Authors: Stephen E. Ambrose
CIA
reports continued to echo that view. In its 1959 National Intelligence Estimate, the agency contrasted the two Vietnams. The north was “organized along strict Communist lines. The standard of living is low; life is grim and regimented; and the national effort is concentrated on building for the future.” In the south, meanwhile, “the standard of living is much higher and there is far more freedom and gaiety.” Security in the south was much improved; the number of Communist guerrillas was down from
10,000 to 2,000, “scattered along the Cambodian border and in the remote plateau region of the north.”
The agency did admit that there were problems, although one had to go to the fine print of the bulky document to find them. One was that Diem concentrated on building his armed forces, not long-term economic development. Consequently, American aid dollars were used to buy consumer goods from Japan or the United States, which inhibited the development of local industry.
Another problem was that “a façade of representative government is maintained, but the government is in fact essentially authoritarian.⦠No organized opposition, loyal or otherwise, is tolerated, and critics of the regime are often repressed.” The strongly centralized one-man rule provided stability at the expense of alienating the nation's educated elite and inhibiting the growth of political institutions that had popular support.
Overall, however, the
CIA'S
conclusion was that “Diem will almost certainly be President for many years,” and that with Diem there would be stability and continued prosperity in South Vietnam.
18
In briefing President-elect Kennedy on January 19, 1961, on Southeast Asia, Ike did not even mention Vietnam. It was not a “problem area.”
Nearly two decades later, by which time the United States had sent 4.25 million of her young men to Vietnam, and then brought them home, and lost the war, General Goodpaster placed part of the blame for Ike's shortsightedness on Vietnam at the feet of the intelligence agencies. Goodpaster characterized our information on Vietnam as “inadequate, poor, terrible.”
19
That judgment seems unfair if it is directed solely toward the
CIA
. America's policy toward Vietnam was made in the White House and the State Department, not in
CIA
headquarters. The chief feature of the
CIA
reporting was that it could usually be read either way. Ike could have supported Diem on the basis of the intelligence he received, or he could have adopted an anti-Diem policy on the basis of those same reports. The choice was his. All the
CIA
did was to supply him with information. That was all it was supposed to do.
On the question, who got us into Vietnam? the Eisenhowers could be as quick to point the finger of blame as Ike's successors. In an interview in 1979, Milton Eisenhower said, “One of the
hardest things I had to do with Lyndon Johnson was that he kept saying, as the criticism of the Vietnam war mounted, âI'm only carrying out the policy of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy.'
“And on one occasion I said, âPresident Johnson, you're making a terrible mistake. President Eisenhower was bitterly opposed to any participation in the Vietnam war. He was importuned by the Air Force and everybody else, and he declined time and again.'
“And Johnson looked at me, and took me by surprise. He said, âWell, then why is it that now that we're in there he's never spoken a word of opposition?'
“I said, âWell, there are two things to be said about that. Before we get into a fight it's quite a different matter. And furthermore, now that we're in it and you are making all the statements that you are, if President Eisenhower differed with you, it would be the greatest comfort to the enemy that you can imagine, and it would prolong the war.'
“He said, âMy God, I never thought of such a thing. I'll never say that again.'
“I said, âYou just remember that Truman gave monetary help, Eisenhower put in a few men as advisers, but Kennedy put the first men in to start shooting, and you're the one that expanded the war. So don't blame it on anybody else.' He took it like a man.”
20
Ike, too, could be critical of his successors, although as Milton pointed out he never uttered a word against the President in public on the subject of the war. But in 1968, immediately after LBJ made his startling announcement that he was not going to run for reelection and simultaneously announced that he was stopping the bombing north of the
DMZ
, Ike wrote in the privacy of his diary:
“April 1, 1968. Last evening President Johnson went on the television on a national hookup. He talked a great deal about the war and made these points: 1. He defended earnestly the reasons for America being in the war. 2. He said America would persevere until the limited objectives he outlined should be realized and that those objectives did not include conquering North Viet Nam, using such methods that would convince Hanoi that we would not be defeated and therefore to induce them, sooner or later, to come to the bargaining table. He reiterated the Administration's determination to achieve these limited objectives and thereafter to assist that corner of Asia.
“Next he said that he had ordered a cessation of bombing of North Viet Nam in the hope that this would lead to satisfactory peace. This abrupt change in policy, without any quid pro quo from Hanoi, will, of course, further bewilder the United States. It appears to be not only contrary to the President's announced determination in the matter, but a partial capitulation, at least, to the âpeace at any price' people in our own country.
“The final and most puzzling feature of his talk was his declaration that he would not seek and would not accept the nomination of his Party for the Presidency of the United States. The inclusion of this statement seems to be almost a contradiction to his plea for a more unified America in attaining our limited objectives in Viet Nam. His speech is virtually an effort to surrender to another the Presidential responsibilities in the conflict. The conclusion seems inescapable that though he is convinced of the worthiness of our purposes in Southeast Asia, he, himself, is unwilling to remain, personally, in the fight.
“To me it seems obvious that the President is at war with himself and while trying vigorously to defend the actions and decisions he has made in the past, and urging the nation to pursue these purposes regardless of cost, he wants to be excused from the burden of the office to which he was elected.”
21
*
Eisenhower's defense policy, which he called the “New Look,” cut back drastically on Truman's expenditures for defense, primarily because Ike refused to be bamboozled into seeing the Russians as some sort of supermen. Ike thought the greatest threat was an uncontrolled arms race that would lead to uncontrollable inflation and ultimate bankruptcy.
