement in a possibly unwinnable war that could undermine U.S. prestige and freedom of maneuver abroad and political stability at home.

BETWEEN THE FALL OF
1961 and the spring of 1962, Vietnam was only one of Kennedy’s burdens. Questions about whether and when to resume nuclear tests also caused him no small amount of anguish. In the run-up to the Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, Kennedy had struggled to find ways to convince Moscow of the need for a test ban treaty, looked for ways to “increase public awareness of Soviet intransigence” on the issue, and wondered whether U.S. national security made new tests essential. But the meeting with Khrushchev in June had forced Kennedy’s hand. Khrushchev’s uncompromising response to negotiating proposals on weapons control had convinced Kennedy that the United States would have to resume testing, however repugnant it was to him. Added to this was the Soviet announcement at the end of August that they were resuming tests. “Of all the Soviet provocations” in 1961 and 1962, Mac Bundy wrote, “it was the resumption of testing that disappointed Kennedy most.”

In November, after the Soviets had exploded a fifty-megaton bomb and conducted fifty atmospheric tests in sixty days, Kennedy felt compelled to make additional test preparations. At a National Security Council meeting on November 2, Kennedy’s science advisers told him that “if we test only underground and the Soviets tested in the atmosphere, they would surely pass us in nuclear technology.” In response, the president announced that the United States would now prepare atmospheric tests. But he also declared that America would only test if “effective progress were not possible without such tests.” Even then, it would be done in a manner to restrict the fallout “to an absolute minimum.”

Kennedy was so conflicted over the consequences of new atmospheric tests that, in Atomic Energy Commission head Glenn Seaborg’s words, “we now entered a prolonged period of uncertainty regarding preparations for atmospheric testing. A decision would seem to be made one day and withdrawn the next. Kennedy wanted to take a firm stand and be ready; yet he wanted to keep his options open: he was reluctant to take steps that might bar the way to a test ban.”

Kennedy’s ambivalence was on display during a two-day meeting with Macmillan in Bermuda in December. The British wanted to continue negotiating with the Russians for a test ban and a comprehensive arms control agreement, however unrealizable these seemed. Macmillan believed that Khrushchev was as eager as they were to avoid a nuclear holocaust. (When Macmillan asked him what would happen if all the bombs in the world exploded, Khrushchev responded, “There would be nobody left but the Chinese and the Africans.”) Kennedy was sympathetic to British concerns, but he emphasized how untrustworthy Moscow had been in recent arms talks. They had prepared their latest tests while negotiating insincerely in Geneva. “We could not get taken twice,” he said. He described himself as a “great antitester” but said he felt compelled to prepare to test and then only do so if it were absolutely essential. Kennedy accurately forecast that “before long the nuclear arms race would come to a standoff where neither side could use these weapons because it would be destroyed if it did.”

Seaborg came away from the Bermuda talks, where he was a “spectator,” with the distinct impression that in private Kennedy was “considerably more in favor of accepting risks and making compromises in order to achieve a test ban than either he or U.S. negotiators ever allowed themselves to be in public.” The realities of American politics, especially Senate skepticism about a test ban agreement, constrained them.

As Ted Sorensen put it to Seaborg: “Kennedy was a multi-faceted individual. By that I don’t mean that he was all things to all men. I simply mean that he had a way of engaging the other person, of building bridges to him, of keeping his interest and sympathy without committing himself to the other’s view until he had weighed all the options. . . . Kennedy was determined not to permit himself to buy a test ban agreement which the Senate would reject because he felt that would be a disastrous setback to the whole movement in which he believed so strongly.”

At the close of the conference, Kennedy and Macmillan announced their determination, “as a matter of prudent planning,” to prepare atmospheric tests. However, the final decision would depend on future arms talks, which they pledged to continue with full understanding that an agreement was the only way to break out of the current dangerous arms race

Over the next two months, while chances for a test ban agreement slipped away, Kennedy repeatedly sought assurances from his advisers that a decision to resume testing was essential. On January 15, when asked at a news conference about the most rewarding and disappointing events during his first year in office, he began with his greatest disappointment: “Our failure to get an agreement on the cessation of nuclear testing, because . . . that might have been a very important step in easing the tension and preventing a proliferation of [nuclear] weapons.” The most heartening thing he could cite was a “greater surge for unity in the Western nations, and in our relations with Latin America.” No wonder that when Sorensen told him that reporters were considering writing books on the Year of the New Frontier, Kennedy looked at him quizzically and said, “Who would want to read a book on disasters?”