NEARLY MIDNIGHT
, a balmy June evening, Washington, 1956. An almost full moon shines on the Lincoln Memorial and down the length of the reflecting pool. A tall, stoop-shouldered, long-faced, long-legged man, very deliberate in his movements, strides along the shadows beside the pool. He has an air of self-confidence that shows in every step. He stops when he reaches Building K, one of those dismal, ugly World War II “temporary” buildings. Buildings J, K, and L stretch the entire length of the reflecting pool, from Seventeenth to Twenty-third streets. They serve as the headquarters for the Deputy Director of Plans of the
CIA
and his staff.
The man, Richard Bissell, draws himself up to his full six-feet-four-inch height, glances up and down the pool, then hurriedly moves inside K. He walks quickly down the corridor to his office. Six hours earlier he had approved mission plans for a spy flight over the Soviet Union. Now he has returned for the “go-no-go” briefing.
In his office, Bissell's project team has been waiting for him. He sits behind his desk, picks up a paper clip, and leans back in his chair, swinging his long legs and big feet up onto his desk. As is his habit, he twiddles the paper clip, bending it into fantastic shapes. Tossing it aside, he fidgets with a pencil, polishes his glasses, looks up at the ceiling, all the while listening to reports, occasionally interjecting an “O.K.” or a “Right, right!” and less frequently shaking his head and mumbling “No, no.”
He's like an atomic bomb, a tremendous bundle of energy bound up in one small space, always on the verge of bursting.
His weatherman reports that conditions over Russia have not changed since the previous briefingâthe weather remains favorable. That is the key. The President authorized the flight four days earlier, for a ten-day period. If Bissell cannot get it off the ground in those ten days, he will have to scrub the mission and return to the White House to start all over again. He has already postponed the flight three times because of cloud cover over Russia.
The liaison man with the airbase in Wiesbaden, West Germany, reports that the plane and pilot are ready. The technical man says that the camera and film are properly set up for the operation. Other experts confirm that they are ready to bring the film from Germany to the labs in Washington for immediate processing.
Nodding vigorously, Bissell lets a little of his tremendous energy burst forth. “All right,” he announces. “Let's go.”
AND WITH THAT
the most elaborate, technologically advanced, and spectacularly successful spy mission in the history of espionage to that date was launched. The word was flashed to Wiesbaden, and within minutes the first U-2 was airborne on its initial flight over Soviet territory.
1
Bissell was accustomed to high-risk situations. He had been in the middle of the
PBSUCCESS
operation in Guatemala and involved in other
CIA
activities. He went home after making his decision and enjoyed a good night's sleep. The following morning, at a quarter to nine, he walked into Allen Dulles' office.
Dulles eagerly asked if Bissell had gotten the U-2 mission off the ground.
“Yes,” Bissell replied. “It's in the air now.”
“Where is it going?” Dulles asked.
“Going first over Moscow,” Bissell replied, “and then over Leningrad.”
“My God!” Dulles exclaimed. “Do you think that was wise, for the first time?”
“It'll be easier the first time than any later time,” Bissell assured his boss.
The remainder of the morning, Bissell and his project people sat around, rather like Walter Cronkite and the men at Mission Control in Houston during a rocket launching, waiting for a report. Toward noon, a cable from Wiesbaden came in. The U-2 was back. The weather had been perfect, the pilot had used all his film, the film was on its way to Washington. A cheer went up. Bissell, all smiles, hurried down the hall to tell Dulles.
The director of the
CIA
went to the White House, where he had the great pleasure of reporting the successful flight to the President and seeing one of Ike's famous grins spread across his face.
THE U
-2
PROGRAM
was the
CIA'S
greatest coup. It got its start because Ike insisted that the U. S. Government keep itself at the cutting edge of technology and saw to it that his nation's best scientists were working for the government on matters of national security. On the basis of his own World War II experience, Eisenhower had great faith in aerial reconnaissance, and had been deeply impressed by the miracles that could be performed by photographic interpretation. As President, one of his great fears was that the United States might again be caught by another surprise attack, as at Pearl Harbor, but this time on the mainland and far more devastating, as it would be carried out with nuclear bombs.
In early 1954, about a year after he took office, Ike appointed a Surprise Attack Panel, under the chairmanship of James R. Killian, president of
MIT
from 1948 to 1959 and Eisenhower's Special Assistant for Science and Technology from 1957 to 1959. The Surprise Attack Panel had three subcommittees, one of which was concerned with intelligence. Its leading members were Edwin H. Land and Edward Purcell.
Land was the inventor of the Polaroid camera, and president, chairman of the board, and director of research for the Polaroid Corporation. During World War II he had worked for the Navy on plastic lenses. Purcell was a Harvard professor of physics, winner of the Nobel Prize (1952), and an expert in such areas as microwave phenomena, nuclear magnetism, and radio-frequency spectroscopy.
The subcommittee met regularly. It was greatly impressed by the work of Arthur Lundahl, a
PI
(photo interpreter) of World War II who had joined the
CIA
and ran the small photo interpretation office of the
DDI
. Lundahl was a farsighted visionary
who constantly touted the potential of the picture that told more than 10,000 words, or than 1,000 spies. Ray Cline called Lundahl “the supersalesman of photo interpretation.” At the start, he had only twenty men under him; by the end of the 1950s, there were 1,200
PIS
in the
CIA
.
2
Lundahl showed Killian, Land, and Purcell some astonishing developments in photography. Land was much impressed by the new cameras, lenses, and special films that made high-level photography practical. Seeing what Lundahl could accomplish, the subcommittee of the Surprise Attack Panel began casting about for a way to fly over Russia to take pictures.
Land learned that six months earlier Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, a designer at Lockheed, had proposed to the Air Force a high-altitude single-engine reconnaissance aircraft. Johnson had even submitted a design concept and a few drawings. The Air Force, unimpressed, contracted instead for a new version of the Candara bomber, with new wings and redesigned for weight reduction. Four of these lightweight Candaras were built and flown, but they proved to be unsatisfactory.